The Statistics of Prostitution - A Brief Guide

When I first wrote the article titled “Prostitution” I thought long and hard over whether I should publish it or not! For starters, I did not really want the word the word “prostitution” associated with my website and I certainly did not take fancy to loads of perverts hoping for “free sex” popping along only to find pictures of ships and the odd sunset or two instead. Material perhaps for the lonely seafarer yes, for lonely guy looking for a bit of paid for love, no!

I published the article though, despite serious misgivings, and not only on my website but also on an article hosting site called searchwarp.com! I have 49 articles on this site but sadly the statistics today tell me the full story of my error! My article Prostitution – A brief Guide has been on this site for one year with a record breaking total of 3352 Visitors! In second place is another article DIY and My Useless Tools which has been available for over three years yet has had little more than 600 Visitors to cope with!

My own website statistics also suggest that well over half the visitors to my website are purely attracted by the word “prostitution” and not say “ships”! This means that one page alone is very well utilised by the “sick” whilst the other six hundred odd pages of articles, the 6.1 GB worth of photographs, the lists of abbreviations and the beginnings of the “How do they” series are hardly touched upon! An accidental click of the mouse perhaps?

Now that I have this knowledge it sickens me to see how many desperate and lonely people enter such words into search engines, how many people would rather trawl the web looking for pornographic material than read some quality articles!

I have thought about this disturbing trend some more and I have decided that, rather than remove this article which would seem the sensible thing to do, I am going to write another one titled “sex” or “naked asian girl”. This in-turn will hopefully bring along another thousand visitors or two to my website, which might just raise its rankings based on visitor numbers, which might then just get more people to click on my adverts (when they realise that I don’t actually sell prostitutes or pictures of well-made-up ex-mama sans dressed in school uniforms) thus providing me with some much needed revenue to keep the site up and running!

A vicious circle I know but if this is what it takes I am willing to become the pimp!

Nautical Abbreviations Required

A request from a Visitor - any help appreciated!

I have, or rather had, a Great Uncle, born in 1876, who qualified for a Merchant Navy Second Mate's certificate in 1896 and a First Mate's certificate in 1898. The port of examination in both cases was Sunderland. In 1901 he qualified, again at Sunderland, for another certificate referred to by the abbreviation OC, and in 1905 for yet another referred to as ExC, this time at South Shields.

The abbreviations are in what I think is a RNR document. I think this because it has a box headed "R.N.R. Number". I am sending a copy as an attachment in case you would like to see it yourself. I obtained my copy from someone in London who does searches for genealogical and historical records at The National Archives, Kew. The full dates show up in another shot.

I would like to know what the abbreviations OC and ExC stand for. I hoped I would find the answers when I came across your website "Nautical Abbreviations, Maritime Initialisms, Merchant Navy Contractions, Shipping Shortenings and Marine Truncations". But no luck. However, I was happy to see your words: "should anybody want to see additions or alterations made then I am more than happy to receive emails regarding such".

I would appreciate your help with these abbreviations.

Ronald Sweet
Toronto, Canada

An Apartment in Kaohsiung

Is anybody traveling to Kaohsiung soon?

My apartment, the one that I own is a large weight on my back! Here I am in Edinburgh, living and working and there in Kaohsiung I have a large apartment that needs a tenant or two!

The advert says:

This lovely 3-bedroomed apartment is available for immediate rent at the low price of 18000NTD for one person or family. Should three individual people wish to share the cost will be 6000NTD/person, should two people wish to share it will be 9000 NTD/person. UK Expatriate owned it comes fully-furnished, including fitted closets in all rooms and individual room air conditioning units. It also boasts a fully-fitted studio/office with numerous cupboards and desks. There are two balconies, one to front and rear and a large sitting room with kitchen off to the back. This would suit three people sharing or a family. Please contact me by email if you are interested to look around; the apartment is conveniently located and within walking distance of Boai Road, next door to Mama Mia's the restaurant and it is 5mins walk from Aozihdi MRT Station. Please contact me by email to arrange a viewing or for further information. ieuandolby@gmail.com

I've always hated landlords but now I am one - if I can only find somebody to rent it from me.

Life in a Nutshell

A man somehow arrives in the emergency ward at the local hospital. He has a fishing line wrapped tangled around his neck and is unable to breathe properly! In fact he is blue in the face and writhing from an obvious lack of oxygen! He is promptly told to wait in-line behind a blatant hypochondriac who couldn't stop smiling, a old girl seeking attention by wearing nearly nothing and an old man who was most likely already dead!

The Nigerian doctor, straight on the case after the queue had receded (the dead man was shifted to another ward and the girl was having wild sex in the cleaning cupboard with the hypo)and a quick fag or two, promptly prescribed a course of antibiotics and pain-killers and then with a comforting pat on the back tells the man that from now on he should keep himself warm (or that was the assumption as nobody actually understood what he actually said)!

The poor man was then ejected onto the street with a prescription for numerous drugs and the fishing cord still wrapped tightly around his neck!

The nearly dead man somehow managed to get the fishing cord off from around his neck but unfortunately died 24hrs later from an overdose of what was said to be various blue, green and pink tablets!

Such is life!

Is there a moral to this story? Certainly not!

Tis just life in a nutshell!

Back Home; from Venezuala to Edinburgh

I am back home now! I understand that I have left Venezuela in Turmoil - I read somewhere in some newspaper that troops were being mobilized on the Cambodian border or something!

Sorry Hugo!

The return flight was semi-uneventful! Certainly the queues at the Lufthansa Check-in in La Guiara (Caracas) International Airport left something to be desired, not that they were long simply snail like as the "check-in-ers" felt that ten minutes per passenger was normal - and then ask them to pay an airport tax in Bolivares which nobody of course had!

Oh, and I must mention the long-haired, extremely-skinny, dark-sunglass-posing, smelly, army-jacket-wearing Columbian who was either in the process of shipping drugs, was taking drugs or was at the very least thinking about one or both, did you have to put him next to me in the plane? And also that lady across the aisle? She ensured that my journey was sleep free as she talked (shouted) to her friends behind, in front and I think those thirty rows back heard all about her holiday plans!

I arrived in Edinburgh in the early afternoon tired but safe! As I stood at the carousal my bag appeared this time, border control was unusually efficient, nobody stopped me as I came through customs even though I had been associated with some Columbian Drug Lord (or was it simply a Farc Rebel having time-out?) and in the taxi back home the driver did not talk to me once, over-all an excellent journey home!

I spoke to the American Airlines Baggage Claim Department this afternoon - I think she was another drone of the one I spoke to earlier as she said "ya'll lost your bag then"?

"No", I replied, "ya'll lost my bag" which basically put the nail-in-the-coffin for the conversation ending with a positive result.

Such is life! Must go and buy myself some decent socks now!

La Guaira, the return to Venezuala

I returned yesterday to Venezuela, to La Guaira nearby Caracas. I was semi-hopeful that this would be the opposite of Maracaibo, that I could go ashore for a walk around and enjoy myself but this never transpired! Maybe I missed something?

As I stood on the bridge wing of the ship as we entered port I looked around! Below and on the wharf was a beaten up Volkswagen Beetle with the trunk lid unable to close, on the hills smoke liberally covered the houses as inconsiderate neighbors set fire to the bushes – bored perhaps?



The pilot fell asleep in his chair, the tug broke down and the stevedores never turned up!

So I stayed on that bridge wing as we berthed, I stayed there all evening and then I went to bed. The next day I returned to my position to see how life was progressing in La Guaira! The shore-side crane driver had dropped half his load of wheat onto the dock instead of into the truck, the smoke on the hills was still wisping around and new fires were being lit and below and down an oil spill covered the water in rainbow colors as it spread easily across the harbor!

And so I stayed on board. I completed my work and then at 1pm my taxi pulled up! I set-off back home, with my new suitcase suitably labelled inside and out and I never looked back at the City that never appealed! Maybe I was missing something, maybe not but I would rather not find out.

Edinburgh here I come!

American Airlines Lost Luggage Department

To lose ones luggage is not nice, to really lose it I mean and for the airline to have no idea as to where it is. This is the first time that this has ever happened to me in all of the twenty years that I have been traveling! But who was to blame? American Airlines or British Airways I don’t know but one of them is that is for sure!

I have been in constant contact with the Spanish baggage handlers in Maracaibo but that was basically a pointless exercise as they either showed no interest at all or spoke no English! And so I transferred my energies through a series of phone calls to the States and to the central baggage claim depot for American Airlines. As I have now gone passed the five days of my luggage having gone missing so I am no longer forced to converse with an automated drone but a real person! And here is how my conversation went:

“Goodday, what can I do you for” said an obvious black woman!

“Ah, good morning, I’ve lost my luggage and wander if you can help”, I said!

“Ya’ll lost your luggage”? She replied!

At this point I knew the phone call would get nowhere but I persevered!

“Yes, Maam” I said and gave her the file locater number.

After a few clicks and sniffs she seemed to get hold of my file and said “Ya’ll start in Edinburgh, I love that city, so nice and ol world and …………”

She continued in this vane until I interrupted her and asked about my luggage!

She said “Your bag is black right”?

“Yes” I said whilst trying to stifle my impatience and not to work out the cost of the call once again!

“It’s your bag, right” She asked!

She continued to ask many more useless questions between making references to Edinburgh and Scotsmen before finally telling me that she had no clue as to where my bag was! She advised me to go on-line and sort this out – I would honey, but I called you because I am on a ship in Venezuela and can’t get on-line!

Twenty minutes later after I had started to click and sniff myself I hung up, none-the-wiser and extremely deflated!

No wander people try to take everything as hand-luggage!

Curacao, A Port in the Storm

The sailing time from Maracaibo, Venezuela to the Dutch Haven of Curacao is about 10 hours - if one can manage 12 knots or more. One horrible day in Maracaibo, to bed and a wake-up call in heaven!



We berthed in the morning to take bunkers and it being Sunday I decided that a nice walk in heaven would be just the ticket.



I like Curacao! It has a very old-worldly Dutch style to it, no massively high buildings, no car smog and pollution and just a simple way of passing the time, shopping, eating and watching the sun go down! And so, I did just that! I shopped for some essential items to replace those lost with my luggage, I sat down and had a beer and I watched the world go by until the horn-tooted and a return to the ship was signaled!

I wouldn’t mind going back there for a holiday!

Later this same day we returned to Venezuela, to discharge more cargo at a port called La Guaira near Caracas! I have no inkling or feeling to go ashore as I am positive that it will be much the same as Maracaibo. So I will do my work on the ship, I will watch a movie to wind down and then tomorrow or the next day I will depart back home for Edinburgh!

Glad to leave - I hope they don’t lose my bag this time!