A la Colthard/ cruising
Bob was not strictly correct in his post in saying I was here to work on a book on the romance of cruising as my principal motive was to provide him with some moral support as I did not feel intuitively he had the cruiser mentality. His constituency is not the elderly and he does not care for any form of regimentation and in the cruise world you get plenty of both. Yesterday we both had quiet mornings before going to a martini cocktail class. The bar lady explained how the classic dry martini, the ‘mad man’ and chocolate martini were prepared. Every cruise instruction is set out on a daily flier and the tannoy ad nauseam, including the necessity to make a Xmas Day dining reservation, so we were surprised when a woman guest materialised in the course of the class to make such a reservation when it was made abundantly clear many times this should be done with the restaurant manager not at the bar.
In the afternoon the curator of the art collection, an art dealer based in California, gave a talk on the collection on view.
Bob is quite well informed on art and said privately to me that there are 3 types of art expert: the historian, the collector and the dealer.
Clearly this fellow’s aim was more to sell than to impart knowledge.
He recommended some works by Bob Dylan. A gallery local to Bob had also been recommending the art works of the legendary poet and musician but Bob could see little artistic worth in it. The dealer was more interesting on the components in evaluating the worth of a painting: provenance, condition, how it fits with the body of work and the market popularity of the artist measured over time.
In relation to the latter component there in no historic market in Dylan’s works.
Cruising is a parallel universe. On one hand rich guests seeking to be pampered and organised. Below deck a rootless community whose home – if you can call it this – is a floating hotel going from place to place, country to country. The below deck community is probably one of restless and casual sex whilst in staterooms lonely widows seek the lifetime partner they have lost.
We had received invitations to join the cruise entertainment director’s table for dinner. The food was again of high quality. I had foie gras, mushroom soup and lobster. The Australian woman who Bob did not much care for was also on our table talking at length about her operation for gastric cancer. There was also on our table a guest relations manageress with a background in hotels which was of interest to me. To move the subject away from the not so merry widow’s cancer procedures, conversation turned to trivia questions as the cruise entertainment director set and hosted the daily quiz. I had pleasure in stumping him with this appropriate question:
“Who was the only national President to be a chef on a cruise line?‘” [See answer below].
Our evening culminated with a show of 60’s Brit pop entitled Mind the Gap. Some of the songs were sung by the Italian tenor who doubled up as security instructor.
Bob gave me the giggles by observing that, off the cruise, this multi-tasker is probably a part-time gas fitter too in Bergamo. I have never heard a rendering of Satisfaction quite like his and I wondered if Mick Jagger all those years ago when he was the ‘enfant terrible’ of rock for whom us girlie adolescents had a “pash” would have thought his signature song with its overtly sexual lyrics would be sung on a cruise ship before a superannuated audience in dinner jackets.
[Trivia question answer: Ho Chi Minh was a pastry chef on the Newhaven/Dieppe ferry in 1913. President Berlusconi was also a crooner on an Italian cruise ship].
