Category Archives: Titanic Cliches

Titanic, Titanic Cliches

Titanic Cliche of the Day-Times Online

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I never knew that there was a coffee problem in Britain until I read Chloe Lambert’s Cup of coffeearticle. She laments that British coffee was not up to snuff when compared to what you find elsewhere in the world.

“I love my country. I love our sense of humour, our pubs, our theatre and I don’t even mind our weather. But when I fly back home from a holiday, there’s one sight that makes me want to jump into the luggage hold and wait until the plane turns back. That is the brightly lit, maroon colours of a Costa Coffee. It’s the beleaguered businessman queuing up to pay £2.50 for a weak, lukewarm “cappuccino” with enough froth to sink the Titanic.” (“Coffee: Are We Finally Up To World Cup Standards?,” Times Online, 8 Dec 09)

I must give the writer credit for using something different with the cliche. Normally it is about rearranging the deck chairs or how (whatever the subject is about) is steering into the iceberg. I believe this is the first cliche that uses cappuccino and froth in relation to Titanic. In case you are wondering, the writer has found hope for coffee in Britain. Starbucks and other high end coffee shops are bringing real coffee to the populace. 🙂

Titanic Cliches

Titanic Cliche of the Day-Huffington Post

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The Titanic Cliche is really popular these days when talking about the economy. Cenk Uygur over at the Huffington Post recently blogged about the renomination of Fed Chief Ben Bernanke. And once again RMS Titanic makes an appearance:

“I had large misgivings about Ben Bernanke before his hearings began. He’s given credit for steering our economy to safe shores after we hit an enormous economic iceberg. First, I would argue we are nowhere near safe shores. Second, why are we rehiring the guy who steered the Titanic into the iceberg in the first place?”

Poor Captain Smith. Not only the captain of a ship that collided with an iceberg and sank, but now tied to sinking an economy as well. 🙂

Titanic Cliches

Holy Titanic Tomato Batman!

Okay there are lots of Titanic cliches out there to choose from recently. Thetomato usual political and business comparisons to Titanic and even a former Spice Girl doing a pose on a yacht with her boyfriend reminding everyone of the scene from the famous movie (she looks great, by the way). Spain though takes the prize with one heck of a tomato fight called La Tomatina. According to Yumsugar this annual event “….is an all-out escapade that involves more than 100 tons of overripe tomatoes, draws over 40,000 visitors from around the world, and spares absolutely no one.”

The whole event is  part of a week long festival of music, food, and dancing including the hour long tomato fight. It apparently started back in the 1940’s either as a spat between merchants or disgruntled citizens throwing tomatos at politicians (one ought to remember that General Franco was in power at the time so a food fight might be the most benign way to show displeasure at Hitler’s good friend).

Titanic, Titanic Cliches

Congresswoman Compares U.S. To Titanic

One feature I have thought about adding to my news site was citing examples of Titanic cliches. They have become so common and overwrought as to become satires on the person saying them without it being intentional on their part. I had thought about starting a weekly column over at my news site but I think this lends more to blog. Let the Titanic Cliches begin and today we start with, naturally, a politician from Minnesota. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann(R) while speaking before the U.S. House of Representatives said the following:

Last weekend my family sat down and we were watching the commercial movie “Titanic.” And as I was listening to Dr. Burgess from Texas talk about the debt and the burgeoning debt load that the United States takes, once the ice gash came in the side of the Titanic, which we all remember was called the “unsinkable Titanic,” we think of the United States. Nothing can possibly sink the United States. We will always be a superpower. But one thing that has kept us a superpower has been freedom, free market economists. We are in the process of watching the deconstruction of free market economists before our very eyes, something we have never seen. But as the ice ripped that hole in the Titanic, water started being taken on, and the engineer came out and brought the blueprint of the Titanic. Water came into the first chamber, spilled over to the second, spilled over to the third, and by the time it filled up so many chambers, it was over. It was impossible to resurrect that ship.

At least she did try to make it work and much better than saying (as some often do) that what is going on is like rearranging the deck chairs on Titanic.

Bachmann Likens U.S. To Titanic, Decries ‘Gangster Government’ She’s Part Of
Minnesota Independent, 10 June 09
http://minnesotaindependent.com/36631/bachmann-titanic-gm-gangster-klobuchar-walser