I was working in Italy about 17 yrs back now, and a mate said watch the gaffer, he's always playing pranks on people. Well the job was to re carpet the whole of a luxury liner, while in dry dock in Northern Italy. The ship had 1,000 cabins, with a further 1,000 for the crew. The place was massive, and it was spread over 14 floors, which had no lifts working while the re-fit was in progress. Well we had a few Italian labourers working with us, and the gaffer was for ever sending them on wild goose Chase's, like to fetch a left handed Stanley knife from the store shed etc. Well this particular morning, I was suffering from a severe bout of to much
the night before (there's a surprise eh!). Anyway we were on the 12/13/14th floor or somewhere, and I had spent most of the morning carrying up carpets, and underlay, when the gaffer turns to me, and said Jimmie, take Luigi (or whatever his name was) down to the store shed, and get me a box of sparks for my knife, the blade has gone blunt, and I need to sharpen it.
Luigi to all his credit, said it didn't need 2 to go, and would go on his own, but with a snigger, (and I caught him :wink: at a few of his cronies) he said no take the :ireland: with you, in case you get lost, and then they all burst out :ireland: So off we trot down all the flights of stairs, and
Luigi turns to me, and says, Jimmie I don't even know what a box of sparks are, can you find them for me, so I won't be
when I go back upstairs. I put my arm around his shoulders and say, don't worry
Luigi there are no such thing as a box of sparks, he is just taking the piss out of us, as you are Italian, and I'm :ireland: . But I know what we can do, follow me, and I took him straight to the 1st
outside the dry dock, where we stayed for about 3 hours
. When we eventually went back upstairs to the floor the gaffer was on, he was
and demanded to know where the feck a stupid pair of bastards like us had got to, for half the day. I simply said myself and
Luigi went to the shed asked the sparks (which of course we didn't), and the :england: bloke in charge, told us to wait, as he had to get them sent over from another shed. When he heard this, he realised I had double bluffed him, and burst out
mind you he never tried to prank me again
:Jimmie O':
