A gestation period like an elephant...

B

BirvidikBob

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Joined
8 Mar 2008
Messages
133
Location
Wandering around the Med (currently Malta)
www.sailblogs.com
I’ve got some good news and some bad news.

The good news is that you’re not going to have to suffer another blog entry as I haven’t written one (but brace yourself, there may be one on the way).

The bad news is that there’s a whole book’s worth lurking in the wings. Despite its having a gestation period like an elephant, the sequel to ‘An Idiot Aboard’ has finally been published. It’s called ‘Finding Einstein’ and is available on Amazon – either as a paperback or an e-book. It covers the four years spent cruising round the Eastern Med. If you like it, I’d be inordinately and cringeworthily grateful if you could post a review.

There’s a ‘look inside’ facility so you can read the first 10% before committing yourself.

Be brave.

Birvidik Bob

p.s. Yes, I know it's a brazen plug, but a few forumites asked to be advised of publication.
 
OK I have ordered the paperback. For reading later this month out in Turkey/ Greece. Paperback so I can share with the rest of the crew.
Stand by for manic destructive reviews!
Peter
 
By George, you're right:

"The plural form of bus is buses. To be fair, a few dictionaries do list busses as an alternative plural form of bus. But it appears so rarely that most people would view it as a spelling error."

In my defence, spellcheck didn't pick it up (although it did query 'defence' - I keep putting it on English UK and it keeps defaulting back to US).

I'd have thought 'buses' would have been pronounced 'boozes'. Now there's a thought.
 
I will let you off as constantly scanning for spelling mistakes is now spoiling my enjoyment of the book :)

We recognise so many things that you write about.

My own contribution, that I’m sure you’ll appreciate, is we once had to leave our boat in North Brittany and fly back. It was only marginally easier than swimming and we will finish paying off the credit card bill late 2021.

To return was a piece of cake, ferry to St Malo, taxi to train station, three changes, one bus. The bus departure was even synced to the train arrival time. Quite relaxing compared to the outbound journey.

The ferry to St Malo arrived late, no taxis, jogged to station, despite arriving on time the train had left, had to pay twice as much for next train as we had booked online and it wasn’t their fault timings had changed or bizarrely it was cheaper to go via Paris, had 30 nano-seconds to catch the connection at Rennes but eventually got off a train with 8 minutes to spare until the last bus of the day left to get us to the port.

Buses :encouragement: , coaches came and went picking up schoolchildren (thank God) but now a fair bit of mumbling from the people standing at our stop, checking of watches and timetables, the TiBus was a distinctive colour so much peering into the distance involved too.

I had noticed a rogue white coach nowhere near our bus stop just lurking. Three minutes after our planned departure time the engine started and I saw the doors close. Speaking fluent Breton like what I does I suggested to one of the ladies near me that she went and checked it. Slight frown, look of disdain but off she waddled, luckily she was wide enough to block the coaches progress. Sudden animation, it was OUR bus, er, coach. Our original bus had broken down.

Cavalry charge to the coach which then got within spitting distance of our port and promptly broke down just before the top of the typical hill you mention in book one. Phone call to “base” resulted in a probable kick to the engine which reluctantly grumbled enough to stagger over the brow of the hill which now resembled a mountain as the engine kept cutting out with resultant loss of braking and probably steering.

We somehow jerked and lurched down a black run into the small village. Luckily no one was stupid enough to get in our way and we coasted ungraciously to ... ooh ... within 50 metres of our stop.

Near enough ... ouvrez la fricken porte or we are opening the emergency door ... we cried.

Apparently it was illegal to offload passengers at a non-designated stop but the driver capitulated when he saw someone reaching for the window-smashing hammer. I might be exaggerating that :o

Anyhoo, in our haste to leave we had left the batteries on which happily discharged as they ran various systems but this seemed a minor inconvenience compared to the journey. At least we had turned off the free shore power for safety reasons!

We will finish paying off that part of the credit card early 2022.
 
BirvidikBob said:
The bad news is that there’s a whole book’s worth lurking in the wings. Despite its having a gestation period like an elephant, the sequel to ‘An Idiot Aboard’ has finally been published. It’s called ‘Finding Einstein’ and is available on Amazon – either as a paperback or an e-book.
Click to expand...

I have finally got around to buying "Finding Einstein" (Kindle edition) and thought that both author and potential readers might like to know that, for some reason, Amazon hasn't linked the two books through the author. In other words, if you go to "An Idiot Aboard" and click on the author's name, you should get a list of all the books by him/you on Amazon but in fact only get that one. "Finding Einstein" has the right author name but it's not a link.

I was going to PM you about this but thought that a public message would give a plug to your excellent books.
 
It should be compulsory reading for anybody contemplating becoming a long term liveaboard. Also a word of warning - some passages of the book are dangerously hilarious and should not be read in a public place if you wish to retain any sense of decorum.
 
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