Metamorphosis of a pianist on t' world cruise: Football madness, Des O'Connor and the Adventure Squad!

Happy New Year everyone!

Today we will embark on the world cruise, so it seems like a suitable time for another blog! By now I’m nicely tanned and relaxed from the Caribbean sun, and looking forward to spending the next 2 months travelling the world to Hong Kong.

Over Christmas we had a bumper cruise which included 9 islands in 10 days – the day off was xmas day. We visited the 5 usual islands and on top of that St Kitts, a wealthy American island that was unfortunately pouring with rain, St Maarten, a Dutch/French island swarming with fat Americans buying cheap jewellery, Curacoa, a colourful Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela, and Tortola. Unfortunately we arrived late in Tortola and since the tender ride to shore was so long and time was limited, crew leave was banned. However we did sunbathe on the top deck and when we sailed away there was the biggest, clearest rainbow I’ve ever seen and we seemed to sail right through the middle – amazing. The ship often arrives late at ports, and on this occasion it was due to a deck party the night before. The passengers had a Caribbean style cocktail party for about 3 hours at the back of the ship whilst we were sailing to Tortola, and several passengers complained that the smoke from the ship’s funnel was blowing into the party, so the Captain had to change course slightly so that the wind would blow it elsewhere, resulting in us adding extra mileage and time to the journey.

We had another huge case of Norovirus, and at one point 10% of passengers were estimated to have it. If you have it you are supposed to be quarantined for 48 hours and fed boiled fish and water. Since passengers have spent thousands of pounds on their cruise, a lot of them will refuse to do this, making it very difficult to contain. There were talks at one point that the last Caribbean cruise would be cancelled in order to fully detox the ship in preparation for the world cruise, but luckily it didn’t come down to that.

Just before Christmas I joined the QM2 football team! Having not played for ten years I donned some childrens shin pads and some Ascots that were 2 sizes too big, and we boarded a minibus in Greneda to play a local team. The opposition were rubbish, but unfortunately we were even worse. It was a totally random bunch of players, and no one knew eachother’s name. I was supposed to be playing right wing but since no one was keeping to their positions I went up front and scored our only goal within 10 minutes. It was quite spectacular - the goalkeeper kicked the ball in my face and it bounced over his head and into the net. After playing for 20 minutes in 35C heat I was absolutely exhausted! Luckily we had enough subs to rotate whenever we got tired (every 5 mins). All of their players were middle aged, placid, black Caribbean men except for one English guy called Dave who must live there. He took it a bit too seriously, wearing his Chelsea kit and f-ing and blinding at his own players every time they didn’t pass him the ball. In the end we lost 2-1, but returned to the ship feeling quite proud as the previous match they apparently lost 7-0.

Entertainment wise, we were blessed with the company of John Prescott and Des O’Connor. John did 2 lectures, I only saw one of them and there was no mention of the egg, so maybe that was in the other lecture. He spoke at length about his partnership with Tony Blair, and why they made certain decisions in the Middle East – things that would interest both English and Americans. He brought his wife up at the end as it was their 50^th wedding anniversary. So that was interesting – as also were the reactions of the miserable old American woman next to me who kept scowling and hissing at me and my friend Simon every time we so much as crossed our legs. Honestly, some of these passengers seem to just come onboard to moan, complain and look grumpy the whole time. On embarkation day I sometimes play the piano in the lobby, and loud American women will interrupt me whilst I’m playing to ask where their room is:

‘RROOM 188, YOU KNOW WHERRE RROOM 188 IS?!’

‘No’

‘THESE PEOPLE KNOW NOTHING!’

On New Year’s Eve we gave two performances with Des, who actually brought his own pianist/Musical Director Ray Monk from the BBC, so I was relegated to playing strings on the keyboards, but it was good fun. He told lots of clichéd little jokes and stories amongst some big band numbers, and the audience lapped it up, although the rest of the band - being non-UK and of a younger generation - thought it was pretty naff. Later on in the evening we were all ballroom dancing and he was there with his 6 yr old son, looking rather worse for wear. We got photos with him but unfortunately I’ve been rather lazy with my camera and don’t have one to post!

At the start of the xmas voyage, my friends Jesse (sound engineer) and Bryan (saxophonist) formed the ‘Adventure Squad’. Getting bored of sitting on the same beaches at each port, we now get off the ship and challenge ourselves to an adventure. The first one was in St Thomas, where we swam out about half a mile to an anchored yacht, just to have a look. Luckily the owner was an old guy from Wigan, and invited us on for a tour and a drink. He and his wife sail around the Caribbean whilst renting part of the yacht out to guests. I lost my goggles diving off the side but apart from that we returned to shore unscathed. Jesse is quite a character. He’s 22, from Plymouth, and is the most chilled out and upbeat person you’ve ever met. Always looking at the bright side of things and never complaining has made him an easy target for practical jokes. His production manager sent him an electricity and water bill for his cabin the other day, which he tried to pay without hesitation. He was also sent up to the top deck by the officers one night on ‘Fog Watch’, again with no complaints.

Other adventures have taken us running, hill climbing and snorkelling in the rain in St Kitts, surfing in Barbados where we met the former windsurfing champion Brian Talmer, sailing in St Lucia and jet skiing in St Thomas. Jesse has a skateboard that he takes off the ship with him although he almost lost it in Manhatten when he got pulled over by the police for being wreckless. He also got pulled over by the police in St Maarten for riding a Segue full pelt down a shopping street and almost knocking over a group of small children. The Adventure Squad or looking forward to possibly shark diving in Cape Town and bungee jumping in New Zealand!

Aside from adventuring, I have been working hard too, believe it or not, and was nominated by the musicians for Employee of the month in December. A few days ago I attended a little awards ceremony with the captain, officers and about 10 other nominees. We had a nice buffet and then our managers gave a little speech about us – part of the reason I was nominated was because I got up at 7.30am on Christmas day to play for the church service after having played for midnight mass and then staying up at the Christmas party until silly o’ clock. The prize for Employee of the month is 1000 dollars, however I was warned in advance that there was no chance I would get it over the other nominees, some who have to work 80 hours a week in the kitchen. I didn’t get it, which was probably a good thing as I probably avoided being assassinated by a Filipino!

Apologies again for the lack of photography – will promise to make an effort on the world cruise! Hope everyone is well!