Shackleton, Scott, shrapnel and Sholes*

Skipping over for the moment the slight awkwardness of finding myself having to write advertorial for the Azamara cruise line straight after having sailed with Silversea - it's not ideal, people, the only comparison possible is not flattering to Azamara, however "luxurious" they claim to be - I was diverted to discover, nevertheless, some connections. The Silversea cruise to Antarctica, as regular readers (gidday, Queen!) will remember, was heavy on Shackleton, what with visiting his grave at Grytviken on South Georgia, and then snooping around Elephant Island and all.

Well, it turns out - and hooray for this blog, which is now indispensable as my defacto memory - that my Azamara cruise almost a year ago had its own Shackleton links too. In Akaroa, strolling back to the waterfront after my visit to the delightfully idiosyncratic - and also lovely to look at - Giant's House, I stopped to take a photo of one of that little town's characteristic pretty wooden villas. It was only then that I saw the plaque by the gate and read that it was the birthplace of Frank Worsley, the magnificently skilled captain of the Endurance on Shackleton's doomed 1914-16 exploration. It was down to him that, when six of them left the rest of the ship's crew on Elephant Island and made their run for rescue in the hastily-adapted lifeboat James Caird, he steered them, despite rough weather and almost continuous cloud cover, straight to South Georgia. Impressive. If he'd missed by even a smidgen, the boat would have headed into the South Atlantic and the whole lot of them would have died.

And then, strolling again back towards the Journey at our next stop, Dunedin, I went into the Maritime Museum in Port Chalmers and found, amongst other miscellaneous items (including a bit of shrapnel from the Japanese attack on Darwin - that's how miscellaneous) a standard issue Overseas Expeditionary Service Sholes typewriter, claimed to have been used by not only Shackleton, but also by the fated Scott. A bit more primitive than the Imperial I learned to type on, but clearly a relation.

Well, at least now, having been reminded about other kinds of cruise maritime journey, I can type on, and be a bit more complimentary about Azamara. Thank you once again, random connections.**

* Real name, as you see in the photo - so no, I didn't omit the ellipsis. Probably a good thing they went out of business before these sweary times, eh?

**Which can also be more than a bit creepy. Only this morning, reading about Chicago's blizzard and mayor Rahm Emanuel's reassurance that the city can handle it, I was remembering having shaken his hand at IPW in 2014. And when I publish today's post, what does Blogger throw up at the bottom of it as a suggestion to read? Sinister...

Azamara Journey - Picton 1

The Cook Strait crossing normally takes 3½ hours on the ferry – for us last night it was more than eleven. Thankfully, not because we were fighting rough seas, but instead avoiding them, by sailing in the opposite direction almost as far as Palmerston North, to give them time to abate before we headed back south into the Marlborough Sounds. Nice to know Azamara puts passenger comfort ahead of fuel economy.

It was grey and wet this morning, so when our tour driver Don announced that this is NZ’s sunniest province, there was some disbelief – but the acres of neat vineyards backed him up. Our first call was the Omaka Aviation Heritage Centre, which ought to have been our sole destination. We only had an hour there and to study the exhibits and appreciate the artistry of the story-telling there really deserves about three times that.

It’s Peter Jackson’s private collection of WWI aircraft and related memorabilia, all displayed with Weta Workshop panache and brilliance, and it really is stunning. Genuine aircraft, rebuilds and models, many of them staged realistically, with stories and masses of rare artefacts in cases… it’s unique and we were so sorry to have to rush past most of it. “Take a photo of that storyboard to read later,” advised the guide heartlessly. And we never got near the WWII hangar. Tch.

All we were taken to do afterwards was have a tasting at the Moa Brewery, and some chocolate at the Makana factory – both pleasant enough, but if we’d been more clued-up we’d have made our own way to Omaka and spent as much time there as we needed.

Picton’s waterfront is ok but it’s a transit town really – small and touristy and not offering much to do. It’s a shame that we have more time here than originally scheduled, because Kaikoura, along the coast, is off the itinerary after November’s big earthquake raised the seabed by two metres. It’s one of an unfortunate trilogy of disappointments this trip: the big storm a few days ago meant the Tauranga (gateway to Rotorua) stop had to be skipped; then no Kaikoura tomorrow; and after that, the recent wildfires around Christchurch damaged a bridge on the TranzAlpine track so that train trip is a no-go too. It’s all just nature, but it’s hard for some of the passengers not to feel victimised. I wonder what Azamara might come up with in compensation?

Azamara Journey - Dunedin

Good old Dunedin! Broke the pattern, gave us a warm sunny day to appease all the grumbling Brits on board (who of course are unaccustomed to inclement weather). So we glided into Port Chalmers on a glassy sea under a sky of pink wisps, and after breakfast boarded the Taieri Gorge Railway train, which was conveniently right by the ship.

Sitting in (mostly) 100-year old carriages, and welcomed by the lovely Daphne, one of a crew of enthusiastic volunteers who keep this service running, we rattled through Dunedin, past Wingatui, and away towards Middlemarch (though our trip was only to Pukerangi) through farmland and then into the gorge. It was pretty spectacular. 

People were comparing the route favourably with the Rocky Mountaineer, which was a bit of an overstatement, but the gorge is certainly high, steep and narrow, the river stained dark with tannin foaming over huge rocks that have fallen from the cliffs.

The line was built to service the gold fields, and though it was finished too late for that, was still of much use for agriculture and the Clyde Dam builders. There were tunnels, bridges and viaducts (including the Wingatui Viaduct at 47m high), sheep and wild goats, oaks, larches and native bush. At the turnaround, doughty locals had stalls selling fudge, patchwork, and merino scarves and tops that were very popular, as we’d climbed up into cloud.

Back in sunny Dunedin, after a quick scoot round the Octagon (Robbie Burns’ statue the colourful victim of guerrilla knitters) I took the shuttle to the port again, to mosey round the Maritime Museum. There’s a big Antarctica connection at Port Chalmers, many expeditions having left from here, and they had Shackleton’s typewriter (by the way, his skipper on the Endurance Expedition, Frank Worsley, was born in Akaroa and I walked past his birth place there yesterday) as well as more eclectic items such as a glass tube of cod liver oil, a bomb fragment from the Japanese raid on Darwin in 1942 and a dainty little iron for doing collars. There was also a bold statement that “There is nothing mystical or complicated about a sextant” followed by a dense and impenetrable explanation of its use.

We sailed away in bright sunshine, the royal albatrosses nesting on Taiaroa Head so big that they were easily visible. Having seen the sun rise, I also watched it set as we ate dinner outside on the Pool Deck. Final Azamara observation of the day? People will dive with great enthusiasm into criticisms of shipboard arrangements and certain staff (namely Tony the Invisible Cruise Director), until they learn I’m writing a review of the cruise, at which point they become immediately defensive and energetically praise the ship. Almost half of them are repeat cruisers, one couple on their eighteenth trip with the company. So that tells you plenty.

Azamara Journey - Picton 2

I almost got a little bored today, before our departure from Picton at 2pm. It was dull and wet again, and I’d forgotten to bring my book, and, well , Picton. But then I remembered the Edwin Fox, and counted my blessings.

The Edwin Fox is an 1853-built barque that’s the focus of a museum just a few minutes’ walk from the ship, and I spent a contented couple of hours poking around it. The museum is really well done, with a video about the ship’s history and restoration, lots of genuine artefacts, and pleasingly arcane information: I learned about scarf joints, treenails, daggerknees and teredo shipworm. Outside in dry dock was the hull of the Edwin Fox herself, authentically weather-beaten and decayed, but still big and impressive.

She was built in Calcutta from Burmese teak and traversed the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans for 20 years, carrying everything from raspberry vinegar to rapists, before ending up ignominiously as first a freezer and then a coal bunker here in Picton. The vinegar was just one of many cargoes transported – the rapists were transported in the wider sense: convicts sent from England to Australia. Being anal and having plenty of time, here are some details I noted from that one voyage: the youngest was John Lowes, 18, given 6 years for stealing; the oldest William Beresford, 59, given 15 years for forgery; the crimes ranged from sheep stealing (kind of coals to Newcastle for them, ending up in Australia) through pickpocketing, sacrilege, highway robbery, habitual drunkenness (ditto) to carnal knowledge of a girl aged under 10 (11 year-olds presumably fair game). William Burston of Taunton got 14 years for a misdemeanour, which seems a bit harsh.

Their conditions on board were horrendous, crowded into a prison at one end of the main deck, with two cannons trained on it. But the settlers who were the next four cargoes fared not much better: steerage was just awful, families of 6 crammed into one double bunk space with vomit and human and animal faeces dripping into it, gruel to eat, and nothing but cold sea water to wash in – for more than 100 days. Courtesy of Shaw Saville, believe it or not.

So being at a bit of a loose end on Azamara Journey today, sprawled on a queen bed in a comfortable stateroom, with lots of lounges scattered about and more eating options on board than you could shake a stick at, including an Indian cuisine special tonight to look forward to, wasn’t, in comparison, much of a hardship…

Azamara Journey - Wellington 1

Defying the usual norm, we escaped Auckland’s rain and impending 100+-year storm, and headed south to Wellington’s calm, sunny weather. It was a real pleasure to wander along the city’s waterfront, which is authentic and interesting and varied, unlike Ork’s boring rows of new restaurants and soulless public buildings. Wellington’s waterfront has history, art, poetry and a piano, and is peopled by strollers, runners, cyclists, stall-holders and swimmers. There were paddle-boarders and kayakers, tourists and locals, sea gulls and sparrows, and the sun shone down benevolently on us all.

At Te Papa, there’s a new exhibition, Bugs. It’s designed for kids, but the guy at the desk said that grown-ups spend more time there. With good reason: Weta Workshop has, appropriately, had a big hand in it: it’s obvious, from the exhaustingly meticulous standard of workmanship. I mean, a big bee at the entrance, maybe 40cm long, took 180 hours to make, of which 4 days were spent attaching 2500 individual hog’s hairs to its body. Inside the exhibition were a huge praying mantis, swarms of dragonflies and bees, and another sort of fly attacking a cockroach, all done with mind-blowing detail, fancy lighting and lots of accessible information – but, thankfully, not too much of it (I’ve just been writing an opinion piece about museum guilt, so it was on my mind).

We were back there again that evening, for the Az-Amazing evening that is a feature of each cruise with this company, Azamara. We’re boarding the ship, the Journey, tomorrow for an 11-day tour of the South Island and then across the Tasman (two days at sea!) to Hobart and finally Sydney. The cruise began in Auckland and called at the Bay of Islands and Napier, but my famil begins here at Wellington.

The entertainment was, naturally, Maori, introduced by “internationally-famous actor” Temuera Morrison, who gave the audience of passengers (mostly American, then Aussie, British, Canadian, German, Chilean and Belgian, with just a few Kiwis and four Japanese) a foreigner-friendly version of the language and culture. Then he let loose the concert party with their action songs and poi dances - a good half of which I remembered from my Maori Club days back in the late ‘60s - before the unimaginatively-named Modern Maori Quartet came on stage to give a friendly and professional set of more universally-recognisable songs. It was good, and the audience gave them a standing ovation at the end, which was pleasing.

And then we walked back to our hotel along the waterfront again, the lights twinkling on the glassy water, artworks spotlit, restaurants humming, doors pushed back and tables outside, people strolling, music in the air… it reminded me of Cape Town. And also, coincidentally, of Hobart. I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I’ll start the journey that will take me there.

Azamara Journey - Sydney

As promised, Captain Johannes eased us past the Opera House this morning right on 10am. Everyone was on deck for the entry to Sydney Harbour, glimpsing first the Harbour Bridge above the coastal suburbs, then the city skyline, and then, as we entered the harbour, the whole classic panorama of tower, skyscrapers, Opera House and bridge laid out for us (jostling somewhat at the railings) to view and photograph. The weather, while warm, was a bit dull and grey, and the tiles on the roof of the Opera House appeared a little dingy in the low light – but it’s always a splendid sight.

Invisible Cruise Director Tony, who has been a touch more visible lately, treated us to a short lecture full of dates, facts and figures as we sailed in. When I asked afterwards, politely, why he hadn’t done something similar for, say, Milford Sound, he said quite bluntly, “Well, there isn’t much to say, is there?” Ditto for the other ports on the cruise. Apparently Azamara only does an arrival commentary for a few ‘iconic cities’ like here and Stockholm. Pft.

Anyway, it was lovely to be back here again, and I started at Darling Harbour where, in the Maritime Museum that I flitted through, I was surprised and pleased to find a connection: a big model of the SS Orcades, on which I sailed back to NZ from England in 1957 – my last crossing of the Tasman, before last week.

On a mission to buy a wedding present for (Aussie) Daughter #3, I powered through the central city – deeply impressed by local pedestrians keeping efficiently and uniformly to the left – and finally found what I wanted in a gallery at The Rocks, that charming and authentically old and architecturally interesting area at the base of the Harbour Bridge. It’s a lovely place to wander through, all stone steps, narrow cobbled lanes and tempting bars and restaurants, as well as lots of interesting shops and galleries. Good old Sydney. Who cares about the odd thunderstorm?

Azamara Journey - Hobart

We woke this morning in Hobart, Tasmania, and scurried ashore without breakfast to avoid the large queues at immigration that actually didn’t eventuate. Never mind, it was nice to be back in Tassie again. Hobart has a pretty waterfront, with lots of historic buildings still in use, picturesque fishing boats ditto, and even some old sailing ships (don’t know).

I boarded a camouflaged catamaran and sat on a plaster sheep for a half-hour ride up the Derwent River – I was going to MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, and they pride themselves there on being idiosyncratic, hence the boat. It’s a private collection, and isn’t included on the Azamara excursion options in case anyone is offended. Certainly there is some very rude stuff in there: large and obvious (I’m thinking of the gallery comprising a long line of plaster casts of women’s genitalia – which made me, and I’m sure every other women viewing it, wince at the thought of removing the plaster afterwards) and some of it sneaky.

These silver sardine tins, with their pretty botanical features, for example – it was only when I enlarged my photo of three of them that I noticed how indecent they are.

I wasn’t a big fan of Cloaca, which is four large glass containers hanging beneath pipes and tubes that feed them a faecal concoction that emits farts and periodically has to be excreted. Hard to imagine who would be. But there was plenty of lovely stuff there too, in all media, from all times and cultures, big and small, obscure and approachable; and all explained on a nifty cellphone-type guide. Hobart is lucky to have it.

The building messes with your head, though: it’s like the Tardis, and impossible to work out how all the galleries fit together. I've no idea how it looks from the outside.

“It’s not my cup of tea,” was the verdict of the pre-Baby Boomer woman sitting next to me as I waited afterwards for the ferry back to town. I think it pretty much goes without saying that if that expression trips comfortably off your tongue, MONA is not meant for you.

At the town’s Female Factory, the initial impression is that there’s nothing there: so it’s essential to pay for the Heritage Tour. Then you get someone like John showing you around the three yards that remain, empty spaces behind high sandstone walls. He told vivid stories about the lives of the inmates that brought the place to horrifying life – no dramatic exaggerations, just bare facts. Like, after 3 to 6 months being incarcerated in the hold of a transport ship on minimum provisions, having to walk at 4am (lest the sight of 100 women inflame the passions of the town’s sex-starved sailors) seven kilometres uphill to the gates of the prison, where any child aged three or above was taken from its mother, often never to be seen again.

It was a dreadful, dreadful place. Tasmania’s history is so very dark. I’ve previously been to Port Arthur (“A holiday camp in comparison,” said John, who has also guided there) and to Sarah Island, and Brickendon and Woolmer – and that’s only the convict side of the story. The Aboriginal people fared even worse. None of it should be forgotten.

But there was fun today too, in the person of Nick Nickolas, an English magician/comedian I’ve seen performing on the waterfront in Auckland many times. His act in the cabaret theatre after dinner was familiar but as funny as ever and, yet again, knowing the sleight-of-hand tricks he had (not literally) up his sleeve was of no use whatsoever in figuring out how he did them. Excellent!

Ship to shore

It's always the same, at the end of a cruise. You've been fussed over right from the start, it's all smiles and chocolates and invitations to indulge - then, several days before the final port, the rot begins with departure instructions appearing in the room, labels for the luggage, timetable for disembarking... It always feels too soon. And finally, on the last morning, you're just an impediment to their readying the ship for the new passengers. It's kind of hurtful. You suspect that all that friendliness has just been a front - which, of course, it is. Welcome back to the real world.

And so we were bundled off the Azamara Journey at 9am and driven into the city across the splendid Anzac Bridge, for our part - I have to admit - leaving the ship behind without a backward glance, on to the next thing.

Which is, today anyway, boutique Sydney: suburbs far from the Bridge and the Opera House, with individual character, interesting oddities, and passionate people. We're based in Chippendale at the Old Clare Hotel, which has been converted from a former brewery and the pub next door, retaining much of its original structure, even down to some graffiti on the brickwork in what is now the entrance foyer, above an old safe with a bag on one shelf labelled 'Random crap'. Funky is, I think, the vibe they're going for.

The room is agreeably spacious after the snugness of our stateroom on the Azamara Journey - but some common difficulties persist. On the ship it was the coffin-like shower inside the cupboard of a bathroom; here, it's a roomy bathroom, but all made of glass, so until the steam gets going there is no privacy when showering, and, though the loo glass is frosted, there is no soundproofing. Kind of inhibiting - but since all the rooms are different, don't let that put you off staying here. Just avoid 117.

The position is great, with Spice Alley right alongside: a little lane filled with pan-Asian eateries serving through windows with shared eating spaces, hung with Chinese lanterns, decorated with murals, and busy as, everyone from students to suited businessmen. I had hot and crispy chicken ribs from Thai eatery Bang Luck; and though I learned rather more than I would have chosen to know about Otis, the son of the woman at the next table, the food was delicious, fuelling me up for the main event of the day, which was a Culture Scouts tour with Sophia.

She's an artist and enthusiast, exactly the right combination for exploring Chippendale which is full of art of all sorts, from vertical gardens to upper-end graffiti to galleries. We started with Central Park, a building with the world's tallest green wall, 34 storeys of happy plants; and then did a couple of galleries including White Rabbit, a private collection of large contemporary Chinese installations prowling with attendants happy to expatiate on their meanings. The one that mesmerised me, plastic boxes stuck on a wall with a half-circle of lights moving back and forth, throwing pretty shadows, was apparently all about impermanence and... well, a whole bunch of other stuff, apparently, that went in one ear and out the other. Wasn't it enough, just to be pretty?

The nice thing about walks like this is that it does make you look more closely at what's around you, and I was as taken by the peeling paint on an old brick Victorian house as I was with more deliberate art like the Aboriginal murals, traditional and modern, in nearby Redfern. This district has a history of racial violence (actual riots!) and crime, and is still a bit edgy, but being steadily gentrified from its previous 24/7 unsuitability for unescorted wandering. In other words, the disadvantaged indigenous people who were concentrated here have faded away - though The Block is still there. I don't mean that tediously over-excitable home renovation competition show on TV3, but an expanse of grass owned by the Aboriginal Housing Corporation that they want to build on, but have been stymied by resistance from the State government. Australia, eh. The dark side is always there. But at least they themed their Keep Out sign with the Aboriginal flag...

Moving on into Redfern's busy main street, we went into a deceptively blandly-named shop, Seasonal Concepts, which startled me with its hippo skull and just went on from there. It's a fabulous place, an artwork in its own right, filled with a gloriously eclectic collection of bizarre and beautiful things, displayed for discovery. Mounted zebra heads, 1950s coffee mugs, solar lanterns in Agee jars designed for Africa, furniture, antiques, collectibles. Proprietor Ken is always up for a natter about where he collected any item. 'Delight the Eye, Cheer the Heart' is the slogan; and it's true.

Then there was Chee Soon & Fitzgerald, another quirky little shop, specialising this time in 1950s Japanese kimono silks, rolls of dainty designs not much more than a foot wide; and other equally unusual fabrics, and china. The owner is a Kiwi from somewhere like Darfield, no doubt quite correct in his decision 30 years ago that Sydney was much more tolerant of and conducive to his somewhat alternative lifestyle than inland Canterbury.

And finally Sophia took us to The Bearded Tit, a bar that's self-consciously quirky and fairly rude, but fun all the same: a loo where the walls are covered in Jesus portraits, for example, crocheted woollen penises in the window, and a skeleton behind the bar, appropriately enough standing right next to the spirits. It was a good tour, I enjoyed it - you really can't beat wandering around with a local, especially when they have a particular interest, like Sophie and art. Recommended.

The day ended with dinner, just across the road at Olio - not Italian (so dated) but Sicilian. The hapuka was good and so was the millefoglie afterwards though, to be honest, I was so flattered by the waitress thinking from my millefeuille-influenced pronunciation that I was French, that it could have tasted like plaster and I wouldn't have noticed.

Azamara Journey - Wellington 2

The rain caught up with us this morning, but fortunately not the wind, so our scuttle along the jetty to board the Azamara Journey, while damp, could have been much more unpleasant. This is Wellington, after all.

The ship is on the small side, as with Silversea, which is what I like in a cruiser. There’s room for 686 passengers aboard, and the philosophy of the company is Destination Immersion, ie “Longer stays, More Overnights, Night touring”. Unlike Silversea, though, it’s casual, there are no formal nights, and it seems bare feet are permissible everywhere except the restaurants. They still have their standards, though: the room guide’s Guest Conduct Policy warns sternly: “Crew members are prohibited from engaging in physical relationships with guests.” Oh, and “Guests must be fully toilet-trained to enter the pool.” Good to know.

So far the ship seems, though recently renovated, a bit less fancy than Silversea, and though everything you’d want is here, not all of it is included, which is disproportionately irritating.

This afternoon we were moored in port. I did yoga, we had drinks at the bar and then dinner at a shared table in the Discoveries restaurant, where the food was very good (not helped though by our being whisked away just before the main course to fill in immigration forms five decks higher at the behest of two uniformed officials - despite our departure from NZ being five days hence). The company was amusing, well-travelled and entertaining (couples from Canada and California) and I warmed to the woman who has learned as the years have passed to travel very light, declaring “Nobody notices what you’re wearing”. Sad, but true; and also convenient.

We set sail for Picton at 9pm and went to bed to be rocked to sleep – and hopefully not turfed out of it while crossing Cook Strait (Captain’s announcement during dinner: “There will be movement.”)

Wars and whales

Despite (I know!) not being, like so much of the rest of the world, locked down, isolated or in any way confined to the premises, I have still managed to give due attention to social media. So I have followed the TikTok sea shanty thing right from the first post of Nathan Evans singing solo, through all the fun additions, one by one, to the collective, multinational and very catchy masterpiece it is now.

Though I had heard the Wellerman song before that, I wasn't aware that it is, in fact, local to New Zealand. People have, naturally, done the research and found that the British-born Weller brothers sailed from Sydney to Otago Harbour in 1831 and set up a whaling station there. (Their ship, the Lucy May, was later crewed by Herman Melville.)

The Wellers were the first Europeans in the area, even before Dunedin was founded (by the Scots - Nathan is also Scottish, by the way). They did very well until the whaling industry collapsed in 1840, simply because there weren't any right whales to be found any more. Funny, that.

There's a rock named after the brothers just off the coast right by the road that runs out along the Otago Peninsula, so I have sailed past it, with Azamara, in 2017. Returning to the ship after a railway outing earlier that day along Taieri Gorge, I went into the Maritime Museum at Port Chalmers, alongside where the ship was moored, and had a good nose around. Without a doubt, I would have seen Weller Brothers artefacts there, but was more taken by Shackleton's typewriter and Mark Twain's complaint about the Union Steam Ship Co's Flora: "the boat was the foulest I have ever been in" which made me feel pretty smug about Azamara Journey. I was also fascinated to see a bit of debris from (see below) the Japanese attack on Darwin.

I was also driven past Wellers Rock, again without realising, on my way out to Taiaroa Head and the seal and penguin colonies there, on a TRENZ tour the following year. After our drive through that property, we finished up at the royal albatross colony to coo at the big fluffy chicks, before dutifully admiring the 1886 Armstrong Disappearing Gun at the underground fort there - built because of the fear of, believe it or not, invading Tsarist Russians. 

*cough* Coincidentally, just last week, I popped across the harbour to Devonport for a bit of a Segway, and we went up to North Head to look at the gun emplacement there, also built because of that threat of a Russian invasion in the late 1880s. And *ditto* yesterday, I stood in a similar, but much bigger, gun pit at Stony Batter right here on Waiheke, where in 1948, somewhat tardily, they finished installing a 9.2 inch gun to fire at the Japanese, who really had been poking around NZ during WW2, after the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin in 1942. After a single test firing in 1951, the gun and other equipment were eventually broken up and sold for scrap, and some of the sheet metal was bought by - the Japanese. Who are also, incidentally, one of the few whaling nations left in the world.

So, we've gone from a sea shanty connecting people in many nations, to serious guns installed at huge effort and expense to repel invasions, at a time when the physical borders of many countries are shut tight... it's a funny old world, eh?