UKCruiseJeff

WWfT, Great looking loaves. I bet they’re fragrant. Are they soft and sweet? S, If you prefer sourdough can keep for between 3 days and a week or so - helped if you add a little olive oil do it doesn’t dry too quickly. Hope you post some piccies. Jeff

Lola, I now "turn-in" at roughly 4am. I cannot make sense of it but it improves slightly with some Absolut Vanilia. Sleep is a really weird thing. You have a greatest day. Jeff

Thanks WWfT - that is a great precis of pragmatism and I enjoyed it. Forgive me being a clutz with multi-quote but more and more technical stuff seems to defeat me. But you'll get my reply I'm sure to both of your bits I'm sure. I so wish I had chickens. My life would be a touch more complete. We get fresh eggs every few days or week or so and my wife's first decision is to dump whatever I had planned for supper but to have a lightly boiled egg and have some bread. I do not begrudge that. They are fresh Burford Browns. And she must what she wishes. 🙂 My own overall personal direction is to continue to simplify. If there is anything remotely like the words " ...... with a twist ...." then I develop a twitch and go back to simplicity. This is true of stuff like the orange cake and my bread. What I want is the taste of orange and almonds - so that is what I distil down to a cake. As you might detect I need not too much of an excuse to add the effluence of incohol to anything, but I'm trying to relearn. So I eat the cake and drink the incohol. I'm so pleased to read of your dough journey. I think that bread is sort of visceral and prime-evil. If you think about it, there has never been a moment in our worldly development that all of us need to find common ground. And if I had to pick one thin it is "our daily bread". Rice cements less people. So does potato. But "give us our daily bread" is the largest common denominator. If I was calling a peace summit for those in conflict I'd invite them for breakfast and give them some bread and talk about bread for a while. 99.999% of the world that make and eat bread have got on for thousands of years and probably none of them have ever looked at a bread recipe book. Because it is actually simple. the other 00.0001% (I think!) consult clever peoples recipes and mess it up. Hence my backward journey to first principles. Anyway. I'm always going backwards and it is what keeps me going forward. WWfT, do you actually make Tiramisu? How about some pictures of that and what else you make? Jeff

Phew …. ! All I’ll say is “Mayport Shrimp” Jeff

Good Grief ….. I must have inadvertently switch on Cooler invisible mode! 😬 Jeff

There cannot be anything worse than losing one’s identity and nothing sweeter than getting it back again. Jazz is sweet. 🙂 Jefff

Chundered chowder.

Where do they get their entertainers from? Maplin!

Lirio, Such a shame to hear about the cancellation. Reading what happened it sounds like you have had a narrow escape to what sounds like almost certain disappointment Those platters are impressive particularly with the cheese knife set and is that walnut loaf … with a touch of honey perhaps? Tonight’s supper was Mortadella and salad with mayo in focaccia panini and a mug of house white.

Mange tout mon cher petit pois.

Love your humour Fletch. Do keep it up. The humour that is. 😀

Thanks so much for the kind comments! She was right about 801. We had most of our meals there and in those days you could order what you wanted and everything was wonderful. It was like having your own boat without any of the palaver. Or cost. Or noisy neighbours! No one passes 801. For a couple of ports we were able to grab 802 which was vacant and had it set out boardroom style and in those days you could easily invite guests on board for the day. And to my surprise, no charges. SS considered it marketing. We had clients and friends who joined us in Barcelona, Monaco etc etc and SS put up a great seafood table and manned our private bar for us on each day and never has our client meetings gone so exceptionally well and so fluidly. I think the cruise more than paid for itself a few times over. Not many people have gone to work in 801/2. It certainly killed the idea of my own boat. To salivate, here is “wife on a shelf” and some more. Thanks again. Jeff

One thing I have learned, is that sometimes “Less is More” 😄 Jeff

Good afternoon Coolers, Today was chicken in white wine sauce with mash and peas! As an aside. My memory just sparked up. Did someone use to pop up in Cooler history and shout out “PEAS!” every time I posted a piccy of peas? 🤔 Anyway, in sympathy with Rojaan19 we have smaller portions for the dietary compromised. 😦 I’m proud of the parsley because a year or so back I was bored and we got heavily into hydroponics for fresh stuff and as a result we have been overtaken by stuff including parsley. Hydroponics is a wonderful thing. Today it was house wine. Jeff

Hi, The issue that might be factored into your thoughts is that an entrant into the uber-luxury game needs to be clear what it wishes to achieve. I’m so distant from the innards that I can only go on my instinct. It seems to me that the general upscale opportunity in cruising isn’t in expedition. I say this because it seems to me that the opportunity for even higher diems is low - it’s already quite high and the limiting factor of the size of ship is inevitably small’ish so there are no scale savings and the opportunity for quality improvement therefore is limited because there might not be so much revenue increase opportunity. It seems to me that the opportunity is the larger opportunity of mainstream ocean cruising. You mention upgraders and to me that implies something “a bit better”. I think the opportunity is in way more. I think it is for what is now currently routinely promised and not provided by anything I read about. It is where SS started. I mean genuinely exceptional in all respects. There is also a ship size sweetspot which seems to increase each year and I believe there is a growing pent-up demand for something better than what’s currently on offer. Your point seems if I have understood you predicated on the idea that a luxury line needs a high volume of defectors from cheaper lines. In fact it seems to me that it needs a much smaller number of people looking for exceptional product and aren’t too bothered about the cost within justifiable reason. For example our move to our first cruise with SS was my wife’s insistence that I should stop nagging about having my own cruiser but instead have a better experience and save money by booking 801 on Whisper for our first trial cruise. She was right. It was a stunning experience. Re expeditions. I’m lucky, I’m not nimble and the idea of getting off of a ship into a dingy so I can see some penguins seems a daft idea when I can stay at home and watch them on youtube with some cake and some booze and my own bed at nights. But I’m just a lethargic. Jeff