Why, when you're spending a night at anchor...

[Twister_Ken]

Shakespear and tides

There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune...etc

Occurs to me that any denizen of Shakespear's London with more than a few groats in his doublet would have understood the relevance of tides perfectly, because the Thames was a thoroughfare, with watermen providing the equivalent of todays taxis. I wonder how often WS arranged to meet his actors or producers at the Globe 'when the current served".

"No governor, I ain't taking you down to bleedin' Southwark until the ebb's started. Not unless your going to double whats on the meter."

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[Observer]

Re: Shakespear and tides

So would water taxis at that time be propelled by oars or sails? I suppose either or both, depending on wind and tide.

Dozens of seagoing commercial vessels, naval craft, water taxis, ferryboats, private craft all jostling for position in a stretch of river must have made quite a sight. I wonder how they got by without Colregs?

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[Grehan]

Shakespear(e) and tides

I have an idea (from Peter Ackroyd's "London, the biography") that Thames ferrymen were renowned for their unhelpful surliness, bad temper and insulting foul language.

". . . It has been suggested that Handel's Water Music was composed in order to 'drown the torrent of abuse that would have greeted George I during his first river-progress' . . "

Sounds like they managed perfectly well without ColRegs!

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[milltech]

Re: Alas, you flatter me

I'm not as literary a person as you lot, for me the expression "the tide serves" arrived in the grey matter as a cryptic clue, (overheard by Carruthers through a window in the fog), in "The Riddle of the Sands".

<hr width=100% size=1>John
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.allgadgets.co.uk>http://www.allgadgets.co.uk</A>

 

[milltech]

Re: Waiting for the tide

Well that's the plan anyway! I have swung from rag to stick in my life and sort of ended up a motor sailer sailor. What you describe is my dream, but so long as business and obligation continue to get in the way, and at 58 they're probably set to do so till I drop, this gentle concept of waiting for tides and taking ones time will remain only a dream.

The closest I get is the extra day on a Bank Holiday!


<hr width=100% size=1>John
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.allgadgets.co.uk>http://www.allgadgets.co.uk</A>

 

[Violetta]

Nonsense, my dear sir!

The spiritual benefits of waiting for the tide are available ONLY to those who have no choice but to wait. Hanging around, for the sake of it, is not the same thing at all. And if you have no choice, then you will cease this fretful striving to be somewhere other than where you are and doing something other than what occupies the present moment. Speaking as a very hard-pressed, seven-day-a-week-type, self-employed business woman myself (and one, like you, with precious little hope of retirement in the foreseeable future) I would commend this form of devotion most particularly to a person leading the kind of life at which you hint. GO EAST, young man!

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[milltech]

Re: Nonsense, my dear sir!

Yep, sounds true enough. I have been held up unavoidably by delayed aircraft and abandoned sailings and so appreciate the relief of legitimately not doing anything, but I don't think it would work to voluntarily place oneself in a position where one might not be home on time. That way I'd suffer all the guilt of having been so irresponsible in the first place.

In "The Cruise of the Nona" Belloc writes a lot about drifting backwards and forwards past the same spot in windless conditions and other tide/wind effects, but in those days there was no choice but to set out without an engine, (or at least it would have been a modern novelty), and anyway successful authors one presumes never did have the self torment of wasting time, its called research.

I think there's a great deal of satisfaction in abandoning plans. You know you set a plan for the weekend and fog or bad weather holds you up, first you rail at it, curse and feel sorry for yourself, but once you've decided to stay in harbour the day improves no end.

BTW where is "East" I should go, and why?

<hr width=100% size=1>John
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.allgadgets.co.uk>http://www.allgadgets.co.uk</A>

 

[suse]

Please stop quoting ..

I've just ordered TWO MORE BOOKS as a result, and I'll have to keep on working just to pay for my ever increasing second hand book store. BTW - I use bookbrain.co.uk - and it's really quick and good.

(Yummy, yummy - more and more to read!)

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[oldgit]

Re: Wasting time again...

No you do not. You just drift about trying to pretend that was what you had planned all along.While getting in the way of us people who have loads of extremely important things to do, all of which have to be done at very high speed.Ooh.. and while we am about it,care to remind me of anything useful that any of those nancy boy poets/scribblers did for womankind./forums/images/icons/laugh.gifSailors to a man to be sure forsoothe....

<hr width=100% size=1>My little Princess/forums/images/icons/laugh.gifthe 33 of course.

 

[Violetta]

Oh, dear

How little you poor, benighted souls understand of the practice, let alone the significance of the sacrament of waiting for the tide. Upon what do you suppose we "drift about"? Gin? Certainly not water - that is, in many forms of the ritual, the awaited blessing. And if there is water, but not enough of it, or if it is rushing headlong in the direction opposite to that in which we wish to travel, then we anchor and, of course, display in the forepart of the vessel, the mandatory black ball - the outward and visible sign of our communion. Much good may it do us, to judge from the thread above concerning the sacriligeous behaviour of the heathen stinkies such as yourself.

As far as poetry is concerned, since I have not referred to, or quoted, a single line of the stuff throughout this little conversation I am not sure why you are addressing this question to me. Perhaps your Local Education Authority might offer a suitable evening class?

<hr width=100% size=1><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Violetta on 09/04/2003 08:47 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[Violetta]

But Suse

I haven't quoted anything. That was Observer, not me. And surely you don't have to rush out and buy Shakespeare? What about your desert island, woman? You can't rely on that Sue Lawley, you know, however, sweet and generous she may sound on the radio.

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[Violetta]

Ah, I see we are at cross purposes

Waiting for the tide is NOT drifting about helplessly. It has nothing to do with engines. It has nothing to do with not getting home on time. It has everything to do with understanding, planning and making friends with the forces of nature. It takes four main forms.

1. Waiting until there is water to sail on - always a wise precaution, I find

2. Waiting until the water is going in the same direction as you, so that your progress is enhanced, not impeded.

3. Waiting until the tide will serve to deliver you where you wish to go - essential when crossing a TSS, for example

4. Waiting until the fury of the ocean, engendered by fast tides and contrary winds, is calmed, so that you are safe and comfortable, not storm-tossed, seasick and miserable.

The "east" to which I refer is the east coast of England, from Kent to Lincolnshire. This is where the art of waiting for the tide is found in it's most fully refined and developed form. ;-)

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[milltech]

Re: Ah, I see we are at cross purposes

Ah, not the exotic east of spice islands and the white mans grave then, but a muddy ditch or five. They say that if your dog runs away in Kansas you can watch him go for three days, it's a bit like that out East except for the drains he'd have to cross on the way.

Still it's nice that you can wax eloquent about such a featurless expanse of the land that you can see, and that which you can't, (at least not until you hit it). I suppose it has the advantage that the wind is unimpeded at ground level.

There are many places in the UK where tidal movements have as much or more effect on progress, Bristol Channel for one, and by no means least the dear old Western Solent.

The one thing I do envy would be the company of all you lady yachtsmen. I speak as a man whose life afloat has been severly effected by a wife who will neither fly nor float, and as a man who is insufficiently charmed by the pleasures of male company (where the catering suffers along with the liver and a good recovery rest is usually needed at the final destination).

<hr width=100% size=1>John
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.allgadgets.co.uk>http://www.allgadgets.co.uk</A>

 

[oldgit]

Re: Oh, dear

Sorry for the totally gratuitous ref to E.Lit.It was that perishing Observer wot did it Miss.
Did take your advice and contacted the local LEA but all they could offer was Breaking and Entering for beginners but that was full,until somebody from the Arsonists club burnt down the school that is....../forums/images/icons/wink.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>My little Princess/forums/images/icons/laugh.gifthe 33 of course.

 

[oldgit]

Re: But Suse

Aaaaaah Diesel fumes..Can i compare thee to a summer day/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>My little Princess/forums/images/icons/laugh.gifthe 33 of course.

 

[oldgit]

Re: Ah, I see we are at cross purposes

the tide goes out........acres of stinky mud
the tide comes in .......all sorts of nasty rough sailors appear smoking pipes with seagull outboards draped across their shoulders.

<hr width=100% size=1>My little Princess/forums/images/icons/laugh.gifthe 33 of course.