Diamond Duhdashian had received an email from her errant sister, Olympia. It explained that there would be at least 3 weeks of silence because Olympia was ‘‘travelling’’ home by yacht. The email went on to include a link to a video, which was not something that Diamond could remember Olympia ever doing before. Photos of herself wearing the latest fashions, yes. Accounts of social events with celebrities, yes. But obscure, old and poorly produced videos of historical lectures, no, never before! Olympia insisted that Diamond should listen carefully to the lecture by Dr. John Coleman, a whistle-blower with an MI6 background. The reasons would become obvious. Diamond called her PA/Nurse, formerly known as Fanny, but now revealed to be an entirely different character.
“Frank!” she called and waited, listening for his steps on the stairs. When he appeared in the doorway Diamond summoned him. “Come and look at this! My sister has sent me this video. Is she psychic, do you think?” Frank was drying his hands with a tea-towel and he kissed Diamond on the forehead before leaning in to observe her laptop screen.
“Crikey!” he breathed, as soon as he saw Dr. John Coleman’s face. “Bit of a coincidence, huh?” and he reached to increase the volume of the speech being given. He sat beside Diamond and listened intently. This was one of the most infamous MI6 agents ever to leave Her Majesty’s Service. This was someone who had long fascinated Fanny aka Frank G. Ranger, undercover MI6 operative on extended sick leave from his usual rather more complicated duties.
Diamond cuddled up and was, admittedly, a little distracted by her beautifully French polished fingernails. However, she began to react with alarm at what she was hearing as soon as she heard the word “Olympians”.
Over lunch Frank asked if Olympia had said how she came across this obscure corner of You Tube. He had carefully downloaded a copy. He felt sure that even the tiniest amount of traffic would trigger an algorithm to delete it and he wanted to be sure of future access.
“Olympia has had a personality-ectomy according to Tarky!” giggled Diamond. “He said she had been behaving very oddly in the Caribbean and he was shocked that she had not returned to London yet. Mind you, Tarky is sex obsessed, so if anyone shows any interest in anything else, he thinks they are mentally deranged!” and she laughed out loud. Frank didn’t like the sound of Tarky, but he kept his peace on the matter, intending to accompany Diamond when she attended Tarky’s studio for the upcoming photoshoot.
“Will you dress up as Fanny on Friday?” asked Dim, teasingly, and Frank shook his head smirking. “That would be fun, wouldn’t it?” he acknowledged. “I might, for the craic!” and he cleared the lunch table before persuading Diamond to take another careful walk in the park, even though the temperature in London had suddenly sunk to zero.
—0—
The SeaSwan ketch was catching a leaward wind to leave the beautiful Venezuelan coast and head out into the Caribbean Sea. A ketch is a two-mast sailboat similar to a yawl. The mainmast is shorter than a sloop, and the mizzenmast aft is shorter than the mainmast. A ketch usually has a triangular mizzen sail and a triangular or square headsail. Ketch sailboats are, historically, utility boats, but they’ve been strictly used for recreational and cruising boats for the last 100 years or so.
The SeaSwan was made of fiberglass and the interior accommodations are the same as a comparably-sized sloop, though cockpit space is limited due to the presence of a mizzenmast and rigging. A ketch has a stable design with quite a bit of power due to its additional mast, which allows the mainsail and boom footprint to be slightly smaller. The ketch is also a highly controllable vessel, which is great for closed-cockpit sailboats.
The SeaSwan was entirely manageable by a lone skipper and Dave did not actually need much help handling her. However, he enjoyed talking about his pride and joy, so he happily chatted to Khan, explaining every little detail with seafaring anecdotes and plenty of raucous snatches of catchy sea shanties which Khan loved. They were in their favourite element!
Olympia was busy preparing lunch in the tiny galley. She loved the way Chef had vacuum packed and labelled a large number of his delicious recipes. All she had to do was boil up a bit of rice and warm up the sachets. Dave had estimated that they would be at sea for three weeks at the most, so she was hoping to be home for Christmas or at least for the New Year celebrations in Trafalgar Square. She never missed the firework displays over the Thames and she was keen to show Khan this decadent waste of taxpayers money, which she sneakily knew would completely disgust him.
She intended to wean herself off her iPhone over the journey and had switched it off, placing it in a waterproof plastic box under her bunk. Dave had warned her that wild weather could easily wash down into the cabin during the long sail across the Atlantic but she reassured herself with a brave “How hard can it be?” within her head.
Dave had given her some clues…. “Broken electronics, howling, terrifying winds, treacherous waves!” he had warned. “To say nothing of mouldy bread, instant coffee, fruit-fly infested bananas, ramen noodles eight days straight. Shipping lanes. Pirates!”
He recounted some tales, “In March, a German sailor was murdered and the yacht's captain seriously injured when masked pirates armed with guns boarded their vessel anchored in St Vincent's Wallilabou Bay. The police caught no one but are ‘investigating’ in such a haphazard way that officials from Germany began their own inquiry…. to no avail.” and he grinned at Lymp’s grim expression. “Kim White, editor of CSSN - THE media authority on Caribbean boating security incidents - describes prosecution rates on the most serious crimes as "rather dismal". She believes sailors' transient lifestyle may be one reason why efforts to apprehend pirates appear sparse. If arrests and prosecutions are not made promptly, the cases simply fall into obscurity,” he had explained. "While numbers of incidents may not have changed much, the nature of them has - more violent crimes, weapons are involved more often, and there are more assaults, piracy and attempted piracy."
At this point he reached into his tool box and pulled out his “security” - a Glock pistol and Lymp’s face was a picture. She had never seen one, up close and personal like that. She is a Londoner, from Knightsbridge, after all.
To access all the episodes of this ludicrous fictional tale of social media influencers and their self indulgent life, simply go to the pinned comment on:
Episode 17 -https://francesleader.substack.com/p/diamonds-are-occasionally-dim
3 shots ( pun intended ) then I will shut thy gob
https://youtu.be/ivvBPVfWnFA
https://youtu.be/PMS3twV_FC4
this entitled PSYCH https://youtu.be/5Rf2v5CD1eY