As you may know, I was in Miami two weeks ago sorting Carnival Breeze stuff out with the beards and while there I decided I wanted to go for a really good meal to say thanks to my assistant Calvyn for all his hard work. We had eaten for most of the week at restaurants that pretty much all look the same, smell the same and whose food all tastes the same. So taking a break from Tony Chili’s and Ruby Roma’s, we headed to Miami Beach for a proper dinner at a very upscale restaurant. It is considered the most popular place in town and the place to be seen and the place for the rich and the tanned. I knew it may not be easy to get into but considering Calvyn and I were heading there at 6 pm and most of the Miami “faces” don’t even get out of bed before 8 pm as it would be very uncool to be seen eating dinner before 10 pm.

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It seems to me that more and more I am being called fat. Yep, my weight is discussed yet again in today’s Q&A and my bulging waistline seems to continue to fascinate. And not just in the world of .com either because it happens in real life as well. The other night, I went to a friend’s house for dinner and was offered more roast potatoes. “Oh, no,” I sighed, “can’t eat anymore carbs because they stay on me” patting my stomach as I spoke. This was a huge mistake because like all thin people, my host replied that they never have any trouble, “I can eat like a horse and never put on any weight” and as she said that she loaded another heap of potatoes onto her plate.

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I have worked hard these past few weeks and, of course, was looking forward to coming home and spending time with the family. When I say spending time with the family I meant taking Monday and Tuesday off and lying on the sofa watching TV having Heidi bring me food and drinks in between naps. But this was not to be and instead of me lying on the sofa watching the entire West Wing box set while dipping into a huge bucket of KFC, I was told that we were going to spend yesterday at the Bluewater Shopping Mall – or hell, as us men call it.

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From: MAGIC SPA MANAGER
Sent: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 10:22 AM
To: MAGIC CRUISE DIRECTOR
Subject: Thanks

Good morning John

I want to thank you for your help promoting our bamboo massage yesterday. Your announcement helped lots of people discover this excellent treatment and they all left feeling fantastic. I would like to offer you a complimentary massage to say thank you so please give me a call when you would like to have it so you can experience this for yourself. Thanks John.

Best Regards
Mia – Spa Manager

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There’s been talk about whether we need to start making announcements asking people to turn their cell phones off before shows. Personally, I don’t think we’ve reached that point just yet as most people are quite courteous when it comes to using their phones which would make it seem like overkill.

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It’s only now, on Monday, February 27, that I am starting to feel on the road to recovery following my Ebola/swamp fever and resulting pink eye. Once the doctor had told me my eye wasn’t contagious, I had to make the decision to carry on working and performing despite the fact that I felt like crap. It started off as a normal cold, a bit of a sniffle, and a feeling that the cabin air conditioner had broken because one minute I would be roasting the cabin to the point where Ketut was cleaning my room in a pair of Speedos and the next turning it into an igloo. Obviously when I called Heidi she was very sympathetic, saying “I suppose it’s man flu. Ha. You should try giving birth. Then you’d understand the meaning of true pain you bastard. Kye came out sideways and I was making you dinner 20 minutes later. So get off your arse and go host a show.”
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I love my daughter Kye very much. However, I don’t apparently love her as much as celebrities love theirs. How do I know? Because they say so – or so it seems. It’s the buildup to the Oscars and I just watched some actress who, honestly, I have never heard of, tell the CNN reporter something that makes me want to smash things to pieces with a large Thor-like mallet. She was asked if she was hoping to win and replied, “I am someone who puts her kids first.” As opposed to what? Ninth? Isn’t it sort of obvious that your children come first? That’s like expecting praise for not pinching a beautiful bottom when you see one in line at the Mongolian Wok. What do they imagine us normal people do, put our children 27th somewhere after the dog and our collection of ship pins? One day, I’d like to see a celebrity say, “My kids? They get on my sodding nerves the little bastards.” Maybe one day a celeb can even tell us what they are really thinking when asked what’s most important in their lives. “Well, the kids are OK, but if I am honest, I’d have to say my Oscar.”

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Yep, it’s that time again when I am going to talk about me being fat. It’s not something I want to do but the fact that I am blubbery has been pushed in my face like a silent movie cream pie fight ………..that I have no choice.

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It’s Friday February 17 and its time to pay tribute to something that has slowly disappeared from the Promenade Decks and dining rooms of the Carnival fleet. No, not the sodding shrimp cocktail ……….the gentleman’s tuxedo. My first remembrance of the tuxedo or dinner jacket as it’s known in the land of spotted dick and Simon Cowell was when I hired one from a store called Moss Bros. It was for a posh party and my mate Alan and I thought it would be “cool” to wear a tuxedo. Turns out it wasn’t and we were the only two people wearing such attire and to the other party goers we didn’t look cool at all. We looked like total and utter plonkers and we might as well have stood there wearing baggy underpants…… because the girls ignored us. We ended up drowning our sorrows with cheap wine and the next day I returned my hired tuxedo to the store explaining to the man on the returns desk that it was covered in vomit when I rented it.
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Just before I left home for the Carnival Magic my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Kye discovered the word “why.” “Don’t throw Dadda’s cell phone in the toilet” ……..”Why?” is her response. And judging by what happened to me last night at the captain’s celebration I only have even more to worry about from her in the future. You see I was standing with the captain and senior officers when two bloggers approached me and at this point let me say a big hello to Jodie and Tom Marshall and their five-year-old son Brady. As we were chatting and talking about the blog and Facebook and their cruise, Brady, who was obviously bored, pulled on his father’s sleeve and pointing at me asked “Why is he so fat?”
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