The Irish Tales

Shall I tell you the biggest difference between First and Second Life ?
No ?
Well, I’m going to anyway.
In First Life, you do many stupid things because you are completely ignorant of what the consequences may be.
In Second Life, you do equally stupid things because you know exactly what the consequences may be.
Y’see, people never really learn from their mistakes; they merely learn how to avoid the worst of what may occur in the aftermath. Sometimes. If they’re lucky.
When I was 18, I thought it was the bestest fun in the world to jump out of a perfectly servicable aircaft at 2,000 feet, hoping like hell my chute opened properly.
(Bear in mind, I packed the chute myself, with an instructor supposedly watching closely but actually smoking and joking with the cute redhead on the next table, whose first jump this was – yeah, right. With a parachute, maybe.)
Four safe jumps later, I decided that there were cooler and safer ways to risk my life, (smoking, drinking, playing at Norwich Theatre Hall, supporting Hawkwind) and I gave up such nonsense.
Wind forward through the years and I find myself on an oil-rig way out in the Gulf of Mexico, 24 hours before Hurrican Louise is about to hit. (I think it was Louise, anyway. All those female hurricanes kind of blend into one ?)
I am thoroughly enjoying myself, having been landed by chopper and greeted like royalty. I was there to film a commercial about how wonderful Shell Oil were at extracting vital energy, whilst saving the marine life thereabouts. Quite.
We’d sat through a very dull Health & Safety talk, given by a former Nazi, called, (truly) Adolph.
“At all timez, you must ze hard hatz and ze iron bootz be vearing, und smoking off the tobacco is strictly verboten. Should zis cause a problem for any man of you, a f-, a solution vill be found. Dankeschone !”

Next thing you know, Billy from Dakota takes us to an easy room, lights up ze verboten tobacco and drawls, “ Now, don’t you mind Adolph. He gets sorta over-keen, you knows ? Hey, David, just kick off the boots man and put on something you’ll feel cool in.”
I grew to love Billy. And as I wandered around the rig, I grew to realise that nobody at all paid a blind bit of notice to any of the rules.
Everyone smoked, everywhere, at any time. Very few wore hardhats – it was simply too hot – and most wore flip-flops. (I kid you not.)
This was a top of the line rig, pumping up millions of gallons/litres of oil, every day. It was stunning in its efficiency and quite chilling in its disregard for danger.
In my First Life, this would never have occurred to me. In my approaching Second Life, alarm bells began to ring.
And then it happened : We were hurriedly summoned to a meeting with the manager of the rig. He was cool and unflappable, unlike us when we heard what he had to say.
“Now then, boys. Seems like Louise is jus’ a liddle ahead of shedool. And er, the choppers are down, cos of this. Oh and your supply boat has lost an engine.Headed round and it’s sailing towards Galveston. Sooooooooooooooo….”
There were three of us ; Stuart, my art director, Grubby, the agency producer and myself.
The first stirrings of panic began to emerge. Stuart is a big, tall, bulky man who once played a German sentry in a Second WW film.
Grubby is a large, rotund, bearded bloke, who never ever looks scared.
I am simply immortal and so curious. All of us were white with fear.
“So, what do you think we should do, Cap’n,” I asked, grimly commanding my stomach to stfu.
Doug looked doubtfully at us all. “Well, I were you ? Ah’d stay put here and ride her out. But you boys, you got deadlines, am ah right ? And you aint’t like what ah’d call, well, natural born riggers, d’you see ?”
He coughed heartily on his seegar and said. “Ah’d take the drop, if Ah was youse. Got a ketch dahn there to catch y’all, have you in shore ‘bout 8 hours.”
You know what ? I actually smiled, gracefully and recklessly.
I knew exactly what “the drop”meant. So did Stu and Grubby.
Okay. This is what is known as Health & Safety, American oil-stylee.
Take one large tractor tyre. Attach four hooks into it, with rope lines, which converge on a larger hook, suspended from a very tall crane.
Cover the whole with some rope netting, to cling onto, doncha know.
Then get three men to stand on said tyre, hooking their arms through the netting and smiling falsely.
The crane, which is based on the topmost platform of the rig, takes up the slack and suddenly you are jerked upwards and outwards.
You can’t help it; you look down. And wish you hadn’t. Far, far below you is a raging sea and tossed helplessly on it is what looks like a matchbox. It is,in fact, the ketch which waits to receive you.
Now, you have to trust me when I say this : I knew I was going to die. Unpleasantly and wetly. But it didn’t matter. Because if we survived, we would be heroes. This is the difference between First and Second Life.
I knew Stu felt the same and so did Grubby. We simply grinned inanely at each other, shook hands, rather awkwardly as the crane let go and we sank down onto the matchbox.
It felt like hours, it was probably mere minutes.
Then suddenly, below us was this dancing deck. We all shrugged, let go of our shrouds and sprawled clumsily onto the welcome boards.
Grinning faces and eager arms pulled us forards and below decks to a cold, uncomfortable lounge.
Eight hours later, we docked at somewhere just east of Galveston and a car took us to a 5* hotel, where I was given a non-smoking room.
I recall being enraged about that for all of, oh, 2 minutes.
Then I fell asleep, deeply and happily.
I was alive. And warm.
Nothing else mattered.
Consequences ? Bah !