Struth! On a cruise ship for seven years

A CRUISEY life – the lady, her ship and her cabin:
"If a country's got a port, I've been there,"
she says. (Images Crystal Cruises)

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that when Fort Lauderdale woman Lee Wachtstetter's husband died their daughter suggested her mother take herself off "on a nice long cruise" on board the luxury liner Crystal Serenity.

That was in 2008 – and seven years later and now aged 86, Mrs Wachtstetter is still cruising...

The widow and her late banker husband Mason sailed 89 cruises during their 50 years of married life, and when he died their daughter convinced her Mum that her 5-bedroom family home on 4ha in Fort Lauderdale was too big for one person, and that she should sell-up and take that long cruise.

Since then Mrs Wachtstetter – fondly known amongst the crew as "Mama Lee" – has sailed well over 100 Crystal Serenity long-haul and 15 world cruises, and says she gave up counting the number of countries she's visited after reaching her 100th. "I just say that if it's got a port, I've been there," she says.

But all this doesn't come cheaply – US$164,000 a year (around AU$212,000) gets her a Deck 7 stateroom, all meals and drinks to go with them, shipboard shows and movies whenever she likes, regular cocktail parties, lecture sessions and talks, and even tips…

And while she rarely goes ashore because she's already seen most places her ship visits, she never misses Istanbul's Grand Bazaar that she says she absolutely loves.

The other adventures of Robinson Crusoe

OTHER ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE

David Ellis

IT was back in December 1721 that the world lost Alexander Selkirk, the extraordinary Scottish seaman who provided the real-life story that was to be tweaked, played-with and immortalised by author Daniel Defoe into his classic tale for all ages, Robinson Crusoe.

And while it was Selkirk's four years and four months cast-adrift on a miniscule South Pacific island 700km off Chile that Defoe was able to turn into such a rollicking yarn that's as popular today as it was when written 295 years ago, there's enough still largely unknown about the sailor to make for another equally rollicking read…

Alexander Selkirk was Mate aboard Cinque Ports, a British privateer (an armed merchant ship authorised to attack foreign enemies) and one tempestuous day in 1704 feuded with its Captain about beaching the galleon for repairs to increasingly problematic leaks.

Captain Stradling refused, so Selkirk asked to be put ashore at the next sighting of land and, glad to be rid of his troublesome Mate, Stradling steered to the uninhabited little Juan Fernandez Island. Realizing he'd been duped, Selkirk pleaded remorse but nevertheless was put ashore with just a hammock, hatchet, knife, kettle, matches, personal navigation instruments, a Bible and a couple of day's food.

Cinque Ports, along with an accompanying privateer St George captained by later Australia explorer William Dampier, then sailed off for Cape Horn – sinking along the way from the leaks Selkirk had complained about.…

Selkirk meanwhile lived an extraordinary life on his desolate island, amongst other things teaching feral cats to dance on two legs, parrots to sing crude sea shanties, and running down on foot and wrestling to the ground wild goats whose meat he ate and skins he used for clothing. He lived in a cave and under a bush sun-shelter he built, and when his matches ran out kept a fire going 24 hours a day for cooking and to deter rats from gnawing at his goatskin clothes and his feet while he slept …

He also caught lobsters and fish with his bare hands and from a hilltop look-out watched daily for any possibly passing ships… eventually in 1709 sighting, signalling and being rescued by the British privateer Duke – whose officers coincidentally included William Dampier who'd seen him put ashore on the island all those years before…

Aboard Duke Selkirk made a speedy recovering from his isolation and so impressed its Captain, Woodes Rogers that he made him Second Mate on a privateering raid and later included Selkirk and his adventurous life in his own memoirs. Writer Richard Steele adapted Captain Rogers' memoirs in an article of his own about Selkirk in The Englishman newspaper, and this in turn is said to have inspired Daniel Defoe to create Robinson Crusoe.

And Selkirk's life on return to Scotland could make for another book in itself. He had earned an amazing 800 English pounds as his share of privateering (about AU$160,000 today) and which he'd carefully salted away, and added to his new "life of ease" by giving talks in pubs of his extraordinary isolation in return for meals and drinks.

Yet wealthy as he was, he told enquiring journalists that he doubted he "would ever be as happy again as I was then, with not a single quarter penny…"

Selkirk spontaneously eloped from Scotland to London in 1717 with a 16 year old dairymaid, then equally-spontaneously joined the Navy and went back to sea… and when his ship visited Plymouth, he met and spontaneously once more, married a local widowed innkeeper – never returning to his dairymaid in London.

   

On December 13 1721 while serving on HMS Weymouth on an anti-piracy patrol off Africa's west coast, Alexander Selkirk died aboard ship from Yellow Fever and was buried at sea.

Today his Juan Fernandez is officially called Robinson Crusoe Island and is inhabited by under 900 islanders who live largely by exporting the spiny lobsters that helped sustain Selkirk for so long, and on small-scale tourism – it is part of Chile and a 3-hour small-plane flight from Santiago.

Archaeologists recently found the remains of Selkirk's 24hr fireplace at his cave, four holes for posts that supported his adjacent sun-shelter… and pieces of what they believe were his navigational instruments.

NEXT WEEK: France's amazing female Robinson Crusoe…

                                                         …………………

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

[] THE cave that Alexander Selkirk called home on isolated Juan Fernandez Island for four years and four months from 1704.

[] FIRST edition of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe published in 1719.

[] STATUE dedicated to Alexander Selkirk in his home town of Lower Largo in Scotland.

[] THE only township on remote Juan Fernandez is home to fewer than 900 islanders.

[] LOCALS make the bulk of their income from the export of spiny lobsters, and to a lesser degree on small-scale tourism.

(All images Wikipedia)

A close shave at The Majestic Hotel Kuala Lumpur

An historic Kuala Lumpur landmark is returned to former glory, reviving the romantic jazz era of the 1930s. Roderick Eime relives a little of this great hotel’s past.

I dare not move. My head rests reassuringly against the leather restraint while, out of the corner of my eye, I can see the blade being sharpened to a samurai keenness. Then, with a deft hand reserved for practiced executioners, the lethal instrument is applied to my throat and drawn upward in a slick motion that removes only the offending follicles.

New Las Vegas exhibition to bring Liberace back to life

LIBERACE TO DRAG 'EM IN AGAIN IN VEGAS

David Ellis

Over-the-top costumes, jewel-studded cars, sparkling candelabras, flamboyant jewellery and other outrageous belongings that once drew hundreds of thousands a year to a museum dedicated to the world's most flamboyant entertainer ever – the pianist Liberace – are set to go on display again in Las Vegas by the end of this year.

After being held in storage since the original Vegas Liberace Museum closed at the end of 2010, when visitations had dwindled from 450,000 annually to a mere 35,000, plans are to show these items off as a more down-sized collection occupying about half the space of the old.

And importantly to locate it in thriving Downtown Las Vegas, rather than outside the Main Strip as was the original, with the Liberace Foundation negotiating for space in Las Vegas' all-flashing, all-glittering Neonopolis.

This flamboyant shopping and entertainment complex is lit by an amazing 5km of multi-coloured fluorescent-tubes, and includes amongst its tenants several gay-friendly bars and entertainment spots. And whilst these would seem a natural for the Liberace Museum to sit amongst with the pianist himself seen as one of the most-famous gay entertainers ever, Liberace in fact never once referred to himself publicly as such.

"It's actually one of the things we have to confront when we open the new museum," a spokesman for the Liberace Foundation said. "In the original, our guides tended not to discuss with visitors that he was gay, and if asked would even deny both that, and the fact he died of AIDS. So that's the big question with the new museum – do we 'out' the dead, because Liberace never outed himself…?"

The new museum will be named the Liberace Entertainment Experience, carefully chosen so it can be shortened to the acronym Lee – as the pianist was known to his friends.

And it will be just 3000 square metres in size, with the Foundation hoping for a modest 35,000 visitors a year. "As not everything from the original will be able to fit in," the spokesman said, "it will need to be a selection of the best of the best, with an emphasis on Lee's costumes, and allowing fashion students to come in and study these in an educational environment."

At the same time, however, the Foundation wants to ensure that all visitors will rightfully recognise that Liberace was in fact one of the most-influential entertainers ever, both in Las Vegas' and America's entertainment history.

Although for most fans, a visit to the new Museum will be to ogle not just his often outrageous outfits, but the many seemingly bizarre items he amassed as the highest-paid performer in the world over 20 years – and which included a US$1m fee in 1955 to play just one night at the opening of Las Vegas' Riviera Hotel & Casino (equivalent to around US$8.8m today,) and $138,000 for another single performance at Madison Square Garden…

Amongst items being considered by the Liberace Foundation are several of his 30 cars that include a replica 1931 Model A Ford, a 1957 London cab, a few Rollers (one a 1962 retractable-top Landau covered with tiny jewel-like mirrors and dubbed "The Disco Ball on Wheels,") the famous custom-built Rhinestone Roadster plated with thousands of faux rhinestones, and his favourite 1954 Cadillac Eldorado that he was given by an appreciative sponsor of his-then TV show.

Clothing items are certain to include his famous US$300,000 virgin fox coat with a near-5m train and $100,000 worth of sequins and crystals, and which weighed 45kg. And also an over-the-top pink gabardine and silk suit covered with everything from satin appliques to pastel seeds and crystals would seem another certainty, as well as his sequined jumpsuits… and crystal-studded pink cowboy boots.

Hopefully there'll also be space for such items from his enormous piano collection as an 1885 Pleyel art-case grand, and a 1945 mirrored self-playing nickelodeon adorned with peacock feather engravings.

Liberace, who died in 1987 aged 67, once famously said "I don't give concerts, I put on a show," and this new museum to his memory – small as it will be compared to the original that drew 10 million-plus visitors over 30 years – is sure to drag in the faithful and the just plain curious when it opens at year's end in Downtown Las Vegas.



PHOTO CAPTIONS:

[] A FLAMBOYANT Liberace on stage… diamonds, sequins, crystals and rhinestone-plated piano were all part of the show.

[] HIS famous 1885 Pleyel art-case grand was another favourite, up there in the priceless category

[] THE famous Rhinestone Roadster – but just how far would you take it on the open road?

[] SOME of Liberace's thirty other cars that ranged from a 1957 London cab to a replica 1931 Model A Ford and a few Rollers…

[] LIBERACE amongst the opulence of his totally over-the-top sitting-room.

[] ON stage in that $300,000 virgin fox coat: with its near-5m train, it weighed 45kg.

(All Images courtesy of Liberace Foundation)

FOR WEEK BEGINNING 22 SEPTEMBER 2014

Struth! World's biggest airport [updated]

This terminal, just one of four at Dubai's existing airport, will be dwarfed in size by three at the city's new airport, which can handle 100 Airbus A380 double-deckers at the same time. (Middle East Aviation News)

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says if you have trouble navigating your way around international airports now, you'll be forgiven for thinking you'll maybe need a personal GPS and a cut-lunch to find your way around a new airport being planned for Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE.)

Dublin's Kavanagh’s Pub - an Irish patriot's favourite watering hole

DANIEL O'Connell, Irish patriot extraordinaire,
by Sir George Hayter. (WikiMedia)

PATRIOT PUTS PUB ON ROAD TO FAME

David Ellis

JOHN Kavanagh Pub, Dublin – still pulling the pints 180 years
after being "saved" by patriotic Daniel O'Connell
from almost certain demise. (John Kavanagh Pub)

WHILE Irish patriot Daniel O'Connell is most remembered for his fight for Catholic emancipation, Catholics' rights to sit in the Westminster Parliament, and repeal of the Parliamentary Act that combined Great Britain with Ireland, drinkers at a pub in Dublin raise their pints to him today for a far more bizarre reason.

Three times an MP, and for two years Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1841-42, the philosophies of Daniel O'Connell have also been quoted as inspiring Mahatma Gandhi in his fight for Indian independence, civil rights leader Martin Luther King in his against racism in the United States, and even English novelist William Makepeace Thackeray in his writings – in particular his famously satirical portrayal of English society, Vanity Fair.

But it is drinkers at Kavanagh's Pub on Prospect Square in Dublin who today salute O'Connell for more down-to-earth reasons: ensuring that their watering-hole stands 180 years after it's almost certain demise.

INTERIOR of the John Kavanagh Pub today. (John Kavanagh Pub)

Kavanagh's is certainly worthy of a visit if ever you are heading to the Irish capital, both for that history and the fact it's been run by six generations of the one family since 1835 after having being saved by the patriotic Daniel O'Connell.

A John O'Neill opened the pub on the-then outskirts of Dublin in 1833, hopeful that he could cash-in on the year old Glasnevin Cemetery next door by hosting wakes for the bereaved, and even stepping-in as an impromptu undertaker.

But although the gates to the cemetery were so close to his pub, the road linking city and cemetery – a toll road as was often the case with cemeteries at the time – ran in the opposite direction to the pub, so mourners would go straight back into town for their wakes.

GLASNEVIN Cemetery (now re-named Prospect Cemetery) has
an amazing 1.5 million graves, often almost head to toe and
shoulder to shoulder. (Glasnevin Cemetery Museum)

Enter O'Neill's friend O'Connell, who offered to help the publican attract customers from the thousands of Dubliners who would ultimately have loved-ones buried in the Glasnevin Cemetery.

And O'Connell did so in a most bizarre way: he lobbied the government to have a new road built from Dublin to the cemetery, with the lofty virtue of it being toll-free – and thus not a financial imposition on mourners in their time of pain.

And because it could not follow the existing toll-road, it had to approach the cemetery from the opposite direction… which meant passing right by the front door of Mr O'Neill's next-door pub.

THE ELABORATE tomb of Daniel O'Connell.
(Glasnevin Cemetery Museum)

So appreciative was the grateful publican that when that road was finally opened, he declared that the only beer served would be O'Connell's Ale… which just happened to be brewed by the son of Daniel O'Connell.

Funeral corteges soon began stopping at the pub, the coffins being off-loaded there while undertakers and mourners tool a quick drink or three before the solemn procession to the grave-site…

And inevitably there would be a stop-off on the return as well. O'Neill prospered, but after just two years handed over the business to his son-in-law John Kavanagh when the latter married O'Neill's daughter Suzanne.

The pub then took the younger man's name – and has been John Kavanagh's ever since, John and Suzanne's having an amazing 25 children to ensure there would be plenty of descendants to keep the pub in family hands. Current publican, Eugene Kavanagh is the sixth generation of the lineage.

MASSIVE tower over the tomb of patriot
Daniel O'Connell dominates the cemetery. (WikiMedia)

And while its officially John Kavanagh's Pub, to most locals it's more-generally known as "The Grave Diggers" – in deference, they'll recall to visitors, to the early days' cemetery workers who would bang on the back wall of the pub with their shovels for barmaids to pass beers through a special hole cut there to avoid them coming into the pub in generally muddied boots and coats.

A third and newer "main road" now leads to the Cemetery (now re-named Prospect Cemetery, with an amazing 1.5m graves of the deceased crammed, in some places, virtually head to toe and shoulder to shoulder.) If you're visiting Dublin and taking a few at Kavanagh's, drop into the cemetery as well to see the graves of the likes of one-time Ireland President Eamon de Valera, poet Brendan Behan, Home Rule advocate Charles Stewart Parnell – and Luke Kelly of the iconic folk group, The Dubliners.

And the extraordinarily elaborate tomb of Daniel O'Connell… under a massive tower that dominates the cemetery.



Originally for FOR WEEK BEGINNING 29 SEPTEMBER 2014

Winner of 2014 National Geographic Photo Contest

“A Node Glows in the Dark,” by Brian Yen of Hong Kong

Selected from more than 9,000 entries, a photo of a woman spotlighted by the glow of her phone on a crowded train was chosen as the grand-prize winner of the 2014 National Geographic Photo Contest. The photo, titled “A Node Glows in the Dark,” was shot by Brian Yen of Hong Kong. He has won $10,000 (USD) and a trip to National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C., to participate in the annual National Geographic Photography Seminar in January 2015.

Star Wars comes to Frankfurt Airport. Preparations for arrival of Darth Vader?

#starwars



Holidaymakers dumbfounded as Frankfurt Airport taken over by Imperial Starfleet forces, the military arm of the Galactic Empire. Regular services are thrown into disarray as X-Wing fighters and ground units dominate operations at the busy European airport.

Seems one of the Tie Fighters suffered an engine malfunction on approach and ended up on the Autobahn