Tuesday 17 February 2009

Video clip fame spreads

The video clip we put onto Youtube (Big Wave Hits Cabin Window) is achieving a modest but steady success - 970 hits so far.

Thursday 12 February 2009

Sequels

The local paper interviewed me when we got home and gave a front-page splash to my complaint about the amount of injuries on the ship. They sent a photographer who did his best but the result was pretty exhausted-looking.
A photographer friend emailed straight away to say please to let her take my photos in future, which would be fantastic.
Andrew went into our local builders's supply shop (M and J) and Lindsey who works there asked about the cruise - she had read the local paper. She said some other Faversham people had been on the same trip and they had told her that two people who'd been on the boat had actually died as a result. I have no idea if this could possibly be true. It shows how rumours move along - it feels like Chinese Whispers.
But - how dreadful if it is true, and how concealed in this swirling disparate layer of experience, and how convenient this 'concealment' is for the shipping company if it is true.
I wrote about our trip to our MP, Hugh Robertson, who replied to say if what I had said was right, he agreed things needed looking into and he was going to contact the Shipping Minister. My attempt to contact the Dover MP (Gwyn Prosser) who I understand takes an interest in matters affecting cruise ships sailing from 'his' port, was much less successful. My email went to some Labour Party hack who replied to me but did not feel able to pass on my letter, saying I should write to Westminster or giving me some other indeterminate address.
I want to put all this down, not let it take over my life.
My heart sinks when people ask me about it - and they do, because of the local paper. The whole topic conjures up the look of the ship's carpets with their swirly pattern, and the plasticky feel of everything.
The only part I feel really good about is the way our small video clip - of a wave hitting our cabin window - has turned out to be quite a success story on YouTube. It's been up there for one week, but has had over 500 hits! I think the reason is the indavertent commentary we laid down.
You can see it if you go to www.youtube.com and put 'Big Wave Hits Cabin Window' into the search box. What you hear is the sound of the TV with some slushy programme on... Andrew was filming and I was on the bed reading and not paying much attention to anything. Then the wave smashes onto the glass and I shouted 'Did you get it?" and he says 'Yes' and I say 'Fantastic!' and he then says he can delete his other recordings. The thing is, it sounds like we are discussing sex - something I remember from the dim past.... LOL!
Actually my favourite clips on youtube are under the heading 'woman parking' or 'stupid woman parking'. As you probably know I am a feminist and will stick up for women at all times, BUT these women are absolutely rivettingly, totally, blitheringly incompetent at driving their cars and the footage (often captured on someone's mobile phone by the look of it) is absolutely hilarious.
You see a car at some distance, being manoeuvred pointlessly back and forth, sometimes bashing into things, and eventually a woman gets out. The person filming - often a young man - is in helpless laughter and has others watching beside him, all of them incoherent with laughter. It's not so much derisory as incredulous. And very very funny.
I recommend it.

Monday 2 February 2009

More information......

It seems I am not the one who thought the company and captain made the wrong decision to sail down into that stormy weather..... See www.cruise.co.uk/cruise-reviews/read_review_11852/

I forgot to tell you THIS....

Hilarious... I think I forgot to tell you this. While we were chatting to some people (and he had an enormous beer belly and a beard), they told Sheila that they thought she looked 'like a slimmed-down version of Dawn French, and your sister [ie me] looks like Pam Ferris....'

How cast down I was to hear this, initially. I used to be compared to Hayley Mills (when I was 12), and to Glynis Johns in my teens, and have not had any direct comparisons since then, and my immediately thought of Pam Ferris was as Ma Larkin in The Darling Buds of May. But actually I am delighted to have had this reflection. I spent the remainder of the trip on the boat feeling I ought to help maintain her reputation, so I was wafting along in the corridors (while trying to stay upright), and had a gracious smile for everyone. Was ready to give my autograph.

The crowning moment of this was hearing some other people talking: 'And, did you know, Pam Ferris is on this trip?' 'Really?' 'Oh yes! I've seen her....'

Sigh.