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NEW COLUMN
Sparring Partners Some say he’s the world’s most published travel journalist; he says he was once tortured on a cruise ship by a cabaret. All we know, is that Kevin Pilley is The City Magazine’s newest columnist, and that each month he gets embroiled in a game of one-upmanship, with himself. This month, it’s cruises
CRUISE-DROPPING ABOVE A seal on Deception Island, Antarctica BELOW Monemvasiae in Lakonia, Greece; Saint Barth Beaches, French West Indies
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ince 71 per cent of the earth’s surface is water, it is no surprise that nearly three-quarters of all human conversation is about travelling over it. Humans are very attached to water. They are composed largely of it. It will be very likely that at some time in your life – maybe even soon – you will be approached by a cruise bore. One of those floppy-haired, Gawd-help-us types who make you bite your bottom lip and draw blood when he says, “I’m in software routing.” At his side, abusing the orange juice and radiating a tremendous lack of sex appeal, will be his sour-faced, round-shouldered drone of a wife who can only be described as whatever the opposite of ‘bon vivant’ is. It’s fingernails down the blackboard time. You are looking at them with grave intensity pretending that what they are saying exerts a powerful fascination over you, when all you are really thinking is, “Step on a landmine, mate.” So, what do you do? Masking tape is impolite. A headlock is anti-social. As is saying, “Let me introduce you to someone who suffers fools gladly.” The answer is: BEAT THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME. Pretend you have been on more cruises than them and they will soon go away. So when they say: “There are five oceans and 112 seas in the world and we’ve done them all.” You say: “I am very fond of the Wendell. Off west Antarctica.” When they say: “You can’t say you’ve cruised until you’ve done the land-locked seas. The Caspian and the Dead Seas.” You say: “And central Asia’s Aral. All 1,534 islands of it! Both north and west basins! Between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. One of the world’s great unsung endothermic destinations.” If they say “the Timor Sea”, you return with “Laccadive, Inida” or “Marmara, Turkey”. Perhaps even “the Prince Gustav Adolf Sea, Canada” or “the Sodruzhestvo Sea, Southern Ocean” – and look at them as if they are on a pedalo in Chessington World of Adventures. Keep quiet if they move on to straits, bays and gulfs. Let them blow themselves out. Bide your time. When they bring
ABOVE A cruise ship in Dubrovnik, Croatia. IMAGE: MikeDotta / Shutterstock, Inc. BELOW Komodo National Park in Indonesia; Padar Island in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia; Santorini in Greece
If they say “the Timor Sea”, you return with “Laccadive, Inida” or “Marmara, Turkey”. Perhaps even “the Prince Gustav Adolf Sea”
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THE CITY MAGAZINE | March 2017
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