All aboard the Skylark
Grandad May 1st, 2007
I received a very nice invitation from the people in Irish Ferries
They wrote to me a couple of months ago and asked me to name their new ship. They said it was a competition, but they have to do that because of some ruling or other. A bit like the Late Late, where your name is drawn but you have to answer a very simple question just to keep everything legal.
I think they chose me because I wrote such a nice article about them [actually I think it was my first post on this Blog!]
I asked them if it meant I had to break a bottle of champagne on the ship, like the Queen does, but they said no, that the ship had already been launched, and they just wanted a name for it. I always thought that was a great waste of good champagne anyway. They said that I could have a holiday instead, which was nice.
So Herself and I sat down and spent a good half hour going through names. It had to be a French name, or a name associated with France, and it had to imply luxury and speed.
My first thought was “L’escargot” which I thought was good [l'escargot - "let's car go", "let's cargo" - a double whammy pun. Geddit?] but a snail doesn’t exactly inspire the idea of speed.
“Brittany Ferry” sounded good, but some bugger of a company has already grabbed that.
I was going to send in “Flight of the Earls” because of the Irish - French link and the 400th anniversary and all that but it was a bit long. Actually I think I did send it. I hit the ’send’ button instead of the ‘delete’ button by mistake. I’m always doing that. It gets me into a lot of trouble.
We thought up quite a lot in the end and sent them off so that they could have the final choice. They said they’d get back to us by the end of March.
Herself is fierce excited by all this. We went to France last year and had a fabulous holiday and she is looking forward to going back this year. We have cancelled all our other plans and have our bags packed.
We have been sitting in the car, waiting to go since the 1st of April. But they haven’t sent us our tickets yet, which is annoying.
We need to go to the loo.
- Rambles
- Comments(20)
Subscribe to audio
What about the Grace O’Malley?
The prices they charge in their restaurants is surely piracy on the high seas!
“Grainuaile” was one of my options but I had to drop it because Irish Lights got there first.
I don’t worry about their prices because I bring a portable barbecue.
Ever travel to France on one of those ferries? I’ve always wanted to do that.
Yup. St.Patrick in ‘82, St. Killian in ‘90 and the Normandie last year. Great craic apart from the link above [the 'nice' article!].
I was meant to go on the St. Killian - it went on fire or something like that. I prefer boats to planes personally - can’t really cause a terrorist attack with a boat:
‘Oh no, it’s slowly approaching!‘
How about, “The really big boat that travels from Ireland to france really, really quickly”, and right underneath it they could write it in french too.
@Dario - Yeah. Not so easy to drop the Normandie on the White House!
How about, “The really big boat that travels from Ireland to france really, really quickly�
Good. But they wanted luxury in it too so it would have to be
“The really big boat that travels from Ireland to france really, really quickly and in great luxury, with no bumps, and that comes back again�
Best of luck on the trip. Under no circumstances watch Titanic before you go - for a variety of reasons.
Yeah! You got a thing against Kate Winslet too?
‘The glowing hermaphrodite’
What with all the sellafield/sewage dumpings and little fishes changing sexes it would be kind of apt, and very pretty sounding too.
No? Ok then.
With all the sewage, how about
“Going Through The Motions”?
Irish Ferries. The people who tried to register their boat in Eastern Europe so they could pay their workers the going rate in a third world country. This despite their handsome, 10mEuro plus annual profits. What a horrible, exploitative, greedy company.
Grandad,
“Going through the motions?”
How about “Going through the MOVEMENTS”
PP - You can say things like that after they’ve given me my tickets.
Nancy - Movements = Motions
come on old timer: principals…there’s always ryanair…on second thoughts, have you considered the benefits of touring at home?
-expensive accomadation
-unpredictable weather
-traffic chaos!
we can’t win! but seriously. i hate what they stand for.
Grandad,
So that you and herself can get out of the car now, I will suggest a name for the ferry boat.
It’s both French and Irish.
Call it:
The Jean Claude Kelly
Puddle Duck
C’mon PP - how would you get from Rosslare to France with a car? And they don’t allow me smoke here!
Nancy - The Jean Claude van Damn?
Sneezy - Bugger! Why didn’t I think of that?
From what I can remember of Irish Ferries, it’s probably not a bad idea to go to the toilet before you get on, anyway…
How about Le Bateau Moche?