The date for today was a boat trip on the Thames. It's a date that has to be carried out with a certain amount of tongue in cheek irony and once again, could be a bit of a nightmare if you undertook it in the wrong company.
Luckily both of us were able to see the funny side of taking a touristy sight-seeing ride in our own town. And the sun was shining, so it wasn't altogether unpleasant.
What made the trip irritating (and also much funnier) was that there was a constant commentary about the landmarks on view. It was somewhat inane and the woman giving the comments used the same hospital radio inflection, whether giving us an amusing anecdote about "the London Gherkin" (surely it's just known as "the Gherkin". It's not like there's a building shaped like a gherkin anywhere else, and even if there is, it's pretty obvious that we're talking about the Gherkin in London, if we are in London and looking at it) or telling us of tragic deaths that have occurred on the route.
What made it all funnier was that the commentary was delivered over speakers and the woman talking couldn't be seen. My date speculated that the comments were being made by the model of an owl which sat on the front of the boat. We hoped its head would spin round at the end and thank us for out time.
I thought maybe the woman was hidden away because she was some kind of hideous mutant and the company kept her locked up in a dungeon below us and fed her scraps in return for her monotonous and insipid droning - if you were from the Czech Republic would you really be interested to know where This Morning with Phil and Fern was filmed? I can't imagine anyone from the UK begin excited about that tit-bit of information either.
We chipped in and made smart-arse comments and generally spoiled the experience for any proper tourist who were unlucky enough to be sitting near to us.
But hey, we'd paid our money and we were allowed to enjoy it in any way we could.
Obviously it is churlish to complain. I had known what I was getting into. This was a boat for tourists after all and if I didn't want to listen to a commentary I could probably have found a boat that didn't have one. In truth if there hadn't been a commentary the experience wouldn't have been so funny. But it was a funny that left me feeling slightly disappointed with myself as much as with laughing at anyone else.
As we dismebarked a pretty blonde woman was standing giving out leaflets, "Were you giving the commentary?" asked my date.
"Yes," said the woman brightly.
She wasn't an owl or a mutant; it might have been nice to see her give her talk. Maybe it would have seemed less distant.
For a second she had been pleased to be recognised for her work, but from our reaction I think that the woman would have noticed we were taking the piss. I scurried off feeling dirty and slightly ashamed. Which is usually how you tell you've had a good date.
