Rate this book

Deep Sea And Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, The Invisible Industry That Brings You 90% Of Everything (2013)

by Rose George(Favorite Author)

3.66 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

1846272637 (ISBN13: 9781846272639)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Portobello Books Ltd

review 1: Sea blindness is supposed to be a bad thing. Not enough people know what the sea and shipping does for us. No-one appreciates the benefits of shipping. But there is a good argument that sea blindness is a good thing. Because the truth hurts and sometimes selective truth doesn’t tell the whole story. Out of sight and out of mind we can get on with our business without facing up to some uncomfortable truths about what we do.I’ve just read Rose George’s book, Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Brings You 90% of Everything. More interestingly, I’ve also trawled the internet and read all the reviews of the book that were published in the mainstream media. The book, and the reviews of the book, make a fascinating picture of what outs... moreiders think of shipping.The book tells us that shipping brings us everything, that shipping is incredibly cost-effective and incredibly green on a tonne-mile basis. It also tells us that life on a containership is boring, that navies don’t tackle piracy properly and that taken globally shipping pumps a lot of muck into the air and sea. And it makes a lot of noise. Underwater noise, that is. The sort of noise that bothers whales and dolphins.Hat’s off to Rose, she has turned a short few weeks on a Maersk containership into a very readable and compelling book. She captures the life and characters on board with their petty rhythms and frustrations perfectly. She stuffs the book with facts about shipping and how important it is to all of us. And she takes a view that shipowners might not like but our grandchildren and marine life might of the impact of shipping on the global environment.But guess what the reviews all pick up? Everyone gets the killer fact that shipping is so cheap that it is cost-effective to freeze Scottish-caught fish, ship them to China for processing, then refreeze and ship them back to the UK for sale. A few go on to pick up that this is good for all of us, because our high standards of living depend on cheap shipping. But most don’t. They all do however pick up on the fact that some shipowners mistreat their crews and that shipping collectively emits a lot of air pollution. The net effect is to make shipping look like a cheap, dirty industry full of crooks exploiting their crews and spewing muck into the air and noise into the oceans. Rose didn’t write it like that, but that’s the message the media reflects.We don’t see ourselves like that. Life on Rose’s containership today is not much different to life on a tanker nearly fifty years ago when I went to sea. Most owners comply with regulations willingly and fully. Only a tiny percentage of crews are mistreated, much less than in most globalised industries. Better a seaman than a garment worker in a developing nation, for example. And if shipping emits muck it’s because there is a lot of shipping. Global trade by sea has doubled in the last ten years, and that’s good for all of us.Read this book and respect Rose’s honest attempt to shed life on what to many is a mystery industry. Take a balanced view of what she says. Then Google up what the media say about what she says. At which point you will begin to feel that sea blindness may be a good thing after all.
review 2: Quotable:Buy your fair-trade coffee beans by all means, but don’t assume fair-trade principles govern the conditions of the men who fetch it to you. You would be mistaken.The biggest pull of the captain was his forty-two years in the merchant navy. This means he has been at sea probably as long as the Glaswegian officer on his first ship who dampened the arrogance of the young [Captain] Glenn by saying, “Sonny, I’ve been at sea since Moby Dick was a sardine.”When Glenn tells strangers he is a ship’s captain, they have no idea that means operating the largest man-made moving objects on the planet.Until 2012, international standards allowed seafarers to work a ninety-eight hour week.An Indian crew arrived at Immingham, and [Father] Colum [of Apostleship of the Sea] went aboard their ship. He asked the captain his usual questions: “What can I do for you? Shall I take you shopping?” The captain said no, thank you, but he had another request. His crew would like to walk on grass. Green, green grass. “We have been ashore,” said this captain, “but most of the time we walk on steel. It is unforgiving.” The priest was not flummoxed. He put them in the center’s van and drove them to a churchyard near Hull airport. “And they all took off their shoes and walked barefoot on the grass for an hour, then they went back to the ship.”The seafarers take on the missions and their gifts of watch caps… Jude takes the hat. He appears grateful. But he earns $1,390 a month. He could have bought a hat and everything else from the shop fifty yards away, and probably has. That is not the point. “They can really help us,” said one sailor… “They can share my emptiness.”Shipping is an industry that thinks it is acceptable to use the phrase “the human element” to describe its workforce. less

Download links for: Deep Sea and Foreign Going: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Brings You 90% of Everything

Advertising