Day 24 – At Sea

Quiet sea day today. We had a talk by explorer Lucy Shepherd (off the telly) in the morning. Lucy filmed ‘Secret Amazon – Into the Wild’ for Channel 4 which covered her trek across the Kanuku Mountains in Guyana (a previously fairly unexplored region). Please see www.lucyshepherd.com for further info. This interesting talk was followed by an hour around the pool after lunch before we had to retreat at about 3 when it clouded over and pelted down with rain for pretty much the rest of the day.

In the evening we attended a musical performance by ‘virtuoso trumpeter’ Nathan Samuelson. Unfortunately it was a pretty toe-curling experience. In fact I should imagine that the psychological endurance tests that SAS recruits have to struggle through are a breeze in comparison to half an hour’s ’entertainment’ by this hapless fool. After bounding onto the stage in a blaze of sequinned self-importance, Nathan proceeded to plod through a number of Michael Buble (Bubble) covers, (idiotically attributing ‘Feeling Good’ to Mr Bubble instead of its composers Anthony Newley and Lesley Bricusse in 1964), before performing a random dull medley of tunes by The Police, a band which, as far as I recall, never even featured a brass section. In between these lacklustre numbers, Mr Samuelson bored the audience by regaling us with tales of the ‘sacrifices’ his parents had made in promoting his career by, err, driving him to music lessons, a feat achieved by millions of parents everywhere on a weekly basis. 🙄 He babbled about his ‘glittering career’ and ‘travelling the globe and staying in the finest establishments’ betraying an ego so puffed up and delusional that one can only conclude that he compares himself favourably to the world’s greatest musical talents throughout history, instead of the occasional jobbing cruise ship act that he is. 🥱😴

The ‘finale’ involved the would-be show-business king scampering among the audience like some trumpeting equivalent of the pied piper, fist pumping the air, shouting ‘come on!’ and trying with all his might to rouse the by-now slumbering punters into a frenzy of clapping and jigging, but which instead led to the inevitable outcome of them fleeing out the side doors. 😴

I should mention that we have a new captain! Lovely Captain Tom disembarked in Barbados and we now have Captain Martyn Sharples looking after us. We haven’t met him yet but he sounds jolly splendid on the daily noon briefing. 😊