Holy Saturday, April 11th 2009 – The Lord of the Dance

44°04'N, 35°43'W, 1500 miles (about half way).

 

 

There is, now, an extra hour; every day; I could manage 25-hour days forever.  I think that makes me a night owl.  But I can still manage to rise, as ever, with the lark.  Except, of course, the lark sensibly turned for home some days ago.  I just imagine it.  There are, unsurprisingly, no birds at all; no gliding gulls, no darting dolphins, no wallowing whales, no … oh, stop it.

I can now do an hour in the gym, a turn round the deck, and get this out of the way in the library while I cool-off, and still be scrubbed up before breakfast starts.

My companion is not so accommodating of the extra hour, and is constantly demanding more sleep.  I explain the basics of the Mediterranean life-style to him: it's nothing to do with sun-dried tomatoes and cibbatti; it's about  getting up early, working hard, eating and drinking too much at lunch time, sleeping the afternoon away, and being refreshed to start the second half of the day, which is about fun; that's how to live long and prosper.  He wants to go to bed early, with cocoa, and the epilogue.  Actually he's still got to choose:it's cocoa OR the epilogue.  He can't have both, not unless he adopts a Mediterranean life-style.

Come to think of it, since the extra hour every day makes for the perfect ML, and it only happens when you sweep majestically west on this huge ocean liner, we should rename it, appropriately, the Queen Mary life-style.  We'll quietly drop the "2".  I'll have a word the next time I see the Captain.  Tell him there's no need for the sun-dried tomatoes any more; he's always grateful for my advice.

I learned to waltz yesterday while limbering-up for lunch.  The teachers are a young Spanish (I think) couple.  They are a simply wonderful piece of theatre.  I would not be surprised to see this ballroom dancing stuff turn into peak-time television.  They will be stars.  She has the glossed-back hair do of the underwater dancers at the Olympic Games, and is so delicate I would be afraid to touch her in case she broke.  He is tall and, I have to say, because that's the way our culture puts it, dago-looking.  And he explains the steps to us in a stage Spanish accent.  But he gestures with perfect hauteur, smiling as he brushes aside our difficulties.  He makes it all seem so easy, and he takes us gallumping through the steps repeatedly before he lets us loose, so to speak, on each other (a herd of men at one end of the ballroom, and a herd of women at the other, just like school dances).  But just for a moment, before we get to do it, he and his partner melt into each other's arms, and transform into a flowing, willowy living sculpture.  We can see that we can never be them.  They have taught us some steps; we have seen their animal authority; everyone is happy.  The QM2 has a very grand theatre, with RADA doing its stuff every night.  But I like my theatre just a bit nearer the door.  These dancers are my theatre for the week.  Today, we jive.

Good Friday, April 10th 2009 – Back to the Womb

46°22'N, 24°16'W, 1000 miles gone, 2000 to go (give or take a bit).

 

I half-woke several times in the night, being rocked gently in a circular motion, as though the ship was moving in a corkscrew path, and gravity was trying to keep me where I was.  In the depths of the night I decided I was back in the womb, thus fulfilling a basic desire we all have from time-to-time.  Needless to say, I slept like a baby.  At breakfast, one of my companions confessed to having had to get the Doctor and some sea-sick pills.  It's all in the mind, isn't it?  I spared her this enlightenment: or rather, I spared myself; it would not have gone down well.  The Captain described the night as "Boisterous".

The ship moves constantly.  It was a black-tie affair last night: as I weaved along the corridor, I imagined myself a latter-day Bertie Wooster, sqiffy as a newt.

The Captain seemed very pleased to see me, and insisted on a photograph as a record of the occasion.  I shall sign it if he asks me.  I took the opportunity to enlighten him as to the stolen nature of the ship's name: the Queen Mary II was a Clyde pleasure steamer of my childhood, now seeing out its terminal years as an up-market pub in the shadow of Waterloo bridge.  I pointed out to him that there was actually a painting in one of the lifts of the QEII under test on the Clyde, with the real QMII in the foreground, its name clearly visible on its bow.  His admiration of this erudition expressed itself in awe-struck silence.  I rammed home my advantage: "What will Lloyds have to say about it?" I demanded.  He recovered his corporate image in a flash: "Which Lloyds?" was his riposte, rather neatly hoisting me by my own petard.

The ship rocked (or rather corkscrewed) on through the night.  The columns in the discotheque are padded: the evening was a bizarre cross between dancing and rugby practice.  I woke up with an extra phone number, and a some unexplained bruises.  The phone number: I met a lady from Delaware.  "I'm going to Glasgow, Delaware", I informed her, grandly (it was after dinner).  "I live in Glasgow, Delaware", she told me.  Everyone was trumping me tonight.  But she even trumped herself:  "and", she added, "I used to live in Glasgow Pennsylvania".  I have recruited her for an advance scouting mission, to find me a local historian.

Thursday, 9th April, 2009 – First Time on the Atlantic

Roughly 8 west, 49 north, 315 miles from S'oton. It says the water is 15C, which seems very unlikely.

The QM2 seems to consist of Food, Bars, and Bands. There is a proper dance hall, imported, no doubt at great expense, from my memories of the late '50s. There are jaded gentlemen, in blazers and their 80s, dancing properly with ladies who like to move gracefully.

Well, what about that? One of the rules I wrote for myself was that I wasn't going to do that standard road-trip thing, much favoured by Bill Bryson, but others do it as well, of lightly observing my fellow man then making a fool of them. And I've broken it already. Let that be a lesson to me, to us. (Feel free to criticise any obvious recidivism in future).

But the ship seemed very quiet. We formed a view that people were tired after their journey to Southampton. But it might be that they were all tucked up with cocoa and the Epilogue (and, no doubt, each other), and we are doomed to walk these empty corridors, dragging our albatross behind us. There seem to be more staff than passengers.

The Atlantic is grey and white-flecked, as far as the eye can see, which is, I would guess, about two miles. It is, in Scots, a Gie dreech day (I'm sure that's not the right spelling, but with internet access on board at $0.75/minute, I'll leave you to check it).

Now it's food time again: big decisions: where to have breakfast. I'm for silver service, if I can find it.

Time to Go

Looked at my google calendar this morning: "5pm, QM2, Southampton", it said, "GO TO AMERICA". Oh God, it's today. I've checked everything twice a day for the last week. I've been round the pub five times to say farewell. All that's left now is to do it. Everyone else seems very excited. I guess that's because they're not doing it: I'm doing it. I'm not excited, I'm scared. I'm actually about to do it.
I remember a Woody Allan film which starts with him having a last cigarette in front of a firing squad. Suddenly, he jumps onto the perimeter wall, shouts "So long, suckers!", and vanishes. If I was scripting a film with me in the starring role, I would put a scene like that in it.
Wait a minute! I am writing a script with me in the starring role. So this is where I get to say to all those staying behind:

SO LONG SUCKERS!

The Send-off from Glasgow Scotland

Just for the record, some reports on on the send-off are at http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Michael+Slavin+trip+Glasgow&btnG=Search&meta=

(This is an actual Google search, and changes rapidly - if it's important you may want to make the search more specific)
--
Mike Slavin
+44(0)7553959446
mikeslavin@terraris.com
se96hb[66]

Classifying the Glasgows of the USA

There are 31 features listed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) with the word 'Glasgow' in their name. Of these, one, Renault, Monroe County Illinois, was last recorded as 'Glasgow' in an atlas of 1876. Another, in Cloud County Kansas, has settled on the spelling 'Glasco'. Nine more have qualified names, like 'Glasgow Landing', 'New Glasgow', 'West Glasgow', and so on.

Leaving twenty which actually appear as 'Glasgow' on some map. Two of these, in Black Hawk County Iowa, and Weakley County Tennessee, are listed as 'historical', which means they no longer have any physical presence at all.

Which leaves eighteen.

Places in the USA have a number of classifications. The fifty states (although Virginia and Georgia, among others, call themselves Commonwealths) are first divided into counties (a few states call them something else: Alaska calls them boroughs). Counties are the main unit of local government. Sheriffs, for example, are county officers. None of the Glasgows are counties.

Below the level of counties, things start to get local and real, and therefore quite messy. There are two classifiers commonly relied on: the USGS, and the AAA (American Automobile Association). One subsidiary classification used by the USGS designates that places appear on 'concise' maps, those with details on a scale of 1:24,000 or finer. There are four Glasgows which qualify for this: those in Barren County Kentucky, Valley County Montana, Howard County Missouri, and Jefferson County Iowa.

Aside from that odd classification, the main USGS division is between 'incorporated' and 'unincorporated' places. 'Incorporated' means that the state legislature has formally recognised them and conferred certain powers on them. Incorporated places will have their own mayor and police chief. Most states describe them as 'cities' (Virginia, for one, calls them 'towns'). Seven of the Glasgows are incorporated, those in Barren County Kentucky, Valley County Montana, Howard County Missouri, Rockbridge County Virginia, Kanwha County West Virginia, Scott County Illinois, and Beaver County Pennsylvania.

Some unincorporated places (UICs) have a special status as 'census-designated places' (CDPs) which means they are separate entities in the census analysis and have a lot of statistics available. There is only one Glasgow, in New Castle County Delaware, in this category.

Only one of the places designated to appear on 'concise' maps , the one in Jefferson County Iowa, is neither incorporated or census-designated.

If you're keeping up, we've now got a grand total of nine real Glasgows. But another, Glasgow Montgomery County Pennsylvania, is USGS-designated as an 'Official Common Name within an Incorporated Place'. So that makes ten.

You would expect the AAA to rely entirely on the USGS when annotating its maps. And, almost entirely, so it does. It puts 'Glasgow' beside a dot, but it has two kinds of dots: red ones, signifying the AAA has listed places to stay there, and black ones, where they haven't. The Glasgows in Kentucky and Montana get a red dot, those in Delaware, Missouri, Virginia, West Virginia, Iowa (Jefferson County) and Illinois get a black one. So you can simply buy the AAA Big Book of Maps and go there. But that's only eight dots.

There is a ninth dot, in Pennsylvania, but it's in Cambria County, which we haven't mentioned up till now. I think this is a result of the confusion of finding three Glasgows in one state. The AAA gives it the same population (63) as the USGS gives to Glasgow, Beaver County. The Cambria Glasgow turns out to be in Reade Township (don't ask about townships) and Reade Township has a United Brethern cemetery which is, if you'll pardon the expression, simply full of Glasgows. So it might actually be a farm name.

So, taking both the USGS and the AAA, we can find eleven, leaving just seven: in Jefferson County, Alabama; Butler County Alabama; San Bernadino County California; Thomas County, Georgia; Tuscarawas County Ohio; Columbiana County Ohio; and Coos County Oregon. These are likely to be just as interesting to visit, if harder to research. For example, Jefferson County, as a result of the terrible 'Bond Swap Affair' of 1995, is the most indebted county in the US, with several contractors and officials now in jail. And Glasgow, Coos County Oregon, appears to be just a wayside store, but it has a self-proclaimed mayor (who also claims to hold every office from sheriff to dog catcher and senior pub crawler).

That’s What Friends Are For

The official Glasgow, Scotland City Council website says that the name comes from the Gaelic 'glas' meaning green, and 'cu', meaning dear or beloved place. I met a man at a party who said he had a first edition of a book on the history of old Glasgow, written by an ancestor of his. Rather cheekily (I was at a party, it was the booze), I asked if I could read it. He definitely wasn't keen. I got the title, and found a company in Montana which sells facsimile prints of old books, and got a copy of it from them.

'Old Glasgow', by Andrew MacGeorge (1880), has it as "… this part of Clydesdale was a Welsh settlement, and the origin of the name is to be sought in the British branch of the Celtic language. It means, I think, the beloved green place – 'glas', viridis, and 'cu' or 'gu', carus, …" (I guess it would have been quite normal, back in 1880, to use latin to define words precisely; my latin dictionary says 'viridis' means green, and 'carus' means dear, beloved).

When I get to the pub and we have exhausted the topics of the day, the sport, the government, markets, celebrities, and so on, conversations often break down into pairs. When the pairs shift, the subject usually shifts too. We have particular aspects of our lives that fit neatly with particular aspects of someone else's, and that's what we like to talk to them about. Tony and I usually talk about do-it-yourself. When we have something to fix at home (and who hasn't?), we can talk endlessly about how the other did, or would, do it, materials to use, tools available, and so on. Tony and Joe often talk about music. If I join in the periphery of one of their musical conversations, it's usually only to derail it so I can talk to Tony about a DIY problem. But Tony is also Welsh: I have an unusual topic for him today: "Glasgow is a Welsh name", I tell him. "'Glas', green …", and before I can get to 'cu', he interrupts: "No, blue", he says. Blue? No, these people can't have got it all wrong. Anyway, 'beloved blue place' doesn't make much sense (unless you're a Rangers supporter; or talking about Glasgow, Kentucky, where the grass is blue, if you let it go to seed). Tony, although Welsh, is not a native Welsh speaker. I tell him he must be wrong. What a nerve! I hijack an interesting conversation about Sibelius' violin concerto (that's the kind of music our pub plays) just to insult his Welsh credentials. It's a good job he's a friend. He remains sure of himself. I see a big hole appearing in my Glasgow story. He goes back to Sibelius

The following evening, Tony's first words are "I was right. It does mean blue. I checked." He's not trying to cheer me up. "However", he goes on, milking the moment, "it also means green". What? That can't be true: it would be a pretty useless language that didn't allow you to differentiate between blue and green. So, at the very next cold-light-of-day, I'm on the internet looking for a Welsh-English dictionary, and, blow me down, the very first one I find, courtesy of the University of Wales at Lampeter, says precisely the same thing, green and blue. It even adds grey, for good measure. The Welsh must be culturally and institutionally colour blind.

I can't bring myself to believe this. I decide to look up MacGeorge's 'viridis', to see if the latin offers any clues. And it does. In the online OED, the search offers all the English words derived from 'viridis'. They all say "… Old French, from the latin 'viridis', green. Not much help of itself, but one of the English words is 'viridian', which is defined as "a bluish-green pigment containing chromium hydroxide". That sounds like an artist sort of word. Artists know about colours. That'll do for me: it's not blue, it's bluish-green. (Alternatively, it's not green' it's greeny-blue.)

So Glasgow is a beloved bluish-green place. Which is kind of true, and will certainly cheer up Rangers' supporters. And it will allow the natives to argue, pointlessly, across the sectarian divide, whether it's 'greeny-blue', or bluish-green'.