Organizing a Jules Verne night?

 A new communication from Fred Olsen. We have been sent 6 labels for our luggage, with three for me and three for Albina. That answers one question, namely, how much luggage can we take.  However, I rang Olsen's guest advice office to find out above some other queries. It turned out that the ship's electric sockets accomodate both UK and EU plugs. We agreed with Albina that we need to take some electrical adapters with us. I have now made out a list of 36 items we will need to take apart from clothes, nightwear, medicines and toiletries. I have also been told that we are supposed to check in for boarding between 11.30am and 12.30am. This is important information for our courtesy car which is being organized for us by ROL Cruise, acting as our agent. I checked this with ROL Cruise and they confirmed that the courtesy car will call for us at 9am on the big day. 

I was looking through my wardrobe this morning just to have an idea what suit I may want to take. To my complete surprise, I came across a dinner jacket. I tried it on. It fitted. I still had a black bowtie in one of the pockets. I remain dumbfounded. How long have I had this symbol of bourgeois decadence? I cannit remember wearing a dinner jacket for any occasion in the last 30 years. Albina, who normally knows my clothes back to front as she is the main purchaser of my clothes, was equally puzzled. But on the other hand I surely won't need it for the trip. Yet there are some 10 ten Formal Nights during the cruise, Albina reminded me. But you hate these events, I reminded her, and you claim not to have any dress(es) to wear in any case. I won't go, she agreed, but you should go. After all, yu want to know where the action is and meet more people. Oh well, perhaps I may (ever so reluctantly) attended a few Formal Night sessions on the ship, after all.

Unfortunately, the Fred Olsen staff were in no position to confirm whether there would be a Jules Verne night or indeed any details for promotong the Jules Verne Centenary aspect of the journey. So no comparison between our journey and that of Phileas Fogg 150 years ago? Having the journey in mind, I have just ordered a map of the stars and a biography of Jules Verne, which I intend to read up before Feb 23rd. If I find the organizers have not organized any evening social, or even a morning lecture, on Jukes Verne and the centenary, then I will offer to make my own contribution. I could make a power point presntation. I may also try and display a world map from the 1870s showing how throughout half the trip the route proceeded from one landing point to another in the British Empire, all the way from Suez to Shanghai. Fix, the detective attempting to arrest Fogg as a suspect jewel thief, had kept wiring ahead for his arrest warrant at Sues, Aden, Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore and Hong Kong, and was powerless after that, until Fogg reached Ireland. On the other hand, how is it that I keep taking on these extra tasks just when I am meant to spend more time with Albina.

Another example of taking on extra tasks is the situation with the Federation of Poles, whose executive had a meeting on Tuesday evening at which it was agreed that the AGM would be held on February 21st.. This is purely and simply to ensure that I can attand it, even to the extent of not leaving them enough time for the statutory 3 weeks to announce the holding of an AGM. At least it means that POSK need not appoint a new delegate to replace me. However, the Federation of Poles is in a dismal state, with no money, no new young people, and virtually no new ideas about the future. There is the possibility of setting up a community hotline at the Federation's office, so that it again becomes a communication hub for all Polish organizations, a first port of call for outsiders, and a link for those desperate and homeless, or domestically abused Poles with language and cultural difficulties, to be able to contact and to receive a referral to the right social organization. Great idea that, launched the previous weekend by Polish MP Joanna Fabisiak, but the salary of such a link person would have to be covered by a Polish institution. The Federation could then at least provide the premises. But can Mrs Fabisiak promise a steady flow of funding? She serves on the Polish parliamentary liaison committee with Poles abroad, but she is an opposition MP, anxious may be to raise funds from the mother country aware suddenly of the needs of the Polonia overseas and counting on their participation in this year's parliamentary election, but I doubt she could offer anything pemanent. And anyway, Poland has enormous financial problems currently, especially as it has also to support more thana 1 miilion diaspora of Ukrainian refugees. 

We are fast approaching a situation where the post-war institutions set up by our parents in the UK, may no longer be fit for purpose. The main organizations are running out of funds, the newer Poles have less and less sense of an investment in today's Polish institutions in the UK, with the possible exception of churches and saturday schools, and many are still living with one foot in Poland. This becaue all the clearer after a chat I had with a member of the POSK executive complaining that POSK's income is dropping steadily, as even the big organizations are failing to pay their agreed rent and service charges to POSK. This is all at a very critical juncture for the Polish community. Of course, being who I am, I want to do something about this, to smooth out vicious but also vacuous personal conflicts and seek to find a common language and a common purpose, as I did previously between and Polish Stage Company, but I know that apart from writing and talking about it to the current powers that be, I am no longer in a position to do anything about it, because I am getting old and tired, and because Albina will fight tooth and nail for me not to get involved. "Why you?" she keeps saying. Why indeed? We have a cruise to sit back and enjoy (and/or worry about), so let's get on with that.