Photograph of iceberg taken by chief steward of Prinz Adalbert on morning of 15 April 1912 near where Titanic sank. At the time he had not learned of the Titanic disaster. Smears of red paint along the base caught his attention. The photo and accompanying statement were sent to Titanic’s lawyers, which hung in their boardroom until the firm dissolved in 2002. Public Domain
It has never really crossed my mind to consider how old the iceberg Titanic hit. Possibly as part of an intellectual exercise and a desire to alleviate boredom, scientists at Sheffield University crosschecked data on ocean currents and witness descriptions from 1912. And now they believe it was snow that formed glaciers 100,000 years ago in southwest Greenland that ended up being the infamous iceberg that collided with Titanic in 1912. And it originally was 100ft above the water and possibly 1,700ft long when first formed. By the time it hit Titanic it had shrunk a bit in size but still quite large.
Now that all the stale news about Titanic II has gone around the globe enough times to make it really old news, another one is getting primed to take its place. The new/old story is about how Titanic’s demise was foretold in the book Futilityby Morgan Robertson. The book was published in 1898 and renamed after the Titanic tragedy as Wreck of the Titan. Many who read the book are struck by the similarities between the fictional Titan and Titanic. Some even go so far as to say Robertson was either clairvoyant or had some other supernatural revelation of what was to happen.
While there are similarities between the fictional Titan and the historical Titanic, there are a lot of things different. Titan was not on its maiden voyage and on its sixth heading back to Britain from New York. There were fewer lifeboats so five hundred could be saved out of the 3,000 passengers aboard. It looked different as well, more like a steam yacht with sails and carried no cargo. The collision was different as well. Titanic impacted with the iceberg on its starboard side causing punctures in the hull. In Robertson’s book, the ship collides with the iceberg head on and rolls up on it. Then it rolled on the side allowing the boilers and engines to pierce through the hull then slipped back into the sea and sank. One could go on but you get the salient point here: that the fictional Titan’s demise was very different from the historical Titanic. Robertson denied he had any supernatural vision and concocted his story using the available data he had on ships of the day.
So when you see news reports that proclaim “book predicted Titanic’s demise 14 years earlier” it is nothing more than puffery by editors trying to fill space (and tv news producers do the same as well). It ought to be noted that Robertson wrote about a surprise Japanese attack on the United States but hardly anyone thinks it predicted the events of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941.
La Circassienne au Bain (originally by Merry-Joseph Blondel 1814 and recreated by John Parker 2014) Image: Wikipedia Commons
Merry-Joseph Blondel(1781-1853) was a neoclassical French painter and a prolific artist in his day. Many of his works grace museums in France and elsewhere. One of his works, La Circassienne au Bain, was bought by Mauritz Hokan Bjornstrom-Steffansson and put aboard Titanic to be shipped to the United States. Of course when Titanic sank, Blondel’s masterpiece was lost to a watery grave. Bjornstrom-Steffansson filed a compensation claim of $100,000. Needless to say he never got that amount (White Star settled the legal cases for $664,000) but the large painting was gone and worse few descriptions of it remained.
Cue Titanic enthusiast John Parker who decided to track down what it looked like and recreated it. He managed to find the necessary information and make the portrait, which is now up for auction for £2,000 to £3,000.
Before embarking on the project he went around Europe seeking out examples of Blondel’s work. “I couldn’t find any photographs of the painting that went down with the Titanic– but I found an engraving that was done in 1819,” says John. “It was only five years later so it was bound to be a fairly accurate representation.”
Titanic at Cobh Harbor, 11 April 1912 Public Domain (Cobh Heritage Centre, Cobh, Ireland)
It is interesting what has happened since my original post on the subject. The reprinted stale news The Independent ran spread through the media. Newspapers, the major news networks, and a lot of blogs ran the story as if it were big news. It proves a theory about mass media today: they pretty much feed off each other and few bother to check the facts. It was amusing to read some of the write-ups. You could see that the editors/writers tried to find something different for their take on the story. At the end it was the same stale news from 2015.
This blog got a lot of hits thanks to jalopnik.com whose more skeptical approach to the story puts the more experienced mass media to shame. MoneyTalksNews has a similar skepticism about the Titanic II project. Krystal Steinmetz zeroes in on the key points and notes that the pictures zapping around the Internet are not the real ship but renderings from several years ago. She also adds (in addition to no construction going on at present) the following:
Plans for the ship could also be capsized by an investigation of Palmer. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission is investigating Palmer and the collapse of his company, Queensland Nickel. Palmer could face criminal charges over alleged use of aliases in company dealings and moving money from his failed business into his self-titled political party. The company owes creditors roughly $100 million.
As it stands now the only viable Titanic replica being built is the one being built by the Chinese themselves-for a theme park far away from the coast. This full replica will be permanently docked there (on water), have rooms for people to stay in, and is the infamous one since it will include a sinking simulator as well. So if you desiring to see a full Titanic replica, that is the only one that is actually being built.
It is Superbowl Sunday here in the United States. It has become a mini-holiday of sorts. For football fans, it is the ultimate game between two rivals. Whether you go to the game or watch it at home, it means cheering on your favorite team (if you have one). And it has become a major food day as well. There are many foods to celebrate the game from nachos to pizza. Pizza is the number one food according to both surveys and sales. All the major national pizza chains look to Superbowl Sunday as the biggest pizza day of the year. It is also the Chinese Lunar New Year so at my house this year, the game will have delicious Chinese food from a local restaurant.
Now to Titanic….
*Not that anyone really cares (or do they?)but the entertainment media has been aflutter with Kate Winslet saying that Jack did not need to die. If they do a remake, perhaps he will live that time or perhaps both will die. Or resurrected as flesh eating ghouls for the cinematic horror Zombies From The Cold Sea!
*A cardboard boat race to teach the lessons of buoyancy ended with the famously named Titanic suffering a similar watery fate. Duck tape and cardboard are a tough challenge to be waterproof though Mythbusters proved the viability of a duck tape boat.
*A political candidate recently spoofed Titanic on Saturday Night Live. Once again Titanic being used as a political prop.
*A Spanish broadcaster apparently confused British Prime Minister David Cameron with famous movie producer James Cameron. Oops! Next time try doing an Internet search first.
Titanic Wreck Bow Image: Public Domain (NOAA-http://www.gc.noaa.gov/images/gcil/ATT00561.jpg)
Raising the Titanic from its watery grave is not possible but Pete Williams of Burnley, UK has found a way to do it–with weights. When not doing his day job as a detective with Greater Manchester Police, he works out three or four days a weeks at a local gym and also a martial arts center. His goal is to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support and possibly set a world record that Guinness will take note of.
Williams and volunteers will attempt to lift Titanic’s weight of 52,000 tons (5.2 million kilograms) for a world record starting on Saturday 16 April. Williams is getting support from friends, a supplement company and hopes to get other sponsors as well. His reason for raising money for Macmillan is the support they gave for his father who was treated there for throat cancer. So far 100 people have signed up for the chance to dead lift a choice of weights for ten times before resting allowing for three people lifting at the same time.
This has been a quiet week for Titanic, so not a lot of news to report. Here are some interesting bits of news for you to consider.
1. You never know what lies waiting to be uncovered when cleaning out your home. Especially if you have not looked in those dust covered corners in closed up rooms, attics, or basements for a long time. A man found the portrait of Elsie Bowerman, a Titanic survivor, suffragette, and barrister. And it is now up for auction at Duke’s Auctioneers in Dorchester, Dorset, UK in March with an estimated price of £1,000.
Source: Titanic Survivor’s Portrait Discovered (BBC News,22 Jan 2016)
2. The Titanic Hotel at Stanley Dock in Liverpool has won the Luxury Travel Global Guide Award of Luxury Hotel of the Year. The editor of Luxury Travel Magazine is quoted as saying they “were blown away by Titanic Hotel Liverpool’s profile.”
Source: Titanic Hotel wins at Luxury Travel Awards (BDaily,22 Jan 2016)
Finally to close out this Friday, I offer something for my friends facing a very snowy weekend back east and all those also having very cold temperatures.
Lego is getting used a lot these days to build Titanic. One kid built a complete replica using Lego bricks. But no one has attempted doing a Lego representation of Titanic sinking. Till now. Take a look at the photos here and you will be astonished. It really took some real creativity to pull this off. It is far easier to build a replica than to simulate the sinking.
Movieland Wax Museum, Buena Park, Nov. 1963 Photo courtesy Orange County Archives
The Titanic and Bodies exhibitions at the former Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, California has gotten a reprieve. It was scheduled to shut down in January but the new owner is finding getting all the required approvals taking longer than anticipated. So the current owners, the City of Buena Park, contacted Premier Exhibitions and asked them to stay till 17 April 2016. This is good news for Titanic fans wanting to visit the exhibit in Buena Park and gives more time for Premier to locate a new home for the exhibits at Movieland.
According to Orange County Register, the announcement that it was closing in January brought in record numbers of people. The announcement that was being extended till April has seen reservations soar and January is nearly sold out. While the rent for the facility was a bargain $1 a month, Premier had to spend thousands to upgrade and maintain the facility. When the new owners finally take over, the venue will be modeled after the Butterfly Wonderland park in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Further information about purchasing tickets for Buena Park can be found at the Premier Exhibitions website.
1. The entertainment media is all aflutter telling of a mini-reunion of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DeCaprio at the Golden Globes. At least they are not reminding us for the 1000th time the new Star Wars movie has smashed Titanic’s box office record.
Photo:Sky News
2. Can one describe a school bus flooded as akin to Titanic? It appears so. The United Kingdom has suffered from tremendous rain of late causing all kinds of problems. Now there is a certain rule when driving in areas where water is pretty well concentrated: you avoid it. Cars are not water proofed (a select few are but they are special custom jobs or military)so trying to drive through a deep pond of water on the road will certainly not bode well. Usually the driver gets stranded and a tow truck has to pull your car out. Now you would think a school bus driver with a bus full of kids would want to avoid driving in areas that have already been marked to avoid by authorities. School authorities in North Yorkshire are perplexed and investigating why a school bus with 26 children aboard was driven on a closed road where it ended up in a ditch and began filling with water. A young girl told Sky News “like the Titanic.” Water began pouring into the bus and kids had to kick windows to get out. Sky News also reports the driver was warned by the kids not to take that road.
“It started floating and then it capsized into a ditch, and before it capsized loads of water gushed through,” she said. It was pretty much like the Titanic – it was going.”
Not the kind of things parents want to hear about their kids day at school. None of the kids were injured and either went home or continued on to school via other means.
Source:Flooded School Bus Sank ‘Like The Titanic’(Sky News,5 Jan 2016)
3. Just checked the Blue Star website for any new information about Titanic II. Nothing found.
4. Premier Exhibitions is trying to be more transparent these days. In the past shareholders had complained that management was less than forthcoming about company operations, the proposed sale of Titanic collection, and other things. If recent filings are an indication, the new management is taking a different approach. They are trying to let investors know the company is going to be better managed and trying to increase revenues. Also they are looking into opportunities in Asia and in particular Macau.
Source:Premier Exhibitions Inc. Announces Corporate Update(Globe NewsWire,8 Jan 2016-press release)
