Cruise Control

I’ll be honest, a Caribbean cruise had not really been on my ‘Things To Do Before You’re 50’ list. But on the basis of ‘why not?’ I said, “why not?”, and now find myself at the aft end of Deck 14 (or the "14th floor", as I like to call it) of a ship measuring almost a quarter of a mile long and towering 236ft above the water, amongst 6,000 other passengers and 12,000 plants and 56 living, breathing trees, watching the sea, the occasional tropical island and, hopefully, a few whales and dolphins float past.

With the approach of my 50th year on this planet, the opportunity to see a new part of it while travelling at a sedate 21 knots an hour seemed like a perfect convergence. Admittedly, though, the idea of being on a boat with more than 8,000 people, crew included, is not my normal idea of a holiday: I’m someone who gets people-phobic in a hotel with more than one lift, and I would not, normally, go to a resort offering all-you-can eat dining and a demographic that could realistically enable the staging of mobility scooter races around the half-mile running track on Deck 5, with a grid size not far off the 22 vehicles that start a Formula 1 Grand Prix.

This might sound snobbish, but I assure you it is not. I just - normally - prefer more holidays which don't require dressing up and in which I have the freedom to explore places in my own time or simply do nothing, without having to queue to sit down for dinner at a set time because of a system. So, to be at sea for seven days amongst a population similar in size to that of a small town is certainly out of my comfort zone. And to be on an itinerary whereby whole days elapse without the scenery changing much from, simply, blue ocean seems counter-intuitive. But that should be exactly what I’m doing, 13 days before I turn 50: a new experience, a new vista.

The vast Oasis Of The Seas towers above Port Canaveral
© Simon Poulter 2017

Cruising is, today, far from some Hemingway-esque exercise in rugged adventure it may have once been seen to be. Nor is it anything like Carry On Cruising or The Love Boat, my two sole reference points (carefully removing Titanic from that frame) - a never-ending programme of mass keep-fit sessions and deck quoits, with occasional bouts of projectile vomiting. Cruise ships today come with celeb-chef restaurants, sky-diving simulation machines, casinos and designer brand boutiques. Mine - Royal Caribbean’s vast Oasis Of The Seas - has an ice-skating rink, it's own English pub, a production of Cats, two rock-climbing walls, and more dining options than I actually know what to do with. Cruising is also no longer the preserve of the elderly (though the age group on this boat is definitely skewed somewhere considerably north of my own...). Indeed, the Florida-Caribbean Cruise Association claims that cruisers are getting younger, with Millennials and Generation X-age passengers choosing cruise holidays over land-based breaks. Indeed these two groups, according to the FCCA, like cruising as a means of ‘sampling’ destinations for later and longer trips. 

© Simon Poulter 2017

That said, it's hard - yet - to get a full idea of who is on this boat, such is the enormity of its human cargo. Boarding was relatively - and reassuringly - quick, through the logistics must be astonishing: if you know how chaotic boarding a Boeing 747 can be, imagine more than ten times that number pitching up at Port Canaveral in Florida, in scenes resembling the Ellis Island sequence in The Godfather Part II. Credit, though, to Royal Caribbean: it all works. 

Once on board it takes time for the newbie to get acclimatised. For a start, there’s the sheer scale of the boat. Oasis Of The Seas was, when launched in 2009, the largest cruise vessel in the world, and even with bigger ships coming into use, it still beggars belief. I could probably spend my entire week exploring it and still not cover everything. And that’s the point: these cruise ships are an exercise in over-consumption, and you pay the privilege for it.

The cruise industry is a big, $40 billion-per-year business. The major cruise lines will invest almost $5 billion this year alone in new ships and services, and their 23 million passengers will spend more than $3 billion at the various destinations the ships call into. The US accounts for roughly half those passengers, and with a predominantly American clientele on board this ship, it’s easy to see how. Not for nothing is the baseball cap the predominant headgear, and the capped-sleeve T-shirt very much in evidence. Cruising draws a loyal crowd: the average passenger on one of these big US-based ships will have taken more than five cruises as an adult prior to the current trip, and that’s certainly borne out by the people I’m travelling with on this seven-day voyage around the Caribbean, which will take me to Haiti, Jamaica and Mexico before returning to Florida. And that, in itself, is a statement I couldn’t imagine making before: a "voyage". 

Ever since humankind first discovered that a felled tree could float, we've been exploring these oceans, crossing them, migrating via them, discovering new countries, subjugating their indigenous incumbents, trading with them, exploiting their resources and more. So I can hardly claim, at the end of October 2017, to be Columbus. But, after 24 hours on board and almost 24 hours at sea on the first leg of the trip, with nothing but endless ocean outside of my cabin, and hot-and-cold-running buffet seemingly available around the clock on the interior of this floating town, I’m starting to see the attraction. 

Yes, you can indulge in a daily curriculum that includes Martini lessons, karaoke, jazz guitar instruction, “fun” activities around the pool and a machine dispensing Coca-Cola simply by holding up a cup with an embedded chip in it; or you can lie on a sun lounger surrounded by others exposing their equally pale, flabby flesh to the sky, just dozing to the rhythm of a ship at sea, occasionally dropping anchor to indulge in beach life and local craft stalls for a few hours before returning to the onboard buffet and casino. And despite the size of this ship, with its battalions of 'seniors' moving at a sluggish pace in search of food at 5pm, or the gaudiness and volume of the entertainment options, there is also a peace and calm to be found, that I'm enjoying from my balcony overlooking water of an almost unreal blue. The only sound being the gentle chug of engines and water washing against the hull. In fact, it really is most relaxing.

© Simon Poulter 2017

Tomorrow we stop spend a few hours in Haiti, a country I know principally for its natural disasters, its murderous father-and-son dictators ‘Papa Doc’ and ‘Baby Doc’ Duvalier, and being the back story of Steely Dan’s Haitian Divorce. I have a lot to learn. Welcome to the new order.

Robert Plant's Carry Fire

Pop quiz: can you name any frontmen - and notably, British frontmen - famed for being the focal points of legendary rock groups and who have now spent considerably more time on their own than they ever did in the bands with which they made their reputations?

Off the top of my head there is Paul McCartney (the you-know-whos). Peter Gabriel (Genesis), Bryan Ferry (Roxy Music) and, latterly, Morrisey (The Smiths). There are probably many more. Perhaps you can play this very entertaining game on your next dull car journey.

One further entry to this canon must be Robert Plant. His musical alma mater, Led Zeppelin, of course, only lasted 12 years before John Bonham's untimely death brought a sudden end to one of rock's most defining bands. Like Gabriel's eight years with Genesis or McCartney's 'paltry' decade with The Fabs, Plant's Zeppelin history has been both a blessing and the proverbial millstone. He can't avoid it, and on his last tour (which I got to experience in both Paris - at Le Bataclan, a matter of yards from the stage - and at the Montreux Jazz Festival) there was no shortage of Zeppelin material, albeit carefully selected and adapted to the eclectic sound of his diversely-influenced band, the Sensational Space Shifters. But the so-called Zeppelin reunion ten years ago at the O2 Arena (technically it was Plant, Jimmy Page and John-Paul Jones playing together at a benefit for Ahmet Ertegün) - while suitably respectful of the Zeppelin legend - unwittingly whetted appetites for a full revival. Page is said to be still up for it, Jones is apparently non-committal, while Plant...

'Indifferent' barely covers Plant's attitude towards returning to the band he joined in 1968 at the outset of a 12-year lifespan that, at times, resembled more of a military campaign than simply four men playing blues-inspired rock'n'roll (and, in the process, inventing heavy metal). Even last year's legal dispute, in which the LA band Spirit challenged the providence of Stairway To Heaven (claiming a close resemblance to their 1968 instrumental Taurus) brought Plant, Page and Jones together, briefly, without anything more coming from it.

Plant has always been somewhat diffident on the subject of a return to Zeppelin, and in a recent interview with Rolling Stone he maintained his distance: "Um, well, what was once a steady date becomes a cup of coffee. That's basically how it turned out, a cup of coffee from time to time. But nothing intimate," he replied to being asked whether the reunion was like old times. While Plant and his former cohorts could earn tens of millions from a Zeppelin revival, Plant's focus is clearly doing his own thing - enjoying life back home in England, on the Shropshire border with Wales, and pursuing his rock-meets-roots music.

Thus, Carry Fire - released on Friday - continues the eclecticism of 2014's Lullaby And...The Ceaseless Roar - "grooves and moves," he recently describe the album, albeit with a greater rooting in Plant's musical past, indeed to the blues and rock'n'roll of his teenage. There is a subtle mood of contemplation about it, as the recently-turned 69 Plant embraces age and, possibly, even his own mortality, as well as the world around him. Not that it is morbid or stark in nature and he is typically self depreciating about his encroaching years ("I play soccer every Wednesday at 7pm," he revealed to Rolling Stone. "I play till someone says, 'Go in goal – it looks like you're gonna die.' Then somebody brings the defibrillator quick.").

Plant's voice throughout Carry Fire is gentle, closer to a whisper, gently coating some songs rather than dragging them forward as he did with that banshee scream in his Zeppelin pomp. Ah, yes, that band again. Perhaps he doesn't do himself any favours by opening the album with The May Queen, though he maintains that it is somewhat coincidental that he should draw reference to that character bustling in the hedgerow of Stairway, even if the song is as steeped in Plant's romantic side as that song from Led Zeppelin IV.

Sonically, The May Queen sets the tone for the remaining 11 tracks, each drawing on reverb-drenched rockabilly, Appalachian folk, the strings and sounds of North Africa, as well as pastoral England. They mark a certain contentment with the form, one that has never settled into anything simple - even his bluegrass tie-up with Alison Krauss, Raising Sand found channels of exploration. There are obvious comparisons to be drawn to Peter Gabriel, especially with the richness of the Sensational Space Shifters' screeches and scratches, bleeps and blurps, many the result of guitarist/multi-instrumentalist Justin Adams, ex-Cast guitarist Liam 'Skin' Tyson, former Massive Attack and Portishead keyboard player John Baggott and the Gambian purveyor of all manner of exotic stringed instruments, Juldeh Camara, separating into their own recording unit to come up with parts of songs to reattach to Plant's core material.

The man who once screamed out "Valhalla!" on Immigrant Song returns to migration with New World..., taking a gentler view of human movement ("In songs we praise a happy landing, on yet another virgin shore") while Adams' guitars screech out a chugging rhythm like angle grinders. Plant expresses his dismay at the current occupant of the White House with Carving Up The World Again...A Wall And... while addressing man's desire for war with Bones Of Saints, both songs constraining any anger while the ensemble's rugged, reverb-shaped soundscapes do as much to express anger as any screaming vocals might have done.

Indeed, Plant's voice - at times an entire register lower than in his Zeppelin pomp - is more like a coating: on A Way With Words it is hushed almost to the point of a whisper, hauntingly drawn over a reluctant-sounding piano. It is in these textures that Plant now plays: even Bluebirds Over The Mountain, a duet with Chrissie Hynde and a cover of an old rockabilly number once done by both the Beach Boys and Ritchie Valens, is given a low-key, looped-up twist that sounds like Garbage doing a hoe-down.

The overall effect of Carry Fire is one of confident maturity. Plant knows he's an elder statesman, but has no need to exploit past glories. Instead he is flying his own kite, boldly, in the way this album's songs are arranged and delivered. It may, at times, sound like Eddie Cochran doing trip-hop, but it is - I wager - utterly unique. And utterly brilliant.

A slice of reality: Squeeze's The Knowledge

For reasons I can't explain, and would probably require a pyschology professional to help understand, I've always been fascinated by celebrity associations with the environs I occupy. Discovering that John Martyn was born in a house less than half mile from the dwelling where I entered this world was like hitting a rich seam of gold. That Eric Clapton walked the very streets I did growing up, or that Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck haled from districts no more than a bus ride from my front door provided sparkle to an otherwise not particularly thrilling suburban existence.

So now I'm living in Greenwich, I'm discovering an iconic part of London famed not only for its maritime history, but for being the epicentre of one of the great earthquakes - even if one with somewhat erratic aftershocks - of British pop music. For it was around here that Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook found a kindred musical interest that would become Squeeze and endure - more often off than on - for the last 44 years. Difford's superb memoir, Some Fantastic Place: My Life In And Out Of Squeeze charts extensively the ebb and flow of his relationship with Tilbrook, as well as the intrinsic part south-east London (and Greenwich, in particular) has played in their lives, and still does.

These two elements - their relationship and their origins - is an underlying background to The Knowledge, the 16th studio album under the Squeeze name and as musically and lyrically rich as anything they've produced since their recorded debut in 1979. Like all musical partnerships, Difford and Tilbrook's has always been strongly fraternal, a classic case of they only do what they do best when it's been the two of them working together - the former's lyrical wit (recognisably of its geographic origin) whether spoken, written or sung, the latter's melodic ease. Of course, that fraternity has been frequently stretched, often as Difford - as his memoir reveals - has gone off on his own path, encountering demons in the way. But it's a brotherly fabric that even when stretched seemingly beyond shape, it has a welcome habit of retracting back to the state that serves the relationship best.

While their last outing, 2015's Cradle To The Grave (a musical accompaniment to Difford's Deptford schoolfriend Danny Baker's sitcom based on his first memoir) was a first flexing of the Difford/Tilbrook writing muscle in a while, The Knowledge feels like a fully-fledged adventure. And a grand adventure it is, too. Opening track Innocence In Paradise delivers a cinematic Western-theme, while still rooted in London's southern hemisphere, evoking both the social commentary of Up The Junction as well as that perennial pub singalong favourite Cool For Cats. Patchouli sets itself in Difford's Greenwich hometown, referencing Maryon Wilson Park in a nostalgic nod back to some of the tales his book's early chapters covers in entertaining depth. London is a recurring muse in Difford's lyrics, with Rough Ride giving a less than glowing appraisal of the struggles facing Londoners today ("this city we love") while married to a Steely Dan-like funk.

If we were honest, there are few pop acts who can do social conscience without sounding insincere or, simply, corny. Bruce Springsteen can succeed in covering the blue collar human condition whereas Phil Collins singing about homeless people just sounds false. It's all about how you go about it. Thus, A&E, with its gentle jazz-soul, shouldn't deliver anything even remotely cutting about the state of the NHS. But it does. "It wouldn't hurt to give them more," Tilbrook sings about public sector wages. It is, even with a serious message, simply a lovely song.

When Squeeze emerged at the beginning of the post-punk New Wave, they could easily have been categorised as novelty pub rock merchants. But this dismisses Difford and Tilbrook's mastery as songwriters of exquisite, if too often unrecognised class. Final Score is a perfect example - a beautifully crafted, beautifully performed slice of soul - replete with a piano solo former member Jools Holland would be proud of - that lulls you into its arms...until you realise that its about a young boy with aspirations to become a professional footballer being abused by a predatory coach. It's here that you realise that Difford is taking no prisoners with his writing, whether tackling topics as diverse as erectile dysfunction on Please Be Upstanding, record collectors on Albatross, or his relationship with Tilbrook on Two Forks.

One of my frustrations with Squeeze over the years is that they have, too often, only been judged by their hit singles. And while the greatest hits packages that aggregate these songs have, it would appear, kept them solvent during the lean years, the real strength to this band can only be fully experienced in their albums. The Knowledge is a welcome reminder of just why Difford and Tilbrook have been rightfully compared to pop's greatest writing partnerships - yes, a certain pair of Scousers included. Tilbrook has called it their "best-ever record", and he may not be wrong. It's certainly one of the most consistent, soup-to-nuts good albums in their history, one that feels like its been written and recorded with comfort and ease, particularly Difford and Tilbrook being comfortable and at-ease with each other, and rooted in reality - the pain and joy of it.

Definitely not Ed Sheeran: Liam Gallagher's As You Were

Let's establish the facts, as they stand: Oasis were good, Noel Gallagher's post-Oasis output has been good, Liam Gallagher's post-Oasis output less good/awful/should stick to selling menswear, and that the chances of an Oasis reunion are of a cold-day-in-Hell magnitude, based on Gallagher Junior's near-daily tirade of Twitter jibes about Gallagher Senior.

In spite of the often vituperative and mostly inventive barbs aimed at his brother, Liam has cut a relatively more avuncular figure in recent months, launching a charm offensive in preparation for today's release of his debut solo album, As You Were. This, arguably, began last year with an interview with Q magazine's Ted Kessler - conducted mostly in a north London pub over two August days - which I will put before the court as being one of the funniest, most engaging and open interviews I've read with a rock star, let alone one renown for being profane, playground bully-thuggish and generally hostile. Of the interview's many revelations, it was the fact that the previously Olympic-level caner was now getting up at 5am each morning to go for runs on Hampstead Heath and while not exactly now a paragon of lactose-free milk-drinking clean living, was - as he was entering his 44th year - a different character. Contemplative, even.

With both of his previous bands declared dead, and the odds of a fraternal Gallagher reconciliation zero, Gallagher revealed to Kessler that he'd picked up a guitar and was engaging in songwriting. To the uninitiated, this may have come as either a surprise or a worry. After all, wasn't Noel responsible for writing all of Oasis' songs, or at least the good ones? Well, no. Both Beady Eye albums - while not good - gave Liam the opportunity to develop his writing chops. And if you wanted an example of how good his writing could be, just listen to the final Oasis album, Dig Out Your Soul, and the Liam-written track I'm Outta Time, a track his brother branded "deceptively brilliant". I branded it a Bond-theme-in-waiting, and certainly better than Jack White and Alicia Keys' execrable Another Way To Die released the same year for Quantum Of Solace.

In the Q interview, however, Gallagher seemed reluctant to brand the new songs he'd been writing as the launch of a new direction. "I am not embarking on a solo 'career'. Everyone should know that," he told Kessler. "There are just 10, 11 songs I've written that are eligible to be recorded. They've got flair, attitude, the melodies are sick and the words are fucking funny. We'll record them this year and release it next year. It'll shock people. It's a record written by me, that's got all the right ingredients and sounds well tasty."

And it is. Very much so. OK, much of it is in the Oasis vein - a lot of guitar-based swagger topped by Gallagher's Lennonesque nasal vocal - but rather than simply being derivative, As You Were is a glorious continuation of what that outfit did best. Ask most people what they would like out of most of their favourite bands and they'll say "more of the same, please". It should be pointed out that the album isn't entirely Gallagher's own work: American producer and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurtin is amongst a number of collaborators keeping As You Were on solid ground (and he brings to the party experience of working with Adele, Foo Fighters and others). But this assistance comes in terms of flourish. Thus, a track like Paper Crown (in which Gallagher sounds more like Cast's John Power) stands out, not only for its melodic strength but also for its open sound, something the tremendous single Wall Of Glass also benefits from, with its soulful, funky treatment. Likewise, Chinatown, with its Feeling Groovy guitar motif, finds Gallagher losening his trademark snarl, and delivering a dreamy, psychedelic wooze-out that stands apart from anything he's produced before, both melodically as well as in terms of his songwriting maturity.

As I'm Outta Time proved, Liam has a knack for the grandiose, stadium-swelling ballad. It's a gift that, if he was feeling generous, Noel would recognise he shares with his younger sibling. For What It's Worth fits this capability. Yes, you could probably sing All Around The World over it, but then such mashups were possible with much of the Oasis canon. Really, it doesn't matter, when the songs are this pleasing and this singalongable. I've already made one Beatles reference and it is, inevitably, impossible not to find another: When I'm In Need has Beatley choral elements, but is also slap-bang in the midst of what pop music should always be - big, bold and attitudinal, with the sort of melodic hook that won't leave you alone. What Oasis did to perfection.

I'm not surprised that As You Were is good, but I was surprised that across its 12 tracks it delivers consistently and delivers well. Whatever your view of Liam - git, enfant terrible, etc, etc - he has produced one of the stand-out entertaining albums of the year. Yes, with his brother's next album coming out next month we can expect more of the Gallagher rough-and-tumble; but with Noel also writing some of the best British pop-rock of our time, rather than wishing, pitifully, for an Oasis reunion, we should revel in the fact that we have two members of the same family capable of producing huge, epic records that stand the test of repeat listening, and which translate effortlessly to memorable live performance. For anyone despairing about the inexplicable dominance of Ed Sheeran on the charts, with his bland, indistinguishable autopop, it is genuinely heartwarming that someone is capable of producing a rock-based record of such enjoyability as Liam Gallagher has done with As You Were.

One of the herd

A few days ago the Mail Online - as it does - devoted two reporters to the earth-shattering story that HRH Prince Harry had been seen wearing the same pair of blue chinos three days running. The very thought!

Now, firstly, you must wonder whether there were more pressing stories going on in the world that day - you know, the prospect of nuclear annihilation in the Korean peninsular springs to mind - but evidently this was worthy of the headline you read above, along with the qualifying details that H was in Toronto for the Invictus Games, of which he is patron and figurehead, that his Dockers cost £70, and that he "appeared" to wear them for three days "despite 27C temperatures" (particularly puzzling, since the wearing of comfortable cotton trousers in 27 degrees shouldn't really be a bad thing).

Without wishing to add unnecessary oxygen to such tabloid nonsense, chinos are clearly de rigeur for our young male royals. Harry's elder brother William is, these days, rarely seen in anything else. Fashion commentators and royal watchers with little else to write about will say that the princes have adopted a "more relaxed" fashion style than, say, their father who was wearing double-breasted suits while still in nursery school.

They are, however, simply reflecting what has become a uniform in London - which is what has prompted this post: during my lunch break today I was somewhat overwhelmed by the fact that men in the City of London - yes, even that preserve of stuffy, besuited bankers - have appropriated en masse blue chinos and brown brogues as a default. It's a look that is suitably casual without feeling too far removed from the conventions of suit wearing, while not straying into 'smart hippy' land with jeans (a look appropriated by middle aged executives in the tech industry).

I, too, am a wearer of the blue-chinos-and-brown-brogues combo. However, I would like to put it out there that this isn't out of following the herd as they simply make a very pleasing colour combination. Chinos do, though, carry a certain tag: in the early days of that ridiculous concept 'Casual Friday' it simply meant that those who'd normally be dressed in grey or navy suits from Monday to Thursday put on a pair of khaki chinos for the final day of the working week. When I worked in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s, Casual Friday could easily have been renamed 'Beige Friday', such was the ubiquity of khaki Dockers.

The Dutch, too, embraced the trend, and by the time I'd moved back to Amsterdam in 2003, local men were flinging off - metaphorically speaking - their dull business suits for chinos, albeit with a somewhat disturbing tendency towards vibrant hues like pink, yellow and orange, a look also appropriated by those named Tarquin who live in Clapham.

The rules of officewear are being constantly tested. First there was the mass abandonment of ties (recently given the green light in the Houses of Parliament, no less) and then the appearance of 'smart' jeans, as worn by the dad-dancing titans of the technology world. I've attended press events with my own company in which spotting the divide between American and European executives is easy - it's those in jeans versus those in suits. Chinos, however, have remained resilient staples, as fashion writers are prone to inform us. Born in the 1950s as a preppy uniform for Ivy Leaguers, they now provide us chaps with something to be worn on almost any occasion, and if you're economising on travel luggage (not that Prince Harry would have been flying Ryanair...), it's the legwear that keeps on delivering, most days of your trip.