I originally requested any segment on the QM2 2026 world cruise, thinking maybe East Coast USA to Hawaii or something like that, but I was offered Southampton to New York. When I queried it with Sharon in the office, she said I could have Cape Town to Southampton instead, so they perhaps select local speakers for each segment which would make sense. Anyway I went for the shorter plane ride: it’s 13 hours to Cape Town.
So a well travelled route: TOPS took me to Ouistreham, ferry to Portsmouth, overnight there before taxi to the ship with the usual expression of incredulity from the Polish taxi driver that people go to psychology talks on cruise ships. It was fairly chaotic at the passenger terminal but I was pushed through the priority lane and was on the ship within 20 minutes – a record. Nice cabin again, and a list of all the talks from the Ents team on board. Excellent. The other speakers are a geologist who specialises in meteorites, a retired airline pilot, a retired photojournalist and an architect from New York. We have to go to a sound check as usual, and thank goodness Daniel the technical genius is still here: I upgraded the operating system on my Mac and the movies don’t run properly but he sorts it out (by crossing his fingers, but it works). I need to speak to the pilot as I’m doing disasters but he doesn’t show.
I have the first day free but I get an invite to be interviewed that afternoon by the Entertainment Director for the morning show next day. This will be interesting as Amanda Reid has retired (and I suspect had to be dragged off the ship – she’d confided on my last trip she wasn’t looking forward to retirement) and Tommi Baxter-Hill has taken over. I met him on Victoria last year and he’s very different to Amanda. Anyway, I go down to the studio at the time specified and Tommi looks up and says “Who are you? You’re not Professor Sanders.” I assured him I was, but he shows me the photograph in the programme for the next day – and it’s not me and neither of us has a clue who it is, but we’re able to busk the interview around the fact the first talk is about visual illusions. Tommi’s initial question was based on the first phrase in my bio: “So you were a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry?” Yes, 56 years ago…
I need to find out what’s happened about the photograph. About two weeks before the crossing, I took out the planned brain talk because the projector in Illuminations is past its best and won’t cope with the diagrams. The onboard team then deleted the original document I’d submitted but in doing so also deleted my photographs, so decided to google “Professor David Sanders” as I was still en route to the ship and the first one to come up (as he had his name in his URL) was a gastroenterologist from Sheffield – they downloaded and used his photograph. I imagine his shipboard lectures would have been a bit different.
I go to the geologist’s first talk – and she’s excellent: enthusiastic about her subject and well rehearsed and she’s only about 12. I try to talk to the pilot about overlap but he doesn’t seem bothered so I’ll just do my talk. He’s a bit of an ad libber. The architect knows his stuff – TOPS would appreciate his talks about New York mansions including the Frick.
For my first talk I’m introduced by Tommi’s deputy, who’s very enthusiastic, and warms the audience up nicely with a joke about the photograph. Thank goodness there is an audience – I’ve got the 1215 lunchtime slot – but the talk goes well with lots of laughs and even some applause in the middle. The world tour audience is a bit different I think.
The rest of the talks go well too – the disaster one went OK and one of the guests is a pilot who was very complimentary. Interestingly, the pilot speaker spent the first ten minutes of his next talk adding some (irrelevant) details to my analysis of the Tenerife disaster. I thought he would. The geologist, the architect and I get on OK and have drinks together a couple of times, which is unusual but welcome.
I spend most of the downtime reading, but make a point of going to the Mark Hodgson Trio jazz sessions – he remembers me from last year and is very friendly. Embarrassingly several of the waiters also remember me including one from two years ago, but pleasingly my mate the assistant maître d’ is on board and makes sure I’m looked after in the dining room.
I don’t see the pilot speaker around the ship but occasionally bump into the photojournalist and his wife – I must confess to being a bit miffed when he was moved into the theatre after complaining that the Illuminations projector wasn’t good enough for his photographs. I did have a little smile at the start of his interview with Tommi on the morning show though – Tommi used the same tactic as he did with me: “So you started your career in 1963?”, and got the reply “Yes”. Full stop.
On the penultimate day the deputy Ents director bumped into me and told me he’d just sent off my report to the office and he thought I was the best speaker he’d ever heard! All to do with the jokes and not the psychology, but I’ll take that.
Last morning – off at 0745 and onto the coach to Newark where I’ve got a 9 hour wait for the plane. No lounge landside, no bag drop for 7 hours, nowhere to sit apart from a bar with a very grumpy server who produces the most disgusting club sandwich I’ve ever seen in my life. But once on the plane, it’s not too bad. I’ve paid for an exit row seat and the middle seat is empty. Quickly through CDG – well it is before 6 am – and get a taxi to Montparnasse: a beaten up Toyota with a splendid French driver in his 60s who has one hand on the horn and his foot on the floor. Quite exhilarating going round the place Charles-de-Gaulle as we must now call it. Another long wait at Montparnasse but I manage to switch to an earlier train for €17 so back at Vire by 1330 and collected by TOPS. This time the dishwasher’s knackered. Something always happens when I’m away…Queen Victoria to the Caribbean next month as we’ve cancelled next week’s trip to the Falklands. Wonder what’ll break then…
thehairypsychologist 