1) Julian Fellowes, who has penned a new Titanic miniseries for BBC, has decided to call out James Cameron for making William Murdoch a coward in his movie. Fellowes is late to the party. Murdoch’s family and many in the Titanic community were outraged at the depiction resulting in an apology. So why do it now? Well of course to drum up interest in his upcoming miniseries. “I don’t think you can take someone who was moral and decent and make them do something immoral and indecent,” says Fellowes in the interview. He then goes on to say that while Murdoch is depicted with a gun, that the record is set straight. Good to know but Titanic historians are going to be looking at a lot more than that when they judge whether his miniseries is good, okay, or bad history.
2) Meghan Cox Gurdon offered up some Titanic books for kids in a recent Wall Street Journal column. She offers up some excellent choices for parents to consider. Often we forget that there are good Titanic books for kids and not that hard to find.
3) You can view many of the Titanic artifacts up for auction by visiting this link .
With so many events commemorating Titanic coming on, one has to be creative to get noticed. Groupon decided to go beyond the exhibits and dinners and offer a trip to the wreck fo $12,500, 79% off the full charge of $59,680. In case you have forgotten, the actual trip requires heading out to sea where you will take a 10 hour dive down to the wreck in a small submersible. Is it worth it? You decide. But Deep Ocean Expeditions states that this is the final year they will offer these trips.
An upcoming Glenrothes exhibition that will focus on Titanic (focusing on the Countess of Rothes) got an interesting surprise. A donor found a real Titanic 12 piece dinner service. Not a replica but the real thing from 1912. At first he wanted to donate it but was shown its true value (£4,500). Now it will be shown and then placed in a vault for protection.
The Belfast Telegraph is reporting that 80,000 tickets sold for the upcoming Titanic Exhibition. This is welcome news, the Telegraph reports, since it cost £90 million to build Titanic Centre.
Everyone is trying to cash in on Titanic these days. Len Goodman, famous in United States for Dancing With The Stars and in Britain for Strictly Come Dancing, is doing a three part series reports RTE. According to the news report, “Titanic with Len Goodman follows the ballroom legend as he travels to Belfast and Southampton and discovers the stories of victims and survivors.” Goodman, who once worked as a welder, learned that Titanic was more than just a ship. “The real story of the Titanic isn’t about a ship, it’s about people, and in making this series I’ve been lucky to meet some wonderful personalities who astonished me with their tales of how Titanic affected their families forever.”
Yesterday it was reported that the original Simpson letter is being returned to Belfast. This is good news. While the identity of the benefactor is not known, Titanic enthusiasts ought to cheer. And on St. Patrick’s day offer up a drink of thanks as well.
Earlier this month a letter was put up for auction in New York. The letter written by Belfast doctor John Edward Simpson aboard Titanic and mailed in Cobh, was thought to fetch $34,000 (£21,692). It failed to reach that reserve price but an anonymous benefactor has purchased the letter and is sending to Belfast. Although copies abound, this is the original. Needless to say the Simpson family is quite pleased. You can view the BBC video here.
Cheryl DelVecchio, the Children’s Librarian at Fairfield Woods Branch Library, came up with the idea of workshops focused on Titanic. One of the recent ones involved the kids building mini-replicas of Titanic using construction paper, milk cartons and glue. According to Ct Post, the models “included smokestacks and could be adorned with accessories like waves and sea creature stickers. Children and adult companions collaborated on the work, trimming, taping and decorating the small ships.” From the pictures it looked like the kids had a grand time working on the project.
Sometimes it is the simple things that tell the story much better than all the expensive glitter and pomp.
The Daily Telegraph reports that a previously unseen account by a survivor alleges Captain Smith was drinking before Titanic hit the iceberg. Second class passenger Emily Richard’s claims in a letter (written aboard Carpathia) that Smith was in the saloon drinking before he went to bed. Most accounts have Smith retiring to his cabin after leaving Murdoch in charge and in bed when the collision occurred.
Una Reilly of the Belfast Titanic Society was asked about the claim and states to have never heard the accusation before.
The problem is that no one else can corroborate this story. And it is quite possible it is a case of mistaken identity. No doubt it will get some play as the story zings around the world. Of course various Titanic authorities will be called or asked to comment. Coupled with stories about drunks piloting boats, the news media might wring out even more stories. So where does this story go? It gets filed into those strange/odd stories that seem to come out around full moons, Halloween, or near anniversaries of important events like when Titanic sank.
The Royal Canadian Mint is announcing Titanic collector coins for sale to collectors. According to their press release:
With a $10 face value, the 99.99% pure silver coin features a design by maritime artist Yves Bérubé of the ship under full steam as it nears the iceberg which would seal its fate. The proof finish of the coin shows off the longitude and latitude of its final resting place off Canada’s Atlantic Coast in a delicately frosted highlight. This finely crafted coin, equally suited to Titanic buffs, history enthusiasts, and collectors is limited to a mintage of 20,000 coins world-wide and is available for $64.95 CDN.
A silver-plated 50-cent coin offers a second Yves Bérubé perspective of RMS Titanic. The frosted detail of the colossal vessel’s bow and the gigantic iceberg lurking ahead are frozen in time on a proof coin which captures the two principal actors in the real-life drama of the RMS Titanic sinking. The selectively coloured waters of the North Atlantic seem to shimmer and flow in the doomed ship’s wake. Limited to a world-wide mintage of 15,000 silver-plated copper coins, this dramatic keepsake retails for $34.95 CDN.
A richly coloured 25-cent cupro-nickel coin completes the Mint’s account of the unforgettable story of RMS Titanic. Designed by Three Degrees Creative Group, the coin shows contrasting views of the RMS Titanic casting off on its maiden voyage before admiring crowds in Southampton, UK. This image is juxtaposed against a shimmering scene of the floating palace gliding through North Atlantic waters under a starry night sky. These haunting images are framed by two columns of four circles rising out from opposing sides of the coin’s edge. These impressions symbolize the more than three million rivets which fastened the ship’s hull. The coin is packaged in a colourful folder containing a pop-out bird’s eye view of RMS Titanic sailing in all its glory, as well as facts about the ship and a timeline of her maiden voyage. Produced on demand, this captivating coin retails for $25.95 CDN.
You can go to Royal Canadian Mint website at www.mint.ca to view the coins or place an order.
Over the years there have been many theories as to why Titanic sank in 1912. Some are outlandish, such as a submarine or White Star switching Titanic for Olympic. The wreck weakened several beliefs, such as Titanic going down in one piece or that there was 300 foot gash. We have had theories about brittle steel contributing to its demise. Now competing theories appearing in The Smithsonian magazine and National Geographic once again take us into the world of speculative theorizing.
British historian Tim Maltin, after reviewing evidence gathered from weather records, survivor accounts, and previous studies believes “super refraction” prevented not only seeing Titanic in time but prevented the nearby California from really seeing clearly a ship in distress. The atmospheric conditions with air cooling from the bottom with warm air above creates a light inversion and a mirage making objects appear higher (and nearer) than they really are resulting in a false horizon. And the area between the real and false horizon would have haze. The result was that on a moonless night Titanic sighted the iceberg when it was too close. On the California, Titanic appeared too small and too near to be an ocean liner–an effect created by this unique super refraction. This would explain why California did not see the Morse lamp due to the distortion and later Titanic’s rockets. Titanic fired distress rockets 600 feet into the air but the distortion made them appear lower than the ship.
On the other hand, National Geographic has astronomer Donald Olson of Texas State University-San Marcos proposing that the large amount of icebergs in 1912 was a rare alignment of Earth-Moon-Sun intensifying the gravitational pull on the planet. The result are very low tides and very high tides (called a spring tide). Since icebergs do not travel fast, older icebergs were affected by the high tide and sent southward into Titanic’s path. And of course the rest is history.
Maltin’s claim provides more to California than Titanic. We already know Titanic was moving at night with no moon and in an area with lots of icebergs. Lookouts had no binoculars and did not see the iceberg until they were nearly upon it. Murdoch tried to port around the berg but doing so took precious time and ended up inflicting fatal damage to Titanic. Under this theory, Captain Lord appears vindicated. He claimed to not know it was Titanic, that distress rockets were not seen, and that the ship appeared to be too small. Speculation of a third ship between the two has never been proven. The theory of super refraction is fascinating. And it is possible under the right conditions but was it that way that night? The only answer is maybe since we have no conclusive evidence it did happen. Possibly experiments using those conditions might lead to answers.
As to the “supermoon” theory as some call it, that has less plausibility if for nothing else other astronomers argue back that the effect was not that great and likely did not contribute to large numbers of icebergs in the North Atlantic that year. Some speculate it was warmer water currents that may have been the cause.
It is not surprising these theories suddenly come out just before Titanic’s centennial takes place. With many people focused on Titanic, many will be drawn to them. Maltin has a book coming out about his theory and Smithsonian has a documentary called “Titanic’s Final Mystery” being televised on 15 April. So the news about this theory is more public relations than anything else. Olson has co-authored a report on this theory so again we have public relations drumming up interest.
Neither theory really gets into or changes the underlying facts. Whether you believe there was a super refraction or an unusual celestial alignment that created higher tides does little to change what happened that night. Nor does it excuse errors in judgment made by White Star, Captain Smith, or Captain Lord on Carpathia. It is speculative theorizing that sounds fascinating, possibly plausible, but in the end adds nothing to the story and 1,522 lives lost that fateful night.
Much is being done to make ready for the Titanic remembrance ceremonies in April. Just about everything is being scrubbed, built, or shined up for the event. Except it seemsa pier in Cobh (formerly Queenstown) where 123 passengers boarded tenders for Titanic. The old pier is a serious state of decay reports Irish Times and in danger of collapsing. The Times reports that there is some uncertainty as to who owns the pier, which has led to no money funding its renovation. The nearby former White Star Line office has been renovated and a visitor attraction.
The city has no funding available and the pier is not on any protected structures list. Some effort is underway to seek funding. Otherwise visitors will see a decaying pier where only seagulls perch looking at the tourists for possible snacks to feed on.
Conductors sometimes like to have fun when calling out stops but one conductor on Thursday’s 159 decided to regale the passengers by using funny accents when calling out the stops. At first it was amusing but as the trip progressed it started grating on the nerves. In the car I was riding in, passengers began to wonder what was going on. Was the guy stoned, drunk, or just crazy? I opined that perhaps he was just bored going up and down the line calling out the stops and decided to have some fun.
When the train pulled into San Francisco, the conductor decided to switch to an Irish brogue and give us a limerick. By this time I think many had quite enough and were racing to the exits before he decided to switch back to the child voice he had used earlier (the one that reminds you of Willy Wonka played by Johnny Depp). The conductor, an assistant I think, is usually decked out in the full Amtrak uniform. As I walked towards the exit, I saw him and the senior conductor assisting a passenger being unloaded on the lift. He seemed perfectly normal scotching the idea he was either drunk or high on narcotics.
As for a career in impressions, I recommend the conductor do not give up his day job. Leave that to experts like Rich Little. And he should remember there is a degree of professionalism his job requires. When he pulls stunts like this, people will wonder whether to take him seriously when it really matters.
Sorry folks but I have been busy on other projects and not able to post for a while. Got a press release here about a Titanic musical at both Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, and Branson, Missouri. Both are hosting “A Night to Remember: An Original Musical Tribute To Titanic. The event includes musical performances, historic ceremonies, and appearances by descendants of Titanic passengers. The Branson one begins at noon on 14 April and in Tennessee at 8:30 p.m. From the press release:
Tickets to “A Night to Remember: An Original Musical Tribute to Titanic” are available through the Titanic Museum Attractions in Missouri and Tennessee. Visitors may purchase tickets by phone at (800) 381-7670 beginning February 20, 2012. In addition to museum admission and the musical production, ticket holders will receive limited edition memorials dedicated to the ship’s history, including a DVD containing video tributes of the personal stories of selected passengers and crew.
