Strange Thoughts of a Strange Man

One of my birthday presents was a book about the Titanic, which some of you may know is one of my obsessions. For those of you who are interested, the book (The Sinking of the Titanic: The Mystery Solved by LM Collins) is written by someone familiar with sailing in ice infested waters and calls into question some of the accepted facts of the Titanic’s story. It is worth reading although it can be a bit dry and it definitely isn’t one of the many conspiracy theories currently on the market.

This post isn’t about the Titanic, however. I’m only going to make a small observation about the migration of words and how it happens in only a short time. It has been less than 100 years since the Titanic sank but in that time the word “log” has changed in its meaning quite significantly.

One of the testimonies of the survivors mentioned the ship’s log, which I thought meant, as probably did you, something like a large diary detailing significant events on the ship. We use the word now to mean exactly that. This blog, or webLOG, is little more than an electronic diary on the web.

The log referred to by the Titanic survivor is actually a device for measuring the speed of the ship through water. Not the record of the speed but the way in which it was measured.

Isn’t that amazing? In 98 years the meaning of a word has transferred from a device to the recordings of the device to a general record of any sort. Captain’s log, weblog, logbook, error log.

I vaguely remember that the reason the device is known as a log is because it actually used to be a real log – a bit of a tree – that was trailed behind a sailing vessel and used in some way to measure the speed of a ship.

Imagine that!

Labels: Blogging, Etymology, Log, Titanic

It's obvious that I was a bit premature in my comments about the Christmas episode of Doctor Who as it obviously wasn't THE Titanic. In some ways I am disappointed that it wasn't but in others I am rather glad. Had there been any errors I would have found them distracting.

As it is, I question the need for RTD to have teased us for so long. Why imply that the Doctor had run into the Titanic? Did he know that he was going to set it on a space-going alien ship? Or did he lose his nerve?

Labels: Doctor Who, Titanic

I have misgivings about the forthcoming Christmas episode of Doctor Who. I am a fan of Doctor Who but I also have a deep and ambiding interest in the Titanic disaster. I have a conflict of interest.

I have a bad feeling that I will be watching the show on Christmas Day muttering "no, it wasn't like that" every five seconds. I'm already disappointed to see that there is a character called Captain Hardaker in it. Unfortunately, the Titanic's captain was called Smith.

There are details and there are details. Getting worked up because the rivets on C deck are the wrong size is one thing but if the writer's haven't bothered to research something as basic as the name of the Captain then that's something else. No matter what happens with the fantastical elements of the story, the Titanic was a real ship, crewed by real people and they should be named correctly in the story.

Getting names wrong is sloppy.

Labels: Doctor Who, Titanic

As I was writing my entry about the RMS Titanic the other day, I was aware that it rambled and lacked focus. I wasn’t too clear about what I wanted to say or how I wanted to say it. Was it a book review? Was it a eulogy to the ship? Both?

The only thing that was clear was that the blog entry itself wasn’t at all clear.

I was prompted to write what I did because of a book by Daniel Allen Butler called “Unsinkable”--the Full Story of RMS Titanic. I was very moved by it.

Daniel wrote a comment on my blog asking for my thoughts on the book once I had finished it and that’s what I am about to do. Daniel, if you are reading this and want further feedback, I would be happy to send more. The blogger address in your comment was private so I couldn’t send to that and the only email address I could find for you was for a workshop and that didn't seem appropriate. So, all I can do is write here again in the hope that whatever found my previous comments finds this one as well.

So, what did I think of the book?
A glib "I liked it" wouldn't be right. For a start it isn’t a strong enough word and, more importantly, “like” implies that it made me happy. It didn’t. The book dragged me into the story and made me experience very intense emotions. I said earlier that section of the book when the collision has occurred and people are heading for the lifeboats was very distressing to me. I raged at the disgraceful behaviour of Captain Lord and actually felt sorry for Bruce Ismay, a man so often portrayed as the villain of the story but who was as much a product of his time and his upbringing. That's quite an achievement for the book to alter my preconceptions so well and to affect me emotionally.

I think the only criticism I would have is that at times I found the numbers of people a bit daunting and found myself flicking through the book muttering "who are they?". A factual equivalent of a dramatis personae would have been helpful as would pictures. Some readers, such as myself, have a better memory for faces than for names. I'm still wondering what happened to the woman who stayed awake each night because she worried something bad would happen at night. I lost the relevant passage and, with it, her name so I have no idea whether she or her family survived.

This is probably a feature of history. In fiction it is easy to restrict your characters to a very neatly delineated set. This isn't possible in real life. The Titanic’s story had a cast of thousands. Literally.

However, the people were described in enough detail for me to sympathise with them as I read about them. Each scene served as a snapshot of the person's actions at the time and for the large part it didn't matter that I couldn't cross-reference between their actions at one part of the book with those in another unless they were one of the major players such as Lightoller or Ismay or Andrews.

The book as a whole worked really well for me. I liked the way I could feel something for the people. I loved the way the luxurious feel of the ship came over in the text. I loved the way the event was placed in the context of Edwardian thinking, how sea travel was seen as being incredibly safe, for instance, and why the steerage passengers were not allowed to mix with the first and second class passengers.

I loved it but what did happen to that woman?

Labels: Titanic

I can't remember when I first became fascinated with the tragic story of the Titanic. It seems to have always been part of my life. Indeed, it seems a story that is never far from public consciousness. Very few people would be ignorant of the catastrophe.

Many will have seen the film with Kate Winslett and Leonardo di Caprio. I watched it and enjoyed it although paid little or no attention to the romance between their characters, being much more interested in the ship itself and upset at its eventual demise and of the huge loss of life.

Others will have seen A Night to Remember, in which Kenneth More played 2nd Officer Lightoller, the most senior surviving officer from the ship. I saw this as well.

I have also seen Titanic the Musical and have blogged about it earlier. It was an emotional production, an unusual choice of subject for musical theatre but gorgeously compelling.

I have just finished reading about the ship in a book called "Unsinkable": The Full Story of the RMS Titanic by Daniel Allen Butler, hoping to glean some facts about the ship's first and last voyage without all the emotional baggage presented in the films and show.

Facts were there a plenty. Measurements, dates, times and the names of passengers and crew. It was almost easy to lose interest in the book at the early stages, especially in the overly florid and detailed description of the train journey from Waterloo to Southampton.

However, this is not a story that can ever be devoid of emotion. I was surprised to find myself becoming upset, almost to the point of tears, when reading on the train about the attempted evacuation of the ship. I had to put the book away.

The people that had to be left behind, the ones that survived knowing that people they loved were about to die, the ones that nearly made it, only to be killed by a falling funnel or the bitterly cold North Atlantic water, all are brought to life in the book.

I think I have become obsessed.

Labels: Titanic

You might remember that David and I saw Titanic last year in Bromley. Click here to see what I thought of that.

On Saturday we saw a production of the show in Hull that had been produced by friends of ours. It was fabulous and as much of a tear-jerker as the Bromley production, if not more. Martin had thrown in new twists that had me reaching for my hanky.

The end number was led by a little boy who had remained silent throughout the rest of the show. His father had gone down with the ship and the boy and his mother had tearfully placed a photograph of the father at the front of the stage. The boy also placed a model of the Titanic next to the photo and then stood back for a few long seconds, looking terribly scared. I thought it would end there or someone else would start singing but I was wrong. He started on his own, a clear voice with no accompaniment, to sing the opening of the last number. You could hear his fear and the loss of his father in his voice. Then the cast of survivors joined in and finally, from behind the gauze, the ones who had drowned.

It was a severely emotional moment and I became weepier at each step. How I held back from full-on blubbing was a minor miracle.

The actual sinking itself was Martin's stroke of genius. I became lost in the show at that point. I believed the ship was sinking and I knew all those people were dying even though I could see it was a stage with sound effects and actors.

What a fantastic show! It really should go to the West End and Martin Beaumont should direct it.

Labels: Titanic

David and I have just seen Titanic, the musical. It was showing at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley and was performed by the West Wickham Operatic Society. It had nothing to do with the film, by the way.

I thought it was excellent. There were a few glitches, mainly on the sound when a few of the microphones weren't live at the appropriate times or the volume not high enough but, on the whole, I thought it a very professional performance.

I always find the Titanic story a bit of a weepy and this production made this happen again. I found I was filling up during some of the numbers. One was at the beginning when the passengers are full of hope for their voyage and the new lives they are going to have in America and another was when the ship is sinking (sorry - it was a very traditional interpretation) and the men have to say goodbye to their loved ones.

That an amateur production managed to engage me to that extent is fantastic. I was very impressed.

We're going to see another production of this show in March in Hull. This should be better. We know the director and we know he has extremely high standards. I'd better pack the tissues.

Labels: Musical theatre, Titanic