Quinquireme of Nineveh

Test-driving my first Lexus I was directed down to Cardiff’s harbour, now overlooked by blocks of expensive flats. The older I get the more the thought of living in a flat terrifies me (I might be closeted next to a Carl Orff fan) but these were tempting. To look down on ships going about their business, a stirring yet comforting prospect. But why are ships so pleasing?

They move deliberately and this confers dignity. A bit like the Queen… no, no, what on earth am I saying? There may be a mathematical explanation. A 10,000-ton ship moving at a mere 2 mph is a formidable force. Watch when a mooring cable is slipped over a bollard and seemingly innocuous energy is dissipated in stretching the new umbilical cord. Most of us respond to power even when it’s only dimly perceived.

Close up ships are often disappointingly rusty; they start donning their make-up at half a mile distance. Many superstructures are still painted white and this is as it should be. At five miles even a container ship has good lines. One reason why those Cardiff flats are so expensive.

NOT ALWAYS FOR THE BETTER Blogger keeps changing. Installing an image now involves a slightly different procedure which is not as intuitive, not as handy. A few moments ago I discovered that my age is no longer listed in my profile. Perhaps Google is trying to protect me from ageism. If so I am denied a simple pleasure: having my span notch up another year on my birthday. Damn it, I need that confirmation.

I am middle-class, honest

On the left, our Kingston-upon-Thames 1930s semi, sold in 1998. The estate agent noted the property had been modernised “but would benefit from some cosmetic redecoration.” - in other words the vendor’s a slob. ‘Twas a mercy the buyer was desperate and didn’t give a damn.

Twelve years on, scarred by that unkind judgment, I search our present house (new when we moved in) for tasks to prove I’m a caring owner. More and more obscure tasks, it seems. I paid right royally to have the brick driveway installed but now I’m faced with sealing it. Why? I had hoped sealing would inhibit weed growth. It doesn’t. In Tudor England, lacking a driveway, Sir Thomas More flogged himself with a leather whip. Times have changed but I don’t rule out a visit to the tack shop.

LOOK ON MY WORKS… I love France, inordinately, irrationally, irredeemably. I used to think of the USA as the Can-Do country but France is up there. The Millau bridge (already posted) provides grand proof, but here’s humdrum evidence. This low-loader carrying a gigantic yacht has been forced into the centre of a country road and is virtually brushing the plane trees on either side. The latter suggest that this could only be l’Hexagone, but there’s more. The lorry bears the rubric Convoi Exceptionnel. Many more syllables than Long Load, much more style.

POP-UP PERSECUTION It may be a penance for Windows 7 users but is anyone else suffering from the insistent Windows Live Messenger pop-up? It demands I sign up for the service which, as far as I can see, makes me subservient to Microsoft for the rest of my natural. Recommendations?

Man overboard - went willingly

Works Well has suffered. The blog has lacked energy, invention, frequency and entertainment value while its begetter wrestles Laocoön-like with what may be his funerary ornament. That’s enough purple passaging. Readers with stamina may be interested that I’m editing Chapter 15 (out of 22) which includes the parachuted-in single-appearance character who was discussed with Plutarch at the Blogger’s Retreat – an event which itself suffered its own real-life parachuted-in character.

I need something techno, something gloomy. How about the SS France, the Gallic equivalent of the Queen Mary, on which the Bondens floated home after six years in The Land of the Free? A pleasant five-day interlude? Hardly, although things started well. The first lunch came with a litre of red and a litre of white which the Bondens happily consumed. To be faced with a further two litres at dinner four hours later. Too much of a good thing.

Mute in the huge ship’s bowels stood the Bondens’ bolide, a VW Variant drained of its fuel and destined for misfiring problems in the weeks ahead. Also stowed were two steamer trunks and an even larger wooden packing case which was beginning to break up. Our worldly possessions, well in excess of the VW’s capacity. There would be problems on the dock at Southampton.

The France offered many diversions provided you were of an idiotic turn of mind. Bingo for instance. Ping-pong on a table that yawed. The Bondens fought tooth and nail in a claustrophobic cabin. Much later, when comfortably off, the Bondens received travel brochures urging luxury cruises. Both of us would sooner slit our wrists.

Out of the (loop: anag.)

Sonnet – Loss, Easter 2010

Because I am the sum of all I love
I am in mourning for this tiny death
And at the pool which saw my spirit move
Toss on its azure an encoded wreath.
I blame myself, I joined a hard elite,
Embraced an abstract petty discipline
Drawn by a fullfelt ardour to compete
With time and those whose natures could not win.
But I who overtook the frailer souls
Was overtaken by my own desire
A sickness stronger than my fevered goals
Left me land-locked, a hawk outside the gyre.
I’ll not repent, I’ll hear again the roar
Of discharged breath, of voices saying ‘More’

Novel progress 5/4/10. Ch. 19: 572 words. Chs. 1 - 18: 82,369 words. Comments: Hatch and Clare - early days.

Another milestone passed (reluctantly)

Imagine I’d lost a little finger or the lobe of an ear. Given what I know of you all I’d be granted some sympathy. Imagine something worse but perhaps too esoteric for sympathy.

Twice a week I visit a private pool and swim a mile. Because I swim crawl my head is regularly underwater and my sense of direction is hampered. My windmilling hands could touch another swimmer, unforgivable since most are women. To halve the risks I try to ensure I swim adjacent to the poolside (There are two pools so I have four opportunities). Other serious swimmers favour this reduced-risk lane and there is competition.

Over the years I have adopted stratagems to obtain this lane but it’s becoming a lottery, especially with the onset of summer. There is something else. As I get older I am more susceptible to stress. And this situation – despite its apparent triviality – is stressful. On the night before my apprehensions grow, in bed my stomach churns. As I drive to the pool I feel sick, a sensation which continues as I swim. This morning I felt I might vomit as I swam. As I drove back I decided that this had been my last mile.

Simple. One must accept old age. Age ended my ski-ing for physical reasons. But here the restrictions are psychological and swimming is something I do reasonably well. It is halfway between the terrestrial and the celestial, translucent and remote. The exercise is good for me but not the rest. I’ll swim in the sea when I’m able and in the pool in France. But not twice a week.

Novel progress 26/3/10. Ch. 18: 773 words. Chs. 1 - 17: 77,929. Comments: Clare in all her glory.

Stays a must when boarding

My brother was bringing Takista into a slotted berth at the – which? – marina. Say Ile de Ré, it’s such a smashing name. My job was twofold. To jump on to the pontoon and prevent the bows from hitting the rear of the berth. Then, using a line attached to the boat, tie on to a mooring cleat.

Ashore a French lad looked up questioningly. I nodded and it was he who protected the bows. When I joined him to tie on he gestured, Un joli bateau. He was right. Built for racing, and somewhat cramped below, Takista was sleek and purposeful. Here she is at St-Jean-de-Luz and the photo reminds me of when I first boarded her. No doors, as with a car. How do you “get on” a boat?

First, don’t grab the guard-rail. It prevents people going into the sea but it’s not intended to withstand the pull of someone climbing aboard. Search out the metal cables, called stays, running to the top of the mast from the edge of the deck amidships. These, duplicated at the other side of the boat, hold the mast up and are strong enough to pull on.

Other stays, forward and aft, do the same job and are your good friends at sea. Leaving Cap Breton Takista emerged into shallow water over which poured a tide race which corkscrewed the boat alarmingly. I’d gone aft to stow a fender in the lazaret (Yes, yes, I love the jargon) and wanted to return to the cockpit two metres away. Impossible. So I stood up, took hold of the backstay, feeling safe and relaxed enough to enjoy watching Takista’s pirouettes.

Why sailors prefer "instant"

Takista moored at a marina east of Bilbao whose name escapes me (all those Basque Xs and Zs). Brothers Bonden Minor and Bonden Minimus, Takista’s owner, are fiddling with a recalcitrant jib.

COOKING AT SEA The phrase is euphemistic. When you’re really at sea – and especially in the Bay of Biscay – culinary aspirations don’t really extend beyond applying heat.

After we left this forgotten marina for Hendaye I helmed for the first time. As a treat Minimus went below and did mugs of instant coffee all round. Later, after my iron-set knuckles had been pried from the wheel with a crowbar, I decided to return the favour. I knew that the hob was on gimbals and that there were clamps for the kettle. What could go wrong?

Yachts at sea move. They move to extremes. Worst of all they move unpredictably. Never mind the clamped kettle. What about the unsecured mugs made, thank God, out of Melamine? The answer seemed to be to wedge them into the sink for the terrifying moment when the kettle made its journey across the galley. A journey which revealed that the cook (me) too was unsecured. My eventual position, with feet at least 2 m apart, recalled a technique called “chimneying” occasionally employed when I was still flexible enough to be rock-climber.

On a later leg of our holiday, a long overnight hop from Cap Breton to Arcachon, I’d graduated to tinned stew and making toast. A giant step.

Pull this and we start moving

(Left) My brother’s yacht Takista at Royan. (Right) His son-in-law’s Dipper (police launch to the rear) moored at Holyhead

With cars much of the technology is disguised and/or simplified before it comes to the driver’s attention. With a yacht technology is overt.

Take a yacht’s head, for example. Takista’s was fiendish. One lever opened and closed access to the hellhole below; the other provided water so that a third lever could be waggled to provide a flushing action. I think I’ve got this right. After a while I didn’t have the courage to ask further and tended to arrange my bodily functions around visits to the marina.

We mustn’t talk about engines. My brother was highly superstitious about them. Not only were jokes not allowed, he even discouraged casual conversation on the subject. In any case the whole point of a yacht is to derive forward progress from the sails. The foresail is sort of semi-automated and is stowed away by allowing it to roll up round the forestay. The mainsail on Takista was hoisted by hauling on a rope to the side of the mast. On Dipper this task could be achieved by ropes taken to cleats for’ard of the cockpit – less dangerous if the sea was skittish. My brother seemed to regard this as effete.

The yacht’s equivalent of a handbrake is the anchor. Occupying the forward berth on Takista my sleeping head rested uneasily on the anchor chain. The radio was not tuned to BBC3 for Mahler but to channel 16 the universal open frequency on which information about disasters initially unfolds. Depth measurement systems have no parallel on a car.

I came too late to yachts and my enthusiasm has the zealotry of a recent convert. Inevitably I will return to this fascination.

A glance into the abyss

In awe of? Well, I suppose certain natural phenomena (The Bay of Islands, the Matterhorn from Zermatt, the south Brittany coast from the sea) and certain man-made structures (the Millau bridge, Coventry cathedral, the Chrysler building). Technology though tends to impress me rather than touch my soul. Though there was one occasion, and it was all the more memorable for its moral ambiguity.

For professional reasons I went aboard HMS Renown at Gairloch on the Clyde. Renown is – perhaps was – a missile-equipped nuclear submarine which slips off secretly, sometimes for months, into goodness knows what part of the ocean. Not with me aboard, I hasten to add. My job was ask questions about how she was victualled.

Theoretically my brief didn’t extend to Renown’s nature or to her raison d’etre but the hardware was inescapable. The CPO in charge of catering also had a battle job: operating the hydroplanes to initiate a dive or a return to the surface. Later there was the walk forward to the place where those sixteen (I think) ominous cylinders were installed.

Renown was so well-made, damnit. Efficient. Almost a recruiting exercise if you respond to mechanical, electrical and electronic things. She recalled those cutaway drawings in Eagle designed to excite young readers about technology for its own sake. The excitement reached me for it was possible – for a moment – to separate all this hard-nosed beauty from its purpose. I can’t say I wasn’t in awe of it all. Even now, nearly thirty years later, I remember the feeling. And remind myself feelings are not necessarily trustworthy.

Atomic clocks not much use here

The ferry arrived at 7.10 pm.

BB leaves Venanda beach apparently towed by his visibility float. Note orange tee-shirt

Diafani diary 4. Diafani’s only public clockface is on the church tower. Two sides were visible from our hotel window, both told different times and both had been stopped for three years to my knowledge. But then who goes to a Greek island to clockwatch?

Yes, but… You leave Diafani by ferry which arrives at 5.35 on a Saturday evening. That’s what the ferry company’s website says and that’s what the printed schedule – which I picked up on the incoming ferry – says. Except that it doesn’t. Diafanians shrug and say “about seven”. Demanding greater certainty, I am recommended by Tony of La Gorgona restaurant, to keep an eye on the southern headland. “When the ferry shows there you’ll know it’s coming.”

Greek time. Nikos’s boat leaves for a trip to the island of Saria at 10 am. “Is that 10 am Greek time Nikos?” I ask. And Nikos roars with laughter but fails to confirm or deny.

Dr Blagojević’s husband, Dr Miodrag Vujošević (Misa for short), is an economist and spatial/environmental planner, and we chat as we pass on the street. In response to my “Greek time” he cites “Greek calendar” which, alas, I am never able to follow up with him. But it makes sense. Change of seasons means more on Diafani than the flow of hours. Many people leave the village during its unrewarding winter for work on Rhodes or in Baltimore, Md.

That's why when I tell someone I’ve knocked a couple of minutes off my best swim time down to Venanda beach they’re much more interested that I did it wearing an orange tee-shirt (“He swims in his clothes”). To protect my shoulders from sunburn, if you must know.

Nations united by footwear

Diafani diary 1. Technology at its lowest – and it failed. Carrying fins, mask and snorkel I saw the strap had broken on one of my flip-flops which I need to cross stony beaches. My feet, cossetted by a decade of wearing trainers, are now as soft as a baby’s bottom. No solution in Diafani: the general store sells bottles of Scotch, postcards and detergent.

Outside a bar six healthy young people were loading up two rental cars, suggesting they would shortly be off to some location with wider retail potential. At my wife’s suggestion I offered a proposition. If anyone was prepared to sell me flip-flops I would hand over sufficient cash to pay for the most luxurious replacement pair.

This generated much good humour. Broken straps on flip-flop are universal. One young women was wearing an odd pair, one – in pink, decorated with a plastic flower. Not my style but, as my grannie used to say, needs must when the devil drives. I was asked if I was in the habit of clothing myself this way. I said I depended heavily on the kindness of strangers and the allusion was picked up.

Finally Ronel Spies, key account manager with Mix Telematics Mobile Information Exchange of Stellenbosch, SA, (I have her card) kicked off her flips and handed them over. My cash was refused. The only payment was that I photograph the footwear in situ and post the result. Which I do (the new acquisition is on the left) grateful for her generosity and for ten minutes of lively, laughing conversation.

Note 1: The face apparently covered in cotton wool is mine. There is no way this post would be enhanced by the reality the bogus mask conceals.

Note 2. The monk seal (see August 31) did not materialise.

What would David Attenborough do?

Diafani is technology-poor; you have to take your own. These are some of the things that will shortly go into the suitcase.

When I chose the flippers, snorkel and mask some years ago, like most men I opted for subfusc colours. But the diving shop man recommended day-glo. Just in case things fell into the sea unattached.

One thing is missing and is problematic: a weapon. My normal swim is about a mile down the coast to a lonely inlet. I am told a monk seal now occupies a cave along the route. There is, my informant says, no record of monk seals attacking humans but I am urged to check with Gorgos, fount of all marine knowledge. Given its name I conclude the animal is at least celibate. I would prefer to go unarmed if possible.

The inflatable ring is from the Chad Valley “Giggle and Grow” system for users aged 2 – 6 years and was reduced to £1 in Woolies. It will be attached to my waist with 12 m of light nylon rope and will remind boat users that their engine propellors are harder than my flesh.

Bonelli eagles operate over Diafani, hence the binocs. The Creative Zen MP3 player carries over a thousand tracks varying in length from “Big Yellow Taxi” to the fourth movement of Bruckner’s Romantic symphony (22 min 54 sec). For re-reading I am taking a novel by a Frenchman famous for his long sentences and whose name I am becoming less and less inclined to flaunt.

A sort of spot-the-ball competition

Delays in the focussing/light assessing abilities of a cheap digital camera made it difficult to capture this particular moment during our Languedoc holiday. However, after a few boss shots I finally snatched proof that grandson Zach and son-in-law Darren appreciated the pool at our rented villa and we've booked the place for the same two weeks next year.

Studying the photo more closely I began to wonder just what the picture represents. Is Zach rising, has he reached the apogee, or is he falling? The angle of the strap on his life-jacket is no doubt significant to a trained aerodynamicist but that is just one more field where my knowledge could "crawl under a snake's belly wearing a top hat" (a phrase used by a RAF instructor teaching me - futilely - how to aim a rifle during national service).

However virtually everyone who supplies comments to this blog is better educated than me et j'attends avec impatience.

DUKWs OK; Canuck French "difficult"

Perhaps not all Canadians would agree but one of the country's major attractions is the way it distinguishes itself from Big Brother south of the border - by ensuring French is omni-present. Though it didn't exactly work out the way I expected.

In the seventies, with time to kill in Montreal, I took a city tour in a DUKW (called "duck" in Britain) an amphibious military vehicle used in WWII.

Being a smarty-boots I didn't let on about my nationality, thinking I could busk the commentary. That was a mistake. From the moment the guide pronounced the city's name - Mawn-ray-orl - I knew I was in trouble. If I understood five per cent that would be over-stating it. My French has improved but I still think I would struggle if I went back.

The reason for the DUKW became apparent when it suddenly plunged down a ramp and continued the tour afloat in the harbour. A nice touch that. Though whether I'd have felt like that arriving at Omaha Beach in the same vehicle is another matter.

Note: The pic isn't a DUKW (the door opening beneath what would be the waterline blows the gaffe straight away) but partially resembles one. Will do better next time.

Principles of the sheet anchor

Echoes of “The Boyhood of Raleigh” here. Grandson Bonden, aged two, sits at the pool edge while Great White grandfather trundles by, pursuing another record of interest only to septuagenarians. Despite the poignant difference in age, it’s all about mensuration, a contributary aspect of technology.

Grandfather Bonden’s body hates the sun, hence the cotton tee-shirt. Yet the weather varied during the past fortnight in Languedoc and there were days when the tee-shirt could be discarded. This provided a lesson in hydrodynamics. Here’s a quintet of half-kilometre swims in chronological order:

Day one. Hot yet dull. No tee-shirt. 14 min 16 sec.
Day two. Hot and bright. Tee-shirt worn. 14 min 26 sec
Day three. Hot and bright. Tee-shirt worn. 15 min 5 sec (Oh no!)
Day four. Hot and bright. Tee-shirt tucked into cozzie (Genius!) 14 min 38 min
Day five. Coolish and dull. No tee-shirt. 14 min 15 sec

I could permutate endlessly but three points emerge. The drag caused by an unsecured tee-shirt is enormous, tucking the shirt in is worthwhile, there’s an optimum (slowish) time for a 72-year-old swimmer with bared shoulders.

Hey-ho for a life under the ocean wave

Our Languedoc holiday will begin shortly with a technological moment I never tire of: sitting in the car, eyes closed, trying to detect the exact moment when the Eurotunnel train pulls away from Cheriton.

Because our French house was near the west coast we were tied to the Portsmouth - Caen ferry. It had its good points. Booking an overnight cabin removed some of the stress. And Brittany Ferries played Mozart's Flute and Harp Concerto as an elegant wake-up call. But it cost £450 and - because I don't enjoy going to sea as part of a crowd - I felt compelled to return via the Cherbourg - Portsmouth catamaran to halve the travel time.

The great thing about the train is it's so boring! Some ferry crossings were far too memorable. Watching the boat's storm-driven stern bang repeatedly against the pier at Folkestone until the captain gave up and headed for Dover. Chatting to grevistes manning the barriers at Cherbourg, insincerely wishing them good luck with their industrial strife then driving off to a car-park and dozing away the rest of the night. Good to dine out on, hell on earth to experience.

The Chunnel is a marvel. The day it opened should be a bank holiday.

Protection against red-eye

In the home page picture (top right) I'm wearing my Maru goggles. Swimming crawl means immersing your head for much of the stroke cycle and you need to protect your eyes from the irritative effects of the disinfected water. Initially I used goggles made by a more famous manufacturer; they looked flashier but they lay over the eye socket and (it's only a theory) water entered - almost capillary fashion - via the eyebrows. The Manus fit into the eye sockets like a pair of monocles and remain waterproof for the full mile.


To prevent steaming up use a drop of washing up fluid on the inside of each lens, half rinse and let them dry overnight without wiping. Manu has changed my life.

The unforsaken merman

Already I'm cheating on my stated aims. Can swimming crawl possibly snuggle under the umbrella of technology? Belatedly I open the dictionary. The first two definitions are predictable, the third offers a Damascene moment: "The totality of the means and knowledge used to provide objects necessary for human sustenance and comfort." That word objects - surely it has an intangible well as a tangible meaning: goals as well as things? For me crawl works, it's the most effective form of aquatic self-locomotion. The hard bit is learning the breathing. After that it's pure sensuousness. I experimented with my kick this morning: kicked hard and felt the resistance to my arm stroke diminish in the water. Joy.

Here’s how you hoist up the John B sail

This lovely thing is a Meissner Classic winch and is intended for hoisting and releasing a yacht's sails. It withstands enormous forces as becomes apparent if you incautiously unhook the rope from that beautifully shaped securing device and leave your fingers in the way. Engage a crank in the top and the mechanical advantage allows a human to haul with the power of ten. A ratchet prevents the wind-filled sail from biting back. That's all there is, really. Yet those on my brother's yacht cost £700 each. A matching pair would look good on your mantelshelf (as they say in the North).