Over at "Shadows and Light", Tasker Dunham made this assertion: "I bet you've never seen a boat named Tasker." This rang a bell in my head so I looked back through my extensive photo archives and found the picture shown above. I took it at Cayton Bay on the Yorkshire coast several years ago. It was little more than a rotting hulk then and I am sure that by now it has - to use a Trumpian term - been "obliterated" by North Sea waves.
Another "Tasker" boat was spotted on the lake at Roundhay Park in Leeds. This sturdy red pleasure craft may be hired out for £12 per hour and was once rented by former prime minister Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty, nine months before their first son, Taska, was born.
Meantime, entering the port of Immingham on The River Humber, I once spotted this huge oil tanker that had arrived on our shores from Nigeria. Can you see the name on the bow? It's "King Tasker" usually known as King Tasker the Munificent who was, I believe, the leader of the Igbo people with fourteen wives and 64 children. He also ran a worldwide e-mail scam, harvesting money from the gullible and unwary.
Over the years, I have seen several other boats named "Tasker" - including a battered aluminium canoe on Derwentwater in The Lake District and a grey, homemade inflatable packed with desperate migrants on the beach at Pevensey in East Sussex. They were being helped ashore by two elderly American migrants who were squatting in a beachfront property at the time with their "land shark" - Fido.
Any boats named Bob???? A dinghy perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThe good ship Bob is still bobbing about on the ocean.
DeleteYou got me! I had to look up whether Riki Sunak had a son. (Maybe I was giving you too much credit.)
ReplyDeleteFooling the great Marcel Proust! That's a feather in my cap.
DeleteYou never know what a little research will turn up.
ReplyDeleteLittle research = small results.
DeleteIf you had "aged" the name on that first boat it would be much more believable.
ReplyDeleteYou are a hard woman to please Elsie!
DeleteYou're so terrible, LOL! Remind me never to ask you anything!
ReplyDeleteI am terrible and my name isn't even Ivan!
DeleteI think King Tasker sent me an email once......
ReplyDeleteDidn't he say he was a Prince?
DeleteApparently, some gullible people replied.
DeletePoor Tasker, to be ridiculed by this master of the art.
ReplyDeleteTasker won't mind a bit of ridiculing - it's good for you.
DeleteAmazing. The rowing boats one could rent for a bit of splashing about on Lake Monrepos just outside Ludwigsburg had very boring and typical names in comparison; they were Heidi and Gisela and so on. In later years, they were just numbers, and when it was time to come back, the man who ran the little operation took up his megaphone and yelled across the lake "Ruderboot Vier, aaanlegen!"
ReplyDeleteGoogle Translate says "Rowing boat four, mooring" which I am is not quite right.
DeleteYou are obviously getting your hand in with AI, it almost looks the real thing ;)
ReplyDeleteAs Old McDonald sang, "AI, AI - O!"
DeleteNaughty YP.
ReplyDeleteNaughty... but nice, like a cream cake.
DeleteThe first photo looks as though someone has been using Letraset - it's far too pristine given the state of the rotting hulk. The other two could almost pass as genuine! It will soon be impossible to recognise the genuine from AI.
ReplyDeleteI see what you mean about the Letraset Carol.
DeleteFooled me - not difficult to do.
ReplyDeleteThat's the point of AI I think.
DeleteWhen should we believe you?
ReplyDeleteDuring your waking hours.
Deletethey do say "they come in threes"..... what they are referring to was never clear.... until now
ReplyDeleteObviously, three boats.
DeleteAt least you don't see a boat call Boris or Rees Mogg.
ReplyDeleteNo - because they sunk long ago.
DeleteYou shouldn't spend so long in the sun.
ReplyDeleteYou are right King Tasker - I have gone stark raving mad!
DeletePeople will believe anything these days... it's not good.
ReplyDeleteSome even believed your president's "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" pledge.
Delete