RN sparks minor incident for firing at flag

woodstock said:
Another case of language issues, or should people learn their code flags?

http://www.pbo.co.uk/news/431955/rn-s-use-of-code-flag-sparks-diplomatic-incident
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There is a lot of tension down here over the Gibraltar waters. The Spanish are patrolling them as their own and we have to keep running them out. They are boarding our boats in our waters and it is messy!

On Saturday we had a nice big destroyer coming into port and although flanked by a few RGP boats, a couple of forces ribs and a RN small boat a Spanish Guardia civil boat still came out to annoy it!

Tensions are high! RAF Gibraltar has had hardly any RAF planes visit in recent years(except transport planes) Recently we have had a lot of Tornados, Hawks, Harriers and the Red Arrows down here doing displays and war games!

It is all Jack Straws fault for trying to give it way to the Spanish......

Paul
 
Sandyman said:
Do the Spaniards still use Smokey Joe ?
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Do you remember Smoky Joe ?

It was a coal fired dinosaur in Franco's Navy....LOL...a rusting hulk that poured out huge quantities of black smoke and steamed at a snail's pace...

My dad had a pair of binoculars...... A Royal Navy officer asked him if he could borrow them to look at Smokey Joe....My dad obliged...

After about 30 seconds the binoculars were handed back to him with "Thanks".

My dad enquired..."Well?"..

Reply:~ "It floats, that's all".

To this day when I think of it I cannot resist a giggle.:D:D
 
VO5 said:
Do you remember Smoky Joe ?

It was a coal fired dinosaur in Franco's Navy....LOL...a rusting hulk that poured out huge quantities of black smoke and steamed at a snail's pace...

My dad had a pair of binoculars...... A Royal Navy officer asked him if he could borrow them to look at Smokey Joe....My dad obliged...

After about 30 seconds the binoculars were handed back to him with "Thanks".

My dad enquired..."Well?"..

Reply:~ "It floats, that's all".

To this day when I think of it I cannot resist a giggle.:D:D
Click to expand...

Oh yes I remember it well. Made everyone laugh. Got a photo of it somewhere. Will see if I can find & then post it on here.
 
woodstock said:
Another case of language issues, or should people learn their code flags?

http://www.pbo.co.uk/news/431955/rn-s-use-of-code-flag-sparks-diplomatic-incident
Click to expand...

Seems that the RN has promoted to diplomatic status a long-standing tradition among ratings for "camouflaged" insults.

For example, a tar might say to an unpopular officer "Tickle your *rse with a feather, sir". When called to task he would protest his innocence and repeat the phrase as "Particularly nasty weather, sir". (RNVR source, actually, but no doubt much the same in RN.)
 
The Guardia currently have a few high power ribs and some 50 odd foot Rodman built patrol vessels. I've been boarded a couple of times in the past year- out on the water most days- and have always been treated with courtesy and respect. Don't speak a lot of Spanish, but like to have a go, maybe it helps?
 
Sandyman said:
Oh yes I remember it well. Made everyone laugh. Got a photo of it somewhere. Will see if I can find & then post it on here.
Click to expand...

Yes, and then as it crept around the bay making the most awful pall of thick black smoke....then...."The Spanish Airforce" would appear...

Two planes or one plane, depending...would appear in the sky...rush back and forth above "Smoky"....so to speak "to protect it"...(giggle)...and then it would run out of fuel and disappear....till the next day at the appointed time again for 5 minutes when it would run out of fuel again and it would disappear and come back again perhaps two days later...and so on...a real farce !:D
 
You are jogging my memory....

What about those military parades broadcast on TVE (Spanish Television in black and white) in which none of their uniforms fitted properly and they sort of ambled along sloppily out of step ?:D

And what about the frontier guard on the Spanish side...and the sentry in his box.....(giggle)...and a crowd of British servicemen waiting to see him come out of his box to openly guffaw at the clumsy attempts at military sentry drill ? :D

...And the drill preceding the lowering of the standard was the best of all...it was a real hoot...the sentry looking bashful and a row of twenty to thirty watching and openly laughing...absolutely hilarious...like something out of the Ministry of Silly Walks...:D

This is because it is a nation in which to enjoy oneself but not to be taken seriously.:eek:

Wicked isn't it ?
 
Freestyle said:
Seems that the RN has promoted to diplomatic status a long-standing tradition among ratings for "camouflaged" insults.

For example, a tar might say to an unpopular officer "Tickle your *rse with a feather, sir". When called to task he would protest his innocence and repeat the phrase as "Particularly nasty weather, sir". (RNVR source, actually, but no doubt much the same in RN.)
Click to expand...

A bit like the bank call centre worker who like to start each call with "You're a ****" repeated if necessary as "Your account?"
 
I hadn't thought of a camouflaged insult...:D

You have to consider a lot has to be put up with....

Incidents tainted with sheer malice....the Spanish gunboat closing on a fishing party in a little motorboat with an outboard engine...training their guns...demanding .....wait for it..."Fishing Permits" to fish in "Allegedly Spanish Waters" ...only to brutally confiscate all the fishing rods to the helpless distress of the sportsmen out for the day...interfering with the free passage of yachts...hovering around in the middle of a sailing regatta...for starters...

And the Royal Navy, whose duty it is to protect vessels that ask for help or are seen to be pestered or harrassed have to go out to yell at them in English to lay off...

So one can imagine tongue in cheek that to succumb to the temptation would not be too difficult.

The Spanish people as a whole are fun loving and often charming.

The Spanish Government is neither, and elements of it are imprisoned in ingrained Medieval thinking.

The Spanish Government still has within it and within the equivalent of our Civil Service the virus left over from the days of Fascist dictatorship under General Franco, (a wartime ally of Hitler) who was determined to get the Rock back, ceded in perpetuity to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, that, no sooner was the ink allowed to dry, than they proceeded to lay seige after seige in vain attempts to get back what they had agreed to cede under treaty. There have been to my knowledge a total of 14 seiges since 1704, all of them failures, and some of them very nasty

This persistent overt and covert harassment does not serve the Spanish cause at all. It just serves to entrench and justifiably harden the resolve of the people of Gibraltar never to give in.:D
 
Nautorius said:
There is a lot of tension down here over the Gibraltar waters. The Spanish are patrolling them as their own and we have to keep running them out. They are boarding our boats in our waters and it is messy!

On Saturday we had a nice big destroyer coming into port and although flanked by a few RGP boats, a couple of forces ribs and a RN small boat a Spanish Guardia civil boat still came out to annoy it!

Tensions are high! RAF Gibraltar has had hardly any RAF planes visit in recent years(except transport planes) Recently we have had a lot of Tornados, Hawks, Harriers and the Red Arrows down here doing displays and war games!

It is all Jack Straws fault for trying to give it way to the Spanish......Paul
Click to expand...

You forgot to add:~ "Against the express wishes under a democracy of the wishes of the People of Gibraltar who have the ultimate power of veto in such a case, as expressed in the last Referendum that was a landslide declaration in support of the Rock remaining British"
 
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