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The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.

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11:19am on Saturday, 27th July, 2024:

Three-Way

Outburst

For the past few days, there have been three-way traffic lights where our road meets the main road through the village. These lights are so sensitive that they detect pedestrians, so they're not ideal. At least they work, though.

Why do we need the traffic lights?

Well, there's a water leak.

That water is 5cm deep at most.

Maybe Anglian Water is worried that if people drive over the puddle they'll damage the leaky pipes more or something, but do we really need three-way traffic lights for that? With four road signs on each of the entrances warning us about the lights' presence? A single traffic cone would suffice.

Meanwhile, we have washbasin-sized potholes that have nothing other than themselves and skid marks to indicate they exist.

I'm really growing into this getting-old-and-cantankerous role.

8:54am on Friday, 26th July, 2024:

Four by One

Weird

No, Amazon, I didn't buy one copy of the same book four times: I bought four copies of the same book once.

8:46am on Thursday, 25th July, 2024:

Library

Weird

On the left, the library of the Celebrity Equinox. On the right, representative books available in the library.

Given that inaccessible books on the high shelves could cause serious injury if they came down in rough seas, I assume they're fake and are bolted onto the wall.

The accessible books were all of the kind shown: odd volumes from series of encyclopaedias, multiple copies of biographies of obscure French philosophers, price lists from five decades ago, listings of the major events occurring in 1963, famous novels translated into Turkish or Serbo-Croat, ... . I guess this is the only way they can ensure that the books aren't stolen.

Maybe next time I go on a cruise, I'll take some of my own books and put them on the library shelves. It will serve as revenge for giving me COVID-19.

6:31pm on Wednesday, 24th July, 2024:

Video Game Law

Comment

I hope Kamala Harris has changed her views on video games since Edmund G. Brown, Governor of the State of California, and Kamala Harris, Attorney General of the State of California v. Entertainment Merchants Association and Entertainment Software Association.

I'd ask the same of Trump, but (along with him) I don't know what his views are.

10:00am on Wednesday, 24th July, 2024:

Original

Weird

One of the shops on the Celebrity Equinox sells original artwork. They put out paintings and passengers buy them (or, sometimes, there's an auction for them).

These two paintings were inadvertently placed next to each other at one point.

Well strictly speaking I suppose they are original, because they're not identical, but to me they look more like one of those "spot the difference between these two images" puzzles.

12:52pm on Tuesday, 23rd July, 2024:

Cough ... Cough

Anecdote

Last time we went on a cruise, we came back with COVID-19.

Yesterday, I developed a sore throat. Today, it became a cough. I have a face-to-face meeting with the Head of School tomorrow, plus face-to-face meetings with three students on Thursday, plus a hospital pre-admission test on Friday, so I thought I'd do a test to make sure I have nothing worse than a cold.

Sigh.

11:28am on Monday, 22nd July, 2024:

Putting Lives at Risk

Weird

This sign is beside the road near Gatwick Airport:

OK, well I don't want to put any lives at risk so I guess I won't clear up my litter then.

12:05pm on Sunday, 21st July, 2024:

Back Home

Anecdote

Well, we're back home now. The security cameras did their job and no-one broke into the house to steal my board games.

We arrived back later than we had planned.

Our flight was due to take off at 18:30, but for a short while during the course of the day there was a suggestion in the Vueling app that it might take off 20 minutes later (that was before the Vueling app stopped working because of "connection problems" shared by no other web sites). Boarding was supposed to being at 17:50, biut didn't; when it got to 18:oo and we weren't yet boarding, a disgruntled passenger (not me) asked why not. Acting on this, the people at the gate let us through, causing us to wait for 20 minutes in an airless airbridge. The man at the front of the line complained and we were allowed into another section of the airbridge where we waited another ten minutes in stifling humidity.

When we were eventually allowed onto the plane, it hadn't been properly cleaned. There were used tissues on my seat. We moved them to the seat in front.

At 18:35 we were all aboard, but the captain made an announcement. Our slot was free, but it was being given to someone else because of the IT problem yesterday. We would be taking off 3 hours late.

So ... why let us on, then?

Ah, well it could be that we might suddenly get the thumbs-up because some other flight missed its slot, so we had to wait aboard just in case.

The passengers were not happy. The flight itself was only due to take two hours. Five hours is the length of a transatlantic flight with a good tailwind.

Checking assorted flight trackers, it became clear to us that a slot had indeed been allocated, for 20:14. Sure enough, as we got closer to that time, the captain told us that we'd be taking off at a quarter past eight — only an hour and three-quarters later than we were supposed to take off. I think he was hoping that the fact this was some way short of three hours would cheer us up. It didn't.

The flight did indeed take off around 20:14. After wife-frightening levels of turbulence over Paris, we arrived at Gatwick relatively unscathed. Passport control was a breeze, our luggage arrived early, we went to pick up our car and were hit with a £30 excess charge because I'd said I would pick it up at 9:30 and that was 12 hours earlier. They must have used a 24-hour clock.

The journey home by car was awful. Speed limits were in place on the M25 because of roadworks, and there were matrix signs warning of a 20-minute delay between Junctions 2 and 31, which is to say the Dartford Tunnel. The delay was actually an hour and 40 minutes. It was followed by more roadworks the other side of the tunnel, then some on the A12. We'd left Gatwick at 22:00 for a 90-minute drive and arrived home at 01:30. Worse, because we'd been on Central European Time for over a week, it felt to us like 02:30. Fortunately, I'd managed some sleep on the flight over, so wasn't in danger of nodding off. Another half an hour might have tipped me over the edge, though.

Oh well. I've had worse travel experiences.

The pizzas at Rome Airport are surprisingly good, by the way.

10:50am on Saturday, 20th July, 2024:

Rome Airport

Anecdote

We're here in Rome Fiumicino airport waiting to check in for our 18:30 flight home.

We arrived at 10:30, at the wrong terminal because buses can't stop outside the right one. We went to the Vueling check-in desks to drop off our bags (I managed to check in using their app on the bus ride in, once British Airways condescended to tell me what code to use). The queue for the check-in desks took us to 11:30, whereupon we were told we couldn't drop off our bags because we were too early. We have to wait 3 hours before we can drop them off.

Rome Airport is crowded on the check-in side, but has few amenities (especially places to sit). I have now found a place to sit, and will stay here until 14:30 so I don't lose it.

There was a saying among the ancient Romans that if an emperor wanted to be considered good, the best way was to have a worse emperor follow him. On this basis, I can see why cruise lines would want to deliver passengers to Rome airport eight hours before take-off.

The wi-fi here is good, though, so it's not entirely bad news.

Oh. Yes it is: it only works for mobile phones. OK, phone as mobile hotspot it is!

2:07pm on Friday, 19th July, 2024:

Salerno

Anecdote

Our final stop is Salerno.

It was 33C in the shade at 9:30am, so we didn't spend as much time walking aorund as we'd have liked. There was a paucity of ice cream shops, too, which also prompted a speedy return to the ship. Still, we managed to find a cathedral, a monastery church and a museum to look around for a mere €10. There was some kind of chanting going on the the cathedral crypt; I think they may use the building for religious purposes.

Salerno is one of those Italian cities that has an old town with narrow streets and small, twee shops selling things that other peope want to buy. It could be Sorrento, Belaggio, Santa Margarita, Sirmione — they all blur ito one eventually. Fortunately, I like the one into which they blur, so I'm happy to be here. Oh, and it's somewhat cleaner than its Marseille equivalent, which is a boon.

I tried to upload yesterday's post just now but the Internet is having none of it. I guess it's something to do with this worldwide outage. I hope said outage doesn't affect the ship's guidenace systems, or we'll be stuck here another day and miss our flight back tomorrow. That's if there are any flights tomorrow, of course.

I guess I'll be uploading this post from the comfort of Rome airport, too. We arrive at something like 10:30 for a flight at 18:30. That'll be a nice, relaxing day....

9:00am on Thursday, 18th July, 2024:

Sea Day

Anecdote

It's a sea day today, so I get to spend most of it looking at the sea. We did pass through the channel between Corsica and Sardinia, though, which are closer than I thought.

The cruise ship has wi-fi that can be used for free by its app. I only ever use the app to find out what the evening menu is, but when we were in Nice I got a notification that the app could be updated. I updated it. Now, the button to show the evening menu doesn't work. I can, however, use the app to order an Internet package at 50% off. We're 80% of the way through the cruise.

2:07pm on Wednesday, 17th July, 2024:

Marseilles

Anecdote

Today's port of call is Marseille, the second-largest city in France and the one featured in the title of the French national anthem (sample lyric: <french>"Do you hear, in the countryside, the roar of those ferocious soldiers? They're coming right into your arms to cut the throats of your sons"</french>).

We were docked some distance from the interesting part of the city, but for only €5 could take a bus to transport us there, passing some 200 metres down the road the free shuttle bus operated by the port authority. Our bus took us to a shopping centre, which the tour guide really talked up. 180 shops! Yes, but 120 of them were ones we have in English shopping centres.

There are three main places to go in Marseille if you're tourist:
1) The cathedral on the top of the hill. We didn't go there because that's all there is on the top of the hill and it was at the top of a a hill.
2) The old port. We did go here. It's big and full of boats. It was quite impressive, I thought. I could have done with a little less sun, though.
3) The district known as Le Panier, or "the basket". We went here. It's a hustling, bustling, energetic collection of narrow streets featuring individual shops, artisans and small eateries. None of it was open before 11am and only a twentieth was open before noon.

We visited a cathedral. It was closed,

We visited a parish church. All of it had been torn down in the French revolution except the tower, which survived. It has since been rebuilt. The tower wasn't original, it was a later add-on. All of it was closed.

Le Panier is quite a thrill. It gives the impression that it's a run-down slum, but it's not. It reminds me of Stokes Croft in Bristol, largely because it attracts vast amounts of grafitti.

On the whole, Marseille was well worth a visit, but that visit should probably have been in the evening.

The flush on our stateroom toilet has stopped working. It really needs to be working....

3:12pm on Tuesday, 16th July, 2024:

Villefranche

Anecdote

Today, we're anchored off Villefranche, I expect because it would be too expensive to anchor off either Nice or Monte Carlo, which Villefranche is located in between.

Villfefranche is quite scenic, but also small. Well, the old town is small; the rest is a sprawl of 1960s apartment buildings lining the hillsides. Anyway, we knew we'd have to go somewhere else as well as Villefranche or our day's exploration would only be an hour long. Nice or Monte Carlo, though? Or both?

There's a film called Monte Carlo or Bust, so we went to Nice. I'd have liked to have crossed another state off my countries-visited list, but my wife has no such interests.

The train there cost €10 return. Not bad, and certainly better than the $150 an excursion from the ship would have set me back.

Nice on the whole lives up to its name, unlike the biscuits. It's a modern, prosperous city with an old town only a twenty minute walk in scorching heat away. The old town is one of those ones with tall, narrow streets lined with shops selling the specialist local tat plus clothes that would be tat anyywhere. There's a very nice street market with a lot of quality food stalls, which was pleasant to look around. I wasn't going to carry pomegranites the size of a baby's head back to the ship, though, so we didn't buy anything.

Oh, we did buy some ice cream. Prices vary wildly round here, from €2.50 for a single-scoop cup (in La Spazia) to € 5 for one (in Portofino). We found a place in Nice that did them for €3.50, and I have to say it was the best so far. Maybe it's because Nice was almost part of Italy. I had three scoops, and the lavender flavour in particular was sensationally good.

The train back from Nice was packed, mainly with people travelling to Monaco. We had time to go there as well but my wife had been spooked by the lack of information in Nice and was worried we'd maybe get on the wrong train back and end up in Munich or something, so we fought our way off the train at Villefranche (really — I had to squash a kid who wouldn't get out of the way, then squash his mother when she wouldn't either) and looked around there instead. Then, it was back to the ship. It keeps rotating with the current, and only in one small window of directions do I have a mobile signal, so I'll upload this when we get there.

So far on this trip I've taken 5 ferry rides and two train rides and have never had to show a ticket for any of them.

There are two American sisters in the adjacent ~~cabin~~stateroom. They're quite loud. Yesterday, they were discussing how calm the sea was.
Sister 1: The sea's so calm. It looks pixellated.
Sister 2: It's like glass.
Sister 1: It looks pixellated.
Sister 2: It's like glass.
Sister 1: I can't believe how pixellated it looks.
Sister 2: You won't see a sea that looks more like glass anywhere. Believe me: I've seen glass.

2:27pm on Monday, 15th July, 2024:

Santa Margarita

Anecdote

Today we're in Santa Margarita, named after the patron saint of pizzas. There's a tender to take us to the town from the ship and back; it's basically just a lifeboat.

Santa Margarita is quite nice, but you can see it all in two hours. We therefore took a ferry to Portofino at lunchtime. It was only 30 minutes late, which we spent standing in baking sun. The ferry back was a mere 20 minutes late, but in expectation of this my wife had bought herself a ha. I merely suffered, because I'm stoical.

Portofino is a quaint fishing village made of restuarants and high-class chain stores. It has sights that we'd have liked to have visited, but walking uo a hillside in yet more direct sunlight didn't appeal. It's very pretty, though. I'm glad we went.

All the little towns here are very pretty, of course.

There were seven more warships in La Spezia when we left last evening. The Italian navy must have read my blog and decided to beef up its presence..

We watched the footie in our stateroom, where it was showing on some sports channel I've never heard of. As expected, Spain won. We have the better players, but Spain has the better team. Let's hope our next England manager isn't as loyal to players and tactics as Southgate is.

I've no idea where we're going tomorrow, other than it's probably somewhere in France.

1:59pm on Sunday, 14th July, 2024:

La Spezia

Anecdote

We're still in La Spezia, and will be until 6pm. Then, we'll sail far away from any mobile phone signal and if I want to watch the England match I'll have to go to the sports bar where two regular TV screens will be showing it primarily to Spaniards. Sigh.

We walked around La Spezia this morning. It was shut. We were expecting this, though, because it's a Sunday and all of Italy is shut on Sunday. In that regard, it's like the entirety of August. We decided to go to the castle for the museum and views of the local rooftops. The castle said it opened at 9:30, Google said it opened at 10:30. We got there at 10:00. Google was right. We waited 30 minutes in the shade while being feasted on by midges.

Still, this gave us time to recover from the walk up many steps we had taken to get there. We complained that in Santander they had a funicular up the city's hill, but they didn't have one here. It turned out they did have one; as in Spain, we missed it until we got to the top and learned of our misfortune. We took it down, though; it would have been rude not to do so.

The view from the castle was good, apart from badly-placed trees and apartment buildings.

Stung by my comments yesterday about the number of warships in what's supposed to be the country's primary naval base, Italy added another four yesterday. This brings the total up to a much more respectable seven.

There's a P&O cruise liner docked next to ours. According to a passenger we met, all the shows have been cancelled for this evening and every TV on the ship will be showing the European Championship final. This is what happens when you're on a ship that sails from England. Even the crew want to watch it. The passenger we spoke to wasn't all that fussed, though, as he was Scottish.

The P&O ship is taller than ours. I think that's because they have a floor 13 and we don't because this is an American ship. I'm surprised they didn't make up for it with two floor 3s, for good luck.

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Copyright © 2024 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).