Ummm … bolted where? It’s not on the part of the lever that … levers, is it? Because compasses have to be level to work properly, that’s why they’re floating in liquid in ships’ binnacles …

....d'oh. I'll move it to the railing. :D

Re the Channel -- yeah, I should have said North Sea there, I was expanding the Channel's size unduly :D

Re the dialogue thing -- yeah, I think it's probably something to do with playwright training that I always open with dialogue, because action is usually secondary. Some of it's no doubt stylistic, but I hate putting an action tag at the start of a dialogue block in plays (it just looks aesthetically ugly) so...:D