Cruise blogs

I nearly pulled out of this one – I was originally offered two weeks Barcelona to Barcelona (Victoria’s home port for the summer) but then Abi in the office asked if I’d just do the first half as the Insight programme wasn’t pulling in enough guests on summer cruises in the Mediterranean.  That was my experience last year – smallest audiences I’d ever had.  However, when TOPS heard the disembarkation port was Istanbul, she was keen to join me as she’d never been to Turkey.  Me neither, so we decided to stay a few days when we got off.  And so we worked out a route – a bit of a chore: drive two and a half hours to Nantes, park up there (€200), budget airline to Barcelona and another one back from Istanbul to Nantes.  Fingers crossed they don’t run out of aviation fuel…

It kind of worked out, although I’d forgotten how awful Nantes Atlantique Airport is: loads of departures but hardly any room for passengers – dozens of people sitting on the floor at the gates, no decent refreshments airside.  No legroom on the packed flight but at least it’s only an hour and a half to Barcelona.  I’d booked a hotel quite near the port which was OK and next day we boarded pretty quickly.  Same cabin stateroom as the last two times and the same steward, Joy. She’s excellent, always smiling.

All the paperwork was waiting, so I went off to the sound check to discover that I’m the only speaker – presumably they’ve got someone else for week two and decided the one speaker for two weeks would get boring.  The only slight glitch is that they’ve got all the wrong talks listed – the ones I did last time – but I can change to fit their spec, and John, the Deputy Ents Manager is OK with that.  Three talks.

I’m on stage at 1000hrs on day 1 so that’s good – not clashing with food – and I’m amazed to see the audience is more than twice the size of last summer’s: I think it’s a slightly different demographic with the cruise taking in some important historical sites like the Palace of Knossos on Crete rather than just the Med beaches.  The talk went OK and a few people stayed at the end with questions, but then I did a double take as one of them was Eric Knowles, the antiques and fine art expert off the tele: we’d done a transatlantic 11 years ago and he remembered me and Paul.  Really good to see him and he’s doing a couple of celeb talks (and he gets to eat in the posh bit).  He was very generous in his description of our time together all those years ago – he was having to deal with a dreadful family tragedy at the time so it’s good to know we might have helped him albeit in a very small way.  Anyway, we arrange to meet for drinks and coffee throughout the week. 

From then on, no real issues: people were being complimentary about the talks, the audiences stayed in large numbers and the feedback from the Ents team was positive, so job done.  Embarrassingly, the waiters remember me again.  TOPS is sending photographs of her posing to her yoga group – the one at Knossos looks like she’s assaulting an American tourist, but the one with Eric impresses her mates. 

Passing through the Dardanelles strait was moving – the Ents Manager did a commentary.. The only problem was waking up on the morning of the last talk having lost 90% of my hearing.  Hey ho, not much I can do about it in Istanbul.

Disembarkation went smoothly and we finally managed to get into an ‘official’ taxi to take us to our hotel – although it did take the driver a while to find the right place: the old town is a maze, full of hotels.  A very pleasant welcome and we’re offered a free breakfast as it’s too early to check in, but after an hour or so we get into our room – a bit dated perhaps but adequate.  It’s a bit disappointing that the roof terrace restaurant/bar is closed because of rain damage but the room’s paid for in advance so we stay.  First task is to find the HoHo bus – the guy at reception tells us where to go and we buy a 48 hour ticket: today we’ll get our bearings.  We do the circuit and get a bit confused as to where we are but eventually get to stop number one where we get off.  And now we realise we made a mistake assumimg we got on at stop one.  We didn’t.  We ask a. restaurant owner how to get back to the cruise terminal to get our bearings and he says it’s a tram ride away.  We’d actually got on at stop four.  Duh.  We’re professors you know.

Anyway, Istanbul turns out to be a fabulous, if very busy, city.  16 million people live here.  Mosque after mosque after mosque – spectacular, as was the Grand Bazaar. 

Cats everywhere.  TOPS goes off to see an ancient cistern and does a sunset cruise on the Bosphorus – I’m having trouble as I can’t hear anything so I stay in the hotel for a day, but venture out again on the final day when we witnessed the local council stray animal castration unit check out a group of cats in a busy square and net one of them.  It emerged a bit later limping slightly. 

Overall the food was a bit, well, ordinary: most restaurants seem to have the same menu, but on the last evening we ventured into what turned out to be a hookah lounge – that was a bit different, and TOPS was quite interested in watching several blokes puffing themselves into an altered state of awareness.

Final morning: a long taxi ride to the airport – Istanbul has two airports but the driver was confident we were headed for the right one – we were less certain given our travails on the HoHo bus.  But it was ok – a huge modern airport and we got checked in after going through several security checks.  The flight back was horrid – I’d booked us aisle seats but both of us had, er, well-built shall we say, blokes in the middle seat, mine with a large shopping bag he kept between his legs thus encroaching considerably into my personal space.  Oh well, only four and a half hours back to Nantes and then the drive back.

But we got back OK, house intact and our new security cameras still working.  That was quite a journey as it turned out but not long to my only P&O this year – with Paul to Norway.  I’m probably on first name terms with immigration there. 

Late medical update… on of my neighbours made an appointment for me with her audiologue at the hospital in Vire which was kind of her. I was in within 48 hours, and basically the bloke jet-washed my ears – very unpleasant but as we left the hospital I could hear people talking on the other side of the car park. Hearings better than its’s ever been. €16 well spent.

I was fairly optimistic about this trip: nine sea days across to Tortola with just six talks might well be the motivating factor to get the stalled book project moving again.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get the afternoon ferry to Portsmouth as it was fully booked (end of French school holidays), so that meant getting the red eye after a night in the hotel I hate in Ouistreham.  More expense, but the upside was that Paul Stickler had volunteered to taxi me around and put me up the night before boarding in his new house near Salisbury.  Oddly the ferry isn’t showing up on the BF website but the chap at the terminal assures me all is well.

So dinner in the nice restaurant Le Channel which has awful reviews on Tripadvisor but I like a lot, and an early night in the Horrid Hotel.  But at 10pm my phone pings – a message from Brittany Ferries to say (a) the ferry next morning is cancelled, (b) the office is closed, and (c) there’s nothing I can do about it.  So hundreds of people will turn up tomorrow morning trying to get a crossing.  I realise that I’d better get to the front of that queue, so I get dressed again and go over to the terminal where I wait impatiently behind a group of four young Chinese women who need to photograph each other talking to the chap behind the counter.  When I get to him, he advises me that if I can be back within 30 minutes he’ll put me on the overnight ferry leaving at 1130pm.  I persuade him to throw in a free cabin as well, so hoof it back to the hotel and return in time, albeit very hot and bothered, not least because the woman at the hotel reception insisted I wait while she checked I’d paid my bill in full.  TOPS expresses her concern about my blood pressure and the fact I’d forgotten to pack some of my meds, but Stickler, bless him, says he’ll collect me in the morning.

Which he did, and took me to his gaff and showed me how to work his posh TV as he and Jo had an engagement that afternoon somewhere near Portsmouth – so he’d changed his plans to accommodate me.  That evening the three of us had an excellent curry after a rather long and scary drive in pitch darkness, and I insisted on paying.  It’s a lot cheaper in France.

Very fast boarding next day – I’m in the usual cabin stateroom within 15 minutes of being dropped off, and the letter is there from the Ents team which is good.  Not so good is that I’m down to do only three talks.  I raise this at the sound check but am advised the theatre is chocker – bit disappointing when I’ve revised six.  C’est la vie. 

And then, a big surprise…I bump into a mate I haven’t seen for 7 years – last time was in/on the Suez canal  – the classical guitarist Andreas Moutsioulis.  He’s working a lot on the ships now – that Suez trip was his first.  The other speakers are an astrophysicist (as usual), a transport expert and a retired customs officer talking about his experiences with smugglers especially where they hide their contraband.  Celeb is Annabel Croft.  The other speakers are staying on for all the islands while Andreas and I are being turfed off in St Kitts.  And the customs officer says he’s a criminologist with an interest in unsolved murders. 

My first talk is OK with the theatre about three quarters full, about the same as the other speakers and the trip passes rather slowly although I do get a little bit of work done.  Andreas doesn’t tolerate isolation or silence which is a bit surprising but there was a gang of us last time – and he’s very Greek these days.  He’s a bit fed up with the voyage as they’ve put all his concerts in the Queen’s Room which is something of a thoroughfare and lots of people walk past noisily while he’s playing. 

For once I go to an evening show – an Armenian comedy pianist who’s a cross between Victor Borge and Les Dawson.  Quite funny really.  However most of the time I’m in the Commodore Club or the Chart Room in the evenings – yet again waiters remember me and what I drink from earlier voyages, which is spooky but interesting from a cognitive psychologist’s perspective.  Second celeb speaker is Nicki Chapman – I’ve no idea who she is but she greeted me very courteously when I preceded her on stage which is unusual for a celeb speaker – lots of them are well up where the customs bloke talks about. 

Overall then an uneventful crossing but it was nice to have a drink in Pussers in Tortola – I wore one of their shirts so they were very pleased.  I bought a Fabergé pendant on the ship for TOPS for her big birthday next year but I couldn’t persuade them to give me a discount.  Off at St Kitts and a very Caribbean taxi ride to the airport – the driver kept one hand on the horn and one foot on the floor while shouting abuse at everyone.  Great fun.  Back at CDG at five in the morning so I was able to get an early train back and present TOPS with her gift.  Queen Victoria across the Atlantic.  Tick.  As I’ve said before, someone has to do it.

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…

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.