Army Rumour Service

Register a free account today to join our community
Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site, connect with other members through your own private inbox and will receive smaller adverts!

Hill walking stupidity

I was being a **** years ago.
One of my mates was a very wealthy trader in the city and held a private party on a balcony overlooking the thames.
One of his mates bet me that I could not swim over the river and I took him up on his offer.
Now, I had spent several months over the years in heavy surf in the Carribean and could read the tide.
The thames was on an ebb tide and I worked out that I would end up at London bridge at the worst.
A copper overheard the conversation and told me I would be nicked if I entered the river.
Being an Island nation we have very specific and unique maritime laws,including where we can be told to swim and, sail boats.
He was less than impressed when I asked him which act I would be charged under.
Was this prior to 2012?
 
I was being a **** years ago.
One of my mates was a very wealthy trader in the city and held a private party on a balcony overlooking the thames.
One of his mates bet me that I could not swim over the river and I took him up on his offer.
Now, I had spent several months over the years in heavy surf in the Carribean and could read the tide.
The thames was on an ebb tide and I worked out that I would end up at London bridge at the worst.
A copper overheard the conversation and told me I would be nicked if I entered the river.
Being an Island nation we have very specific and unique maritime laws,including where we can be told to swim and, sail boats.
He was less than impressed when I asked him which act I would be charged under.

Yes you were being a *****.

The sort of **** that filled my weekends at Tower RNLI Station. If you think you know the tides and currents in the Thames enough to jump in safely from a balcony after a party then you are not just a **** but an uber****, however many months you have spent in the Caribbean surfing.

Your'e right, we have a number of specific maritime laws (Although I struggle to see which MARITIME laws apply to a river like the Thames) There are some rules that apply to the Thames, specifically. What the copper would have used to stop you:

Prior to 2012:

The Thames Navigation Licensing and General Byelaws 1993, - General conduct - Section 63 para b or e.

After 2012:

The Port of London Thames Byelaws Section 21. Bathing and swimming.
 
I was once hiking up Pendle Hill on an August. I was outraged at some people in the picnic area car park setting off wearing trainers and high fashion t-shirts. (I was wearing three layers Plus an outer shell, and also my Salomon hiking boots, boot overlays and had goretex outer trousers packed in my bergan. Due to it being a ferociously hot summers day I also had factor 50 sunblock on the parts of my head not covered by my snood.
As I setup base camp, I was further outraged at a family with two young children attempting the assent, stupidly armed with nothing but local knowledge and a mobile phone to assist them to the 500m summit. I gripped them and offered to chaperone them back to the picnic area but was rudely declined!
As I made my ascent (after preloading with Kendal mint cake and some old 24hr rat pack bits (using a hexistove), I became very aware of the ruggedness of the tough grass either side of the path. I saw one silly woman bend down to readjust her flimsy trainers and I laughed at her as I swanned past easily with the aid of my walking poles and crampons.
Upon reaching the cairn at the summit, I was furious at the sheer lunacy of the assembled families with kids having a PICNIC! I offered to show them where they were on one of my spare maps but was told to feck off! I had the last laugh though when one of their kids scratched his knee trying to climb the cairn - And I didn’t even offer them use of my space blanket. That taught the unworthy ignorant bastards!
Ah yes, Pendle Hill... Fan Dance of the North. You did a grand job and should be rightly smug and proud of yourself. I bet you were a sight for sore eyes!

I did Girl Guide Them selection aged 14 on Pendle Hill and, man, it was rough. One of my mukkers got a nosebleed at the top (start of altitude sickness maybe), following a wet and miserable, trudging ascent without crampons, poles or ropes. After attention from our patrol medic we managed to make our way off the hill without further injury, only to find the bus had left without us and, with no chance of medevac, we had to tab all the way back to camp.

Halfway back our supplies were running out, we were knackered, and our kagoules were leaking. Morale was low and it looked like we might not make it. As patrol leader I made an executive decision, took each girl's emergency 10p-for-the-phone and resupplied with Top Deck shandy and half a Lion Bar each. It meant we no longer had money for the phone but who were we going to call - no comms back at camp, and our parents had dumped us for the week anyway.

We recharged sitting on a soggy wall for half an hour before pushing on and finally arriving safely back at camp, dehydrated, starving and pissed off. I had an interview without coffee for missing the bus but was commended for getting the patrol unscathed back to camp before dark. It was a close-run thing though, and a salutary lesson in how quickly things can go wrong when you're messing about on top of a hill making up a dance to "Stars on 45" in the rain.

ZYYujMl.jpg
 
Yes you were being a *****.

The sort of **** that filled my weekends at Tower RNLI Station. If you think you know the tides and currents in the Thames enough to jump in safely from a balcony after a party then you are not just a **** but an uber****, however many months you have spent in the Caribbean surfing.

Your'e right, we have a number of specific maritime laws (Although I struggle to see which MARITIME laws apply to a river like the Thames) There are some rules that apply to the Thames, specifically. What the copper would have used to stop you:

Prior to 2012:

The Thames Navigation Licensing and General Byelaws 1993, - General conduct - Section 63 para b or e.

After 2012:

The Port of London Thames Byelaws Section 21. Bathing and swimming.

Defiantly no chance of being hit by redoubt towing a barge or marine 2 whacking into you at 40kts on the plane. :rolleyes:
 
Defiantly no chance of being hit by redoubt towing a barge or marine 2 whacking into you at 40kts on the plane. :rolleyes:

Indeed. There is a reason for the rules. The Thames is the busiest inland waterway in the country, and a working port, not a play park.

It's also, most of the year, bloody cold, and much faster than anyone thinks (or looks from the bankside).

A head and shoulders in the water is virtually impossible to see from the bridge of a working vessel in daylight, let alone the dark. It's why Swimmers in these environments have a support boat, sporting and ALPHA flag - not so much for the feeding etc. more to stop them getting run over.

Surviving an unauthorised and unsupported swim in the Thames is just sheer luck, and NOTHING to do with skill or fitness of the swimmer.
 
So you traveled to Germany and to fit in culturally you had takeaway food you could get in any small town in the UK?

It would blow your mind to come to rural NSW where you can get all that made by people who can also talk in funny foreign lingo.

What cultural back water do you come from?

I don't think you can get currywurst mit pommes und mayonaise in a UK takeaway, I've been away for a few years mind. After spinal surgery I was not much inclined to use takeaways for my nosh, well other than visiting a landmark schnelli in Koeln for the currywurst, twice, enjoying the day and a view of the Rhine.

I don't think arriving in NSW would shock me anymore after my first visit there, I like Oz and the Akubra presented to me is still worn on rainy days.

As for me, well, actually I am a passport holding, pilsner drinking, property owning, boxhead by birth...........so culturally I think me and my mates know what works best in Germany.;) Even in Angela's more diversified Germany.
 
I don't think you can get currywurst mit pommes und mayonaise in a UK takeaway, I've been away for a few years mind. After spinal surgery I was not much inclined to use takeaways for my nosh, well other than visiting a landmark schnelli in Koeln for the currywurst, twice, enjoying the day and a view of the Rhine.

I don't think arriving in NSW would shock me anymore after my first visit there, I like Oz and the Akubra presented to me is still worn on rainy days.

As for me, well, actually I am a passport holding, pilsner drinking, property owning, boxhead by birth...........so culturally I think me and my mates know what works best in Germany.;) Even in Angela's more diversified Germany.


Please send the real Kinder Eggs over! For God's sake the ones they have Stateside suck.
 
As for me, well, actually I am a passport holding, pilsner drinking, property owning, boxhead by birth...........so culturally I think me and my mates know what works best in Germany.;) Even in Angela's more diversified Germany.

Wait, so you're a Brit, a German and a naturalized American?
 
Wait, so you're a Brit, a German and a naturalized American?

German by birth, British by adoption and marriage, and now a septic. Makes for a fun time at passport control, Germans get really stroppy if I try to go in on anything other than a German passport. This time around I dropped all three on the counter for the Bundespolizei bloke, he smiled and said, "Ach, Jason Bourne. You only need to show your German passport Herr Effendi".

It is to do with immigration status. If I arrive on the German pass I can stay indefinately, if I arrive on the US pass I am limited and only have tourist rights to healthcare etc.
 
Top