The first website I visit when I log into my computer, is the BBC news website. Today one article argued that day-dreaming for about half an hour can improve concentration for the rest of the day. I whole-heartedly agree with this, and so sat down and shut my eyes, allowing my thoughts to vanish and my mind to take a wander... until 30 seconds later I was abruptly woken by machine gun fire from the GPMG machine gun on the deck above my head. The ship then went into attack mode, which means 30 knots on the 2 olympus engines, and lots of swerving about to concentrate firepower on the jets swirling around above our heads. I wasn't heavily involved in this exercise- it was more of a practice for the war-fairies in the operations room, but as you can tell from the picture above, moving about the ship is like being a marble in a game of labyrinth. It's not too bad if you're somewhere that you can keep focus on the horizon- but deep in the ship, especially at the forward and aft ends, it's a complete nightmare!
So, what's going on then? Well, here's the official script that came through just before last weekend, as we were about to enter the harbour...(HMS GLOUCESTER is currently on patrol South of 'Brownia')
Human intelligence sources have revealed that the Peoples Front of Ginger (PFG) activity has increased in the last 24hrs and that this small, but highly determined group, have been operating small craft in the littoral. It is believed that the PFG may be planning a headline-grabbing spectacular. A British naval unit would certainly make an attractive target and our presence in the area has been very well publicised in the world’s media. Threats are likely to include, but not limited to, jet-skis, speed boats and other pleasure craft likely to adopt suicide tactics...
So as you can see, we're a little busy. We've also been refuelling at sea, "Fred" has been jumping over the ship's side with alarming and suicidal regularity, and we took just 4 hours to rescue a town battered by a hurricane and a flood a couple of weeks ago. There's also been car bombs and bandits trying all sorts of things every couple of days, and today we boarded a small vessel who had stowed about £3 billion pounds worth of illegal.... sherbert. Pah- these Plymouth barbarians.
