I was bored, picked a book off from the shelf. Ignored chapters on Esperanto, Volapük, Interlingua, Toki Pona, Lingua Ignota, and Solresol, and started reading a one on Klingon because I liked the Star Trek series on TV and film following the adventures of the Star Ship Enterprise and its crew. It’s mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilisations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before.

There wasn’t any doubt what I’d write about. It was the highlight of the day, and I felt guilty about not writing about all the other things: Dave at the cruise terminal who directed me to a barber’s for my first haircut on the cruise, the museum itself with its installations, the war memorial gardens which reminded me of the hero’s shrine in Aldershot. But it was only when I started writing that I realised just how significant the experience was. How much respect meant. In 2024 I travelled on a World Cruise and wrote a poem a day for 100 days. I’m now getting a book of these ready for publication. This is the poem 44. A version was published by Wildfire words.