The Patter of Feet and Other noises

I had the real pleasure of some visitors last week, the Family Foot who came to stay for a few days and to ‘do the mansions.’  Unfortunately for me, their visit coincided with one of the three very busiest of weeks of this stay at Newport. At this time of the year, everything is happening. My Elective course ended with a bang. Probably my last long teaching commitment, I’m glad to say it was a success with a sell-out, number wise, of students from all over who professed themselves well pleased with their choice. Here they are with me at the end of our last session. Note the pots of Thai Tea on the tables. They comprised US Navy, Army and Space force people, plus seven international navies – and all very satisfying to teach. As always I learned a great deal from them.

A nice note to end on. Also I had two history dissertations to examine that week, plus preparation for a conference the following week and a set of evening three hour evening slots for another class in Singapore, and some very late nights.

All this meant that I left the Feet to their own very capable devices every day, while providing recommendations. They liked the restaurants I booked for them, and in fact treated me at one, the Clarke Cookhouse on Bannister wharf. One evening in fact they went to the famous 17^th Century White Horse Tavern, while I was treated to another ‘porch dinner’ at the Newport Reading Room. (It still amazes me that this 18th Century Club is still men only).This divided occasion was the result of a diary mix-up I have to confess. The following week I also hosted a couple of colleagues from Singapore and Vietnam over here for the conference on maritime law that I was attending. So, social wise, it was all go.

One of the other noises referred to, was my first noticed fly. Memorial day, 29 May coincided with our Spring Holiday and is regarded here as the first day of Summer and I was congratulating myself on not being troubled with insects when I heard the first ‘boing’ of the year as a fly cannoned into the wire netting that covers most of the windows here. That could be really annoying. The only other thing I’ve noticed here, so far are some creepy crawley things with improbably long whiskers sticking out all round them, which mysteriously appear in the shower and other such places.

The warmer temperatures have meant descent into shorts and tee shirts and much more use being made of the outdoor furniture on sun deck and porch at either end of the house, though I have to say that the breeze still has a bit of bite to it.

Otherwise not much more to report. I’ve noticed that the flag in College has been flying on the top of the mast for quite a few days now. They put it at half-mast whenever there’s a mass shooting somewhere in the country and since there’s been a whole spate of these recently, one rather got used to it and surprised when it was at the top once more. This country’s attitude to guns is really quite extraordinary, but there again as so often said, it’s a very polarised one at the moment. This kind of sentiment is really not evident in liberal, Democrat Rhode Island, and even more in Newport itself. I only know one person who has identified herself as Republican, in fact she served in George Bush’s White House, and she’s not in MAGA land. (Make America Great Again). But even here there are dark suspicions about corruption. In the old days Rhode island was famous for its Mafia connections, and hasn’t entirely shaken off those associations. There are some things about the US that have surprised me though. Here at least, and for people like me, the difference between the US health service and the NHS is much less than I had expected. Both good and bad. For instance my friend John, getting over a heart-attack and covered by health insurance still has to drive 45 minutes  three times a week for his re-hab. That’s the closest and what he’s getting doesn’t sound amazing. He’s still alive, though. On the other hand, I was constantly urged by text and email by the NHS to come to the Devizes Corn Exchange to get my Spring Covid booster. So I phoned up the local Walgren pharmacy and got one there and then, no trouble at all. And free. I would have been covered anyway as a Federal employee.

I think it’s that kind of thing that makes Republicans so intensely suspicious of ‘the state’ – the sense that they’re not getting what the privileged ones do. The evidence that rich Republicans certainly do doesn't seem to bother them. The current polls suggest that the Republican nomination as presidential candidate for next year’s elections looks like Trump’s to lose, barring some disastrous scandal that even he can’t slide out of. Since that would put him up against a gaffe prone President of even more advanced years and an economy which by US standards (though not by ours, unfortunately) is not doing well, the prospects look pretty dire. Hope, though, springs eternal.   

    However, after this ridiculously intense three week period my mind is beginning to turn to moving on, back to the UK in a month or so’s time and more immediately to a new rental just around the corner in a couple of weeks. Over the past five years I’ve managed to accumulate quite a lot of stuff and I am rehearsing in my mind what to bring home and what to leave, and how. Also of course, I am planning on doing, or re-doing, every grockle-site I can for the last time before departure so have re-registered for the ‘Preservation Society of Newport County’ and am determined to get my money’s worth. With that aim in mind I went to the Marble House yesterday, as impressive as ever,

and afterwards, with the car conveniently and legitimately stowed in the car park, walked down the avenue to Marine Drive and the track that leads to Belmont beach, my favourite spot on the whole Cliff path. One can scramble over the rocks and claim it as one’s own, for a while at least. A nice spot to sit and think, and plan for the future. 

There and Back Again

 

I think I have really worked my passage this time during my week in Singapore, although I still find it amazing they are prepared to meet the ferocious costs of a business class flight from Boston to London and then on to Singapore. Just as well though, as it’s a gruelling flight, no doubt about that : two hours to Boston, two hours waiting in the airport, six hours in flight, two hours connection time, 14 hour flight, I hour to hotel  - 27 hours of journey time. It’s worst coming back as my Heathrow connection is actually eight hours, making 33 in all. This explains my filling in time writing this, broken up by the occasional stroll around the lounge and little snack treats every now and again. In the wait-over I got through all the work in the laptop package I took with me, which was very good -= a real bonus in fact. 

Its mizzly here at Heathrow, and the coronation is on the screens but with sound very muted visually. There are little gatherings of people watching them all. On the plane a packet of Joseph’s Eton Mess Gourmet Popcorn appeared on my tray-table while I was sleeping.  

    In Singapore, my programme was packed and I had virtually no free time at all. Two meetings with the Singapore navy (one over breakfast at 0700), and one with the Indians, plus my running a ‘fireside chat’ with their Head of Strategy. Senior officers in the Singapore navy are much younger than their counterparts anywhere else, and so engaging with them is slightly unnerving.  I participated in a very strange press conference on the Conference itself in which the 50 odd journalists there asked just two trivial questions about session timings. I was expecting something like the West Wing versions of this so was very disappointed. I did, though, two filmed interviews with Agence France Presse and Singapore’s Channel News in the midst of the Conference throng, with lights, big microphones and all the usual schemozzle. That was more like it. The Straits Times published an op-ed by me on the day I arrived.

The main event of the week was a whole day conference which ended with my chairing a discussion of no less than five Chiefs of Navy from India, the Philippines, New Zealand, our own Second Sea Lord from the Royal Navy and the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet. They were all very good and the session went down well. I knew three of them beforehand and that helped a lot.  After that I sat passively through an afternoon workshop on maritime law, recovering.

The Conference dinner was a very grand affair at the Gardens by the Bay, where the Singaporeans have imported whole trees in their bid to create displays of every climate in the world. It’s an amazing place. So was the dinner, here’s my table.

        The food was interesting – everything uncompromisingly Chinese/Singaporean including the famous chill crab which I can take or leave but tend to leave if I can ! Several speeches, and a concert of Singaporean songs from about 30 young damsels, naval daughters from the base.

One of the most memorable things of the whole week was the warships visit in Changi naval base. It was as hot as hell, terribly humid, especially in a heavy business suit and carrying a wad of conference papers and the like. I ended up, purely coincidentally on an India ship where I was recognised from the earlier session and treated like royalty, pushed to the front of the drinks queue and give a big glass of gin with the tiniest splash of tonic, which went down a treat. The following morning I was briefly incommoded by an upset stomach and wondered, as one does, about the ice but think it was more likely the rushed Jumbo Sea Food event before the naval base visit on Singapore’s east side. But the Indians were entertaining.

Four ferocious young men mainly in black treated us to an exhibition of traditional stick and sword fighting. It was obviously all very carefully choreographed but looked terribly dangerous, as I suppose it was intended to.

The conference hotel was the Pan Pacific where we had stayed a few years ago once or twice. It’s built like a giant triangle with a hollow atrium and had about 40 floors. (Fortunately I was on floor 7 which was much more convenient). I tried to take a photo of the inside looking up, with the lifts going up and down. The pool was very nice and I must admit I did get a lazy hour there too, but that plus a little bit of wandering around a nearby shopping centre vainly looking for a barber was about the only taste of Singapore itself that I got.

The flight back, I can now safely report was absolutely fine, although ended with very big queues at Boston for both immigration and baggage. At first there were only two booths operating for several hundred visa holders but I found when I finally got there that I was through in a trice – and didn’t even have to supply the usual thumb prints. Luggage was a bit of a strain. I am always convinced that my suitcase, especially when being transferred from one flight to another, is going to end up in Ulan Bator and so was greatly relieved when it finally appeared very much towards the end of the queue. I suppose that this reflected its going into the load so much earlier than any of the others. This all added another hour to the journey home, making 34 hours in all, I suppose.

All was well when I finally reached the house and now after a shower and a good sleep, I feel as though I have never been away at all ! Just a bit gritty round the eyes.