Harry Peterson

I'm so sorry, Mrs Goggins. Let's not fall out over chocolate. How do you feel about Cadbury's? It really shouldn't taste good, but sadly it still does. Engrained since childhood - exactly as planned by Cadbury. I spent 3 years in Birmingham in the late 60s, just a short distance from Bournville - never forgotten that distinctive smell. And Aztec bars.

So very true - everything they get their hands on is cheapened and ruined. At least we still have alternatives to brands like Hershey's, notorious for tasting of vomit!

‘Vegelate’, I recall. Edit: Probably even ’Palmolate’ these days.

My wife is a witch. For the second time, she’s got Wordle with her very first line! I’m leaving home. 😱

The paucity of daytime activities was very obvious on Azura even before a certain virus caused all the financial problems. Over the course of a few years we noticed that a pretty full and busy list of things to keep us happy on sea days had been cut down to the point that it was actually boring. You could guarantee an interesting speaker in the morning and another in the afternoon on most sea days, but that had gone. The number of new film screenings on a decent screen also dropped. We always had Kindles with us, but used them mainly while waiting for lectures to start. Then we ended up using them as a replacement for the lectures. Pleasant enough, but I can do that in a hotel or at home at a fraction of the price, and that was one of the attractions of cruising. I don't want to play bingo, I don't want to be sold iffy 'art' and I don't want to play fruit machines. I want some interesting talks, and they're just not there now on P&O.

Always fancied that one - have a great cruise!

That’s simply appalling. The disgusting behaviour of some passengers is staggering.

Quite a big automatic Windows 10 update this morning - though had to do my wife’s manually to get it out of the way. Just hoping our PCs are going to last until October 2025 when W10 loses its support. Updates are one hell of a lot easier these days than they were when we had our first PC back in the 90s when there would invariably be the blue screen of death afterwards. Christmases in our house back then are remembered mainly for the 2 hour lunchtime calls to Ireland to talk to the Gateway 2000 support people, followed by the inevitable reinstalling of Windows 95 - a shocker of an operating system. That PC had a 6GB hard drive - ‘Wow, that’s MASSIVE’ from a knowledgeable friend who was the first guy in our village to connect to the internet! He proudly showed me what the internet could do - ‘Can’t really see the point’ from me!

That would be an ecumenical matter.

I’d love to join in the discussion on Strictly, but having never, ever watched one single episode or even trailer………. However, Father Ted….

Not likely!!! 😉

I think today is one of those days when I'd best remain very quiet.........😇

One of the most moving scenes ever shown on television.

Really sorry you both had all that worry, work and inconvenience, but glad it wasn’t what you feared. Look forward to reading the rest of your story, but glad you’re both safely home - as I know your family will be! Harry

Thanks - got it. “After a hundred Saga passengers were injured last week in the Bay of Biscay, Peter Wellington, a retired head teacher from Basingstoke, reveals how his dream holiday became a nightmare“ https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-storm-hit-the-cruise-liner-and-sent-me-somersaulting-through-the-air-wkwlt785l

Can’t see that. Is it this one from 7 November: Saga passengers said last goodbyes as cruise ship hit ‘nightmare’ storm

Josy, no words. I’m so sorry. Harry

Well, to be fair, it would normally be something on these lines: ’British pensioners hit by giant foreign killer waves as the BBC and RNLI stand back and refuse to help.’

That’s a better idea if you can manage it. That’s exactly where we had an issue, and we did manage to block the hole with some sort of wire wool padding we fashioned. They’re an absolute menace.

Have you considered a squirrel trap? Perfectly legal, because they’re vermin, but illegal to release a live one. They’re effective outside, and equally effective inside. You really do not want squirrels up there.

My wife once, for a fleeting moment, accidentally (she claims), touched the hand of the late, hugely underestimated and self-effacing, Neil Innes as they riffled through the frozen food in Bromley Waitrose back in the 70s. Does that make her a groupie? PS: she refused to wash her hands over the whole of Christmas that year.

Beatles or Stones, though? Pulp or Blur? And what about the very much underrated Kinks and Ray Davies?

I don't think anyone's suggesting they'd put the lives of elderly people at risk. Giving them an incredibly uncomfortable and uncomfortable journey, with an increased risk of injury, however, might be a different matter. And let's not forget - Saga is the company which was happy to take money for life memberships from elderly people. But then broke the contract by refusing to provide what had been paid for in advance. Can you trust a company that fleeces its elderly customer base like that in order to fill a hole in its profits and boost the bonus of its CEO?

The financial position is hard fact. That Saga chose to break its contract with all its life members, who paid substantial sums for those life memberships, is also fact - I’m one of those directly affected. The only opinion involved is whether Saga’s financial issues led to the decision to put a ship containing largely elderly people into the middle of a pretty substantial storm.

Once you understand the financial position of the Saga group of companies, you start to view decisions like this in a different light. And you can imagine a scenario in which a captain might take a particular view, but be overruled by someone further up the management chain. I’m not for a minute suggesting the ship was put at risk, but decisions made for the wrong reasons were the underlying cause of the Titanic disaster. Saga once had an impeccable record for absolute trustworthiness. However, for large numbers of Saga life members earlier this year they proved themselves anything but trustworthy by unilaterally cancelling the legal right of all those life members (who paid a hefty advance sum) to receive the Saga magazine every month. No excuses, no reasons (other than financial), no backing down by the CEO (who has a fascinating track record before Saga) - just tough luck. We don’t care. Maybe that’s the sort of thinking from the top that’s behind this.