Cruising for a bruising in the stormy North Sea

SOMETIMES I wonder whether the best justification for taking holidays is that they make us appreciate our everday lives so much more.
I’m going to tell you about the cruise I’ve just been on, and you’ll see what I mean.
To me, the word ‘cruise’ has connotations of a smooth, effortless ride, as in the phrase ‘cruise control’. I now know better.
We were aboard the Marco Polo – that’s right, the ship that hit the headlines when a window blew in, killing a passenger, a few weeks ago. Freak wave, they said. We weren’t worried.
She was sailing to Norway on a voyage billed as ‘Land of the Northern Lights’ – the very same lights that were seen all over Britain (though not by us) during the week before we set off. The lights that are said to be giving their best display for a decade.
We set off full of optimism. But stubborn grey clouds hung over us like the prospect of a televised debate between David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband.
Gales, sleet and the odd snowstorm compounded the misery.
There I was at 1.30am in the Arctic port of Tromso, in flimsy evening wear with only a pashmina and a Grand Marnier to keep me warm, among hundreds of passengers who had dashed out on deck to peer into the murk for our single glimpse of faint green haze. If you blinked, you missed it.
There are some great memories – riding through pine woods on a sled drawn by eager, friendly huskies; drinking vodka and blue curacao from glasses made of ice at an igloo hotel, admiring its intricate sculptures, knowing the whole thing will melt away with the spring sunshine; train rides past frozen waterfalls through pristine, snow-covered mountain scenery. No litter, and (how do they do it?) no potholes.
But conditions at sea were so rough that one couple got off at Bergen to find a plane rather than face the Force Ten storm that escorted us back across the North Sea.
A lot of people were missing at mealtimes, and my husband, a keen sailor, developed a comedy walk, mimicking the rest of us landlubbers as we staggered through the lounges and bounced off the walls. I told him it wasn’t funny.
Sleep proved elusive as we were bucketed about.
I’d bought some seasickness pills. The packet advised “Avoid alcohol – may cause drowsiness.”
“That’ll do me,” I thought, and took to downing them two at a time with red wine. At least I wasn’t ill. 

When I got home I found a quote from the writer/comedian Tim Vine that sums it up for me. "I've just been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday. I'll tell you what, never again."

No question about it, the whole world's gone mad

QUESTIONS, questions …..
Why is Wiltshire Council co-funding an anti-smoking campaign that includes costly TV ads at the same time as it cuts funding for just about every disabled member of our community?
Please don’t tell me the money comes from a separate ring-fenced budget. That’s the usual justification for official lunacy.
If it does, then there’s no excuse for such a state of affairs in these straitened times and it’s up to those who enjoy bossing us all about to sort it out.
Everyone knows that smoking’s bad for them, for goodness sake. Even a hermit in a Himalayan monastery could scarcely have failed to pick up the hint over the last 40 years.
If addicts choose to carry on and risk their health (and I speak as a reformed smoker who only quit after many failed attempts) then why should our public servants spend our hard-earned taxes trying to stop them?
In an ideal world, it might be nice to try. But not while there are people suffering frightening upheaval in lives that are already dauntingly difficult through no fault of their own.
I speak, of course, of those who will suffer through the cuts to facilities such as the Douglas Arter Centre, Hillcote respite care centre, the Bridging Project and the John McNeill Opportunity Centre.
Another question. Why has our Police Commissioner, Angus Macpherson, launched a survey of 2,000 Wiltshire residents to find out what we want from our police force? OK, we know the answer to that one. The law says he has to do it.
Mr Macpherson says the information will help him to “to commission services from Wiltshire Police” and will help senior police officers “to understand the needs and priorities of the people they protect”.
Oh really? What if the most common responses to the survey are along the lines of “We don’t need money wasted on a commissioner” or “We want our police station back”?
One final question. If Sainsbury’s bosses are so desperate to build their unwanted Southampton Road supermarket that they’re ready to dig an extra hole big enough to hold five-and-a-half Olympic swimming pools’ worth of floodwater, have they considered inviting Mark Spitz to perform the opening ceremony?

The best of luck to our new sixth-form college

THIS week I have mostly been sniffing, sneezing, and coughing, and as a result, looking at the world through even more jaundiced eyes than usual.
However, there’s one venture that I have to wish well, and that’s the new sixth form college, trendily logoed-up as S6C.
For years, young people have been voting with their feet and commuting out of Wiltshire in search of post-16 opportunities, while our education department wasted time and money trying to force through an unworkable academy scheme in Laverstock.
When it actually got round to asking teenagers what they wanted, the answer was that if you couldn’t get in to the grammar school sixth forms, the local options couldn’t compete with Brockenhurst, Burgate or Totton, or with high-achieving Peter Symonds College in Winchester - spiritual home of disaffected Bishop’s boys in my sons’ schooldays.
I know how those kids felt. I was a disaffected grammar school pupil once.
At 16, I didn’t want to wear a uniform with a grey pleated skirt so long I’d been waiting to ‘grow into it’ since I was 11. I didn’t want to be forced to run around a freezing cold hockey pitch in baggy black sateen bloomers. I didn’t want to be a prefect and spend my lunchtimes supervising younger kids when I could have been hanging about in corners with dangerous older boys, and I definitely didn’t want to be told what to do. I knew it all already.
So despite strong parental disapproval I went to the local bog-standard tech, where I got up to all sorts of things I shouldn’t have, but managed to emerge with three decent A-levels, qualifications in shorthand and typing, and a bunch of like-minded mates.
What I found there were some superb teachers who didn’t treat us like children. At 60, I still remember the inspirational English lessons of Mr Bragg and Mr McMahon.
That’s the secret of success for any educational establishment – the quality of teaching. Without it, it doesn’t matter how many computer suites you’ve got, or how swish your buildings are.
I recall my older son telling me how he sat in a dilapidated prefab at Bishop’s in the days before the rebuild, with rain dripping through the roof, and a bucket on the desk.
When he complained that water was splashing his work, the teacher told him: “Well, move the bucket, boy!” And carried on regardless.
That’s the spirit.

Your chance to help change Salisbury's parking charges

AT LAST, the first tentative steps towards a possible cut in our parking charges have been taken.
A parking review task group held its inaugural meeting last week (in Trowbridge, naturally).
You can tell how seriously the Conservative administration is taking it. Jane Scott has put her right-hand man, John Thomson, in charge.
Well, there is a general election coming up next year and a lot of Tory voters are currently feeling less than gruntled.
However, even I have to admit that cllr Thomson’s grasp of the minutiae of his previous portfolio, adult social care, was impressive, so that gives me hope of a common-sense outcome.
The man tasked with representing the city in these delicate negotiations is cllr John Walsh – a Labour stalwart who represents Fisherton and Bemerton Village .
Appearing on behalf of other bits of South Wiltshire is Conservative Bridget Wayman, of Nadder & East Knoyle.
The group appears to be a genuine cross-party affair, which is another encouraging sign.
But we have to bear in mind that we aren’t the only ones who need to be appeased. Across the Plain, although their charges are far lower than ours, residents also consider that unreasonable rises were foisted on them.
That’s part of the fun of being bulldozed into a unitary authority - as David Cameron would say: “We’re all in this together.”
To my mind, the big question is this: Is the council prepared to invest, by cutting its charges significantly and introducing user-friendly pay-on-exit technology, in the hope that car park usage (and city centre trade) will increase as a result?
Or will it just rejig the status quo, fiddling about with a 10p increase here and a 15p decrease there, and encouraging its traffic wardens to continue scaring the pants off otherwise law-abiding citizens?
Various bodies, such as the Vision (including City Centre Management), Area Board and City Council will be expected to contribute their views on what the new charging regime should be. Proposals will go out to public consultation later in the year.
But I think the public ought to consult themselves in advance, and make their views known to our city and unitary councillors and traders’ representatives right now.
After the debacle of 2011, do you really think it’s wise to leave it to the great and good to come up with a take-it-or-leave-it package? Neither do I. Leave them in no doubt. Tell them what you want.