exlondoner

They never bothered about ties at my place. They had probably exhausted themselves monitoring skirt lengths.

And honestly, how close do you have to be to identify types of bow tie? Closer than I’d want to get, I suspect.

When I was speaking to a lovely lady at Cunard today, I asked whether she was going to get to see the ship before us. She said she was hoping so, but originally she had been one of a coterie selected to stay overnight on board, so the crew could practice, but to her disappointment that had been cancelled, because they still had a lot to do. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the date of that. She did assure me everything was fine for the maiden.

And Andrea Doria, the one that sank, was beautiful.

That is lovely. And didn’t the Italians have some gorgeous transatlantici.

It may all be in the translation. Perhaps there isn’t a difference in Italian?

I think the ability to flaunt your status must be significantly reduced if lesser passengers have to remember the different colours. 😀 I am the top level on Cunard, but can never remember whether it is diamond or plat. Not a desirable system if it automatically unlocks my cabin door as I approach. For a woman, at any rate, that is terrifying.

A different colour from normal people? I gather there is no actual need to wear the gruesome sounding medallion round your neck at all. It can go in a bag or pocket?

And if you want to save more space you could wear at least half the suit for embarkation (with other garments of course. 😀). Wearing the jacket would save more space, but the trousers would be more anonymous.

Though I think on some other cruise lines, passengers get much more generous benefits for being in the top tier. This probably wouldn’t work on Cunard, as it would involve such a large proportion of the passengers. But out of interest how do these sad people demonstrate their high tier?

Yes, in my experience, jacket wearers are a majority. I imagine it depends more than anything on what sort of mood the air conditioning is in.

The Q4s make very poor use of their good amount of space, but nonetheless I like them very much, and they would always be my choice. Unless you are very unlucky you should get good service from your butler and in the restaurant, where they’ll probably know your names by dinner. It is August so there will be children, but, on the rare occasions they are visible, they will be sweet and well behaved. Can’t make any comparisons, I’m afraid, but obviously the size of the ship will be a major difference.

Yes, in Dorset, we are very big on British reptiles, so it may be a choice between a singed lizard and a drowned and salted lizard. Although the blackened heathland is a very depressing sight, it is really encouraging how quickly the green shoots start appearing.

Brixham? In Devon? That’s a very long way from the North Sea. Wow.

Yes, could well have been RNLI, now I think about it, which would be free.

If the pilot boat or something similar has to come and collect you from the Solent, say, as I have seen happen, who pays for that?

We don’t have those yet, but I expect to see them soon off the South coast, as the fires seem to become more frequent. What is the effect on the flora and fauna of drenching an area with sea water?

Doesn’t she look completely splendid there?

And my, wasn’t she lambasted… mainly before people sailed in her. I must say I really don’t like the black wood though, but I’m sure lots of people do.

Please don’t think I am encouraging you to take inadequate insurance, because, obviously, nothing could be more stupid, but they won’t check on embarkation. In fact, on a crossing, for most of the way, you are out of reach of air evacuation, so they would have to cope. However I would check your insurance specifically covers air evacuation.

MSC, NCL, RCI all have their first class equivalents, with a far larger area with restricted access. Much more divisive than Cunard.

In the Q4 video, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of drawer space, though possibly there is and the camera didn’t cover that area. Many will remember QV’s first world cruise, which was just after she went into service, and involved much hasty retrofitting of drawers, the necessity of which had somehow been overlooked by the designers of the cabins. I hope they won’t have to go through that again.

Are we looking at the same one? The first video with a blue sofa?

And his Cavalcade won best picture in 1933