sorry for the late response. as you say, "the british got high on their own farts and complacent with training but also things got weird" lol... but yeah it just talked about how isolated sailors were and how disgusting their food got. so boring were their lives that, for entertainment, they would shake maggots out of old biscuits to see which would find its way back faster!

there's a fairly recent Dollop episode, "The Essex" that I highly recommend for similar vibes. Of course it's a story about American sailors but yeah! they're so good at making the worst situations hilarious