Some did say that this was all going to get a bit tangled:
A Royal Navy commander harassed her boss who she insisted was in denial about her sexuality and in love with her, a court martial has heard.
Commander Sally-Anne Bagnall is accused of harassing her boss, Surgeon Captain Elizabeth Crowson, by launching a relentless “romantic pursuit” despite being repeatedly rejected.
An advantage of a resolutely single sex and heterosexual Navy – not that it ever was resolutely hetero in every detail nor even single sex given some of the Georgian stories – was that this situation just never arose. Even in today’s it isn’t supposed to – no bonking up and down the command chain.
But the real O Tempora, O Mores point, the Eheu Fugaces Labuntur Anni thing to mourn, is that anyone who can’t sort out some bint making mooncalf eyes at her shouldn’t be a Captain in the first place. That’s what’s gone wrong.
Tim, you’re assuming that she’s a captain because of her character and qualifications – but this ain’t your grandfather’s Navy…
She’s a surgeon. Yes, military doctors and nurses are soldiers/sailors/airmen first and doctors/nurses second, but the reality is that rank is based on her being a surgeon not that she’s competent enough to command a ship or even take any operational command, no matter what the theory says.
Agreed, but she ain’t a “Captain” in the command-and-control sense, she’s more akin to a senior medical officer.
Having said that, I’m not sure what the female-to-female equivalent of the male-to-male “Fuck off mate” would be. A quiet chat over tea at the Cafe Royal perhaps?
🙂
The Urban Dictionary has a mucapplicabe explanation:
Someone once told me the words that I now live my life by, “Bitches be crazy”. It is pretty self explanatory. Every single girl is the spawn of satan and therefore has some sort of screw loose in thier noggins which makes bitches crazy. Thats why you can’t understand them as a guy, cause they’re not real people
Mucapplicable isn’t a word. But it oughta be. As it is, it needs a h and a space.
Amusingly, in the report, that is exactly what happened…..
Hardly the stuff of legend, is it?
The British Navy was resolutely single sex and heterosexual? OK. Ir is possible I suppose. But that did not mean the situation did not arrive. It meant that the means of dealing with it was summary. Execution in the old days. A bit of flogging later on. Rapid dismissal even later still.
It is likely that such situations arose, but the “victim” (that is, the Gay one, no matter which party) did not have the power of the state behind her. Rather people were thrown out of the Navy.
I am a little sympathetic. As Rhoda says, Bitches be Crazy. As someone who has been in a very mild version of this, you are royally f*cked if you work for any sort of institution and someone with Borderline Personality Disorder decides you have offended her. I do not see how *anyone* could handle this well.
(Although it does back my experience that every single Gay person in the world refuses to accept the existence of heterosexuality. Everyone could and should be like them)
SMFS
Rum, sodomy and the lash – in that order.
Ottokring November 11, 2020 at 9:54 am – “Rum, sodomy and the lash – in that order.”
My limited exposure to Victorian porn suggests it should be rum, the lash and sodomy to be accurate. But it does not read as well.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. At least it is not gin.
Phycho pendantry. Don’t need semaphore training to workout that’s a red flag (for me at least)./
“Giving evidence, Capt Crowson said Cdr Bagnall confronted her with annotated work emails that she had sent to others with her Cc’d in, circling grammatical and spelling errors.
Cdr Bagnall insisted Capt Crowson’s misspelling of “regional” meant “vaginal”, the phrase “get in touch” meant she apparently wanted to touch Cdr Bagnall, and the word “involved” was code for her wanting to be involved with her.”
Hur, hur, fnar a good opportunity for jokes about ” a lick o’ the cat.”
When I did my MA recently, I was shocked to discover how common it was during the Great War for British generals to go to pieces as soon as they heard gunfire.
My lecturer opined that in those days they didn’t have psychometric testing and very few generals were really combat-ready. Well they do have it these days and yet this girly still manages to attain senior rank while being an obvious nutter. I suppose it is part of the “Reward for Uselessness” that we have seen so much over the last 30 years not only in public sector ( Cressida Dick, innumerable Quangoqueens ) but also in industry.
Back in the good old days they would both have been in the WRNS (Womens Royal Naval Service) where lesbianism was usual if not expected.
Apparently dogs are preferred (with a little peanut butter for encouragement). Cats tongues are a bit spiky.
🙂
CM success in diverting the mission of the Navy.
It’s why I say Taiwan is gone, Australia is in big trouble.
The invaluable talk like a pirate movement has a phrase for most occasions.
In this case I believe one lass was wishing to “Crack Jenny’s Teacup” with the other.
Captains of nuclear submarines have the rank of commander. I hope she isn’t one of those.
But if the surgeon captain commanded the commander that means they were in the same chain of command, i.e, the commander was in the medical service so equally incapable of sailing a ship.
Uhm, is this a ‘there are no homosexuals in Iran’ thing?
Because I can assure you that homosexuals served in the Navy (and other branches) long before it became legal to do so. And that unwanted pursuits happened.
Old hat: rum, sodomy and the lash
New hat: Poop decks full of seamen.
The nutter sounds like they are suffering from erotomania. Psycho-stalker territory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotomania
Pretty difficult to deal with.
Situations like this always arise
The question is whether the people I bombed have the gumption to sort it out
Just keep women out of the military, except in auxiliary roles.
Tim,
When was the RN last single sex? You must remember the WRENS and QARNNS, no?
I bombed = involved
Darn autocorrect
Thank you for explaining Starfish, that really had me rather concerned !
Autocorrect is the great 21st century curse, so often it makes one look like an utter Arsenal.
Ottokring November 11, 2020 at 10:43 am – “When I did my MA recently, I was shocked to discover how common it was during the Great War for British generals to go to pieces as soon as they heard gunfire.”
I don’t think there is a test to see whether you can stand up to artillery or not. But in peacetime Western Armies tend to put paper pushers in charge. People who like being in the Army but do not necessarily like fighting. When it comes time for war, those people have to be replaced. The people who do like fighting would normally fail a psychological test because they are, not to put a too fine point on it, often disturbed. Look at Patton or Montgomery or Grant for that matter.
May or may not be true for the Germans and the Soviets. Peacetime German officers turned out to be very good indeed. Wartime Soviet officers not so much but no worse than the wartime ones.
Ah euphemisms! The correct quote is Rum, bum and the lash
Incidentally, though the harrassed lady’s rank is Surgeon Captain it does not mean she is a surgeon. All medical officers in the RN have the rank Surgeon whatever, be they dentists, gynaecologists*, or simple GPs.
* Yes indeed. I served on HMS Eagle, a male-only crew, and one of our two medics was a gynaecologist.
*visible confusion*
I served on a ship with a pathologist
Needless to say he was known as doctor death
He played along of course. His opening gambit on diagnosis was usually something like “I’ve never seen this on a live person…”
“Rum, sodomy, and the lash.”
In later, more enlightened, years, it was “rum, bum, and baccy.”
“rum bum and baccy”
Smoking ban. Blame Blair.