Lee - That is indeed hilarious, if it weren't for the dreadful fact that in most cases those swimming costumes are not "wonderfully brief". Rather, they are "horrifically brief", irrespective of budgies, parrots, or cockatoos. (Stay calm, Karen - this is all harmless fun and moderately decent double entrendres.)

Ralph - As it turned out, the lamb shanks were quite excellent, although I could only manage the one. La Veranda was entirely reserved for a private dinner (Public TV at Sea); but because the seas were high and La Veranda is way up high on the ship as well, about half of the TV at Sea people abandoned LV and came down to Compass Rose for dinner, sending the poor CR staff into a major frenzy of dealing with a hundred more guests than had been anticipated. In Regent style, they handled it quite brilliantly, shifting table setups on the fly and altogether making the whole situation more or less invisible to the passengers. This morning, a couple of the waiters confessed to us that they were quite exhausted by last night's frantic exercise; but we saw nothing of that in CR last night. Cheers, Fred