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Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Five

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By CCHelp ,
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Reef Knot

Reef Knot

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Posted

Just read the obit for Rodger Whittaker a very poplar singer in the 70's, 80's and 90's. Most English people will remember him for his song Durham Town. But what I found fascinating is that he was immensely popular in Germany recording 25 albums and in 1985 was the biggest selling German language artist despite not speaking a word of German, he learnt the words phonetically.

Who would of thought.

 

 

 

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Grand Duchess

Grand Duchess

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On 9/18/2023 at 5:47 PM, UKCruiseJeff said:

 

GD, I loved your post.  

 

It has always seemed to me that A. A. Gill understood life at the very least because he was  a confident contrarian and drank almost always whilst he thought and when he could remember to write.    It’s possible to  feel a degree of affinity with him if you are unencumbered by continuous sobriety and are happy to live oddly and think a little differently. 

 

I don’t like breakfast or dinner much largely because of it’s timing as to me lunch seems  such a perfect time anywhere in the world or whatever the circumstance.  You can prepare a bit earlier and stop a bit (or a considerable time later) and  the rest or the day can stretch around lunch.  breakfast and dinner seem so much more  stiffy to me. I have so many memoeries of lunch with people but can’t recall any breakfasts and very few dinners.  Lunch is king. 

 

The art is to take the very best from breakfast  or the very best form dinner but have it at all at lunch time and linger at it forever. And drink more because you can doze afterwards. 

 

The thing that can be improved on the great British Breakfast is to stop thinking of it as a morning meal - who on earth wants to get up early if you went to bed at 3am? ) and wouldn’t want to substitute the mug of tea with a well frozen bottle of decent champagne and after a late rise make your way to the kitchen and have an early morning Electric Tomato (OK ….  a Bloody Mary …) whilst you fry up a great British Lunch Brekky.

 

This to me seems civilised. 

 

A big shout for each and every and  all Coolers  …. great to see it aging gracefully. 

 

jeff

 

A confident contrarian, now that sums A.A. Gill up nicely. Must have read his very first article for Tatler a dozen times. Such insight. I certainly miss his often rather inclement but never boring observations. He did not exclude himself from such remarks, so for me that‘s okay. Beautiful rhythm in his pieces, every sentence just right. He did get a lot of what they now call shitstorms at the time, nowadays he might be completely „cancelled“ (awful word) for not being pc all the time. I wonder what he would make of it all, but it would certainly be highly entertaining.

Can‘t afford to adapt my meal pattern to „drunch“ yet, since still working full time, and the days of boozy „liquid lunches“, as the traders in the London private bank I worked for back in 1996 called it, are long gone.
Actually, taking time for lunch is pretty much gone, too.

What needs a lot of time now is me asking, or rather suggesting ever so kindly to my young colleagues in our backoffice, if they could please do their job and book stuff into clients‘ accounts if they can find a minute, since stuff has been sitting there for a while. We then spend some more time discussing their „potentially hurt feelings“ (sic!), before things get moving🤣

Yes it is very much possible that I have meanwhile turned into a cynical contrarian myself, maybe time to pack it all in and go for drunch permanently, the way you describe it is certainly very tempting.

Electric Tomato for me please😊

 

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UKCruiseJeff

UKCruiseJeff

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39 minutes ago, Grand Duchess said:

A confident contrarian, now that sums A.A. Gill up nicely. Must have read his very first article for Tatler a dozen times. Such insight. I certainly miss his often rather inclement but never boring observations. He did not exclude himself from such remarks, so for me that‘s okay. Beautiful rhythm in his pieces, every sentence just right. He did get a lot of what they now call shitstorms at the time, nowadays he might be completely „cancelled“ (awful word) for not being pc all the time. I wonder what he would make of it all, but it would certainly be highly entertaining.

Can‘t afford to adapt my meal pattern to „drunch“ yet, since still working full time, and the days of boozy „liquid lunches“, as the traders in the London private bank I worked for back in 1996 called it, are long gone.
Actually, taking time for lunch is pretty much gone, too.

What needs a lot of time now is me asking, or rather suggesting ever so kindly to my young colleagues in our backoffice, if they could please do their job and book stuff into clients‘ accounts if they can find a minute, since stuff has been sitting there for a while. We then spend some more time discussing their „potentially hurt feelings“ (sic!), before things get moving🤣

Yes it is very much possible that I have meanwhile turned into a cynical contrarian myself, maybe time to pack it all in and go for drunch permanently, the way you describe it is certainly very tempting.

Electric Tomato for me please😊

 

Loved the post. AA Gill was a citizen of Soho and was a part of a very colourful cohort of people who I don't believe will ever happen again. The world will become bars full of AI bots laughing at each others jokes! You seem to be struggling with the change of work ethos as many others will increasingly do! It's best to withdraw as rapidly as possible and pour some zappy tomato!

 

May I muse?

 

One of the lucky things about being a person that is ageing ungracefully is that we have the advantage of living in the pre-woke world when everyone who enjoyed thinking and learning were lucky enough to be surrounded by a wide range of contrarians and we were fortunate enough to understand that people that hold the same views as oneself have nothing we can learn from. They only offer the reassurance that we were always right along. How boring. It is only listening intently to people with what we may have previously refereed to as different or "irrational views" can sometimes seem to talk some basis of a different view or sense and so if "open minded" then we might slip into learning and adjusting ones views with all the satisfaction that can bring.

 

It saddens me greatly that in this wonderful new world as more and more people are perceived to have committed some sin or other that their work might then be cancelled with often the unexpected consequence of collateral damage to perfectly innocent people. If for example an "artiste" turns out to be an idiot and they cancel all their programmes what about the other innocent members of the cast relying on their repeat fees to eat! And how can you learn about what is bad if you never see it 😞

 

When you start on that path without specifying in advance how low the "must be cancelled" limbo bar will be set in the future, you will inevitably end up with a whole generation of people never learning from other peoples mistakes or stupidity or evilness or their ideas and that it seems to me is a major cause of why so many younger people today (to me at least) all look and sound the same but with a greater degree of anger towards everything in general and at the same time nothing in particular. And when the limbo cancel bar becomes increasingly lowered then the group of people who will never safely limbo under it will become smaller and smaller and people will become so much more monochromatic and boring and the world will simply be fuller of less thoughtful, ill-informed educated boring people.

 

On the very positive side “our generation” whatever that might mean are fortunate enough to have been bursting with inquisitiveness and an insatiable desire to learn from a world that is opening up. That world seems to be morphing into a world where you can have a better conversation with an artificial intelligence bot than a human! I jest .. of course …..

 

On the topic of lunch, I'd like to claim that everything I ever did was carefully planned and worked out exactly as I had intended but the reality is that with a reasonable degree of IQ only exceeded by my laziness I found much to my surprise that I could conduct an increasing amount of “work” over all day lunches normally at my place. For some reason daft ideas and proposals always seemed so much more sensible after a bottle or three of wine and some schnapps. As long as you can remember roughly what was agreed and with what fee.

 

I don't know about others but I'm finding myself wanting to be less exposed to the changing world and I quite like having increasing hermit instincts and simply driving between the country and a balcony overlooking the sea.

 

There will be spelling errors and typos amongst my aimless drivel and so I apologise.

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mysty "Live from...." Rare

mysty

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1 minute ago, Stumblefoot said:

I can’t believe that little bastard Duke made the video. 😆 It’s bad enough when he sails on SS.

 

There is no accounting for some people's obsession with dirty,  nasty toys!  However,  the doll in the video is innocent of vagaries on Silversea cruises.   He was just introduced in all innocence in a Toy Story movie.  Apparently,  something Canada needs to celebrate! 😅

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QueSeraSera

QueSeraSera

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12 hours ago, Grand Duchess said:

What needs a lot of time now is me asking, or rather suggesting ever so kindly to my young colleagues in our backoffice, if they could please do their job and book stuff into clients‘ accounts if they can find a minute, since stuff has been sitting there for a while. We then spend some more time discussing their „potentially hurt feelings“ (sic!), before things get moving🤣

Wow Duchess.  I'm fully retired but two of my children (grown, working & in supervisory positions here in USA) have separately described similar frustrations to me regarding their jobs and new employees.  When they ask me how I dealt with such situations, I have to say that "I never did.  Wish I could offer some advice, but I can't.  Back in my day, you did your job or you were fired."  Something has changed.

 

I also don't get the whole folderol going on (at least here) about cancel and canceling.  I'm just lost.  Years ago, I learned that cancel meant there would be no Star Trek next season, as painful as that was.  But the current usage of the verb just has me lost.

 

 

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mysty "Live from...." Rare

mysty

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6 minutes ago, QueSeraSera said:

Wow Duchess.  I'm fully retired but two of my children (grown, working & in supervisory positions here in USA) have separately described similar frustrations to me regarding their jobs and new employees.  When they ask me how I dealt with such situations, I have to say that "I never did.  Wish I could offer some advice, but I can't.  Back in my day, you did your job or you were fired."  Something has changed.

 

I also don't get the whole folderol going on (at least here) about cancel and canceling.  I'm just lost.  Years ago, I learned that cancel meant there would be no Star Trek next season, as painful as that was.  But the current usage of the verb just has me lost.

 

 

 

It's a new world order Que.  Words are being redefined and re-purposed.  Webster must be thrashing around in his grave.  For my own sanity, I'm staying out of the fray!  Much more peaceful here! 😁

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Grand Duchess

Grand Duchess

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1 hour ago, QueSeraSera said:

Wow Duchess.  I'm fully retired but two of my children (grown, working & in supervisory positions here in USA) have separately described similar frustrations to me regarding their jobs and new employees.  When they ask me how I dealt with such situations, I have to say that "I never did.  Wish I could offer some advice, but I can't.  Back in my day, you did your job or you were fired."  Something has changed.

 

I also don't get the whole folderol going on (at least here) about cancel and canceling.  I'm just lost.  Years ago, I learned that cancel meant there would be no Star Trek next season, as painful as that was.  But the current usage of the verb just has me lost.

 

 

That‘s right Que, something has changed radically. I remember a time maybe 15 years ago when an account manager only had so much as to hem and we in backoffice just dropped everything and ran to fix what needed to be fixed AT ONCE. Nobody had to explain that above all the underlying clients needed to be kept happy, since in the end it was them paying our wages. Now being an“accounti“ myself, I have those absurd discussions of why and who and when lately. Trying to see it as a form of entertainment specially put on for me is what gets me through.

And lots of screaming abuse at them, if only in my head😉 

Messing up the beautiful German language by „gendering“ is another thing I don‘t get. With three definite articles der die das instead of just the it can get quite a mouthful of including everyone. As if that had not been clear before, it is a very precise language after all. No longer, apparently. 
Of course they mean well, but meaning well can get out of control so very quickly. I better shut up now before earning an „okay boomer“😂

 

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jpalbny "Live from...." Rare

jpalbny

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1 hour ago, Stumblefoot said:

ZQT, the one on the right is how I feel when trying to decipher one of JP’s messages in French because he forgets I’m not Canadian. 🍁

 

Lol. Even I can read that without using Urban Dictionary. Relatively easy. Gotta expand your vocab, Stumble!

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Reef Knot

Reef Knot

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Stumblefoot said:

ZQT, the one on the right is how I feel when trying to decipher one of JP’s messages in French because he forgets I’m not Canadian. 🍁

TBH when I saw HMU, IDK and REKT, I thought *****?

Edited by Reef Knot
Seems W t F has been censored
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jpalbny "Live from...." Rare

jpalbny

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4 hours ago, Reef Knot said:

TBH when I saw HMU, IDK and REKT, I thought *****?

 

Yup, that's censored. Used to drive me crazy - back in the day when you had to post pictures by hyperlink to an online album, I used to upload to Picasa and every once in a while, the random link had those fateful three letters in sequence. So the link would get censored and wouldn't work!

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