I’ve had enough now.
Not because the weather is beginning to turn, I love long days at sea and am even enjoying the breeze which is now whipping the waves into whitecaps and forcing the geriatrics indoors, despite the fact it’s still 75 degrees out there. I’ll even like it tomorrow when the waves get up to 25 feet and the temperature drops to zero.
But there’s a different atmosphere since we left St. Thomas for our 1500 mile dash to New York. Even the water tastes different.
Always keen to run what looks like Paddy’s Market on the lower decks with table after table displaying tawdry jewellery or stuffed toys, the ships retail team are having a fire sale with piles of very cheaply-made clothing like ‘Atlantic Crossing 2009’ t-shirts, key rings, glasses, mugs and anything the suppliers can brand with the ‘Cunard’ logo back in their factories in Bangalore and Shenzen.
I haven’t understood the shopping ethic throughout the cruise. If the point of a long gentle sea voyage is sybaritic relaxation, why would you want to be endlessly comparison shopping for jewellery? Must be part of that marital guilt thing. But every port is the same – at the dockside there’s always a shopping mall catering to the keen buyer or the totally infirm who can’t totter more than a hundred yards from the boat. But it always contains the same shops, specifically Diamonds International and Colombian Emeralds. I didn’t even know Colombia mined emeralds, let alone retailed them at every waterside location from Port Canaveral to Curacao. Oh, and a chain called ‘Mr. Tablecloth’, God alone knows why it should be a maritime tradition to come home with a table cover and matching napkins (I’d have nicked mine from the ship’s restaurant) but apparently, at least in Peoria, it is.
Equally beyond me is the gambling. I would have imagined a five-star cruise ship might have blackjack or roulette and my mental picture featured James Bond types in white tuxedo jackets and women like Russian spies. But the overweight slobs slumped at the many many slot machines (some of which accept $100 bills so we’re not talking about shovelling quarters here) confirm my impression that cruising’s not the exclusive preserve of the jet-set. Or the tasteful. Or clean.
Perhaps it’s time to list some of my gripes about this experience – overall, it’s been enjoyable and I have met some delightful people and we kept each other highly amused for two weeks ... but there’s a long list of niggles.
I hate the way nothing is complimentary. Apart from your accommodation and basic three meals a day, everything requires an extra payment whether it’s a coffee in one of the lounges or a bottle of drinking water in your cabin. Eating in the a la carte restaurant (which has the same menu every night) cost $30 per head supplement. It’s good, but I would have expected the main restaurant to be of this standard.
On top of the ‘room and beverage service charge’ of $11 per person per day billed to your shipboard account, everything you sign for carries an automatic ‘gratuity’ of 15% which is not optional, and the extra ‘tips’ box is also left blank on every chit. A couple drinking two cocktails each and a bottle of wine a day will easily rack up $500 in compulsory gratuities. This exhibits a lack of apparent generosity which, if they are not careful, will make Cunard the Ryanair of cruise lines (as its parent Carnival already is) whereby a low lead-in price is effectively doubled by the passenger’s necessary expenses during his trip. I’d rather pay a bit more and have all-inclusive MEAN all-inclusive.
The housekeeping is good, but many trays, service carts, buckets and vacuum cleaners are left in the corridors, often all day. Bed linen is changed only every third or fourth day, and I was shocked one evening to pull out my tucked-in duvet and find a large smear of dried blood which definitely wasn’t mine.
Smoking is allowed on all balconies and some open decks, so there’s blowback into cabins and corridors, as well as in the casino and the ghastly ‘Golden Lion’ pub, by comparison with which the Queen Vic in East Enders looks smart, both these areas being open to the main lobbies.
Lots of things are simply unavailable. There’s no thick toast at breakfast, it’s all thin cold and brittle: apparently it’s impossible for the ship to supply either thick-sliced bread, or even cut an unsliced loaf to order. There’s brown-coloured bread but nothing I can recognise as wholegrain. And no salted butter. Nor is there any semi-skimmed milk, which is only achievable by having a jug of full-fat and a jug of skim and mixing them mid-air over your cup. Although they use it in their cooking, greek yoghurt is unavailable and despite the fact we’re passing through fruit-growing islands, melons aren’t ripe and peaches and apricots are canned. Equally, there’s no fresh squeezed juice, the orange being an especially vile reconstitute.
There’s no choice of vegetables at dinner, nor is the combination to be supplied shown on the menu. And however they describe their potatoes (variously roast, chateau and fondant) it’s always the same barrel-shaped bastard with no flavour and a soggy oven-coloured exterior.
Entertainment didn’t meet my expectations. I thought at least for the Christmas/New Year cruise they’d have sourced one headline singer or comedian but the Entertainment Director explained that the ship doesn’t control its own selections of performers, they’re all sent from a central talent office and all they can do on the ship is package the shows to the best of their ability.
Excursions are overpriced. A simple two-hour coach tour may be $70. In ports as well-serviced for tourism as those in the Caribbean, this seems greedy. It soon became apparent that walking out of the immediate dockside area, licensed and legitimate alternatives were available for a third of what the ship charged. I enjoyed the river tubing and the cave swimming expeditions, but for trips around the bay or to a beach, ad hoc was definitely cheaper.
Saturday, 2 January 2010
ST ELSEWHERE
St Thomas, 1 January 2010
Post-Barbados, the islands dissolve into a collection of English Parish Churches as in rapid succession we attend service at St Kitts, St Lucia, St Thomas and continuing the Sunday theme, Dominica.
Dominica stands out as one of the poorest islands in the Caribbean, memorable for its long-serving and now late Prime Minister Mrs. Eugenia Charles who regularly came to Britain to intercede with the Queen (to whom she bore a striking, if negative-coloured, resemblance) and petition the European Union to allow the import of Windward Island bananas which were technically too curved for Brussels’ standards.
In brightly-painted ex-army trucks we climbed the crumbling roadways to one of the tall peaks that dot the island, to hike up through the rainforest to a cave used in the filming of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ where high rocks surround a narrow river and you then swim in warm rain through the cave to a thundering waterfall. So in a sense, I’ve been through Johnny Depp’s cleft.
On St Lucia we just said to the taxi driver ‘beach’ and were lucky to arrive at Reduit where many of the cruise passengers wouldn’t venture because the tide was so high it had flooded the carpark, but we found a welcome at the Bay Gardens Resort with comfortable loungers, crashing surf, cheap beers, an excellent lunch and a great massage in a muslin-curtained cabana on the beach from a girl who did more for my aching shoulder in 20 minutes than I could expect from a month of physiotherapy.
Of all the islands we’ve visited, St Lucia’s the first one I’d think of for a future holiday, so it’s been a useful exercise and possibly saved thousands in airfares, to know I wouldn’t again want to visit so many others.
St Kitts is pretty rundown, all the formerly British-administered islands seem to be, and the weather was overcast and rainy, so the promised carnival in the afternoon got cancelled and I was glaid I had ducked out of the 7-hour sailaway to Nevis. I did have an amble round scruffy Basseterre, the capital, where a presidential election seemed to be in progress, the bright red or yellow banners of the rival parties fluttering from telegraph poles and paint-peeling buildings.
In the ship, the preparations for New Year’s Eve are fervid, with half the crew apparently up ladders rigging equipment for a massive ‘balloon drop’.
For me, this falls deeply into the ‘why bother’ category since I never quite understand the fuss made over the change in date from Dec 31 to Jan 1. I’m feeling edgy at cocktails which is made worse by the provision on the tables of rattles and squeakers which the entire dining room begins to trumpet from 9.45pm onwards. I also find myself becoming irritated with people whose company I’ve enjoyed on every other evening, so it’s clearly the shadow of the night affecting my mood, although Louis did have too much to drink too early and became a bit incoherent as his attention span dwindled to nanoseconds.
Just before midnight we paraded down to the Queen’s room and for once it wasn’t mis-named as we raised more than a few eyebrows by dancing in same-sex pairs although no-one dared to say anything out loud. Since this was also captured on video by the official photographers, I look forward to seeing whether it will feature in future Cunard advertising.
After the midnight countdown, the gang plan to take over the G32 night-club, a space reminiscent of commercial discos from the mid-80’s before the advent of laser light or digital sound, it’s pretty awful. I go back to the cabin about 12.30 to get some cooler air and sit on the bed for ten minutes ... then the next thing I know it’s 3.45am so perhaps I missed some fun, or possibly escaped the meltdown.
Either way, in the morning I’m brighter and more clear-eyed than most of the ship and enjoy a comparatively early breakfast and the fact the decks are all but deserted. The view is of deep turquoise water dotted with yachts and I set out to explore the last island.
St Thomas is arguably the best-kept outpost in the Caribbean with neat beaches and decent-looking houses, since it’s run as a US state and everything’s in reasonable repair and seems to work. I suspect the cost of living is therefore comparatively high although this is mainly on the evidence of being charged $7.50 for a banana daiquiri at one of the stops on the tour. It majors in duty free sales and the whole of the city centre is so completely given over to diamond, emerald, gold, perfume and liquor stores that you wonder how on earth the locals shop for food and essentials.
Still, a cocktail on the sunny terrace of a Plantation Great House is not a bad way to start the year, even at $7.50, and I reflect on my good fortune at being able to do it.
Post-Barbados, the islands dissolve into a collection of English Parish Churches as in rapid succession we attend service at St Kitts, St Lucia, St Thomas and continuing the Sunday theme, Dominica.
Dominica stands out as one of the poorest islands in the Caribbean, memorable for its long-serving and now late Prime Minister Mrs. Eugenia Charles who regularly came to Britain to intercede with the Queen (to whom she bore a striking, if negative-coloured, resemblance) and petition the European Union to allow the import of Windward Island bananas which were technically too curved for Brussels’ standards.
In brightly-painted ex-army trucks we climbed the crumbling roadways to one of the tall peaks that dot the island, to hike up through the rainforest to a cave used in the filming of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ where high rocks surround a narrow river and you then swim in warm rain through the cave to a thundering waterfall. So in a sense, I’ve been through Johnny Depp’s cleft.
On St Lucia we just said to the taxi driver ‘beach’ and were lucky to arrive at Reduit where many of the cruise passengers wouldn’t venture because the tide was so high it had flooded the carpark, but we found a welcome at the Bay Gardens Resort with comfortable loungers, crashing surf, cheap beers, an excellent lunch and a great massage in a muslin-curtained cabana on the beach from a girl who did more for my aching shoulder in 20 minutes than I could expect from a month of physiotherapy.
Of all the islands we’ve visited, St Lucia’s the first one I’d think of for a future holiday, so it’s been a useful exercise and possibly saved thousands in airfares, to know I wouldn’t again want to visit so many others.
St Kitts is pretty rundown, all the formerly British-administered islands seem to be, and the weather was overcast and rainy, so the promised carnival in the afternoon got cancelled and I was glaid I had ducked out of the 7-hour sailaway to Nevis. I did have an amble round scruffy Basseterre, the capital, where a presidential election seemed to be in progress, the bright red or yellow banners of the rival parties fluttering from telegraph poles and paint-peeling buildings.
In the ship, the preparations for New Year’s Eve are fervid, with half the crew apparently up ladders rigging equipment for a massive ‘balloon drop’.
For me, this falls deeply into the ‘why bother’ category since I never quite understand the fuss made over the change in date from Dec 31 to Jan 1. I’m feeling edgy at cocktails which is made worse by the provision on the tables of rattles and squeakers which the entire dining room begins to trumpet from 9.45pm onwards. I also find myself becoming irritated with people whose company I’ve enjoyed on every other evening, so it’s clearly the shadow of the night affecting my mood, although Louis did have too much to drink too early and became a bit incoherent as his attention span dwindled to nanoseconds.
Just before midnight we paraded down to the Queen’s room and for once it wasn’t mis-named as we raised more than a few eyebrows by dancing in same-sex pairs although no-one dared to say anything out loud. Since this was also captured on video by the official photographers, I look forward to seeing whether it will feature in future Cunard advertising.
After the midnight countdown, the gang plan to take over the G32 night-club, a space reminiscent of commercial discos from the mid-80’s before the advent of laser light or digital sound, it’s pretty awful. I go back to the cabin about 12.30 to get some cooler air and sit on the bed for ten minutes ... then the next thing I know it’s 3.45am so perhaps I missed some fun, or possibly escaped the meltdown.
Either way, in the morning I’m brighter and more clear-eyed than most of the ship and enjoy a comparatively early breakfast and the fact the decks are all but deserted. The view is of deep turquoise water dotted with yachts and I set out to explore the last island.
St Thomas is arguably the best-kept outpost in the Caribbean with neat beaches and decent-looking houses, since it’s run as a US state and everything’s in reasonable repair and seems to work. I suspect the cost of living is therefore comparatively high although this is mainly on the evidence of being charged $7.50 for a banana daiquiri at one of the stops on the tour. It majors in duty free sales and the whole of the city centre is so completely given over to diamond, emerald, gold, perfume and liquor stores that you wonder how on earth the locals shop for food and essentials.
Still, a cocktail on the sunny terrace of a Plantation Great House is not a bad way to start the year, even at $7.50, and I reflect on my good fortune at being able to do it.
Wednesday, 30 December 2009
THE EMPTY CHAIR
There’s usually no shortage of company for breakfast or lunch, and there’s always the optional madness of the random seating assignment at a shared table, but once or twice I’ve asked for a window seat and a table to myself.
I might catch up with some reading, but mostly I find my thoughts drifting and occasionally focus on the chair opposite and wonder who, in my ideal world, might fill it. This is infinitely harder than knowing who you’d like on the other side of the bed, because it’s assumed that the person opposite is your long-term partner and, at my age, one might say ‘for life’ which is a challenge both to the potential holder of the position, and to oneself.
I can’t do it.
I’ve combed through the various lists of people I keep filed in the dusty card index of my cerebellum and no obvious candidate from either current friends, past lovers, facebook, the dead, or even fantasy fucks makes it to the short list.
Hugh Jackman, at a pinch, but I’m sure we’d get bored of each other eventually. Deefa, my late cocker spaniel, runs him a close second.
I guess Deefa with his characteristics of constantly looking adoringly at you, and being willing to lick you almost anywhere is a better qualification for the other side of the bed than for the table where you’d like at least a bit of unstrained conversation beyond the one-sided ‘sit’ and ‘get down’.
So I look around the restaurant and see how other tables are faring. The couples (male and female mostly of course) divide into two types: those who maintain a low-voltage constant bickering, he trying to make conversation by discussing the itinerary for the day, she using it as a chance to deal the low blow of reprimand that ‘we’ve been through this already in the cabin’ and building up a store of resentment to use as a sexual fire-blanket for later, and those for whom silence is the safer option, each focusing fifteen degrees to port or starboard to avoid the other’s direct gaze over eggs and cold toast.
That’s no way to live. Most of them stay cemented for the practicalities of house, children and suburban respectability, but none seem to be actively enjoying each other’s company. Women form instant bonds at shared tables through their mutual eye-rolling at the perceived behaviour of their respective husbands. Why is it considered so normal to complain about your partner on first meeting another’s? If you don’t like him, divorce him, or chuck the sad bastard over the side – but I think there’s an element of reverse psychology in operation here, that (some) married women maintain a steady trickle of criticism of their husbands as a barrage to resist any questioning of their own role.
Even when ballroom dancing, surely one of the best ways for a couple to express their mutual affection and synchronicity, the men stare over the women’s heads and pilot them round the floor like they were steering a particularly recalcitrant shopping trolley round Asda.
Where are the intelligent, angular, lively alpha-couples you’d find on stage or screen? A sharp-witted Harvard professor and his publisher partner, such as you’d get in a Neil Simon comedy? A successful Cotswolds businessman and his Aga-fiddling wife from a Joanna Trollope novel? Not on this ship, over-run as it is with peevish lower-middle-class English readers of the Daily Mail, rounding the final bend in a lifetime’s marital toleration.
I wonder what happens when they retire to their cabins, he reaching for his Dick Francis and she for her P D James as they seek escape from reality into the pages of a thick novel from the ship’s Library. These people are mostly no older than me, so how did their sexuality die so much earlier?
So on balance, I wouldn’t thank you for many of the men on board, attached or single. And I’m becoming less and less convinced that there’s ‘someone’ for each of us.
I have a lot of friends, and I could fill the Albert Hall with acquaintances, but whilst I think I’m blessed to be so readily surrounded with amiable people, sometimes the emotional loneliness is painful. And on warm nights when the full moon climbs ever higher in the inky sky over the Caribbean and the breeze and the scent of the sea sweeps over me, it’s all but unbearable that there’s no-one to share this.
I might catch up with some reading, but mostly I find my thoughts drifting and occasionally focus on the chair opposite and wonder who, in my ideal world, might fill it. This is infinitely harder than knowing who you’d like on the other side of the bed, because it’s assumed that the person opposite is your long-term partner and, at my age, one might say ‘for life’ which is a challenge both to the potential holder of the position, and to oneself.
I can’t do it.
I’ve combed through the various lists of people I keep filed in the dusty card index of my cerebellum and no obvious candidate from either current friends, past lovers, facebook, the dead, or even fantasy fucks makes it to the short list.
Hugh Jackman, at a pinch, but I’m sure we’d get bored of each other eventually. Deefa, my late cocker spaniel, runs him a close second.
I guess Deefa with his characteristics of constantly looking adoringly at you, and being willing to lick you almost anywhere is a better qualification for the other side of the bed than for the table where you’d like at least a bit of unstrained conversation beyond the one-sided ‘sit’ and ‘get down’.
So I look around the restaurant and see how other tables are faring. The couples (male and female mostly of course) divide into two types: those who maintain a low-voltage constant bickering, he trying to make conversation by discussing the itinerary for the day, she using it as a chance to deal the low blow of reprimand that ‘we’ve been through this already in the cabin’ and building up a store of resentment to use as a sexual fire-blanket for later, and those for whom silence is the safer option, each focusing fifteen degrees to port or starboard to avoid the other’s direct gaze over eggs and cold toast.
That’s no way to live. Most of them stay cemented for the practicalities of house, children and suburban respectability, but none seem to be actively enjoying each other’s company. Women form instant bonds at shared tables through their mutual eye-rolling at the perceived behaviour of their respective husbands. Why is it considered so normal to complain about your partner on first meeting another’s? If you don’t like him, divorce him, or chuck the sad bastard over the side – but I think there’s an element of reverse psychology in operation here, that (some) married women maintain a steady trickle of criticism of their husbands as a barrage to resist any questioning of their own role.
Even when ballroom dancing, surely one of the best ways for a couple to express their mutual affection and synchronicity, the men stare over the women’s heads and pilot them round the floor like they were steering a particularly recalcitrant shopping trolley round Asda.
Where are the intelligent, angular, lively alpha-couples you’d find on stage or screen? A sharp-witted Harvard professor and his publisher partner, such as you’d get in a Neil Simon comedy? A successful Cotswolds businessman and his Aga-fiddling wife from a Joanna Trollope novel? Not on this ship, over-run as it is with peevish lower-middle-class English readers of the Daily Mail, rounding the final bend in a lifetime’s marital toleration.
I wonder what happens when they retire to their cabins, he reaching for his Dick Francis and she for her P D James as they seek escape from reality into the pages of a thick novel from the ship’s Library. These people are mostly no older than me, so how did their sexuality die so much earlier?
So on balance, I wouldn’t thank you for many of the men on board, attached or single. And I’m becoming less and less convinced that there’s ‘someone’ for each of us.
I have a lot of friends, and I could fill the Albert Hall with acquaintances, but whilst I think I’m blessed to be so readily surrounded with amiable people, sometimes the emotional loneliness is painful. And on warm nights when the full moon climbs ever higher in the inky sky over the Caribbean and the breeze and the scent of the sea sweeps over me, it’s all but unbearable that there’s no-one to share this.
Monday, 28 December 2009
Oh Island in the Sun, Willed to me by my father’s hand ...
Good old Harry Belafonte. I think that was one of the first records I ever owned.
I was quite looking forward to our visit to Barbados, having heard so much about it from my father who used to visit frequently both for the Test Matches, and for Sharon the Bajan cocktail waitress he was knocking off in the hotel where he regularly stayed. When he was terminally ill, I had to phone her to see how serious was the relationship from her side, in case she wanted to see him, or come to the funeral. She sounded like Bob Marley on the phone.
It wasn’t serious and even though just before we had him sectioned under the Mental Health Act my father was changing his Will in her favour, I’ll never know for sure whether Sharon’s then seven-year old daughter Chantelle is actually my half-caste half-sister. She must be 21 now, funny if I’ve seen her walking about and not known it.
We took a touted tour from the dockside, but it was a desultory experience and at least a couple of the people on the bus were deeply strange, including a very very elderly, very infirm German Jewish gent with the dirtiest crocheted yarmulke I’ve ever seen pinned to his greasy pate with rusting clips. He clamped David into a window seat and was stubbornly reluctant to move when we got to photo stops so after the first we squeezed ourself three to a seat to avoid moving him. He exhibited almost no signs of life until the allotted two hours of the tour was over when he began to punch and kick at the side of the bus to attract the driver’s attention that he wanted to get back to his ship, cleverly titled ‘Mein Schiff’. It’s a low-budget German cut-and-shut made from a converted car ferry with bolted-on balconies and which seems to be following us around from port to port sniffing our sternpipe like a lost Schnauzer.
Also in the back seats were a couple from Massachusetts who seemed educationally sub normal despite being about to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary. He read aloud every sign we passed, however banal, including ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ which seemed to crop up half a dozen times. Perhaps she was illiterate. He also had completely evenly brown teeth which is something you don’t see often, certainly not in States where they put fluoride in the water.
What we saw of Barbados, at least as guided by our driver, was a series of houses built for low-income workers, a glimpse of the deserted Sandy Lane Hotel and Country Club where a pugnacious waitress tried to throw us out, a couple of distant views of coastline, and a ride through the scary downtown centre of Bridgetown where I would certainly not want to stroll after nightfall. Although we’d been offered the option of visiting the beach, we all came back to the ship for lunch and a bit of less traumatic sunbathing.
St. Lucia tomorrow. Must get up and just go to beach, bugger the tours of the island.
I was quite looking forward to our visit to Barbados, having heard so much about it from my father who used to visit frequently both for the Test Matches, and for Sharon the Bajan cocktail waitress he was knocking off in the hotel where he regularly stayed. When he was terminally ill, I had to phone her to see how serious was the relationship from her side, in case she wanted to see him, or come to the funeral. She sounded like Bob Marley on the phone.
It wasn’t serious and even though just before we had him sectioned under the Mental Health Act my father was changing his Will in her favour, I’ll never know for sure whether Sharon’s then seven-year old daughter Chantelle is actually my half-caste half-sister. She must be 21 now, funny if I’ve seen her walking about and not known it.
We took a touted tour from the dockside, but it was a desultory experience and at least a couple of the people on the bus were deeply strange, including a very very elderly, very infirm German Jewish gent with the dirtiest crocheted yarmulke I’ve ever seen pinned to his greasy pate with rusting clips. He clamped David into a window seat and was stubbornly reluctant to move when we got to photo stops so after the first we squeezed ourself three to a seat to avoid moving him. He exhibited almost no signs of life until the allotted two hours of the tour was over when he began to punch and kick at the side of the bus to attract the driver’s attention that he wanted to get back to his ship, cleverly titled ‘Mein Schiff’. It’s a low-budget German cut-and-shut made from a converted car ferry with bolted-on balconies and which seems to be following us around from port to port sniffing our sternpipe like a lost Schnauzer.
Also in the back seats were a couple from Massachusetts who seemed educationally sub normal despite being about to celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary. He read aloud every sign we passed, however banal, including ‘Kentucky Fried Chicken’ which seemed to crop up half a dozen times. Perhaps she was illiterate. He also had completely evenly brown teeth which is something you don’t see often, certainly not in States where they put fluoride in the water.
What we saw of Barbados, at least as guided by our driver, was a series of houses built for low-income workers, a glimpse of the deserted Sandy Lane Hotel and Country Club where a pugnacious waitress tried to throw us out, a couple of distant views of coastline, and a ride through the scary downtown centre of Bridgetown where I would certainly not want to stroll after nightfall. Although we’d been offered the option of visiting the beach, we all came back to the ship for lunch and a bit of less traumatic sunbathing.
St. Lucia tomorrow. Must get up and just go to beach, bugger the tours of the island.
RUBBER RING
SUNDAY DECEMBER 28, St. George’s, Grenada
I sleep VERY badly. Something ‘important’ keeps waking me and I have the overwhelming impression I have forgotten to do something vital, something for which a large number of other people are also depending on me. This happens three or four times and in the middle of the night I even find a pen and paper to write down what I think is the solution to this pressing problem. In the morning I find I’ve written ‘Griffin’ and ‘McGiffen’ which makes no sense whatever.
So I’m fairly thick-headed when I drag myself out of bed at 8am and open the curtains to see Grenada where I’m scheduled to go River Tubing. Actually, it’s a lot of fun if not very challenging as we are bussed to one of the highest points of the island and a dozen funny and friendly local guys load us into our bright yellow inflated inner-tubes for a sort of theme park ride down the very gentle bubbles of the local Balthazar River. The water’s quite low, and most of us are above average weight, so there’s a lot of chances for them to dislodge us from the rocks. One suburnt tattooed and fat idiot from the Midwest keeps falling in but as the river’s barely three feet deep there’s unfortunately no damage apart from the sight of his flabby white butt cleft when at one moment he loses his baggy shorts.
Grenada’s much nicer than I remember it from seven years ago when I stayed for two weeks. For a country of only 300,000 population, independent from Britain now for 35 years, I’m surprised how it survives and maintains a sizeable international airport, three hospitals and a University with medical, veterinary and academic faculties - and has managed to rebuild substantially after the 2004 Hurricane Ivan devastated much of the island. I’m puzzled how many students the University can have, even if 5% of the total population go that would only be about 500 eligible 18-21 year olds at any one time.
Again, the soft option is an afternoon on deck and in the best sunshine we’ve had so far I take advantage of it including a bit of swimming but my shoulder (what I think is a rotator cuff injury, but only from internet diagnosis rather than seeing a real doctor) is a bit painful and I have to float instead.
To ease my shoulder a bit I use one of the Jacuzzis at the back of deck 8, and am soon joined my another man about my age wearing what look like swim shorts but as he squats on the edge of the tub, I see it’s actually constructed like a skirt with no divider or leg holes and I therefore have a clear view of his personal equipment aimed at me like a small, but visibly loaded, cannon. I get out.
This evening 16 of us are booked in the ‘posh’ a la carte restaurant Todd English, apparently a famous chef in his native Boston and popular on US television, but I can see why Cunard are romancing Gordon Ramsay to give his global branded blessing to the signature restaurant on their newest ship.
David does the dividing of the group and claims for his table the three ‘birthday boys’ from Philadelphia, dapper and totally lovely Hal who is amazingly 83 but looks about 60. Fred, the elder of the ‘couple’ who turns 59 today and his puckish partner Chris who will be 36 in two days. Akjan and I are at the ‘other’ table but are delighted because we’ve got the naughtier group including the wickedly sardonic ‘Jersey Boys’ Louis and George, and the fun couple from Le Meridien in Montreal, Daniel and Marc, as well as the power lesbians.
Fred and Chris disturb me. Anyone who knows me will be aware I have had no fear of cross-generational relationships since there’s more than thirty years between me and Sam, but the body language and actual language between these two is unnerving. I’m pleased to learn from power lesbian psychologist Bianca that it disturbs her, too.
Whenever you have a conversation with Chris, say mentioning what a pleasant day it is, he’ll involve the topic of his partnership, as in “yes, what a lovely day to spend ashore with my gorgeous husband”. They are forever touching and kissing each other like newlyweds, or at least Chris is since it’s 90% his initiation and Fred, I think, indulges him. I’m sure he’s a product of a broken or abused home and is overcompensating with the need for constant reassurance and validation, but he’d be a happier homo if he could just relax and enjoy what seems a stable and mutually committed relationship approaching its third anniversary, rather than make such a twitchy feature of his attachment.
There's conjecture about which came first, Chris’s constant reiterations of his devotion to Fred, or Fred’s multi-million dollar sale of the ambulance business he used to own, but that’s just me being a cynical old witch. Well, me, David, Akjan, George, Louis, Bianca, Sue, Daniel and at least a couple of the Bobs so that’s a cynical old coven really.
Apparently it happened long before they met, but that doesn't spoil a good gossip.
In the champagne bar afterwards Mel, the elderly Jewish yenta, flirts with the undeniably gorgeous and totally fey gay Hungarian barman Csada, whom he has apparently also waylaid on the streets of Brooklyn during Csada’s days off ashore. I make a mental note to talk to Mel some time about what fills his life apart from cruising, booking cruises and mentally undressing the hired help.
I have the recurrent bad dream again, waking several times with the pressure of the uncompleted task. The third time is about 5.30 when I’m so convinced I’ve remembered accurately what it is and what I have to do about it in the morning that I go calmly back to sleep.
Of course when I wake for real at 8, I’ve completely forgotten it.
I sleep VERY badly. Something ‘important’ keeps waking me and I have the overwhelming impression I have forgotten to do something vital, something for which a large number of other people are also depending on me. This happens three or four times and in the middle of the night I even find a pen and paper to write down what I think is the solution to this pressing problem. In the morning I find I’ve written ‘Griffin’ and ‘McGiffen’ which makes no sense whatever.
So I’m fairly thick-headed when I drag myself out of bed at 8am and open the curtains to see Grenada where I’m scheduled to go River Tubing. Actually, it’s a lot of fun if not very challenging as we are bussed to one of the highest points of the island and a dozen funny and friendly local guys load us into our bright yellow inflated inner-tubes for a sort of theme park ride down the very gentle bubbles of the local Balthazar River. The water’s quite low, and most of us are above average weight, so there’s a lot of chances for them to dislodge us from the rocks. One suburnt tattooed and fat idiot from the Midwest keeps falling in but as the river’s barely three feet deep there’s unfortunately no damage apart from the sight of his flabby white butt cleft when at one moment he loses his baggy shorts.
Grenada’s much nicer than I remember it from seven years ago when I stayed for two weeks. For a country of only 300,000 population, independent from Britain now for 35 years, I’m surprised how it survives and maintains a sizeable international airport, three hospitals and a University with medical, veterinary and academic faculties - and has managed to rebuild substantially after the 2004 Hurricane Ivan devastated much of the island. I’m puzzled how many students the University can have, even if 5% of the total population go that would only be about 500 eligible 18-21 year olds at any one time.
Again, the soft option is an afternoon on deck and in the best sunshine we’ve had so far I take advantage of it including a bit of swimming but my shoulder (what I think is a rotator cuff injury, but only from internet diagnosis rather than seeing a real doctor) is a bit painful and I have to float instead.
To ease my shoulder a bit I use one of the Jacuzzis at the back of deck 8, and am soon joined my another man about my age wearing what look like swim shorts but as he squats on the edge of the tub, I see it’s actually constructed like a skirt with no divider or leg holes and I therefore have a clear view of his personal equipment aimed at me like a small, but visibly loaded, cannon. I get out.
This evening 16 of us are booked in the ‘posh’ a la carte restaurant Todd English, apparently a famous chef in his native Boston and popular on US television, but I can see why Cunard are romancing Gordon Ramsay to give his global branded blessing to the signature restaurant on their newest ship.
David does the dividing of the group and claims for his table the three ‘birthday boys’ from Philadelphia, dapper and totally lovely Hal who is amazingly 83 but looks about 60. Fred, the elder of the ‘couple’ who turns 59 today and his puckish partner Chris who will be 36 in two days. Akjan and I are at the ‘other’ table but are delighted because we’ve got the naughtier group including the wickedly sardonic ‘Jersey Boys’ Louis and George, and the fun couple from Le Meridien in Montreal, Daniel and Marc, as well as the power lesbians.
Fred and Chris disturb me. Anyone who knows me will be aware I have had no fear of cross-generational relationships since there’s more than thirty years between me and Sam, but the body language and actual language between these two is unnerving. I’m pleased to learn from power lesbian psychologist Bianca that it disturbs her, too.
Whenever you have a conversation with Chris, say mentioning what a pleasant day it is, he’ll involve the topic of his partnership, as in “yes, what a lovely day to spend ashore with my gorgeous husband”. They are forever touching and kissing each other like newlyweds, or at least Chris is since it’s 90% his initiation and Fred, I think, indulges him. I’m sure he’s a product of a broken or abused home and is overcompensating with the need for constant reassurance and validation, but he’d be a happier homo if he could just relax and enjoy what seems a stable and mutually committed relationship approaching its third anniversary, rather than make such a twitchy feature of his attachment.
There's conjecture about which came first, Chris’s constant reiterations of his devotion to Fred, or Fred’s multi-million dollar sale of the ambulance business he used to own, but that’s just me being a cynical old witch. Well, me, David, Akjan, George, Louis, Bianca, Sue, Daniel and at least a couple of the Bobs so that’s a cynical old coven really.
Apparently it happened long before they met, but that doesn't spoil a good gossip.
In the champagne bar afterwards Mel, the elderly Jewish yenta, flirts with the undeniably gorgeous and totally fey gay Hungarian barman Csada, whom he has apparently also waylaid on the streets of Brooklyn during Csada’s days off ashore. I make a mental note to talk to Mel some time about what fills his life apart from cruising, booking cruises and mentally undressing the hired help.
I have the recurrent bad dream again, waking several times with the pressure of the uncompleted task. The third time is about 5.30 when I’m so convinced I’ve remembered accurately what it is and what I have to do about it in the morning that I go calmly back to sleep.
Of course when I wake for real at 8, I’ve completely forgotten it.
BOXING DAY
Saturday December 26, Willemstad
We park, or moor, or whatever it’s called in Curacao on the Southern edge of the Caribbean and barely 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela. I’m quite early off the ship, again hoping for an internet cafe but the one I find is locked and barred and, bizarrely, also labelled the Colombian Embassy.
Instead I take a sightseeing tour being touted for $15 (and therefore about a quarter what the ship charges for something similar) and several of our gang are also signed up so it’s a nice ride round the colourful Dutch houses of Willemstad, and on to the highlands and a view of the ‘other’ side of the island known as Spanish Water. Our guide is informative and we get lots of facts and figures about the Curacao taxation, education, judicial, government and political system none of which I retained long enough to repeat here except that tax is a flat 5%, so heaven knows how they run a country on it – must be subsidies from the Dutch government keep it afloat.
There’s a little sales break at a Curacao liqueur distillery (although with just one stainless steel vat it’s about as much a working distillery as my back bedroom) and a couple of photo opportunities before I’m happy to return to the ship and an afternoon in the sun. We weigh anchor (see, I’m picking up the jargon) about 2pm and it’s just so pleasant to sit by the rail and hear the sea splosh past and feel the breeze from the movement of the ship.
To be honest, I don’t need ports.
We park, or moor, or whatever it’s called in Curacao on the Southern edge of the Caribbean and barely 50 miles off the coast of Venezuela. I’m quite early off the ship, again hoping for an internet cafe but the one I find is locked and barred and, bizarrely, also labelled the Colombian Embassy.
Instead I take a sightseeing tour being touted for $15 (and therefore about a quarter what the ship charges for something similar) and several of our gang are also signed up so it’s a nice ride round the colourful Dutch houses of Willemstad, and on to the highlands and a view of the ‘other’ side of the island known as Spanish Water. Our guide is informative and we get lots of facts and figures about the Curacao taxation, education, judicial, government and political system none of which I retained long enough to repeat here except that tax is a flat 5%, so heaven knows how they run a country on it – must be subsidies from the Dutch government keep it afloat.
There’s a little sales break at a Curacao liqueur distillery (although with just one stainless steel vat it’s about as much a working distillery as my back bedroom) and a couple of photo opportunities before I’m happy to return to the ship and an afternoon in the sun. We weigh anchor (see, I’m picking up the jargon) about 2pm and it’s just so pleasant to sit by the rail and hear the sea splosh past and feel the breeze from the movement of the ship.
To be honest, I don’t need ports.
THE QUEEN’S SPEECH
CHRISTMAS DAY
Friday 25 December, at sea
Up quite early and down to help marshal the group for our big breakfast – we’ve managed to gather 28 participants and I need to do quite a bit of traffic management to ensure that people sit at tables where they’ll get along with their neighbours, for example ensuring the Chinese guys who speak little English get some Canadians with whom they can chat in French. Only about four of us opt for a glass of champagne but my morning is considerably brightened by the Perrier Jouet and the fact that we have our two favourite serving staff – Giorgy and the very beautiful Maya who everyone keeps saying should be promoted from stewardess to waitress. It’s a terribly layered hierarchy in the restaurant, there seem to be about seven tiers of job title.
A few circuits of the walking deck and it’s time for the Queen’s Christmas Message, scheduled for 12.20pm. The start of the broadcast is badly damaged by the clod who is the captain of this tugboat broadcasting his position and weather announcements over the first few minutes of the Queen. He cuts off very abruptly, presumably because someone got to to him to tell him there’d be a mutiny if he didn’t shut the fuck up. He’s arse-numbingly boring at the best of times, but this gaffe could have got him lynched.
Actually, Her Maj wasn’t on top form and I didn’t think it was one of her greatest hits. Lots about the Commonwealth as usual, including how she’s convinced it’s so relevant to young people. Perhaps she should chat a bit more to those in the UK rather than the lickspittles she’s introduced to in staged walkabouts on a state visit to Umbongo.
We have to bring forward our nightly cocktail party to 6pm because at 7 it’s the ‘spectactular’ Christmas Concert in the Royal Court Theatre. Perhaps because I’ve performed in quite a few Christmas Concerts, I can see the cracks in this one and whilst the costumes and production values are good, the singing’s a bit ragged and the programme has a hastily-assembled end-of-term feel about it combining some performed items with the audience standing to sing O Come All Ye Faithful, Edwina Currie fluffing her lines in ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and an absolutely excruciating downshifted and high-note-excised version of ‘O Holy Night’ on dry ice and hydraulic platforms.
The Entertainments Director introduces the “orchestra” for instrumental variations on ‘We Three Kings’ but it’s so brassy, discordant and out of time that it’s obvious these are random musicians culled from pit bands rather than the Royal Philharmonic, and most of them peer so desperately at the sheet music it’s clear they’ve had insufficient rehearsal together. Having a conductor might have helped, too.
But again the audience love it, so it must be just me.
And so to Christmas Dinner, where the options of course include Turkey and Christmas Pudding which are banqueting-standard but at least I didn’t have to make them myself. No sprouts, though, shame. Our ‘Secret Santa’ presents are distributed and everyone’s made a great effort. There are some hilarious but tacky t-shirts with slogans, a pack of pornographic playing cards, and a mint-chocolate flavour oral anaesthetic for people who have difficulty deep-throating, although no-one at the table admits to needing it. I’m relieved and pleased to get a rather lovely mug with maps and motifs of the Caribbean which I’ll certainly carry home. But it was all good fun, and the surrounding tables look a bit envious which is always a bonus.
As usual, we’re among the last to leave the Britannia Restaurant and emerge to find the corridors choked with people, as the chefs unveil their massive midnight buffet featuring ice sculptures and vegetables, fruit, fish and cake which have been carved, teased and tweaked into semblances of flowers, birds and cornucopia. Can’t see the point, really, since the second sitting has just eaten, so only the terminally greedy and those who dined at 6pm are even remotely hungry. But there are plenty of people piling their plates as I pass by on my way to bed.
Friday 25 December, at sea
Up quite early and down to help marshal the group for our big breakfast – we’ve managed to gather 28 participants and I need to do quite a bit of traffic management to ensure that people sit at tables where they’ll get along with their neighbours, for example ensuring the Chinese guys who speak little English get some Canadians with whom they can chat in French. Only about four of us opt for a glass of champagne but my morning is considerably brightened by the Perrier Jouet and the fact that we have our two favourite serving staff – Giorgy and the very beautiful Maya who everyone keeps saying should be promoted from stewardess to waitress. It’s a terribly layered hierarchy in the restaurant, there seem to be about seven tiers of job title.
A few circuits of the walking deck and it’s time for the Queen’s Christmas Message, scheduled for 12.20pm. The start of the broadcast is badly damaged by the clod who is the captain of this tugboat broadcasting his position and weather announcements over the first few minutes of the Queen. He cuts off very abruptly, presumably because someone got to to him to tell him there’d be a mutiny if he didn’t shut the fuck up. He’s arse-numbingly boring at the best of times, but this gaffe could have got him lynched.
Actually, Her Maj wasn’t on top form and I didn’t think it was one of her greatest hits. Lots about the Commonwealth as usual, including how she’s convinced it’s so relevant to young people. Perhaps she should chat a bit more to those in the UK rather than the lickspittles she’s introduced to in staged walkabouts on a state visit to Umbongo.
We have to bring forward our nightly cocktail party to 6pm because at 7 it’s the ‘spectactular’ Christmas Concert in the Royal Court Theatre. Perhaps because I’ve performed in quite a few Christmas Concerts, I can see the cracks in this one and whilst the costumes and production values are good, the singing’s a bit ragged and the programme has a hastily-assembled end-of-term feel about it combining some performed items with the audience standing to sing O Come All Ye Faithful, Edwina Currie fluffing her lines in ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, and an absolutely excruciating downshifted and high-note-excised version of ‘O Holy Night’ on dry ice and hydraulic platforms.
The Entertainments Director introduces the “orchestra” for instrumental variations on ‘We Three Kings’ but it’s so brassy, discordant and out of time that it’s obvious these are random musicians culled from pit bands rather than the Royal Philharmonic, and most of them peer so desperately at the sheet music it’s clear they’ve had insufficient rehearsal together. Having a conductor might have helped, too.
But again the audience love it, so it must be just me.
And so to Christmas Dinner, where the options of course include Turkey and Christmas Pudding which are banqueting-standard but at least I didn’t have to make them myself. No sprouts, though, shame. Our ‘Secret Santa’ presents are distributed and everyone’s made a great effort. There are some hilarious but tacky t-shirts with slogans, a pack of pornographic playing cards, and a mint-chocolate flavour oral anaesthetic for people who have difficulty deep-throating, although no-one at the table admits to needing it. I’m relieved and pleased to get a rather lovely mug with maps and motifs of the Caribbean which I’ll certainly carry home. But it was all good fun, and the surrounding tables look a bit envious which is always a bonus.
As usual, we’re among the last to leave the Britannia Restaurant and emerge to find the corridors choked with people, as the chefs unveil their massive midnight buffet featuring ice sculptures and vegetables, fruit, fish and cake which have been carved, teased and tweaked into semblances of flowers, birds and cornucopia. Can’t see the point, really, since the second sitting has just eaten, so only the terminally greedy and those who dined at 6pm are even remotely hungry. But there are plenty of people piling their plates as I pass by on my way to bed.
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