SHIPPING SCANDAL: ALL ABOARD FOR CHRISTMAS!

This is GWIZ I tap out in morse code to Portishead Radio, and receive an earful of cheery greetings in dots and dashes. I am the Marconi Wireless Officer aboard MV Hazelcombe on a passage from India at eight knots. Jesus walking on water could overtake us, but he won't beat me to the party.

Women were bad luck on boats until the Seventies see a sea change, with freighters carrying wives and female officers. This is good luck because mixed crews are essential for nautical party games, down in The Pig.

SHIPWRECK is a seagoing fancy dress ball where we all laugh at our greatest fears. Players have ten seconds to dress before the ship sinks, and old hands grab a towel or bed sheet. Others waste time choosing trousers or lingerie for the lifeboat and would surely drown; but here are punished by starting the next game.

BOSUNS LOCKER uses any unlit cubbyhole. The first bosun thinks of a number and whoever utters the same joins him or her inside, where each remove a garment; and so on with each new bosun. Ladies cheat by donning umpteen socks and scarves, but the aim is to provide maximum nudging and winking outside.

Instead of Jingle Bells, our Captain follows this with alarm bells and a round of Board Of Trade Sports, aka DTI Hurdles; statutory simulated emergency drills where the ships cook is mummified in bandages while we drunkenly collapse in a tangle of firehoses and life jackets; and the funnel hoots and brays: Abandon Ship!

We abandon the drill in disgrace to drown our sorrows in The Pig, where Captain Jock fills my glass with Bombay Bathtub, a gin distilled from stewed wood and rats. "Cheers." he growls. "If you can't take a joke, you shouldn't have joined!"