Much as I dislike this job, it has one colossal redeeming feature which I discovered today: you get phoned up early and told to take the day off because the wind is blowing too strong from the wrong direction.

Admittedly, this is only because today I was rostered on one of the tourist services. Yesterday I was on one of the passenger ferry routes, which continue to run in any weather short of Armageddon, and I spent most of the day wedged into a corner and bracing myself with all four limbs while watching things fly across the boat and smash against the opposite wall, much like when the Enterprise was under attack in the original series and they'd tilt the camera back and forth and all the actors would run over to one side and fall over.

Today it's quite a pleasant winter's day, but the forecast is bad enough that some of the tourist sightseeing trips were cancelled, including the one I was lucky enough to be working on. I think that's cool.

Brunnen-"it was also quite cool watching a huge bolted-down fridge swaying back and forth up to six inches and wondering whether it was going to tear loose and fall over ... but in a different way."G