Purple-Headed Cannon

7933/20874 Warming Up

Back in June, I'd done a Ball Back gig in Portsmouth (that I already have zero memory of) and ended up doing some sight-seeing and visiting the Mary Rose and I immediately thought - this is right up my shipwreck obsessed son's alley.

So today we went "To Portsmouth, to Portsmouth, it is a gallant town" on father/son road trip to see all that Portsmouth Historic Dockyard had to offer.

I knew it was more than an afternoon's worth of stuff, so I'd even booked a hotel so we could go again tomorrow. So it was a proper trip, just me and the boy, something that we've never done before.

Phoebe was not interested in seeing some ships a good two to three hours drive away, so she gets some one on one time with her mum.

Ernie was in his element. Every time he saw a giant anchor (which there are a surprising amount of in this gallant town) he had to climb on it. I think he'd have been happy scrambling around on free anchors all day.

But I unglued him from the anchors and we looked round HMS Warrior before heading over to the Mary Rose. Ernie was insistent that this had sunk because it had split in two, but he's definitely wrong about that (no one is exactly sure why it sank, but there's only half a ship because most of it rotted away underwater, but half of it got full of silt and didn't decay).

He was pretty into the whole thing - though got upset when he saw the skeleton of the ship's dog (never mind the 500 men who drowned).

My favourite thing is this cannon which has a plaque on it saying "Robert and John Owyn brethren born in the cyte of London, the sonnes of an Inglish made thys bastard. Anno DNI 1537". Sadly them calling the cannon a bastard isn't a Lock, Stock kind of cool cockney thing to say (and only smoking barrel) but because it's not a standard cannon. But I still love them going "Look at this bastard that we made". I don't think they're getting all Nigel Farage or Morrissey on this either - it's just these guns were usually made by foreigners. Coming over here, supplying us with cannons. For us to shoot them with. If we manage to keep our bastard boats afloat.

We went on the Victory too, though Ernie got a bit freaked out by the surgeon's quarters and talk of arms and legs being amputated and bloody clothing, so we moved on quickly. We saw the renovations on the outside of the ship, which wasn't very interesting and the looked round one of the museums. There was a bit where kids could try on different hats. Ernie insisted on putting them all on at once. He is his father's son.

We went upstairs to see all the garish figureheads from days of yore. When did ships start having figureheads? It's an odd idea. But once they had them, when did they stop having figureheads? That was a worse decision. Yes, it's fucking nuts to have weird cartoonish overly colourful depictions of classical figures and ladies with their tops off on the front of a boat, but it's even more nuts to stop doing that once you're started. I love the prick who first put one of those on a ship and I hate the prick who first made a ship without out. It's like the day that ship builders grew up and started working with metal instead of wood. Think of all the great figureheads we could have had and the celebs they would have been based on. There would definitely have been one of Jimmy Savile. Maybe it's good they stopped.

It was a really full day. We really needed to charge the electric car for the journey home (we'd used up exactly 50% of capacity on the way here - just a bit too risky for the way back, but the one space there was in the car park had been blocked by the selfish prick in the next bay. I had hoped he'd have moved by the time we got back from dinner, but he hadn't so I had to squeeze into the space, get out the passenger side and then spent a good 30 minutes trying to work out how to use the confusing charger - which gave a web address that didn't exist and which suggested you needed a club card. In the end I managed to download an app (that was mentioned nowhere) and get things working. But these things should really work with the tap of a credit card.

We'd eaten at Pizza Express and Ernie decorated his little sailor hat with pics of things from the day. Apparently this was a cannon. A purple-headed cannon, sat on two spheres (triggering for me). He is his father's son.

He'd been nervous about the trip and was scared in the hotel in case the fire alarm went off, like that time in Paris.

But he'd had a great day and so had I. We are the same person and have the same mental age, so it was bound to work out.

A terrific RHLSTP with Tommy Tiernan went up today. Please do listen here.

Here’s a fun clip!

I’ll do a double Portsmouth blog video tomorrow.