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Around the World in 80 Days
Day 54: 17 November
'We just missed a big gale. If we'd left a day earlier . . . ' More gnashing of teeth from director. More converts to astrology.The clear skies, which last night gave such a fine parting panorama of Tokyo, have been replaced this morning by thickening grey clouds. A fresh north-east wind sighs round the plastic passageways.
After breakfast I have to go to bed again so they can film me getting up. After that I walk out on deck again so I can be filmed walking on deck and in this way a morning passes briskly, if derivatively. In the late afternoon I explore a running circuit around the ship. There is a narrow gangway between the deck rail with containers stacked above and to the side. A tight squeeze across the bows, but it's possible, weather permitting, to run the circumference of the deck which is a neat half kilometre.
Evening. Almost all the crew apart from a couple on the bridge are watching Stakeout in the narrow room that serves as bar, games room, reading room and library, but which nearly always has the curtains drawn and a video on. It doesn't seem the time to get them out for a Macbeth rehearsal so the idea is indefinitely postponed. On the floor below there's a table tennis table and Roger and I resume our rivalry.
We lose an hour tonight, one of eight time changes on this Pacific crossing. The twelve hours that we've progressively lost since leaving London, together with another twelve that we shall lose between the Pacific, America and London, will be refunded in full at The International Date Line in the shape of one extra 24-hour period. Though only ten days on my schedule, the crossing will be eleven in reality.
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PALIN'S GUIDES
- Series: Around the World in 80 Days
- Day: 54
- Date: 17 November
- Country/sea: Pacific Ocean
- Place: Pacific Ocean
- Book page no: 184
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RELATED LINKS
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- Day 7
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- Day 4
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