Day 6 – Friday 3 May 2019
Well, here we are on Day 6, about 300 miles due south of Newfoundland and on a westerly course for the final leg. Position at 0710 ship’s time was 41deg N, 52deg 41W; speed 19 knots, course 266, air temperature 8C, overcast, sea Moderate, wind Force 6 from NNW. No wonder it feels cold – that air is blasting in from Greenland and Newfoundland. Mrs Shacklepin has wound up the heating to maximum. I dare not suggest that walk on the upper deck.
We are gearing up for the Senior Officers’ cocktail party at 1115 today, which brings the dilemma of what to wear (see how the genuine concerns of life have fallen from my shoulders already). The rig for the event is stated as ‘smart casual’, but one never knows what that means these days: tie or no tie? Jacket or no jacket? Increasingly, it seems, trousers or no trousers? It was much easier in days gone by, particularly when I was still serving, when you always wore a tie and jacket with civilian rig (except at tea after sports, when a cravat was permitted); a suit always for cocktail parties and dinner. It all sounds a bit Noel Coward now, but you knew where you stood. And if you wore plain clothes onboard as a precursor to going ashore, you always stood to attention and ‘excused your rig’ to the senior officer present in the wardroom in uniform (who might be junior to you). This was a polite formality, and the request was never refused, except occasionally at Dartmouth when you might well be sent away by the Duty Sub Lieutenant and told to go away and come back dressed like an officer. I digress, yet again, but it does exemplify my point. I think, maybe, the blazer with Britannia Association tie, the white slacks, and the brown casual shoes. Or maybe the Guernsey seaman’s sweater, the poplin shirt, the cream slacks and the deck shoes? I realise you will be dying to know the final decision, so I will let you know later. What’s that? Jane? Oh, she would look good even if she wore a bin bag. I think she is wearing cream slacks, pumps, and some sort of flowery top. I did raise an eyebrow at the pumps, suggesting that high heels would be a better sartorial choice, but received such a ferocious look in reply that I beat a hasty retreat onto the freezing balcony, where I knew she would not follow.
The final lecture by our terrorist expert was about reporting terrorist attacks, using Britain’s 7/7 attack as the prime example. Very sobering and, as ever, well presented.
And so to that Senior Officers’ Cocktail Party during the late forenoon. This time, to avoid any queues, we turned up about five minutes later than the appointed time and just sailed in. Surprise, surprise most people were sitting down again and there must move been only half a dozen small groups, at most, standing and chatting on the dance floor. Each had a ship’s officer and most of those were very junior. The Captain was there, and I think so was the Chief Purser or whatever they call him these days, but that was the limit of Senior Officers. We didn’t mind, we had a nice chat to one of the junior officers, an Events Manager, and another good conversation with an American couple from Cleveland, Ohio, he a retired banker with literally hundreds of trips in QM2 under his belt. Like the other events, the wine was not exactly flowing (one glass of champagne) and nor was the food (one, yes one, canapé). We moved on when the booze dried up and a couple started to dance around us. Maybe it was a hint; heaven knows. It wasn’t a bad ‘do’ – certainly better than the earlier cocktail party – but a pity I didn’t get to ask the Chief Engineer about that lub oil.
Ah yes, in case you have been wondering, I compromised on my dress by wearing the blazer, the cream slacks, the brown casual shoes and an open-necked checked poplin shirt with button-down collar. Knew you would be interested.
A single course for lunch again and I had Pork Escalope Milanese, and Jane the Confit of Duck with Gnocchi. I felt we should get some exercise in the afternoon and proposed the Promenade Deck. However, Jane took one look at the bundled-up figures out there struggling against the wind and immediately rejected the proposal out of hand. So instead, we launched on a repeat of the exercise undertaken in the previous voyage: a circumnavigation of the ship internally. We started on 12 Deck, right at the top, and walked a complete circuit inside on every deck, down the stairs to each level, and finishing on the lowest passenger deck, which is 4 Deck. The journey took us exactly an hour, making an estimated distance – based on the Standard Shacklepin Marching Pace – of about three miles. On one deck there was a suitcase outside someone’s cabin and we thought that someone was being a bit previous for New York disembarkation until I read a note pinned to the top,
“THE LATE JOHN SMITH” (not the real name)
It dawned on us that it must be the luggage of one of the patients flown off at the beginning of the voyage. How very sad that he didn’t make it.
We had a good look at such lower cabins as were open for cleaning and were pleasantly surprised with how nice they looked. Most had balconies, even the cheaper ones in the lower hull. So no cabins in the Forepeak, Stokehold or Steerage after all. The only ones I would have avoided were the internal ones (without natural light) and the ones in the vicinity of the funnel, which suffered badly from noise and vibration. And here is an interesting revelation that has led us to a conclusion that I am sure will shock you when I describe it later: on our internal travels along the lower bowels of the passenger deck, whom should we meet but our banker friend from Cleveland, Ohio. I dare say we would have met our Count from Canada down there too. So the way these people manage to do so many cruises with Cunard, and clock up Platinum and Diamond Membership, is by travelling Britannia (ie ‘ordinary’) class. I subsequently looked up the cost of a typical voyage by the different types of cabin ‘class’ and came up with this conclusion: we could do three trips in Britannia class for the cost of one in Princess Grill. If we compromised slightly we could afford to cruise again within our standard annual holiday budget. Compromise would just involve a slightly smaller cabin, eating at a fixed time in the Britannia Restaurant, putting a clothes peg on my nose, and foregoing the exclusive Grills Lounge. All other facilities are common, and all perks (the free internet, the champagne, the cocktail parties, the wine tasting etc) come from Platinum Membership, not Grill. So there you are. You may have been saying that yourselves for some time, no doubt, and the penny has taken a long tortuous route, but it has finally dropped for us. So, yes, you could hear from us again on yet another cruise. Jane is already looking at the brochure for 2022. Of course, I will be unable to criticise fellow Britannia dining guests in such an eventuality.
Mid afternoon we attended the penultimate lecture by our retired coroner. I did not mention earlier that he was a man of many talents, having originally trained as a dentist before then deciding to change over to be doctor and to specialise as a gynaecologist. Apparently he was in the labour ward when one woman recognised him as having been the man who had taken out her wisdom tooth a month before. He was stitching up a second woman after labour at the time, when the first woman burst out,
“Blimey! He’s a dentist you know”
Apparently he only just managed to get his head clear before his patient’s legs smacked together. Anyway, he moved on from gynaecology to being a coroner (a varied career to say the least) and has only just retired. His talk today was about Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. What a heart-breaking tale! I had not seen the film starring John Hurt, so I was not fully familiar with the story. Although barely intelligible, Merrick was a very sensitive and intelligent man, with beautiful handwriting and modelling skills despite his enormous right hand and other deformities. Under the patronage of the surgeon Sir Frederick Treves, he was finally looked after in The London Hospital by charitable donations and well cared for towards the end of his life, but he died trying to sleep like an ordinary person and, hence, by asphyxia caused by his deformity. There is still debate today as to what his affliction was, and our lecturer did not agree with the current view that Merrick suffered from Proteus Syndrome, a genetic disease. His diagnosis was that Merrick suffered from neurofibromatosis.
We watched the latest Rowan Atkinson Johnny English Strikes Again film in the early evening – he was hilarious and back on form – then changed into evening rig for the Masquerade Ball. I went masquerading as a nice person. ‘Surf ‘n Turf’ for dinner, with fillet steak, was excellent; the food this trip has been better than the Australian trip, we think.
Well, the weather has finally calmed down. The creaking and groaning has stopped (from the ship, not from me), the sea state is slight, and the wind has dropped. Clocks retarded again tonight to GMT – 3 ie four hours behind those of you in the UK.
Day 7 – Saturday 4 May
And what did we see? We saw the sea. White sky, grey sea, fog, almost flat calm. At 0815 ship’s time we were at 40deg 43N, 65deg 6W or roughly 150 miles due south of Nova Scotia. Speed 23 knots, course 270, wind Force 3 from SE, 14C. We awoke at 0600, as has become all too normal, but had slept well and Jane declared herself content as she sipped her early morning tea, despite the bleak vista outside the windows. This was good news, as every morning I wake up worrying that her tummy is playing up again. She does still get the odd reoccurrence, but the frequency has reduced significantly.
Breakfast at 0830 and feeling ravenous after being awake since 0600. In a weak moment and out of curiosity I ordered the ‘All American’, which apparently comprised eggs, corned beef hash, streaky bacon, link sausage and other things to give my heart valves something to chew on. Fortunately, perhaps, the waiter messed up the order and I received a reduced English breakfast instead. I still struggled through it: ‘eyes bigger than belly’, as my mother used to say. Much laughter and loud conversation from the six-seater table near us comprising mixed American and British – most distracting. Don’t they know that breakfast is a non-sociable meal and should be taken quietly? Even Jane started talking to me as I read The Spectator on-line; the woman is taking this happiness too far. I smiled welcomingly and pretended to pay attention, but was dropped in it when she tested me on what she had just said. Fortunately, I can claim ‘turbine ear’, a hearing affliction that affects some Marine Engineers, even if I don’t have it; it has saved my bacon more than once.
Our first serial of the day was our retired coroner’s final lecture, this time on crime fiction and pathology as used in books and TV. It was, as ever, fascinating as he had been an adviser to Silent Witness, Whitechapel, Ripper Street and other shows, and he confirmed that many of the scenes were uncannily authentic.
Our second lecture was about Rasputin. Although known as ‘The Mad Monk’, Rasputin had no religious training or rank, yet managed to ingratiate himself with the Tsarina of Russia by force of personality and a fortuitous ability to comfort her with regard to her haemophiliac son. He also had a good line with ladies of court by persuading them that they needed to commit sin before they could seek redemption, helpfully providing the sin. Despite being a Siberian peasant, filthy and reportedly stinking like a goat, he established a large following with ladies and was hero-worshipped by the Tsarina. Naturally, he was detested by the male nobility. His influence on Russian affairs became stronger when the Tsar went off to the front to lead the fight against Germany in WW1 and the Tsarina was effectively running the country. Rasputin persuaded the Tsarina, and hence the Tsar, to sack several senior figures and a plot was soon hatched to kill him. Led by a wealthy prince, who had been Rasputin’s lover (the man was AC/DC), the plot involved poisoning, shooting and disposal in the river. That should do the trick. The poison was not, in the end, administered because the poisoner chickened out, so Rasputin was shot in the chest and declared dead. From which horizontal position he duly resurrected himself and had to be shot, again, in the head. The corpse was thrown into the icy river in St Petersburg (then called Petrograd) and not found for three days. All the (noble) conspirators were fêted by polite society, but the Tsar had them exiled to far away estates in Siberia from which they eventually emigrated to the west. Of course, the Romanov dynasty fell shortly after that and the family itself was assassinated towards the end of WW1.
The Illuminations Cinema continues to generate its own entertainment in the course of these lectures and I am delighted to add yet another irritation to my list of misfits. This one I have dubbed Fanning Fiona, sitting several seats to my right. Her title originates from the manner in which she waved a piece of paper in front of her face for the whole of the last lecture. A variant of The Sentry, perhaps, and – you would think – a minor human failing. But you try putting up with that out of the corner of your eye for an hour. I tried shutting my right eye, but then couldn’t see properly from my left. I put up my hand as a blinker, which worked, but then her sister, Fanning Fanny, started up two rows in front and on my left. Both have been added to The List, which is growing so fast that I will have to start a new page shortly. No, the cinema was not too hot.
As I write at lunchtime the sea remains calm, but we are in dense fog, with the foghorn discharging its mournful blast every two minutes. The Captain reports that we have covered 3,015 nautical miles since leaving Southampton and have about 300 miles to go. We will pick up the New York pilot during the early hours of tomorrow morning, when our transatlantic voyage will officially end. We expect to pass the Statue of Liberty at about 0530 and be alongside by 0630.
Lunch was Philadelphia Steak Quesadilla, which was chunks of steak with peppers and stuff in a sort of wrap, dressed with sour cream – something I have never had before, and very nice. Jane had Portobello Mushroom Enchilada, which she declared full of flavour and beans, but missing the enchilada bit. Very picky, my wife.
Well, the exclusive wine tasting for Platinum and Diamond Badge holders wasn’t too bad. It was held in the upper part of the Britannia Restaurant at 1400 and we tasted two white and two red South African wines, moving round the restaurant to different pouring areas and being given a talk by a sommelier at each one. The best was a Cabernet Sauvignon, Whole Berry. The attendees were a mixed bag. I was particularly struck by the large old American wearing jeans, a denim shirt, and a baseball hat with the inscription ‘USS ENTERPRISE NCC-1701’; I can only assume that he had beamed down for the experience. If the subscript had read ‘CVN-65’ I would have cut him a bit of slack as a US Navy veteran who had served in the nuclear powered aircraft carrier of that name. However, the NCC-1701 condemned him as a Trekkie, doubly damned for wearing a hat indoors and when ladies were present. Oh, and his wife was a know-it-all wine buff who corrected Jane’s description of the taste of the wine, so that casts them both out into the outer darkness. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing chess (I won) and Scrabble (don’t ask).
It is 1745 ship’s time and the dense fog and mournful foghorn are still with us. I think that now is a convenient time to send this off, so that I can start with a clean sheet of paper, so to speak, for a short blog on New York after tomorrow’s visit. The weather forecast is 14C and rain, and a full scale cycle race is taking place all over the city all day, but I am sure it will be adventurous and fun. Must remember not to crack any jokes at US Immigration.
"A Very Vintage Chap..." 