Lookin' up

The clear skies recently have given the great British public unobstructed views of a meteorite streaking across the night sky. This caused a lot of people to call the police, who duly logged the calls as ‘UFO nutbag’, ‘drunk’ and ‘fiery messenger of doom seen streaking towards Salford’. That the public responded by grabbing their phones rather than their cameras shows that the people behind ‘Stargazing Live’ probably have more work to do.

The meteorite was clearly visible because the sky, the very vault of heaven, was unobstructed by cloud. Certainly this is true at night, but not so much during the day. On a cloudless day, the perfect blue is criss-crossed with the vapour trails of jets. What’s amazing is the sheer number of them. I thought that there was supposed to be a recession on and that everyone was too poor to travel, and if they were travelling at all they were travelling by National Express, an experience so traumatic that one can only conclude that these things are usually chartered by Satan.

Looking up, one can’t help but try to picture what’s happening inside those metal tubes crossing the sky and criss-crossing each other’s path. Personally, I used to rather like aircraft travel. A few years ago international air travel used to consist of sitting in a seat and being brought endless, and free, snacks and alcoholic beverages while watching movies. Maybe life is still like that if you turn left rather than right on entering the aircraft, but for the mere mortals paying for their own tickets, the experience is now cramped, noisy and breathless, because to save on costs the airlines cut down on recirculating the fresh air, meaning that the majority of the air is actually recycled through flatulent tourists. And if you try to open a window, even on the ground, they get really sniffy.

Looking at all the snail trails of the fast moving machines, one wonders why so many people would choose to put themselves through that. Of course, alternative forms of travel have taken a bit of a knock reputationally recently, sea travel in particular. In the days of sail the main issue was scurvey and pirates. In the era of the great liners the main threat was icebergs, being snubbed socially or, imagining yourself among strangers, embarrassingly discovering that the purser you have been seeing in the aft lifeboat (not a euphemism) after dark has also been sucking off your village curate, unexpectedly also aboard, between bouts of quoits (again, not a euphemism). This means one of you will have to either stay in South Africa, or go over the rail.

Today the main threats to sea journeys tend to be pirates, running out of chips at the buffet, and the captain trying to do a handbreak turn round an island, at night, pissed, in a ship the size of a mega-mall. That a few weeks later the Costa Lista’s sister ship, the Costa Morra Insurancea Premiuma, then spent three days floating without power, was worrying to say the least. I don’t know much about cruise holidays, but I imagine that electricity is pretty important, not least because the recipe for ice is, as has been famously pointed out, water and electricity. There are only so many room temperature cocktails one can stomach before the ugly word ‘mutiny’ passes somebody’s lips. (By the way, the ‘mutiny’ is two parts rum, one part gin, lots of lime and a distress flare to garnish).

Private jets aside, first or business class probably still counts as luxury travel, involving sparkling wine, natural fibres and little snacks made from scarce ingredients from endangered habitats.

But the one great leveller of air travel, no matter what class you travel, is when you hit turbulence, in the toilet. It’s like being in a portaloo flipped by your drunk friends, if that tipping was happening in a giant blender, full of poo. If you hit an unexpected pocket while doing your business, chances are that you’ll emerge from the loo looking like pilthdown man but smelling much, much worse and resenting the hell out of all the selfish bastards who had chicken as their meal option.

Britannia Week – more booze

As for defence, the Britannia came compete with a complement of marines who, because they bunked next to the bar below decks, were kept short of sleep, drunk and surly. Just the thing to have if some joker pitches up and tries any high-seas jiggery-pokery.

With so many armed men living in an enclosed space, it was important to observe protocols and manners. The last thing you want is to offend anyone who you have to share a small cabin with for month’s on end. One of the innovations on the ship was the ‘Gin pennant’, a small mast, about ten inches tall, with a small pennant attached to it. The officer who was buying drinks that evening would run up the gin pennant and so misunderstandings about rounds would not happen. An excellent idea that should be adopted more widely, if only because pennants are not used as much as they should be and, given the way that English people like to cover their cars, houses and selves with flags whenever the football team are engaged in some tournament, there would seem to be an appetite for flag or pennant related pageantry.


While the ship had its own laundry, post office and sweet shop, it lacked its own printing and engraving workshop. Hence, all the menus for the dinners were printed before the Britannia left England. No pressure on the chef then, who I bet became amazingly adept at adapting local cuisine for his own ends to make sure that what was put in front of the Royal family and guests closely resembled what was on the menu. I bet the guy could carve almost any vegetable out of a potato, and season chicken so that it could resemble anything, up to an including blamange.

The Britannia is more relaxed than the most boutique of boutique hotels, more stately than any stately home, more booze-enabled than a nightclub in a distillery and, best of all, comes with its own monarch and small army. I’ll drink to that.

Britannia Week – the solution to holiday car hire

Of course, once you get to the island you have to be able to get around. This is the 1950s remember and the motor car had not yet extended its polluting reach to every corner of the globe. Like decent booze, if you wanted something, you had to bring it from home. And what could be more practical to carry on a ship and use to ferry Royal passengers around dirt roads than a Rolls Royce Phantom.

You may have been impressed by the ship, but just imagine if the first car you ever saw was a Rolls Royce Phantom. Anything after that is going to be a massive anti-climax; if some joker rolls up in a jeep a few years later and tries to impress the natives about the wonders of civilization, they might politely point out that yes, your toy car is very nice, but it lacks a walnut dashboard and where the hell is the decanter in the back?

Britannia Week - purpose

What nation would not be proud to have Britannia off their shore? Tropical island paradises with blue skies, clear water and white beaches are all very well, but what you really need to set off a view is a fine ship in the middle of it and, letting you know that the Empire is looking after you, no doubt a bloody big destroyer lurking a few hundred yards beyond.

Doesn't it make you feel safe, secure and, best of all, ruled? I should jolly well think so.

Britannia Week - booze

Paradoxically, there’s enough booze on board to float the ship. Let’s start with the staterooms, cabins and function rooms, when the ship was acting as a floating palace (gin or otherwise) the Queen would be entertaining the great and the good of the nations being visited and to do that you have to have plenty of liquor. The booze doesn’t just circulate at parties, the cabins have cabinets of the stuff, the sun deck has a cocktail bar and as for below decks…each rank have their own bar!

The officers has an officer’s mess, with a bar and a lounge area, resembling a comfortable bar at a golf club (complete with a toy wombat that was used in high-spirited games of 'catch the wombat'). The non-commissioned officers have a respectable sized bar, like the bar and function room at a working man’s club with aspirations. Finally the ordinary sailors have their own little bar, cramped, comfortable and cosy this is the least pretentious, most honest and by far the most welcoming of the bars on board, it’s the sort of wee snug country pub that you might find at the end of a walk in the Lake District – except it’s squeezed in below decks next to the sleeping quarters – it’s OK though, there’s a curtain to separate dozing sailors from revelling crew.

Britannia Week - the ship

The Royal Yacht Britannia is now moored at the Port of Leith, in Edinburgh. I suppose that, officially, it is decommissioned. Such an odd word, used to describe nuclear warheads when their plutonium heart is removed, but not, I think, appropriate here. The purpose of Britannia was, secondarily, to convey the Queen of the greatest country on the face of the planet around the world (well, the bits accessible by water) in an appropriate style but the primary purpose was to sit anchored in the bay, looking fabulous and representing a bit of Great Britain come to visit your country (and oh, is that a type 42 destroyer behind it, don’t worry, that’s just here for your protection, now sign those mineral rights over and you can come and meet the queen).

If the purpose of Britannia is to convince people that Britain is indeed Great, then it has not been decommissioned in any sense. I walked onto that ship a staunch republican, a view formed by many years careful consideration and one that has been baked to the point of bullet-proof hardened opinion by years of debate, revisitation and assuaging of doubt about whether it was possible to be a patriotic republican.

I walked off a Monarchist and an imperialist. In my defence, I’m pleading seduction.

There’s much to be seduced by. Firstly, the ship is beautiful, not like those huge white private yachts you see in the papers these days, which come with their own helipad, swimming pool, tennis court, greyhound track and missile defence shield (BTW: if you are sold something as an optional extra that you have only previously heard of on ‘Star Trek’, it is because your gullibility is only exceeded by your wealth) and, no doubt, a troop of heroin-addled sex trafficked eastern Europeans below decks.

No, if you’re going to have a big white yacht, it needs to be crewed entirely by lesbians and have a hope port of your secret volcano base where you plan to take over the world.

Britannia’s lines are beautiful. It has no helipad, it has launches. It also comes with quite a few extras, of which more later.


Inside, it’s understated, designed to look like an English country house. Indeed it resembles Churchill’s home; Chartwell and is also reminiscent of Hemmingway’s home in Cuba. Can it really be true that all you need is a sofa and a table, and a bloody huge well stocked drinks cabinet? It may be that the three are reminiscent because the style is early 20th Century. The reason for this is obvious, if you are the Queen, you only need to buy stuff once, because it never wears out. The telephones still in use are the same as those used at Buckingham Palace and are delightful wood and bakelite affairs. One thinks them quaint until one realises that they have a button on them that reads ‘the Queen’. Got an app for that? Thought not.

Modern houses, with their flat sceen tellys and games consoles and so much crap could take a lesson from Britannia. Elegance is a few seats and a piano. Okay, so HMQ was able to have Noel Coward at the ivories, but the point is Ikea and clutter is not the way forward.

Postcard from Sorrento - slim fit

Sorrento is beautiful. It’s also on the cruise circuit. This means that every day, even off season when I was there, there’s an elegant cruise ship anchored in the Bay. It also means that the population of Sorrento, by size, is as follow: American, German, English and Italian. By volume, its American, German, car horn, scooter, Italian, English.

God alone knows what the place is like in high season, but the little medieval alleyways were already crowded with tourists. This does not stop mad-arse Italians on scooters zooming down them at speed. Obviously, they are practicing manoeuvres for bag-snatching before the start of the tourist season.

The Italians here are all turned out really well. I felt like a right scruff in jacket and jeans. Luckily, I was able to improve my appearance no end with the purchase of a proper Italian shirt. I had cleverly left my shirt I had intended to wear to the wedding at home. Along with my camera. Oops.

So needing a replacement shirt I wandered into one of the many clothes shops and selected a fine white one, 16½ collar. Great. The lady at the till looks at the shirt and looks at me.

‘Sleem fit?’
‘Er, no…I suppose not’.
‘Ahhhh, Eenglish fit’. Smirk.

Indeed.