“I promise you, we will catch the Punk that did this.”………………..I remember those words as if they were yesterday. My Dad and I religiously watched all the 70′s and 80′s cop shows from Ironside to Cannon, from Banacheck to McLeod and that one with Dick Van Dyke stars as a brilliant physician with an eye for a mystery, who regularly helps his slightly more dim-witted son to crack murder cases…………can’t remember the name of that one.

And of course Michael Douglas and the chap with the huge mole on the side of his nose in The Streets of Francisco. Ah, the good old days Watching them pull up and be able to park a car the size of the Holiday in front of anywhere they went in San Francisco still brings back great memories.

It’s possibly my new favourite city – stunning-looking, wonderful standard of living and the location of so many of my favourite Hitchcock movies.
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Yesterday was St Patrick’s Day. We had green, white and orange bunting draped listlessly on some of the bar counters with extra-cold Guinness ready to be served in ice cold bottles ……..however most of the Irish Americans dressed in their green T-shirts seemed to prefer that other famous Irish beer………Budweiser.

However……….I missed my mate Ken Byrne, maitre d of the Carnival Splendor and our talk about………. “the craic.”

The “craic” is very popular Irish phrase as popular in the Emerald Isle as “OMG” or “LOL” is online. I remember Ken once telling me though how much “Irish Pubs” that are outside of Ireland itself make him laugh. You find these pubs everywhere from Aruba to New Zealand.
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I had the strangest chat today with a guest who wanted to place our blog thingy on something called the Huffington Post. I was sitting waiting for David ……… sorry ………. Charlie to start his travel talk when a man came and sat next to me. I knew immediately he recognized me because the lounge was pretty empty and unless he sat next to me with his thigh touching mine because he found me attractive in a cute sort of Dom De Luise type of way……..that he either had sailed with me before of read the blog.

The answer was actually both.
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I’m feeling a little guilty today. There I was in yesterday’s blog talking about how families can have fun galore shooting each other in our Laser Tag game and then two total nutters go and shoot a total of 25 totally innocent men, women and in the Germany massacre……….children. And it’s the same in the UK. It used to be car alarms that kept urban Britain awake at night. Now it’s the distinctive ratatat of AK-47s and MAC-10s. Then all of sudden it’s all going off in Ireland as well with the shooting of two soldiers and a police officer.

Now, while I am sure it’s not difficult for the Irish dissidents and the bastard from Alabama to get hold of a gun how did the kid from Germany get one? And where are these schoolchildren who go to lessons every day with a Colt automatic under their blazers? And how are they getting hold of guns and paying for them when they spend all their money on texting? I like to think that I have my finger on the pulse, but if I were charged with the task of buying a machinegun, I really wouldn’t have a clue where to start. So, before I start today’s blog please forgive my gun blog thingy yesterday. The timing could not have been worse and my thoughts are with the families whose loved ones were taken from them by two very troubled and now thank goodness…. very dead men.
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The talk in the Heald household these past few days has of course been dominated by the Thingy. Heidi is really “showing now” and looks like…..ummm……….me. One of the subjects we have been discussing is how common it seems to be these days for fathers to have the names of their children tattooed someone on their body……..I told Heidi there was more chance of me having a fish and chips lunch with Michael Caine ….. naked …..than me getting the Thingy’s name tattooed on my back.

Heidi replied that David Beckham the world’s most popular female soccer player has all his kids names scribed on his body…………”Am I bothered though,” I replied.

You see, I have never understood the tattoo thing.
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Patience………lots and lots of patience……………that’s what you need here in Russia this morning as the authorities check every passport and tour ticket. I disembarked the guests on private tours first this morning because last week it took the average guest 30 minutes to get through Russian Immigration. This morning, it’s the same. You see, the Carnival Tour ticket serves as a visa but privately booked tours are checked much more carefully to make sure that indeed the tour operator is reputable and that guests are not just hoping to have Sergei the cab driver take them to town.

I actually feel sorry for these guests as while the guests on tours go quickly through the line on the other side takes much longer………..I wish there was something we could do but all I can do is to prepare everyone and remind them that the reward for a bit of patience is touring one of the most impressive cities in the world.

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It is common in the UK that on a Sunday all the ” Different people ” take advantage of the free speech laws and stand in the parks and in shopping areas and tell us the colour of the sky in their world.

This morning Heidi and I were taking a walk through our village where we came across a chap who told Heidi and I and the other members of the public that the world would end ……….on the 8th of June. Now, normally I would have ignored this chap but seeing as the alternative was 30 minutes of hell in a big girly shop that sells candles, cards and loads of that Po Pot smelly stuff I decided to stand and listen to my new mate tell us that in a few days it would all be over……………………….and he would not have been the first.
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Two days ago I spent an hour in a small Russian plane that had spent the last few years flying sheep from one side of Cuba to the other………..it stank of sheep and if it hadn’t been for Anna Kornikova serving me Dietov Cokeov it would have been even scarier than it was. Also that day I had been driven around Estonia by Boris the Formula One bus driver and was inches away from a mad Estonian when he fired a musket inches from my head as you saw in the photo.

I have been scared before in my life…………… Like during the Carnival Destiny inaugural when I performed my first ever live TV interview where on CNN I was asked about the Gym equipment………..that’s as scary as it gets when on live TV someone asks you a question about something you know nothing about. As fear takes over you have two choices, one to look down at your shows and mumble like a school boy in front of the teacher “I don’t know” or waffle on and make a load of stuff up…………….having to waffle on live TV was very scary indeed.

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Vulga…………….no not me ……….the car. The Vulga is the famous car made in Russia and whenever you think of movies about Russia you see these big ugly black cars bumping past the Kremlin. However, having spent the last 9 hours I saw more BMW ‘s and Mercedes than Vulgas. It seems that St. Petersburg has lots of new rich people and they all want to show it off as much as possible. Then of course there is the uber-rich and that was evident today when we stopped outside a restaurant where a gold Rolls Royce Phantom was guarded by three huge bodyguards and three more stood outside the place………….it was a scene from a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

Today I fell in love and my hatred for Estonia Air and yesterday’s nightmare my hatred was eclipsed by my love of this amazing city. When I was here in 2002 on the Carnival Legend I had little time to explore because of my onboard commitments but today, I explored the Hermitage, Catherine’s Palace and so very much more.

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