a crazy man posted:

I had a manual waterfront life since I left school and was brought up without the all-too-common paperwork and office mentality. Like many such men, I was used to heaving goods about and doing things instead of recommending and holding meetings and paying people to do things. I and some of us were also in a docks security callout squad, where we learned to be hard efficient thugs when sorting out such nuisances as tinkers and gipsies and vagrants that intrude to steal or sleep in odd corners, and freelance press telling lies to get in and wasting people's time being nosy to get copy to sell. One day after the police and the council kept making excuses and doing nothing, we flamethrowered out a large tinker camp on waste ground behind the docks, and the thieves fled leaving all their vehicles and never came back: 15-foot propane flames worked much better than paper court writs. Police usually merely tell them off for being naughty, and "turning the other cheek" and "good advice" accomplish nothing.

a crazy man again posted:

Some went further than merely complaining over drinks in the evening. UKIFA (UK Inshore Fishermen's Association) was originally an ordinary trade association that worked through the law courts and passed on recommendations and suchlike. But UKIFA got tired of words achieving nothing, and turned to action. 18 sport scuba divers from Lichfield BSAC went to an out-of-the-way beach in Devon for a week camping and diving. Early on their first morning they were roughly woken by an unofficial inshore fisheries patrol squad in identical boilersuits with UKIFA badges on and riotsquad gear surrounding their tents. The squad batoncharged, and roughly arrested the scuba divers and charged them with shellfish poaching and "unauthorized scuba diving".

Anthrovore posted:

quote:

"A club in London had better sense." Ellingsley said, "They brought all their gear on a five-ton truck and sailed their four inflatables to our base in the docks in time during the surrender period and were let away without charges. The boats had names of wartime German battleships on them. Scoobydoos are like that. But all four went in our destructor just the same.".

Mr. Appleyard posted:

Our other handy bit of new kit cleaned up below later. A Sea Patrol `chariot' went in action against a large liveaboard that had joined the demonstration. The chariot's pilot successfully planted a limpet mine despite heavy marine growth on the nonmagnetic fibreglass hull, while his mate's ultrasound gun made sure that a sport diver from the craft did not interfere.

amusinginquiry posted:

You aint kiddin

Mr.Pibbleton posted:

Author is either 14 or 40.

Mr. Appleyard posted:

We next went to Torquay for a liaison meeting with some French CRS riot police who came across from Brest in a patrol boat. Someone with yet another ex-Russian IDA71 tried to spy on the meeting, but our new kit stopped him in time before he planted listening bugs. He was one of the venturesome types who filled one of his set's absorbent canisters in Russian military mode with potassium superoxide, which releases oxygen as it absorbs carbon dioxide. That is dangerous stuff and we do not use it, as my issue raygun showed when I flew over him and shot his breathing set open to force him to stay on the surface.

SEA PATROL posted:

[THE SONG OF OPTIMUS PRIME]

My manlike form is made of steel, and twenty-five feet tall;
I, folding, artic-cab become, men's mighty loads to haul.
Is huge my strength of body and mind, and nought should me distress,
but oft in times of loneliness come sorrows, nonetheless,
for when I dream, or think my past, I friends and places know
which I can never return to, nor can anyone ever there go.

Dave_Indeed posted:

lol how is this not a movie yet?

What is he illustrating this in? I assume it's some kind of free abandonware, but clearly its artistic potential is sky high.