Bottomry: Exorcising Ghosts

20 November 2000
Victor cries mayday.

Bottomry: a good way of getting those searching for maritime loans and insurance to reach upsideclown accidentally. But seriously, folks, I open my heart to you now, and confess that I now can't close my eyes when I wash my hair and face in the shower, for fear that I will be hit by an ocean liner.

How do this turn of events come to pass? Well, I think it starts in about 1981 when I saw Raise the Titanic, a terrible film about Raising the Titanic. Children of the '80s will remember the macabre fascination that ensued when a little yellow submarine (no doubt skippered by Ringo Starr) brought back pictures of the vessel miles down and still full of dead people, which filled the primetime slot for what seemed like weeks, and probably was. I remember not wanting to get off the sofa and put my feet on the floor, just in case the carpet was in fact made of water, and I would sink without trace.

And then you start learning history: the Mary Rose, the Marie Celeste, the Lusitania.

And then it starts turning up on the news: upended keels in stormed tossed seas, fleets of dodgy Greek and Philippino ferries, the Herald of Free Enterprise capsized in the English Channel.

And then there's Titanic, a terrible film about the Sinking of the Titanic. In my face. By the way, if you really must watch loads of innocent people die horribly, watch "A Night to Remember" instead. It's infinitely better, starred Kenneth More and was filmed on Ruislip lido. Boss.

I didn't used to be afraid of the sea: I've lived near it all my life, swam in it, canoed in it. I like to know it's there. Otherwise there's just too much land for any one person to cope with. But it seems that I've progressed from less to more in the realm of unreasonable fears. I don't know much about phobiai, but I'd guess that most people who are afraid of ships are so because they are afraid of the sea. I, however, am afraid of the sea because it has ships on it.

So how does this phobia manifest itself on a daily basis? Mainly in the bathroom. I now can't have a bubble bath without feeling that the bows of an oil tanker are going to come crashing through the external wall. I had terrible trouble crossing the new Vasco da Gama bridge over the Tagus this summer, because it's one of those low-lying structures like they have in the Florida Keys, that bring you right down to steerage level. I'm going to Paris this Christmas, and I'm not sure whether I'll be able to go on Eurostar through the channel tunnel, given that we'll be passing under loads of ferries and cargo boats.

A friend of mine, whom some of you will know as Llew, bought me a copy of my favourite book dating from 1750. A grand gesture. But it will forever be marred by the fact that the accompanying birthday card pictured the "White Star Line: The World's Largest Liner: Southampton/ Cherbourg/ New York". Stunning illustration, from the Robert Opie collection no less, but I'll never forgive him. Bastard.

What am I going to do about my predicament? Nothing. After all, it makes me seem a bit more interesting. And this is what phobiai are all about really, isn't it? Boring bitches terrified of arachnids because in fact they can't be bothered to get up off their fat sofas to open the window, middle-aged men styling themselves as agoraphobes because they don't have enough friends and there's something good on the tv. Obsessive compulsives: they're not ill, they need to wash their hands so often because they grow their nails long and scratch their arses instead of wiping them. Honest.

Go on, then, sort me out, get me on a ship. It's about bloody time.