Author: thehairypsychologist

TOPS had decided she wanted to join me on this cruise, so we took the car across to Blighty so we could do a big shop on the way back.  It’s certainly a lot easier than being a foot passenger on the ferry and having to lug your luggage (is that where the verb comes from?) up the ramps.  No problems and in time for a couple of drinks at the hotel in Portsmouth that evening.  Next day, drop the car off next to the ship and all goes very smoothly – quickly on board, decent cabin, instructions waiting.  They only want three talks though so I’ll have to find something to occupy me in between visiting Trondheim, Tromso, Alesund and Hamburg.

The other speakers are an astrophysicist, a r etired detective, and a woman who I can’t really understand what she’s talking about – I think she’s writer but her first talk is about trolls. The astrophysicist clearly knows his stuff but there’s a lot on his slides and the projector in the theatre has seen better days – TOPS later said my slides were difficult to see properly.  The detective’s introductory line is “Hello hello hello” and then he says it again, encouraging the audience to reply.  Mmm.

We’ve been to Norway a few times now and still haven’t seen the Aurora. Some people told us they had seen them at 0300 in the morning from the top deck. I suppose we spend too much time in the Commodore Club.

Actually, the reason TOPS came was because it was our twentieth wedding anniversary so we lashed out on a posh dinner and a bottle of champagne.  The maitre d’ remembered us and cleared the adjacent table – nice man. I think if we’d stayed in Durham we’d probably have made a few quid from the pub sweepstake on how long it would last.  The longest estimate was eighteen months, but these were the same people who’d bet I’d be thrown off the ship at the first stop on my maiden cruise back in 2013.  She also was keen to visit Hamburg so it was a bit of a disappointment that because of a delay due to a medevac the Captain cancelled Hamburg and replaced it with Bremerhaven.

As usual, speakers were asked to do a Q&A with guests towards the end of the cruise, this time in pairs.  I was with the astrophysicist so we agreed to do 22.5 minutes each.  No problem.  Next day it was the other two speakers so we went along to find about a dozen people sitting in a circle and the detective had started before the scheduled time.  Most of the group were male and either ex-police or emergency services: all felt the need to share what their job had been.  After about half an hour, TOPS tried to ask the author a question but the reply was basically shouted down by other people more interested in telling everyone about their job.  She was furious and we left.  With no Ents staff there you do need to manage things carefully. 

Anyway, we got back to Southampton, did a shop at Costco, and got the overnight back.  This was over a month ago but there is a reason for the delay…on Day 3 I was walking along a passageway when a man approaching me sneezed rather athletically and I walked into a cloud of viral debris.  Sure enough, I got ill and still feel pretty poorly.  TOPS tested positive for Covid a few days after we got back so I must have had it before then.  It goes without saying that you have to be careful about personal hygiene on cruise ships, especially at this time of year.  For my last talk there were about 400 in the audience and lots were coughing….  I understand that in recent weeks the Captains have included a reminder in their midday address from the bridge.

Anyway, I’m back on QM2 for a transatlantic in January – methinks I’ll take some masks and hand sanitiser – there won’t be many on the sun deck. Later in the year I’ve got a mystery cruise on Saga from Southampton. Hope it’s not going to North Shields.

My fellow speaker and music journalist Andy Hughes passed on to me the contact details for the agency that deals with Saga cruises, so on the grounds that shy bairns get nowt I emailed the lady concerned enquiring if I could be considered as a guest speaker.  She replied immediately asking for titles and then quickly offered me a ‘trial cruise’ from Dover to Barcelona.  Dover’s quite difficult to get to from here, so I was then offered Portsmouth to Gibraltar: three sea days.  Astonishingly Saga offer speakers a balcony cabin if the ship’s not full, everything on board is included (even wine) and the offer includes transport to/from the nearest airport, in my case Rennes.  Amazing.  And all sorted within a fortnight of my request.

However, I was a little surprised to find out that the agency only issues the paperwork the week before sailing, and it turned out that it wasn’t possible to get from Gibraltar to Rennes in a day, so I’d have to overnight in Paris and get myself home from there.  Because it was so late, the hotel at CDG was €300 and the train fare home €75 instead of the usual €30!  Given I had to get to Portsmouth and overnight there as well to board the ship, this was turning out the be the most expensive (and shortest) cruise I’d ever done.  But, as TOPS pointed out, it was an investment.  So long as I don’t make a mess of it…

A pretty smooth crossing and taxi to the hotel in Portsmouth and next morning another taxi to the ship, sailing from the same terminal Brittany Ferries use.  The taxi driver expressed his complete astonishment that I was going to give psychology lectures on a cruise ship but I’m used to that now, even though he nearly hit a bus because he was laughing so much.

A very smooth embarkation – no waiting at all to check in although the lady who checked me in expressed her complete astonishment that I was going to give psychology lectures on a cruise ship.  She did, however, say I had been allocated a lovely cabin on the sun deck.  Once on board I was directed to the Grill as the cabins were still being prepared – as soon as I sat down a waiter offered me a glass of wine, and shortly after that I was cheerily greeted by a gentleman whom I now know to be called Mr Motivator. 

After an hour I thought I’d check out the cabin – at least I should be able to drop my bag off.  But it was all ready, and the check-in lady was right: best cabin I’ve ever had – huge, with a balcony and a proper shower with a door rather than a curtain.  But one small problem – nothing from the onboard team about when I’m on and I’ve no idea where the Ents office is.  There’s just a letter saying turn up 45 minutes before the first presentation for the sound check.  And I should eat in the Grill.

So I go off to explore the ship – it’s pretty new (first cruise was after the pandemic), small and very well appointed.  It doesn’t take long to get my bearings: Grill, lounge, bars and theatre.  Every time I stop someone asks if I’d like a drink.  Back to the cabin and the steward introduces himself and tells me the next day’s programme will be delivered about 1800 hrs.  And it was – and I’m on at 1400 the next day.

There’s a destination talk in the morning so I go along to see what the set-up is like – it’s a huge LED screen covering the back wall. The destination speaker has clearly been doing the job for years but I don’t stay apart from introducing myself to the technician who is very pleasant.  Back at 1315 to set up – the technician is having a problem getting my Mac to talk to the LED screen so he calls his boss while I panic but between them they sort it out with 15 minutes to spare.  The Cruise Director introduces me and the theatre is about half full when I start but the audience seems very appreciative – especially when I get them to hallucinate.  The other speaker is on after me – a social historian apparently – and his audience is about the same size.  I don’t stay for his presentation about the Vikings as I need to chill a bit.  Lots of compliments from guests in the Grill that night.

I finally get sent a copy of the programme and it turns out I missed a meeting when I got on board.  Because I didn’t know there was a meeting…. Anyway, the steward suggests there had probably been a late cancellation by a guest and they switched me to the posh cabin but forgot to tell the Ents team who left the documentation in my originally assigned cabin.  Whatever the reason, I don’t think I’ve given a great original impression but I do finally get the phone number of the Deputy Cruise Director who reassures me and even apologises for the mix-up.  Phew.

The second talk is the brain one and the audience is a bit bigger but a bit subdued.  However, there are more positive comments afterwards, and several people said it was ‘thought provoking’. The other speaker invites me for a coffee so he can tell me all about his Saga experience.  He’s a very confident sort of chap.  BBC trained.

Last talk is the eye-witness one and the theatre’s nearly full.  Just before I start the technician hands me his phone – it’s the Cruise Director telling me he can’t make it but that’s not a problem really as the technician simply flashes the lights off-stage to tell me when to walk on.  Lots of applause at the end as they know I’m getting off and the CD had told them it was my first Saga trip.  The other speaker is waiting for me so I have a coffee with him – he tells me, inter alia, that guests fill in feedback forms at the end of the cruise and all the entertainers are listed.  Then these 900 odd forms go to the office in London and analysed, so it’ll be some time before results are in.  He does tell me though that he thinks I was good enough to be invited back…

Off to Gibraltar airport in a taxi with the Everley Brothers tribute duo – I caught their act in the lounge one night: they are very good, and pleasant young men.  Ricardo’s eyes are wide open as he asks me what life was like in the 1960s.  Mmm.

Flight to Heathrow was OK, a bit of a rush to connect but eventually found my expensive hotel at CDG.  Breakfast next morning was precisely priced at €41 before the concierge called me a taxi to Montparnasse.  The train started on time but was delayed part way when a passenger was taken ill at Verneuil-sur-Avre.  SNCF kept sending me text messages to tell me what was happening – you don’t get that on LNER.

Two weeks later I get an email asking me to do another Saga in January – I can’t because I’m booked but the agent follows up by asking when I am available in 2026.  Seems some feedback got through?  If it did that is a big result, so thanks to Andy for the tip.  I could get to like Saga cruises very quickly indeed.

First and only P&O cruise this year – TOPS isn’t coming after the experience living under Aurora’s galley last year.  Another bit of a complicated journey to join Arcadia in Reykjavik: drive to Vire, train to Paris Montparnasse, taxi to CDG, flight to Reykjavik, collected there and taken to hotel, overnight hotel, collected next morning and taxi to ship.  So many ways that could fall apart, starting with the train from Vire as there’ve been strikes recently.

But it all goes to plan – P&O organise travel well.  The flight was a bit tiresome: three and a half hours surrounded by very excited French teenagers who shouted at each other the whole time on their way to do some work with Icelandic kids I think.  Interesting taxi driver who wonders why people want to go to psychology lectures on their holidays – he’s not alone – and a bit of a discloser about his various marriages and girl friends before he drops me off at a 4 star Hilton.  Well this should be OK.  Restaurant is full so I go to the bar and discover a bottle of Pinot Grigio is €85, so I settle for a club sandwich (horrid) and two small beers.  €70. 

Airless hot room so no sleep but up for breakfast and meet the other speaker – IT for older people – and his wife.  We’re on time for the taxi but the driver is expecting five so we wait for half an hour until two musicians appear – they’d been given the wrong time.  Happily, they were expecting us at the ship (occasionally I’m a complete surprise) and I eventually find my entertainer’s cabin (I still can’t get used to being classed as an ‘entertainer’) – a bit gloomy but OK apart from the fact two people would be a squeeze – good job TOPS didn’t come.  No sign of anything from the Ents Office, so old lag that I am I go down there to be welcomed by the Ents Manager Leon whom I haven’t seen for years.  He gives me some info and apologises as the speakers can’t use the theatre because there’s a new Headliners troupe being trained.  We have to use the Globe – essentially the night club.  Oh dear, I suspect this won’t end well.  I’m guessing only about 150 people will be able to see the screen – and the first talk is visual illusions.

Several Icelandic ports before the first sea day, one of which is Isafjordur, the only one that I’m really interested in because it’s where the pedestrian crossing in my first talk is.  I can’t find it which is odd in a tiny town (pop. 2600) so I ask the lady in the souvenir shop who tells me where it is and adds that I’ll be disappointed.  And I was – it’s been partly rubbed away by traffic. 

Það er lífið, as they say in Iceland.  Weird alphabet but they’re all taught English at school.  Just as well really.  I’m not bothered about the other ports in Iceland and I don’t ask to be a tour escort, so I get on with the book.

First sea day, first talk, and yes, the Globe is rammed and lots of people can’t get in. 

It does seem a bit odd, training a new lot of Headliners on a cold weather cruise with plenty of sea days – it would have been better to wait for a sun-seekers cruise when lots of guests are up on the seal colony sun deck.  Maybe TOPS could do a Planning and Control consultancy for them – she used to teach Business students.  It’s probably a nightmare balancing everyone’s contracts though. Part of the problem with the Globe is that the seats form a semi-circle and the people at the ends can’t see the screen anyway.  Nor can I as I’m standing behind it.  Still the talk seemed to go well. 

Not much sleep that night as something had come loose on the side of the ship and was banging every second or so.  I finally went down to Reception at midnight but they said they were aware of the problem…it stopped about 0400 so someone must have had an interesting night fixing whatever it was.

Second talk was OK but still rammed.  They brought in extra chairs but it didn’t make much difference – lots of people say they’ll complain but Leon says it’s out of his hands.  Part of the problem is that they’re still doing ‘Port Talks’ in the theatre at 0930 which is winding up a few of the guests who can’t get into the talks. 

I drop into the pub that night and hear an acoustic duo – ‘Lexandlou’ – which isn’t normally my cup of tea, but they are excellent.  She’s got a brilliant voice and his guitar work is superb.  At one point I was disappointed as I thought they were using a backing track, but no, she had a bass drum pedal and was thumping the stage with her right foot.  For one song she was doing that while clapping alternate beats and singing at the same time.  I had a chat with them – she sounded just south of the Tyne and sure enough she’s from Washington.  Really nice relaxed couple.  They should be in the theatre too.

On to Norway and rather gloomy weather but at least I got another certificate to prove I’d crossed the Arctic Circle.  We’ll get another in November on QM2. 

The special guest speaker for the last two sea days was some bloke from The One Show. He was in the theatre! One irate lady tackled me before my last talk to ask if I’d been offered the theatre and declined. When I replied that I hadn’t been offered the theatre, she just said “Right, it was half empty” and stormed off. No time to warn Leon… Turns out this situation crops up every time the cast changes – they can rehearse in Blighty but the ships all have different stages so I guess it’s an Elf and Safety issue. Unfortunate, but I gather Leon is speaking to unhappy guests one to one.

Paul Stickler was going to meet me at Southampton for a quick catch up before the ferry but he contacted me the day before to say he couldn’t make it.  Pity – we haven’t done a double act this year.  Anyway I got off the ship quicker than predicted but had to search for my bags for ages as I’d been on deck F which the stevedores said didn’t exist.  Managed to get a taxi to the ferry in Portsmouth and the pleasant woman at check-in squeezed me on to an earlier crossing with five minutes to spare.  A longer drive for TOPS to Cherbourg but at least we’ll be home by 2000 rather than midnight.  Something serious seems to happen when I’m away – this time it seems our terrace has to be completely rebuilt rather than just grouted – twelve days work instead of three and a big bill.  Oh well, Það er lífið.

Almost six months since the last cruise as I’d had to cancel one pending some fairly hefty dental surgery, so I felt a bit out of practice and slightly nervous about my maiden voyage on Queen Victoria from Rome to Barcelona via Trieste.  However, The Other Professor Sanders liked the look of some of the Adriatic ports so decided to accompany me, and we chose to drive down to Nantes airport rather than fly to Rome from Paris as the hotels at CDG are so pricey.  Abi at Cunard was happy for me to arrange the flights – budget airlines both ways with the bags costing more to transport than the people.  Turned out to be a bit of a mistake really – Nantes isn’t a very nice airport to spend time in.  You get what you pay for, I suppose.

Things surprisingly improved when we boarded the Easyjet flight as a couple with a child needed our seats for some reason and the purser moved us up to Row One.  Result.  I’d booked a taxi to Civitavecchia and the driver got us there within the hour where we stayed at a little hotel in a back street – very welcoming manager who sat us down with an Aperol spritz and went over a map of the town with us before booking a cab to the ship next morning.  Excellent.

Priority boarding worked well after a short wait with some Americans who apologised for their president and we found our cabin stateroom on deck 4, one of a block reserved for “entertainers” with a lifeboat in the window.  Turned out to be directly above the Queen’s Room so a bit noisy apart from silent disco nights.  There was a letter waiting from the entertainment team detailing times of talks and a sound check so that was a bit of a relief after my last experience on QM2 – four sea days, four talks.  Celebrity speaker in week one was Paul McKenna, ‘hypnotist and behavioural scientist’ according to Wikipedia, and Will Carling, erstwhile England rugby captain, did the job in week two.  I didn’t try a free week on McKenna’s app as I didn’t want to lose weight, improve my self-confidence, sleep better, be less anxious, be happier, get rich or quit smoking.  I caught part of one of his talks and he seemed to be, inter alia, a practitioner of Neurolinguistic Programming. If you want to find out more about NLP the Wikipedia entry is worth a look.  Will Carling was very pleasant and we had a brief conversation about our favourite pub in Durham.

First day was a sea day and my first talk – and the smallest audience I’d ever had…about 150 people with the front six rows completely empty.  The young lady who introduced me asserted this was a good size audience for a sunny day in the Mediterranean at lunch time, but it was difficult to engage with them.  C’est la vie.  I consoled myself in the Commodore Club before dressing up to celebrate TOPS’ birthday in the posh restaurant.. 

Two days in Greek ports but it was very very hot – mid to upper thirties.  When I got back to the cabin stateroom after a morning in Corfu I was quite poorly and thought I’d succumbed to the norovirus but it turned out to be a case of heatstroke, and I was a bit more careful ashore after that.  The whole two weeks remained very hot indeed – too hot really as we couldn’t manage whole days in the ports and had to retreat to the air-conditioned ship.

Fortunately, the audiences grew with each talk – still smaller than I’m used to, but all the entertainment hosts said they were bigger than speakers usually get. The other noticeable difference was the demographic- lots of Americans, Australians, East Europeans and Chinese.  I confess I looked into other talks and audiences were very small – even the celeb speakers weren’t filling the theatre as they usually do.  Interestingly, Abi from Cunard contacted me after I got back to change a booking next year, saying demographic changes and the comparatively few sea days on Med cruises were making it difficult to justify the Insight programmes.  Maybe I should stick to transatlantic crossings…indeed, next up is Iceland and Norway on Arcadia so plenty of sea days.  And it should be a lot cooler.  Lets hope I get a decent stateroom cabin.

It was always going to be a bit of a hike to Curaçao, but it turned out to be even more challenging than I thought.  TOPS took me to the station at Vire just after Saturday lunch and the train was on time, as ever.  First class ticket to Montparnasse was about €30 which can’t be bad.  I got a taxi straight away and told the driver I wanted the prix fixé in spite of his suggestion that traffic was light and I could use the meter.  Just as well because we had to circle CDG twice before he found the hotel entrance.  Then I got an email from Air France telling me I hadn’t been able to check in because I had a seafarer’s ticket and I’d need to prove my status at the airport.  So no sleep as I had to check in at 0400 hrs…. That was a bit stressful as, like at all airports these days, you do everything yourself including baggage tags, but I did eventually find a human being who told me where to queue to see the other human being. 

Safely on to Amsterdam – a little tense as the queue to leave the Schengen area was huge but eventually I was told to join the EU passport queue as the automatic gates treated a GB passport the same as an EU one, which was a bit ironic.  Then a ten hour flight to Curaçao, five hours behind Normandie.  Taxi driver drove like the clappers and was quite scary but he explained when we stopped he had another ride booked on the other side of the island.  Hotel very welcoming and I met Andy Hughes, the guest speaker on popular music whom I’d met before and who went to the same school as me.  His wife gave me a quick guide to the island as they’d arrived a few days earlier – it looked nice, but no time to look around really.  No sleep again and after breakfast the three of us got a taxi to the port.  And they wouldn’t let us in as we hadn’t got exit stamps in our passports.   Back across town more or less to where we started but the Immigration Officer was very efficient and the taxi waited to take us back to the ship.  And I boarded some 48 hours after leaving home to find a letter from Cunard advising us we needed an exit stamp!  Turned out the rules had changed the day I left home.  The production manager says no need to do the equipment check so I retire to the same cabin, sorry stateroom, as usual which is good – should get some sleep tonight…

But no…at 0130 the lights come on and the television starts to broadcast emergency procedures, the lights go off again and then on again.  About five minutes later the Captain comes on the PA inside the cabin (which is very unusual) to say we might have noticed an issue, but the explanation is that the ship has lost all power and is drifting but there’s no need to worry.  Power was restored safely at about 0530.

I’m due on after Andy next morning – his talk is good but he’s still reading his script which he doesn’t need to do as he really knows his stuff.  Anyway the ship’s equipment won’t connect with my MacBook.  Panic as the technical staff try everything, and one of the other speakers, Beryl, who’s a plastic surgeon, offers her machine.  In the end I start 15 minutes late using a clicker to communicate with the ship’s PC in the control room at the back.  So I can’t see anything on the Mac and have to turn to look at the screen to see what’s there.  And there’s no sound.  And the colour’s wrong – not good for a talk on vision.  Anyway, I got through it. Afterwards, several people were complimentary about how I dealt with it which was reassuring.  Later that day I got a letter from the Production Manager saying they’d fixed the issue – I suspect the power failure had something to do with it. 

Off to the Commodore Club for a sundowner and was greeted with a bear hug from the waiter who always remembers me and what I drink. Really embarrassing but he’s a very nice bloke, as is Daniel, the technical support in Illuminations who I suspect was very embarrassed himself at the technical breakdown that morning.

Andy came to see me to ask if I’d show him how to use Powerpoint Presenter mode which I’d nagged him to use in 2022, so we sat in one of the bars and sorted it out on his PC.  It took about 90 minutes but after that he said he was going to give it a go.  And he did. And it worked – the subsequent talks were really good with lots of eye contact and ad libs.  Mary said I’d given him the confidence, which was kind of her to say, but she was a bit embarrassed by the name of the bottle of rum they gave me as a thank you – Big Black Dick.  Famous pirate, apparently.  Both Andy and I were getting pretty full houses by the end of the cruise which is always reassuring.

Another speaker, a geologist, was in the next cabin with her partner and we had dinner together, along with Beryl.  I didn’t see much of the fifth speaker, a writer and historian.  The first celeb speaker was Sir Tony Robinson, aka Baldrick, who talked a lot about being knighted, and the second was the former royal correspondent Jennie Bond, who was very funny. 

Five Caribbean islands, but I didn’t do much and didn’t volunteer as a tour escort.  It was nice to see Tortola again, and I had lunch at Pussers.  For some reason I bought a raincoat and a jacket in their sale. 

First stop had been Dominica – I was trying to find a wireless spot to ring TOPS but managed to trip over a step – flat on my face.  Embarassing but could have been worse – I looked like I’d been in a fight.

Antigua was a bit of a disaster – QM2 had to park offshore from St John’s instead of in English Harbour which meant tenders.  That’s normally OK but there was only one berth for a tender which meant waiting 45 minutes to disembark and then queuing in the sun for over an hour to get back.  I got burned and Baldrick upset some guests by jumping the queue.  

I had to do a Q&A session which is always a bit of a worry but I had done four talks by then so at least there were some topics for the audience to pick up on.  I was slightly thrown by the man who asked me why I live in France. 

Six sea days across to Madeira which is a lovely place.  I bought a bracelet for TOPS and completed the collection of fridge magnets.  I was supposed to make headway on the book during this trip – thirteen sea days – but after one day I gave up – I think the effects of the journey out stayed with me.

That’s probably also why I didn’t see much of the entertainment and went to bed early most nights.  Mark Hodgson, of the eponymous trio, joined us for dinner one night and I went to several of the sessions in the Commodore Club.  Excellent.  I did go to see the Mentalist who put on a pretty good show and name checked me after my talk on conspiracy theories, picking up on fast and slow thinking which was good, er, thinking.  I also went to see the FlyRights whom I first saw years ago – very slick, very athletic trio.  Standing ovation from the audience.  I listened to a Ukrainian string trio several times – the lead violin was especially talented.  I suspect if TOPS had been with me, I’d have taken in a lot more of the entertainment.

Quite a few questions outside the talks, including one chap who wanted advice on his golf swing, which was a first.  Overall the talks went well, which is why I was there, but I really didn’t make much of the opportunity to get stuff done.  As I said, that’s probably because I was on my own.  Next trip it’s the Adriatic on Queen Victoria for the first time and for TOPS’ birthday.  Look forward to that.  Might take in the shows.

Five bookings so far for next year…for the first it’s QM2 from Curaçao to Southampton in January. 12 hour flight from Amsterdam and then three weeks on the ship. Then P&O Azura in March for two weeks in the Mediterranean from and to Valletta – slightly torn on this one as they don’t give speakers a guest cabin any more but they do pay which Cunard don’t. Then it’s Queen Victoria in July for a trip the length of the Adriatic and back to Barcelona. The following month it’s P&O again, this time Arcadia (adults only) from Iceland back to Southampton, and then in November it’s QM2 up to the top of Norway again. Maybe we’ll get to see the Northern Lights this time. So that’s 11 weeks on ships and quite a lot of time travelling to them. TOPS is planning to do QV and the Norway trip – she’s located a good kennels as she’s been a bit put off by the stress associated with having housesitters look after the place. I might do a couple of new talks…one on Phil Spector perhaps? Any suggestions gratefully received.

It turns out Cunard are quite happy to fly me to and from Charles de Gaulle in Paris so I happily accepted the offer a year ago (the lady who books QM2 is extraordinarily efficient).  Never thought about the Olympics…. When it came to working out the travel arrangements, I had to work around the arrival of the new puppy so it’s got to be an overnight in Ouistreham again, but the hotel price has almost doubled to €126.  Great location for the ferry but not a great hotel.  However, I wander up to my favourite restaurant and tonight there are a couple entertaining the pavement diners, and he’s terrific – three different barrel organs and lots of enthusiasm.

Uneventful crossing to Portsmouth where I’m picked up by the recently doctored Paul Stickler and Jo.  Splendid curry and he takes me to Southampton before he rushes off to Heathrow to catch a flight to somewhere or other – he can’t remember  where – to board Queen Elizabeth.  As ever these days, I whizz through check-in thanks to the nice ladies on the reception desk, and quickly locate my cabin – the same one I was in for three weeks in January.  It’s a proper passenger cabin which is a huge improvement on my previous two trips.

Clear instructions from the Production Manager although it’s disappointing they only want three talks, not the four I was contracted for – I decide to drop the accidents one which is a bit sad because the Captain put me on to it in January but best play safe with the three I’ve done before.  Sound/vision check is fine – the technician (Daniel) remembers me which is nice.  The other speakers are a maritime historian, a medical ethicist (is that a word?), an author from the USA and a former BBC producer who will be talking about pizza parlours in New York I think.  Special guest speaker is the front man from The Byrds.  The medical bloke is very friendly.

My first evening in the Commodore Club is a touch embarrassing as several of the staff greet me by name and bring me a Pinot Grigio without my asking. Message from Paul – his flight was cancelled.  Oops.

Anyway, the talks go well – large audiences even though it’s lunch time and plenty of feedback, largely from American guests.  I get a bit of work done on the book which is good, and the crossing is pretty quiet really.  I’m interviewed for the ship’s telly by the Entertainment Dirctor and she’s very complimentary so that’s especially good.  I still feel like I’m on probation.

Just two odd moments…one where a couple from (I think) Yorkshire stop me outside Illuminations to ask if I’ve changed the talks because they were on QM2 in January and they’ve heard them once.  They appeared a bit irritated when I told them there might be some small changes, and asked why I couldn’t do some new ones.  Second odd thing: I was sitting in the Britannia restaurant on my own, as I do (somewhat neurotically avoiding the buffet after an outbreak of norovirus on the last trip), when an American chap on his own sat at the next table.  After about 5 minutes, he said “Are you travelling alone, sir?”.  When I confirmed I was he said “OK, I’ll join you so we can have a conversation”.  I just looked at him for a moment and he said “OK, you don’t want to talk”.  When his meal arrived, he played with it for a couple of minutes, then threw his cutlery down, said something I didn’t catch and stormed out.  Why, I wonder, didn’t he ask to be seated at a bigger table?  Odd indeed.

Off the ship quickly in New York, and I get the shuttle to JFK, which is great except I now have a 12 hour wait for the Heathrow flight, then a tight turn round for CDG.  And the final problem – I can’t get a train back home because it’s Sunday and I have to overnight at a CDG hotel.  €265!  Oh, and it’s €85 for a taxi to Montparnasse.  But the train’s on time in spite of the sabotage three days ago.  But I do wonder why I do it sometimes. Would have been cheaper to pay the fare…

The answer to that arrived in an email from Cunard thanking me with very positive feedback.  They want me to do Curaçao – Southampton in January and another transatlantic later in the year.  That’s why I do it…

Postscript

About a week after I got back, I got feedback from a Stage 2 teacher who’d been to my talks. At the end of the conspiracy theory one, I invited the audience to think about whether children should be taught how to think critically. She thought so and went off and designed a professional development day for teachers…that really makes it worthwhile.

After the experience of a tiny crew cabin on Britannia, Matt (who does the bookings for Aurora) promised he’d get us something better for this cruise – either a guest cabin or an officer’s cabin – and the same for Paul Stickler.  So we decided to go…

Both our spouses are joining us because we’re going to lots of places: Germany, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Lithuania and Denmark.  And Southampton.  As we’re both going, we take the car across: Paul has arranged for us to park on a mate’s drive and we can do a bit of shopping on our return.  Since Brexit fully kicked in, importing stuff to France from England has become too expensive – TOPS even had to pay €12 to receive a birthday card from Blighty recently.

After a night chez Stickler, we await a taxi to take us down to Southampton, but it’s late and when it arrives it’s not big enough to take us all, so the driver heads off to find a bigger one.  Paul is not impressed, but we are quickly processed at the information desk when we get there and are allowed to by-pass the security queue and go to crew boarding.  Sure enough, we have officers’ cabins which appear to be a great improvement.  Paul and I go down to the Ents Office to confirm our talks and say hello to Micky the production manager who I think is the best in the fleet.  We then wait for the bags to arrive, but they don’t.  At 10pm, I phone the Ents Office, and whoever’s there tells me to go to Reception.  There I discover my case just standing there, and after a few phone calls the rest are discovered.  I ring Ents again to tell them of the problem, and Whoever’s There tells me they forgot to put the new instructions (“Go and find your luggage yourself”) in our welcome letter.  Another consequence of reverting to crew cabins – administratively we are neither crew nor guests it seems.  Anyway, all set to start with two sea days.

But we don’t sleep…not only is the bed quite narrow, the air con is operating at Force 7, and worst of all, the noise.  We discover we are directly below the galley, and throughout the night there’s banging and clattering and trolleys being wheeled over our heads.  I mention it to the Entertainment Manager and he says he knows about the noise as he’s been moved to an officer’s cabin as well.  Looks like we have to grin and bear it – Aurora is full.  However, POTS manages to half cover the air con with a wet towel and some magnets.

Paul goes first at 1100 and the theatre is full – he always gets a big audience but I’ve never seen a full house for the first talk.  I’m on at 1515 and it’s about two thirds full, but it seems to go well.  Same on the second day which Paul soldiers through despite having fallen out of  bed and hurt himself quite a bit.  Hard floors in crew cabins.  He advises us he has constructed a barrier to stop this happening again but won’t let us see it.

The ports are really nice and we have an overnight in Helsinki so we get a combined HOHO bus and boat ticket, and the four of us have a really nice evening meal ashore, but it was really expensive.  Tallin was more touristy than we expected, but Klaipeda was a lot more attractive than we thought when we were there last, mainly because it was pouring with rain last time and the weather is perfect now. 

A few questions after each talk and the audience seemed genuinely interested, though I was a bit surprised to be chastised by a lady who was incensed that I had mispronounced Klaipeda.  Hey ho.

TOPS wanted to see the Headliners so I went along, I confess for the first time.  She was very impressed with the dancers, and also with the classical pianist who played several times in the Playhouse.  We tended to eat in the Glass House rather than the dining room – I was going to say the menu in the dining room was a bit repetitive, but I did have eight Thai beef salads during the cruise.  Maurice Grumbleweed (né Lee) joined the ship late on – I hadn’t seen him since a cruise to Canada a couple of years ago but he claimed to remember me, so we had a bit of a chat.  All his material is new – he does a weekly gig in Harrogate so he’s always thinking up new gags: he’s 78 now but can’t give up performing.  Even when he’s not on stage.

Back in Southampton and we did some shopping before catching the overnight back to Cherbourg.  I was quite looking forward to this – a brand new LPG ferry and I’d booked a Club cabin.  We’re not having much luck with cabins though – just a basic cabin.  I went to Reception to complain they’d given us a bog standard cabin, but the stern lady behind the counter pointed out it was a club cabin as there was tea and coffee provided as well as a bottle of water.  At least it was quiet.

Back home to find all was well and the dog and cat had been well looked after by the two American housesitters we got from Trusted Housesitters.  Always a gamble but it seems to work.  Overall POTS enjoyed the port days but wasn’t impressed with the cabin, to put it mildly.  However, she’s due to travel halfway across France next week to collect a new Hungarian Vizsla puppy so she’ll spend a lot of time with him. 

And the big news – Paul Stickler had his PhD viva the day after we got back (TOPS and I had given him a practice run through on board) and he PASSED!  With just a few corrections to do, so it’ll be Dr Stickler in a few weeks.  He’s now moved on from Law/History research to particle physics.

Queen Mary 2 across to New York next month.  Cunard are flying me back to Paris which is nice but as it’s a Sunday there are no flights or trains back home – I have to overnight in Paris.  But at least I know I’m in the same cabin as last time, and it’s got a big bed and it’s quiet.  After that Queen Anne in October.  The chap who books Queen Victoria has also been on and says they can fly me to and from French airports to pick up cruises, so it looks like I’m going to get a few Cunard gigs in 2025.  Well, as I keep on saying, someone has to do it…

A slightly more convenient ferry across this time, arriving Portsmouth about 2130 – Paul Stickler’s giving a talk in Winchester that evening so he can pick me up and off we go to his place in Romsey.  TOPS isn’t coming on this one – too many sea days and she thinks the Caribbean’s boring.  Couple of nights at Paul’s then he’s booked a cab to get the three of us to Heathrow – Natalie, his daughter, is coming on this one and she’s sleeping on an inflatable mattress the night before, which makes me feel slightly guilty as I have the guest room.  But not for long.  As ever, Paul insists on being at Heathrow three hours before the flight, so the cab is booked for 0515.  And it’s late – Paul has a giveaway sign of stress: his head throbs.  As it happens, the driver makes up the time and check-in is fast and efficient.

Predictably, the chap in the seat in front of me on the plane goes into full recline before the seat belt sign is off, and the child behind is kicking the back of my seat.  Oh well.  Only nine hours to go.

At Barbados, a minibus is waiting but they’re under the impression we’re crew and insist on us filling in lots of forms and giving us information about what to do in Rotterdam during the refit.  At least the ship is there.  P&O have reverted to giving us crew cabins as they did pre-Covid and Paul and Nat have got the nice officer’s cabin at the front overlooking the bow that I had last time I was on Britannia.  It takes Paul and I half an hour to find mine – a tiny crew cabin in the depths of the ship.  I go straight to the Ents office to complain, but no, the ship’s full of contractors and they’re four to a cabin in the larger cabins.  Not happy, but the show must go on.  I work out the easiest way to get to my cabin is go to the passenger area on Deck 8, go as far forward as possible, then into the emergency exit which takes me into the crew area, and then down ten flights of steps to deck 5 (sic) where I am based.

The three of us go to a beach bar in Barbados for the day, but I don’t do much in St Lucia.  In St Kitts we do an island tour with Austin Powers which was excellent – it’s a very pretty island. 

And finally away – first sea day the clocks go forward at noon, so my 1330 talk is actually at 1430, so the assistant entertainment manager changed it but left it in the same place in Horizon, so my 1430 talk was scheduled between 1300 and 1345.  Some of the guests appeared confused, but the talk went well and the illusions worked.  Talks every sea day, and the AEM has adopted the novel strategy of not advertising the titles.  Paul’s packing them in in the morning slot and I’m only at two thirds full but that’s not unusual – the only time I had a bigger audience was when his talk coincided with the semi-finals of the Euros. 

Five sea days and then we’re due in Ponta Delgada, which is a beautiful city, but the weather’s foul and the Captain decides not to berth.  He should have asked a couple of chaps in Brodie’s to help get parked – they clearly knew a thing or two about manoeuvring a 140000 ton ship with 5000 people on board in high winds. Paul and I shot down to the office to make sure our talks weren’t just bumped up a day as we save what we think are the most powerful till last.  Made it.  An interesting glitch to my antepenultimate talk – I turned up expecting a lectern and a microphone to find a drum kit and a piano.  Fortunately the tech team sorted it out very quickly.   Overall the talks went well and lots of guests thanked us personally, which is always reassuring.

The evening before disembarkation I get a letter telling me to attend immigration at 0700, so I did and was given a queue number.  A young lady started calling out the numbers, but one guest shouted out “Let’s do this the British way and form a queue”.  So everyone did, and I was near the back.  Eventually the Border Control officer took a cursory look at my passport – no machine reader – and wished me good morning, and a pleasant young lady gave me a ticket to prove I’d gone through immigration.  However, nobody asked to see it subsequently, although a young man did cross my queue ticket number off a list for reasons neither of us understood.  At least we were in Romsey by 0830.

Off to the ferry to Cherbourg, and a very rough crossing.  I decided to eat in the restaurant which was pretty full.  I was just starting my plat when a child at the next table energetically threw up.  “Projectile” really doesn’t do it justice. I left the restaurant and returned to my cabin. Plus ça change. Fortunately TOPS was waiting at Cherbourg and she drove us home.  She even had a bottle of Muscadet waiting in the fridge.  Good to be home.  Next month, Aurora to the Baltic.  If I get a decent cabin…