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Dear Editor, 

This is a story for Bella McCaw:

There was once a Captain of a large steam cruise ship. He had a parrot that was highly intelligent and liked nothing more than watching the nightly cabaret in the great ship's theatre.

The ship had just left Liverpool and had taken on a magician to add to the other acts in the cabaret. The parrot was, as usual, at the side of the stage as the immaculate magician, wearing top hat and tails, made his debut.

The captains feathered friend took an instant dislike to the magician. When he was less than half way through a trick with a silver ball the parrot shrieked "It's under his hat, it's under his hat", thus spoiling the trick. The magician glowered at the parrot and the parrot stared back at the magician.

The next trick that the magician did involved a pack of cards and, somewhat less than half way through the trick, the parrot screamed "It's up his sleeve, it's up his sleeve!" Another good trick wrecked. The magician doggedly stared at the parrot and the parrot sneered back.

The magician took off his top hat and placed it on a table brought to him by a leggy lady. The parrot noticed that she had feathers in her hair.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the magician or the parrot, one of the boilers had overheated and exploded setting off a chain reaction in the rest of the ship's boilers and, needless to say, sinking the ship.

Early the following morning, the magician found himself clinging to a piece of driftwood. He looked along the length of the timber and, there, on the end, was the parrot staring at the magician, unblinking.
The magician glared back at the parrot. This went on all morning until finally, at noon, the parrot squawked "Alright, I give up. What did you do with the ship?"

Yours sincerely,

Captain Bo Squiddley

Excellent, excellent. Bella wants us to hire you to improve the quality of the Humour department. Since it was her idea, it will be she who must pay you. 

The offer is 30 sunflower seeds, eight peanuts, three crackers and half a peach per issue. By all means get in touch with Bella and negotiate, if you wish, but I should warn you that this is an unusually generous offer for her and you are unlikely to get any raise on it. Her usual method of rewarding colleagues and co-workers is to deliver all of the above in pre-digested form...
Best regards,

The Editor

Your magazine is certainly different. I have enjoyed it very much and will tell my friends about it when I get out.

Good luck,

Ned the Wheels
Weirdness Correction Facility, Cell Block L

Well, Ned, by then there should be enough issues online to keep your pals out of trouble for quite some time. 

Good luck to you, too,

The Editor

Dear Editor,

I was just reading your page entitled 'What Bugs You' and it set me to thinking.
I'll tell you what doesn't bug me: barnacles, cockroaches, mould, fungus, mice, condensation, even the 'marinised' garbage peddled by most 'chandlers'.

What really bugs me is the attitude of most marinas on both sides of the Atlantic. They have now realised, belatedly, along with a bevy of bureaucrats, local councils and bumbling oafs, that they have access to a multi-billion dollar business that they have done nothing to create.
It is the boat owner that has opened the eyes of these authorities who have neglected rivers, estuaries, canals and ports for more than sixty years.

Left to these so called 'authorities' most of these canals, rivers and waterways would have become stagnant cesspits by now. The ministry of Idiots, Waterway Authorities and Local Cretins has made Beeching* look like Einstein and many in Britain are still lamenting everything that moron ever did.

These greedy people build marinas, or get investors to build them, in anchorages that have been anchorages since before the Doomsday Book was thought of and then say "Not any more can you anchor here, you must use the marina.'"

Then there is the laying down of buoys. As you arrive you meet the attendants who say that you may not anchor but, for some insane figure, you may use a mooring buoy. And then, to justify this new means of extorting yet more money from those who would have spent it with legitimate businesses ashore, they bang on about trying to preserve the same coral that they haven't given a damn about for centuries.

Some of these places, laughingly called marinas, employ stroppy little men who stand, screaming and shouting on the quay, directing you how best they believe you might achieve the shoehorn maneuver  required to get in (space is money) to your mooring and, when thrown a line, the little creeps can't even tie a bowline.

Officious customs men pull alongside and terrorize innocent boat owners (they love to bully, these waterbourne Nazis). It's amazing how, if there had not been this golden egg laid by all of us, they wouldn't have a job in the first place. This attitude of 'take it, leave it or go without' to quote you, just won't do.

These people bang on about 'policing the situation'. There is no bloody situation. Before spending our money on policing us I think they should look further inland to the festering, malcontented, over-expectant, spoiled bits of garbage that beat, crush,,maim and otherwise harm people.

Grab these persons of dubious sexuality, these religious-maniac, tax-swindling, bribe-taking, corrupt people called 'politicians' and get them to sort out what is happening by the home fires before they go meddling and interfering in places that they can't begin to understand.

Many of those of us who live at sea have left our countries of origin because politicians are unable to do the job that they are overpaid to do and we're not prepared to support them.

Now, just because we appear to be easy pickings they, like children who are bored with playing snakes and ladders, have left their playmates and gone for the 'Golden Ocean' line of no resistance. They think we are stupid enough to put up with it. 

They don't seem to realise that the vast majority of boat owners are not corporate entities who can just write off expenses against company profits. The owners of company yachts couldn't care less what the 'powers that be' get up to, in order to extort money from those whom they consider to be 'the privileged'. All their expenses are covered by money that would otherwise go into government coffers anyway.

I have been 'voting with my keel', to quote you again, for forty-odd years and I have to tell you that there are fewer and fewer boat-friendly ports, harbours, marinas, anchorages, canals and estuaries in and around the world, the exception being the French canals, that I find are run efficiently, spotlessly, courteously and at most reasonable costs.

Enraged Of The Sea. 

Ed replies:

Wish I could disagree with you, sir, but 'twould be difficult. We too have enjoyed a sojourn in the canals of France and been pleasantly surprised. Rumour has it, unfortunately, that in Britain, at least, 'twas some of our own who accidentally betrayed the rest of us by failing to prepare their case properly, against a wicked local authority, thus being outwitted in court by their wily lawyer. Once a precedent had been set, the rot set in and now to be a 'live-aboard' yachtsman is to become an outcast in many places. We know how you feel. You are not alone, sir.

The Editor