Wednesday – Karaoke Night and iPad Rage

Last night, we enjoyed one of the undisputed highlights of the whole cruise so far. I’m talking about ‘Karaoke Night’. It was totally bonkers, but a huge amount of fun. There were the seasoned ‘karaoke-ers’, who sang well, and knew their chosen songs well enough not to have to look at the scrolling text… some good singers, too. But it was the unexpected contributors that really brought the house down. One elderly gentleman, who doddered onto the stage with walking sticks, morphed into James Brown (Ow! So Good! So Good….), complete with all the actions, like, when he’s James Brown, he doesn’t need the sticks any more… One passenger crooned his way through ‘My Way’ whilst another sang ‘Little White Bull’ as his first song, and ‘Sultans of Swing’ as his second; I’d not seen so many people in Scotts Bar since Burns night.

Susan, from the Shore Excursions desk, purred her way through ‘These Boots are Made for Walking’, while another lady passenger belted out ‘Valerie’ like she was Amy Winehouse reincarnated. The best was yet to come, however. When a petite, elderly lady stepped up and gave us her rendition of ‘Nellie The Elephant’, the room was in absolute uproar. Every time she came to the chorus (Ohhhhhh……… Nellie the Elephant packed her trunk….), the tempo stepped up notch, and she stomped dementedly around the stage like a geriatric on speed, all to the manic whooping and hollering of the crowd. It was all slightly surreal, but very uplifting, and highly entertaining.

The Karaoke Night has gone some way to restoring ones faith in human nature. It comes after several recent instances of extreme bad behaviour. A passenger plonking his sunbed in the middle of the Shuffleboard area, for example – right in the middle of a game, no less. When asked by the two passengers who where trying play the game if he wouldn’t mind moving to a different location, the passenger with the sunbed refused, and simply told the two players to go forth and multiply. The result of this was a note in the Daily Blurb asking passengers to please keep the shuffleboard areas clear, and to respect other passengers. While Shuffleboard Rage is bad enough, the worst instance, which can only be described as ‘iPad rage’, happened at the Boi Bumba festival a few days ago.

Before the show, an announcement was made asking people to please have consideration for their fellow passengers when taking photographs – particularly if they’re using ipads to do so, which can obstruct the view for people behind (and, frankly, just looks a little silly… get yourself a camera!). Anyway;the show went ahead, and when it had finished, a man tapped the bloke in front of him on the shoulder. He told him that he hadn’t said anything during the show because he hadn’t wanted to cause a scene, but he wanted him to know that holding his iPad up throughout the whole of the performance had rather spoiled the experience for him and his wife. At which point, the iPad man turned around and thumped the bloke behind him in the face, not once but FIVE times!

All of which makes one wonder why it is that cruising sometimes just seems to bring the worst out in people. Thank goodness for Karaoke, is all I can say!

Classes resumed today, and it was like we’d never been away from the Craft Room. Everybody seemed to enjoy the session on ‘Negative Painting’, in preparation for painting a waterfall using the same techniques, which we’ll be doing tomorrow.

The Show Team were back on form again, this evening, with a new show, featuring the music of the 60s, and I was asked to be on the celebrity panel of the ‘What’s My Line’ gameshow in Scotts Bar. It was fun… and a whole lot easier than ‘Just a Minute’!