Rough Crossings

Even though Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies begins with an account of a "sick-making" English Channel crossing on rough seas, I read it and wondered whether one can still cross the Channel by boat. Could I perhaps take a ferry between England and France, rather than the Eurostar through the Chunnel?  That seems like the sort of thing I would do.

(Oh yes, did I mention?  I've a trip coming up. Late June. London and Paris. Eleven days. Please feel free to give recommendations of sites/restaurants/shops to visit, for London particularly. Also seeking recommendations of Paris places that have opened in the last five years or are off the beaten track.)

According to train-travel website The Man in Seat 61, it is still possible to make the crossing via ferry but it takes nine hours, instead of two, from city center to city center.  So much for that idea. I will already be spending fewer days in Paris than in London and I can't cut into my Paris time like that.

Meanwhile, having discovered The Man in Seat 61, I'm reading itineraries and accounts of train trips all over the world, and dreaming up future vacations...

Also, isn't it strange that both Evelyn Waugh novels I have read -- Vile Bodies and Brideshead Revisited -- feature an important scene that takes place on a rough sea voyage that leaves most of the passengers seasick?  The opening scene of Vile Bodies, and the scene in Part II of Brideshead Revisited where Charles and Julia take advantage of the fact that they are "good sailors" (and Charles' wife isn't) to begin an affair. I can't recall any other novels that describe seasickness so vividly, though the Guardian lists some examples.  Do you think Waugh was a good sailor or a bad sailor?