On Friday, I will fly home for two nights to celebrate my daughter’s birthday. I made a promise to her after missing her first and second birthdays that I would not miss another and thanks to the beards, I will head home on Friday and providing Ryan Air doesn’t fly me into a mountain or poison me with their in-flight sandwiches, I will return Sunday morning to the ship.
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There are many ways in which you can tell you are getting old. The forest of hair in your nose and ears for example or those weird noises I make now as I get out of a chair or off a sofa ………. aggghoooo. However, these past few days I have experienced two situations that make me think that 47 is the new 73. Firstly, while at home last week a friend called me at 9:30pm and asked: “I didn’t wake you, did I?” Bloody hell! Is that what people think of me? Do they believe that I have just had a cup of cocoa and am in bed asleep, dreaming of a nice retirement home in the country at 9:30 at night? I felt like telling this friend who called that actually I was in the middle of “a little action,” but he would rather than think I meant some rumpy pumpy that a “little action” referred to a good bowel movement.

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I remember when the mail used to be fun. Not email, not the offer of a larger thingy which, by the way, I decided to apply for and for my $45 I received a magnifying glass…..no, I mean real mail, the stuff the mailman brings. You know, back before e-mail, when I would receive a birthday card and check. Or even better, a birthday card with a check. There was nothing better than opening that white square envelope knowing that inside there would be money. It was such a letdown when it was just a card except when it was from my Uncle Norman who I knew was a cheap bastard and that the card would be as empty as Frenchman’s soap dish. Mail used to be exciting because every day was a new opportunity. You never knew what you were going to get. A handwritten letter, an invitation – maybe there would be a postcard from a friend on a Carnival cruise. Now, the only postcards that arrive have ads on them. Do I want a pizza? New decking? I have been used to getting emails for a larger gentleman’s sausage via email but yesterday I actually got a got a card in the mail offering me a bigger one and the handwriting on it looked very much like Heidi’s.
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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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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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This morning I have been suffering from something that has had my hemorrhoids flaring up like a puff adder and it has to do with changing my password. Now I am going to try and explain what has been going on but remember I have the technology and computer skills of a dyslexic hamster but I will give it a try.
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We start today’s blog with a question and my rather detailed and ummmm………sarcastic answer.

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So in a week’s time I will be home in the bosom of my family and it appears that one of the first things I will be doing will be spending my very hard earned money on a dog. Yep, for those who have been long time blog readers, you will know I have tried over the last few years to put it off but Heidi is like the Borg……..resistance is therefore futile.

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I hope you all had a fun Halloween. I spent it in my hotel room with the door locked and bolted in case a child staying in the hotel decided to knock on the door and say “Hola, tricko oro treato.” The ships on the other hand celebrated in full Halloween style all except the Carnival Miracle which has a nude charter and where every night could be a potential horror night.

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Tonight I will be back in my hotel room all alone again. Some of the Miami beards are great friends but they have their families to go home to and some are traveling and away from Miami. And so it’s me and my TV and shows like Star Trek. Yep, as there was bugger all in I watched Star Trek and I have never realised until the other night when I watched back-to-back episodes on late night TV just what a horny sod William Shatner was. (more…)