A life on the ocean wave
Earlier this year some neighbours of my father went on a ‘wrong way around the world’ sea cruise trip to New Zealand before eventually making the return journey by air. If memory serves, the sea cruise leg of their odyssey took them seven or eight weeks.
Some time after they got back they came round to my fathers’ house for a drink and told us of the experience and their adventures. Whenever this sort of thing happens there is a degree to which the listener’s enjoyment of the tales and humour involved – as the Northern Ireland stand-up comedian Frank Carson used to say regularly during his act – depends upon ‘the way I tells them’ and, fortunately for our family, the husband in this particular couple is a natural raconteur and joker.
His tales of chaos, mayhem and illness – not to mention some of the characters they came across on board – was not only fascinating but hilarious from beginning to end.
Afterwards I was left feeling that, if only we had booked in advance the necessary lights, cameras and perhaps studio audience in front of which to have recorded it, we could have all made our fortunes by turning the session into a one-hour ITV comedy special. (I was thinking here of a version of a ‘Dave Allen on stage, holding forth whilst sitting on a stool, sipping from a large gin & tonic placed upon a table beside him’ scenario).
Some of his racier stories could not be repeated on the pages of a family newspaper or website such as the Rust. But even those describing how they both went down with the lurgy caught from the millions of noxious bacteria being constantly blasted around the ship via the air conditioning and how, on a ship full of 700 or 800 paying souls – many of them infirm, or ancient (or both) – a couple of deaths per week was par for the course.
“And what happens when somebody dies?” I asked.
“Not a problem in the slightest ..” came the reply, “… it’s down to the mortuary with them, and then £15 a night to keep them in the freezer until the ship reaches an appropriate port …”
To this day I still smile, or even laugh out loud, whenever I recall that night.
The ironic thing is that, although I’ve never been on a sea cruise, in principle I have nothing at all against the prospect/concept of this type of holiday/trip. There have even been several occasions when – idly flicking through the ‘sea cruise’ supplements in the Sunday newspapers – I’ve semi-seriously contemplated (in a theoretical ‘what if’ fashion) booking myself on one. I also have a great pal who went on one to the Far East not long ago.
I reminded myself of all the above when alighting upon media reviews of a programme on the dangers of sea cruises that has been produced by the Channel Four Dispatches investigative team this morning on my daily trawl among the media websites:
Firstly, Chloe Farand writing about the air quality on board a sea cruise – as spotted today upon the website of – THE INDEPENDENT
Secondly, a more general ‘Twelve things you didn’t know about holidays at sea’ piece, as appears upon the website of – THE TELEGRAPH
