pamela stephenson Treasure Islands

**tcm** · 09-10-05, 19:46

I bought it at the airport.

This is a book by billy connolly's missus: she buys a boat and sets off. She is loosely following the travels of Robert Louis stephenson during the last few years of his life bout 100 years ago.

Her boat is giganticish, 112 footer. It's all quite recent - buys boat late 2003, sets off mid/late 2004 from gulf coast, leaves boat May 2005 ping press P and she's got a book.

She hunts for and buys the boat inside 1 parggraph. It needs new generators and stuff. She leave them to it.

The next 30+ pages are all about her learning to shoot guns, in case there are pirates. Then lots of different guns, you never know when you might need them. Then a machine gun. And some more guns.

Oh yes, the sailing boat whioch gets bought, and has work done on it for six months. Something is wrong with the mast, so it's delayed a bit more. The boat carries 10ish plus crew.

Not too much about sailing really, she just "goes" to these places, in a boat. She doesn't (and can't ) cook, she doesn't and can't sail. It's a nice hol in a private boat.

Not much in the book for sailors - early on, the crew go out in the newly launched boat to "spin the compass" it says here, harumph.

The sunsets are quite good, and a lot better than her descriptions, i believe. One of them last three blimmin boring pages and includes the word "gold" about 27 times. Lay off the grandiose verbiage, pam, it's unreadable.

Nonetheless, she makes sure the skipper rips through the Galapagos, marquesa, society, cook, marshall, and other islands. Bit of a trudge really, an almost daily diary format - interspersed with researched stuf bout Robert Louis Stevenson who as i said did the same trip as a near-invalid with his wife who lead the way, also on a big boat, and also with a professional crew.

I was undersome illusion that there's an ancestral relationship, but er nope, not at all. Pamela and Robert Louis have nearly the same name, that's it.

She meets some people on shore, but no other cruisers. Perhaps partly cos pam is in a massive yeehah boat so they're self-contained, partly cos they set off from in august from gulf of mexico and go thru these islands at the wrong time of year. Mainly i suppose, she has a particular view of the world if 95% of the preparation time is spent going on gun-shooting courses, so I don't suppose that making new friends was top of her list...

Shame there's no info about the boat AT ALL other than its length. No plans, stores, equipment - except of course a nice description of all the sodding guns. She doesn't use them, thank goodness, but she only reached australia so far.

Nice front cover, mind.

For some decent south sea island stories, try some of the onpassage.com blogs. Better info too. Deeper thinking needed too - it's surprising how little of herself she gives away (almost none) despite being psychologist-type person. Altho she was funny in "not the nine oclcock news" this is a dull book. Ask for antifoul for xmas instead of this and watch closely for a few hours after applying to hull....

**absit_omen** · 09-10-05, 22:06

Shame you wasted your money. Unwitting plonkers who believe this sort of **** deserve all they get. They will no doubt appear on this forum in a few weeks with questions along the line of ' I am thinking of sailing around the world in a few years - what sort of boat do I need.... motor or sail?"

**claymore** · 09-10-05, 23:49

Bloodyell
A Book review from a Bratfud lad - is thee no end to thy talents lad?

bob_tyler · 10-10-05, 05:16

Thought it sounded interesting so I bought a copy (£4 off). Disappointing and rather boring I'm afraid. Wish I hadn't bothered. [img]/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

**Peppermint** · 10-10-05, 09:40

She made it sound like a very worthy anthopological excercise, with added dullness, and she was trying to sell it.

Listening to her it became clear that you don't have to unravel much genetic code, or tickle much of the id, to turn a quite funny Australian into a Californian delusion.

Self aware? What clever, beautiful, rich and famous little me?

**Lakesailor** · 10-10-05, 10:17

Would have made more engrossing reading? [img]/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

**Mirelle** · 10-10-05, 10:31

And to think that, 20 years ago she was a satirist rather than a target of satire.

**tome** · 10-10-05, 21:16

Thanks for the review. Saw the book at the airport this evening and managed to avoid. I'd have been very disappointed to be stuck in Oslo with only a lightweight read and might well have taken to the weed again.

As it was there was no grub on the BA flight over - thought the Gate Gourmet dispute was settled now?

**tcm** · 10-10-05, 22:04

i have just read "above suspicion" in about a day. Well put-together page turning thriller.

**tcm** · 10-10-05, 22:06

if you flick thru the photos - that's as good as it gets. Unfortunately, nice pam is no better at photography than most of us and a lot worse than many hereabouts ...