At the minute I am on board the Cable Ship Cable Retriever and we have a Chinese cadet with us who is doing a few months here to learn from us Imperialists. Anyhoo… He came aboard not speaking a whole lot of English. Way back in June when I left here, he had just arrived and language was a real problem.

In the month’s since, though, his language has improved by leaps and bounds and now one is able to have a conversation with him. This is in no small part to fantastic publications like the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English to Chinese Dictionary. A veritable treasure chest of information.

So where is all this going… Today our cadet left his dictionary up on the bridge and like any good sailors the first word we turned to was… Carrot, of course… No it wasn’t. Click the picture below to link to a full page view of page number 708 from the above dictionary. Please understand that in no way has this document been altered in any shape or form. Those of you who need a pee go do it now before you click the link as you may just wet yourself laughing.

Enjoy

Pedro

With Hollywood celebrities dropping like flies, I thought I would start a new  event on our web page.  Something that will show the young’uns what a real star is.   It is with this in mind that I introduce this month’s “Star of the Month”.

Fomalhaut (pronounced Foam-al-hot)

Constellation: Piscis Australis

Age: 100 – 300 million years old  (Kinda like a Miley Cyrus, maybe Lindsay Lohan of the space scene)

Distance from Earth: 25 Light Years

Magnitude: +1.16

Nickname:  (When you have been around as long as these guys you tend to get a lot of them, here’s the most popular)

Mouth of the Fish, Mouth of the Whale

Claim to fame:  He is a Daddy.  It is the First Star system with a planet that we can see in visible light, Namely Fomalhaut B.  (I know kak sounding name especially when you think that it is not like they only had a week to come up with it.)

Has a Dust Cloud which surrounds it and makes it look rather like Sauron’s Eye in Lord of the Rings!

Famous Family:  Fomalhaut is a member of the Castor Moving group.  No they are not a removal company but merely a bunch of stars that share a similar movement through space.  To name drop a few, Vega and Castor are rumoured to roll with our boy!

No record of any DUI’s or Accidental OD’s at this stage but hey… in 300 million years he must have let his guard down at least once.  Where did Fomalhaut B come from for instance.

So there we have it folks.  This weeks Star of the Month.

I figured we all needed a little bit of a laugh so here it is for today.

Cheers

Pete