Entertaining ourselves and being entertained. Or not.

Gabrielle with the lovely Janice

We’d been without Internet all day day-before-yesterday and yesterday and it became something of an inconvenience. Apart from the fact that we were unable to post our blogs, we lost touch with the UK at a time of political uncertainty (Brexit and Partygate, again) and in circumstances where we were unable to let anyone know why nothing was happening. And so, there we sat, heading into the North Atlantic and adrift, Internet-less. We couldn’t even check our Premium Bonds!

Following the wine-tasting we had a chat with Janice and decided we needed a quick picture and then, following a couple of cups of tea, we found ourselves waking up after a long and gentle snooze - not surprising after the lovely range of wines we had sampled. We decided that rushing was not the thing to do so first, we had leisurely baths before heading out for dinner and then an evening of entertainment. First up, dinner: and, d’you know what, once again, it wasn’t disappointing, but we were on a bit of agenda with two shows to cram in before bedtime. During dinner though, something really strange happened: my Apple Watch pinged to let me know about a transaction on the bank. This was strange as we had had no Internet so, doing a quick check, I realised that the Internet was restored!

The astonishingly good Tom Jones tribute

Then we went to hear a Tom Jones-alike who was frankly absolutely bang-on. Sir Tom himself could have been in the room - and we’ve seen the real thing in concert some years ago. What a voice! This guy had made a vague effort to look like the main man - hair tightly curly and set on top of his head, a short beard and a hint of a Welsh accent, even though he came from the North-West. On the big numbers, he absolutely delivered with power, control and authenticity - if you can fake that, you’ve got it made! A class act. He had wowed Tom Jones himself on The Voice some years back and had had special attention from him when he discovered that he’d not been allowed to sing one of Sir Tom’s songs, initially  He went on to do just that with some significant success.

At this point, with the Internet back in harness, we raced back to the room to blast out the first blog from the day before with a swift apology for the delay. We then planned to send out Gabrielle’s blog for that day once we had finished with our evening.

The excruciating Eric and Ern tribute

As if we had not had enough entertainment, we then went to see Morecambe and Wise, or rather two guys pretending they were them and reenacting some of their best sketches. First off, is this a valid form of entertainment? I guess we have tribute bands, tribute singers, so why not tribute comedians? It’s the sort of thing my school mate and I used to do during break times, reciting at each other the various parts from The Goons, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and others. However, these guys get paid to do it and have made a West End show out of it. But the problem was, it was excruciatingly awful; not just bad, but toe-curlingly embarrassing, grim, beyond anything I’ve seen on stage. I’d have walked out, had we not been sitting in the second row. People were laughing politely but really, the lack of enthusiasm for their act was a bit of a humiliation. They had worked hard to extract laughs, but where Morecambe and Wise had had some ineffable chemistry that made it happen, these two sound-alikes just didn’t. They mugged and grimaced their way through some of the standard pieces including the Andrew Preview bit with the grand piano … but without the great conductor. After the line “…but not necessarily in the right order,” some people applauded. For what? Hashing up a memory of a very funny sketch? Daring to have the audacity to step on the stage and deliver someone else’s lines as if they were their own? (Problem is, that’s what the Tom Jones-alike and all tribute acts do, but they’re not all sooooo bad!) That’s forty-five minutes of my life that I shall never get back and with which I could have benefited mankind, invented nuclear fusion or solved world hunger. Nope. Not good. Not even a little bit. And this was after the Ames, Independent and Guardian had rated the West End show four stars!

So, back to the room and out with Gabrielle’s blog and then, hammering furiously on the keyboard to excoriate the Morecambe and Wise act.

It was a fairly late bedtime and I read a little while Gabrielle “went to sleep” - yeah, right. She lay there, basically waiting for me to turn off the light, at which point I fell soundly asleep and she was left with my snoring. As per.

The morning dawned bright and clear with the ship moving in many more directions than simply forward. Walking was a slightly hazardous activity and showering in a bathtub was positively dangerous, but shower we did - Gabrielle doing so after doing a work out (Amy, please note!). There is absolutely nothing on the agenda today that we want to get involved with. There are two talks by a couple of old guys about the war … one day we’ll move on … and tonight’s delight is Celebration Night so everyone will be out in their penguin suits. 

Gabrielle has signed up to be a model for the day on the 5th or 6th so we shall no doubt hear some news about whether that is going ahead. At the point of signing, there were only two people - both Small to Medium - so it’ll be interesting to see if any fuller figure volunteers turn up.

Today’s walk was quite challenging as we have two different swells addressing the Aurora. They appear to be of long amplitude so the vessel is pitching quite deeply and the horizon falls away then lurches back up in a fairly alarming fashion. Even for those of us with sea legs, this is quite disorientating and the variation in walking first uphill and then downhill within the space of a few metres is interesting, to say the least. However, we got back to our cabin just as the Officer of the Watch did the daily, midday ting-ting and here are our fun facts for the day: since midday yesterday we’ve steamed 470 nautical miles at around 20 knots with a further 1,586 nautical miles to go to our destination of Ponta Delgada. We crossed the Tropic of Cancer today: this is the most northerly point at which one can see the sun directly overhead. Its 24C and breezy and sharp-eyed spotters have seen Lions Mane jellyfish near the ship. These highly dangerous creatures can kill humans with their trailing tendrils, laced with poisonous stings. So no overboard dips for me then.

The morning passed delightfully on our balcony, overlooking the deep blue sea, with flying fish occasionally skimming away from the ship’s wash as we ploughed our way onwards. I continued to read my current book, Widowland, by C.J. Carey - a pen name of Jane Thynne. It’s a cross between Handmaid’s Tale and a wartime resistance tale. It’s OK, but not worth hanging on to so it’ll end up in the ship’s library.

Lunch came and went, uneventfully and we headed back to our cabin for a relaxing afternoon - this is really the first time we have had the leisure to do nothing. I know that sounds strange when we’re on a 65-day cruise, but the fact is that the days tend to be packed with episodes of activity, whether it is speakers, exercise, trips out, shopping, eating, drinking or anything else that takes our fancy. Today is just about chillin’.

The plan now is for a leisurely get ready for our Celebration Night at Sindhu, with a preparatory glass of pop in our cabin before heading out into the social whirl and promenade. My how magnificent we shall look! Gabrielle will report back on how it all went in the next episode.