Management and I went to a rather unusual party last week.
Well, maybe it’s us who are unusual.
For a start, no alcohol was served. And dancing was, well, compulsory.
Not the type of dancing where you pluck up courage to ask the squeeze onto the floor and then do some ungainly karaoke-type moves while looking as self-conscious as a nudist at a burqa convention.
No, this was a Master of Ceremonies ordering you onto the floor and making you dance with every woman in the room by rotation.
In short, you do a few moves with your partner, give a twirl which spins her off to the next guy, while another woman comes spinning your way.
But maybe I should not have been surprised. As we walked in, a woman was singing old war songs, such as White Cliffs of Dover.
She was pretty tuneful, but I’m more used to the Stones or Kinks belting out some foot-twitching stuff.
Take it from me, Vera Lynn covers do not constitute a rave.
Anyway, no matter where you are, you’re always meeting someone interesting. This was no exception.
During a break from Vera Lynn impersonators and boogieing with total strangers, I met an ex-Royal Navy guy, and I think being at a party without booze must have also been a first for him.
I mean, for Navy-types, rum has been integral to every event since Frankie Drake smashed Spain.
He’d done service in the South Atlantic, so I told him I had visited Tristan da Cunha while sailing a yacht back from a Cape to Rio race.
He was impressed that someone knew of such an obscure volcanic speck in his old stomping grounds, and we got chatting.
I was about to offer him some red wine we had sneaked in, until I found out he was related to the people throwing the party. So instead, I asked him why he had left the Navy.
His answer surprised me. The Royal Navy, he said, was hitting the skids fast. Its ships were becoming obsolete and when it ordered a new one from South Korea, it didn’t have crews skilled enough to take delivery.
Deadline dedication
Even worse, when you deal with the South Koreans, you have to state not only the delivery date, but the time.
Because if your ship doesn’t move as scheduled, you’ve messed up someone else’s slot.
Indeed, the only time South Korean shipbuilders have missed a deadline was when a typhoon put them back a day or two. The apologies for the delay were profuse; in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the MD of the company committed hara-kiri in shame.
Compare that to once one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, the Royal Navy, now being unable even to cobble together enough skilled people to drive a ship they had ordered.
It’s little snippets like this that show me why the global balance is tipping inexorably eastwards.
When you have Englishmen apologising for going to Eton and receiving a top education, while China is building the equivalent of five Etons a year for its gifted youngsters, you see where all this is going.
Unless the West regains its confidence, there is no ways we will be a force by the next century.
My new friend resigned from the Navy with some sadness, and is now doing bush survival courses for youngsters who actually believe that the great outdoors is not the cramped local football pitch.
Anyway, our conversation ended there as the MC ordered us all back onto the dance floor. This time we were going to do line dancing.
For us, that was not going to happen. Our designated driver, who rivaled me for two left feet, grabbed his wife and steered her and management towards the fire escape.
Unlike us, he hadn’t had the benefit of smuggled robust red to appreciate the finer footwork needed for another session. Instead of a designated driver, he said he was now a getaway driver.
Looking back, it’s experiences like this that make life such a tapestry.
I found the chat about the Navy fascinating, but sadly I am no wiser about line dancing.
