THE WUNDER BAR WEBSITE
PAGE: STEW'S NEWS 20 1 05
LAST UPDATED: 20 1 05
CONTENTS:
Greetings from Black Towers ! A hearty good day to your esteemed self
wherever you may be reading this. I know some of you are being paid to
read my humble musings on the human condition being as how you’re at
work - tut tut naughty naughty and look out isn’t that the boss leaning
over your shoulder - which is a delicious irony as I certainly don’t get
paid for writing it.
Once upon a time in days of yore we at the Bar of Wunder used, on a
Wednesday evening, to entertain ourselves by recourse to that old
favourite the board game. This little diversion grew, as grow these
things will, until Wednesday became officially known as Games Night with
capital letters and everything. The venerable game of Carom transported
from the sub continent became a firm favourite. Labyrinth bemused and
frustrated some whilst others would, for a small fee, demonstrate their
dexterity by completing the cursed thing on demand then rolling the ball
all the way back to the start with a nonchalant air. Everything from
cards to junior pictionary, fighting games on the telly, chess,
draughts, ludo et al. Once or twice on a Tuesday we would even clear the
decks and set up a massive Scalextric course with a knock out tournament
ending not with champagne but a small bottle of Carlsberg.
What set the old grey matter musing on these long forgotten nights of
innocent joy? Well, on Tuesday night myself and Norton's favourite
matelot the thoroughly able ex seaman Mr J Loveder RN retired, set out
to revisit the pleasure of throwing dice and moving counters around
whilst sipping tentatively from a small glass of amontillado. We were
attempting to remember the arcane rules of that briny pastime which
glories in the name of Uckers. The game is an ancient Royal Naval
adaptation of that old childhood favourite ludo. Wishing to while away
the long hours of the dog watch whilst becalmed off the coast of Papua
New Guinea those tattooed and swarthy rulers of the waves needed
something more complex, tactical and above all time consuming than the
simple and traditional onanistic pleasures which a life between decks
could offer them . I remember being taught the game on the paternal
knee, revered Pa having been of the old salty persuasion himself. JL (RN
ret) was until recently playing whilst being tossed from his hammock
onto a lee shore in defence of the realm. How did it go? Come closer and
I’ll tell you. It is an intriguing game of skill, tactical nous, cut,
thrust, defence, attack and in my case ultimate victory at the last
gasp. Also you learn lots of fascinating naval jargon. At one point JL
(RN r) attempted to ‘six me off’, I learned the weakness of ‘mixie
blobs’ as opposed to a ‘blob’ he came ‘up my chuff’ as I attempted to
disappear ‘up the spout’ and so on until we hove to and hauled in our
sheets, spliced the jib to a bulkhead and careened the after gangway
abaft the fo’castle.
Oh, by the by - just while we’re doing naval slang (and I don’t mean
interesting colloquialisms for the belly button) if an old soak offers
you a quick session of acey-duecy please don’t panic it simply refers to
a game of backgammon. On a much more interesting note, we must all have
at one time or another used or heard the expression to chunder. I always
thought our colonial cousins those cheery, tanned antipodean neighbours
from down under came up with it. But no! Twas our jolly jack tar who
invented the term (maybe they overheard him whilst he paced the deck
above their cell). You see, being of kindly disposition towards his
shipmates he felt it only right and proper to offer a warning before
throwing up onto them as they toiled on the decks below. So, the cry of
‘Watch under’ would be sent forth before last nights grog and this
mornings breakfast followed at 10 metres per second squared. Given the
distance involved and the disabling effect of a soon to be jettisoned
mouthful the chunder of watchunder was all the warning his messmates
would recieve.
Right I’m off to scrape the barnacles off me bottom, see you in the brig