All at sea

Last weekend I returned from France on a cross-Channel ferry. The decks were crowded with young people jabbering away in French, German, Dutch, English. It occurred to me that whichever language they spoke these kids were very much alike in dress, conduct, outlook and lack of physical fitness, as though a European cultural union had almost been achieved already, and I was sorry about it.

A few days later I was back in Dover, this time to board a cruise ship. The passenger list is 90 per cent British and of these the vast majority were born before the war. On this boat no such surrender of the national identity has occurred. We are so thoroughly British, we are almost stupefied by it.

In the evenings I can choose to dine formally in the restaurant, jacket and tie required, or help myself from the buffet, jacket and tie optional but still required, and sit at the nearest table with an unoccupied place setting. The latter option gives single voyagers like me the opportunity to mix easily and convivially with the other passengers. On my first evening at sea I carried my bowl of minestrone soup across the carpet to a small table occupied by a single female draped in vividly coloured silk. I was wearing a three-piece suit and tie. ‘May I sit here?’ I said. I asked the question as a polite formality. But it seemed to take her by surprise and she made me hover there, clutching my bowl of minestrone soup like a supplicant, while she looked me up and down and considered my request. Finally, she motioned me with a contemptuous flick of her fork to the empty chair. During our meal together she spoke not a word to me, nor looked at me, even when I asked her to pass the pepper.