THE LORDS PRAYER

In April 1981 we brought an item on "Swivelships" and other equipment used by the Canadian company Dome Petroleum to drill for oil under the Arctic Sea.

Many things have happened to Dome since then, the last of which was bankruptcy. The paperback Dome. The Rise and Fall of the House that Jack Built (Avon Books of Canada, 1983; C$4.95) by Jim Lyon relates this interesting story. About two thirds of the book deal with the business history of the company, and I cannot judge to what extent it is accurate: the book puts most of the blame on the "boundless ambitions" of the company's top executives, though I would have thought Trudeau's statist and protectionist energy policies would also have had something to do with killing this golden goose.

However, the part that I find more fascinating is the description of what it is like to drill for oil at 60° below zero, to employ native (Eskimo) workers whose culture attaches no significance to punctuality, or to be trapped in the ice pack.

Particularly interesting is the life of the divers who, surrounded by water at just above freezing point, are in a much warmer environment than their workmates above them on the ice.

When the North Sea first opened up for oil exploration in the 60s, the high pay attracted many to diving school, but the mortality among them was high. Since then, stringent safety regulations and modern technology (such as TV monitoring) have improved safety, but accidents still happen. The most dreaded event is "the bends," caused by too rapid decompression, so that the blood releases bubbles of gas dissolved in it under high pressure, painfully maiming or killing the diver.

However, readers who might ascribe this self-rescue to religious faith will be disappointed: he says "That's the only time learning the Lord's Prayer was of any use to me."