In fact, there’s snow in the Alps in June providing you’re high enough. I’m not sure why it would be that surprising that soldiers fighting an offensive across mountains (presumably without good shelter and out in the cold pretty much all the time) would suffer from frostbites.
Not that I can think of, but I’m surprised Schettino hasn’t yet tried Homer’s classic excuse: “It’s my first day!”
Elizabeth Berkeley or Gina Gershon? I could sue either of their “help”. And I would cling for dear life onto their flotation devices.
Or:
“It was like that when I got here.”
“Cover for me!”
“It must have been Tibor!”
Ah, Tibor…how many times have you saved my butt?
Must have been all that wine!
I’m seeing a possible Far Side cartoon in my head - a stereotypical accountant looking puzzled, with glasses and a ledger book, standing on a sinking ship while the captain & crew merrily row away on a lifeboat. The caption, something like: "John was beginning to doubt that the custom of the sea really was ‘the accountant goes down with the ship’ … " 
Maybe in Italian-flagged ships. My husband’s country (Denmark) and company (Danish) take security and training fucking seriously.
Alcohol is completely banned in the ship, and crew members are not allowed to drink even if they go ashore. There are random breathalizers checks and they could be dismissed on the spot for violation of the no alcohol rule.
Have you been to Italy? I loved it, the place is so disfunctional it made me feel at home.
Damn you, I came to post about that one.
I remember that back when my husband became a captain I made a copy of it (we have two collections of Larsson’s comics) and framed it for him.
FTR, I don’t believe that the problem is the Italian regulation as written, I think was this specific crew and captain, and possibly lax follow-up.
There were several Dominicans in the ship, as crew and passengers. The Dominican crew members (mostly service personnel) were praised for helping organize the evacuation. Apparently everybody was better at it than the navigators.
Alcohol certainly is not banned from the ship. The passengers wouldn’t stand for it.
Sorry, forgot to say that my husband works for a cargo ship. Which makes that one a very lousy cruise (they have non-alcoholic beer). I know, I have travelled with him.
Being Italian, the Captain is probably a socialist.
In any case, this just goes to show that you can never rely on central government, even on a ship. If the passengers were true Randroids, they would have shown their independence and self-reliance by learning how to steer the ship and run the lifeboats.
Now, wouldn’t you?
I think he bears a striking resemblance (in more ways than one) to Captain Peachfuzz.
I’ve been mostly to the functional parts, which when they function, are quite nice, but you definitely get the Latin flavor of casualness toward professional punctilio. Our problem was never the shops that shut down for 2 1/2 hours for lunch – it was that they’d be fifteen minutes late coming back from that. FTR, I was there when the Euro was at its possibly-delusional high, which made me particularly rabid about sloppy customer service.
It’s hilarious that the only person to come out for Schettino is a Moldovian woman who use to work on board as a translator. She wan’t employed on the ship at the time and was just ‘on vacation’ and dining with Schettino when the boat hit the rock.
So yeah, his booty call has no reason to contort reality.
And the best part is her claim “He saved 3,000 people!” Bitch, if that was all the people on board he wouldn’t be in this much shit.
He had, however, attended maritime school/college.
And in fairness, he was pretty good at securing his own safety.
The First Rile of Safety Officers: Safety Officers must be kept safe.
Second Rule of Safety Officers: Where is the safest place during a ship sinking? Ashore!
I read somewhere that the only crew member who stayed onboard till the end of the evacuation was the driver!
(am I doing this right?..)
But he did just that by not trying to get closer to shore. :rolleyes:
To paraphrase Dr. Nick Riviera, “Hey, did you go to Hollywood Upstairs Maritime College too?”