On Board Entertainment

Our Norwegian captain's funny. Not funny ya ya, his best joke was asking if we felt the bump as we crossed the Arctic Circle, but funny unusual. He speaks very slowly and you don't just want to finish his sentences – you want to start them as well. We've not seen much of him around the ship but maybe he's avoiding the Norovirus. He keeps telling everyone over the public address system to Vash, Vash, Vash to the extent that some of the passengers have named him Captain Pug Wash Wash Wash.

Talking about names we've struggled this time with the Gigolos. (If you've never read our blogs before these are the Dance Hosts provided by Fred Olsen) We got “Skeletor” on the first night for obvious reasons. I don't know what all his special powers are but one of them must be staying alive. From then on it was down hill. We named the second man Mr Happy because he never stopped smiling but then we got stuck on the the lady Gigolo who was a homely, jam making sort of woman. We never found a good name for the third man because he had a ubiquitous face that reminded us of several people we couldn’t quite place. For a while I was convinced that he was Stephen Hester, the Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland. After all that fuss about bonuses he must be down to his last string of polo ponies so I thought he might be doing some moonlighting on his holidays looking for a rich widow with a weak heart. Anyway it turned out that he was married to the homely woman so that was that.

On balance the entertainment has been very good. Comedy has moved on a lot in the last thirty years but to be fair to our comedian he's probably been out of the country on cruise ships for most of that time and missed it. I also have to admit that considering his terrible ageing disease, the singer wasn't as bad as he sounded. We've been to all of the shows by the Boudicca singers and dancers and they have to be some of the best we've ever seen. It wasn't just the singing and dancing that was good, it was the choreography, the lighting, the costumes and the Boudicca orchestra. It all made the recent P&O shows we have seen look very tired and dated. The sad thing is that the singers and dancers have just finished their 6 month contract and will be leaving the ship at Southampton. Company rules don't allow them to continue and they all will all be going their separate ways and probably won't perform together again. Oh well that's show business.

One of the lecturers, an English linguist married to a Norwegian, has been both informative and amusing as she has told us about Norway and the Norwegian culture. For example she described Vikings as sheep farmers with anger management problems. Janet's been to nearly all the card making classes which have been a cut above the usual and we went to the Crew Show last night. If you've never sailed with Fred Olsen this is the show where the entertainers are all crew members and it's always a unique occasion.

Captain Pug Wash was on the PA this afternoon telling us that the Norovirus “special measures” will be scaled down and we've just been to dinner and they gave us our salt cellars and bread baskets back. So that means that we can sail into Southampton virus free. It's not just in singing and dancing that timing is everything.

Dave