The Sinking of the RMS Titanic and other ships.

[Adam Went]

Harry:

There's a Mr. Arthur Bright listed as a Quartermaster on the ship.....and an Able Seaman called Mr. Buley....but you're right, nobody called Butler on the crew list. There was a Mr. Reginald Butler, a 2nd class passenger, but he died in the sinking. So that is a bit of a mystery.....

Graham:

The worst movie of all time.

Pretty good effort then if you can make the worst movie ever and still have it become the second highest grossing movie of all time! To be succeeded, I might add, only by a film by the very same director!

Cheers,
Adam.

[Graham]

Pretty good effort then if you can make the worst movie ever and still have it become the second highest grossing movie of all time! To be succeeded, I might add, only by a film by the very same director!

Says a lot for the movie-going public then, doesn't it? Cameron makes movies for the hard of thinking. The 1950's stiff-upper-lip A Night To Remember was a far better Titanic film, better acted and much more historically accurate. Cameron's special-effects are really about all he has. Avatar is even worse....yes, I'm biased - modern movies are largely rubbish IMHO.

Graham

[Suzi]

Cameron's movie was unspeakably bad (IMHO)
As many here may have heard me rant here before my Grandfather was a Steward on White Star Lines (and OMG the tales he told- can only remember a few 'cos he died when I was eight- but remember them I do!!), sailed on many ships including the Mauritania, the Olympic, The Ophir etc etc before missing his connection with the Titanic having had a 'too relaxing evening' the night before and missing the boat train to join the ship!.... much to my Grandmothe's disgust- mind you she was a very relieved woman a week or so later!!!........same thing happened with The Lusitania different leaving port-different boat train- same reason!!- scary 'eh--------- charmed us!! (so far!!)

[Graham]

Whooo-hooooo Suze! Talk about a charmed life....?

The father of a friend of a friend was booked aboard a BOAC Comet in the early 1950's (don't know exactly when or even the destination) and the story is that for some unfathomable reason decided very late in the day not to go. In those days airline tickets were mega-expensive, so it must've been a major decision not to use his ticket. Anyway the Comet crashed, no survivors, one of several Comet crashes around that time.

Graham

[Suzi]

Bloody hell that's good we're flying Turkish Airlines nest month (aka Buddy Holly Airlines) aaaaagh!

[Graham]

Bloody hell that's good we're flying Turkish Airlines nest month (aka Buddy Holly Airlines) aaaaagh!

Bon voyage!

When I lived in the USA there was an airline called Ozark Airlines (don't know if it still exists) and the joke was that on a flight to Cleveland, for example, the pilot would come out to the passenger area and say something like, "If'n any of you folks ever bin to Cleveland afore, if ya see sumptink ya'll recognise, gimme a yell!"

Graham

[Phil H]

...the pilot would come out to the passenger area and say something like, "If'n any of you folks ever bin to Cleveland afore, if ya see sumptink ya'll recognise, gimme a yell!"

I think that came from a Bob Newhart monologue.

[Graham]

...the pilot would come out to the passenger area and say something like, "If'n any of you folks ever bin to Cleveland afore, if ya see sumptink ya'll recognise, gimme a yell!"

I think that came from a Bob Newhart monologue.

It could have done, but I don't really care.

Graham

[Phil H]

I had a record with it on - along with the Driving Instrucor, the man returning a toupee to the department store, and walter raleight trying to decide whether to eat tobacco and smoke potatoes or not!!

That was in the early 70s.

When did you hear the story, exactly?

Sorry to offend - and with respect, there's no need to use the f-word even with asterisks, thank you.

Phil

[Suzi]

Aagh sure you're right.......As long as it 'er goes up and comes down I don't give a monkeys no asterisks there! ****! missed that one! xx

(As long as nobody says 'Goodnight Old C*** all will be well!) :-))

[Phil H]

I'm not the only one who recalls it evidently, I found this on the web:

I remember a funny line by Bob Newhart, in which he played the part of an airline pilot. The pilot’s voice was calm and reassuring as it came across the PA system of the plane bound for Honolulu. “Welcome ladies and gentlemen. We hope you sit back and enjoy this flight across the Pacific to beautiful Hawaii.” There was a pause. Then his voice came on again. “We are proud to have our new navigator aboard. This is his first flight.” Another pause. “Ladies and gentlemen, if there is anyone aboard who has ever actually flown to Hawaii, will you please come forward and meet with our navigator. Thanks and enjoy your flight.”

The link is here:

http://mikemilton.org/2010/05/01/purity-of-heart-is-to-seek-one-thing/

[Suzi]

Great!

[claire]

Bloody hell that's good we're flying Turkish Airlines nest month (aka Buddy Holly Airlines) aaaaagh!

Turkish have got pretty reasonable of late, Suzi; new planes and the whole chabang (yay, even food and khazis). No more clapped out old planes that you board up a ramp under the tail that Aeroflot got rid of after hearing a few dodgy noises... Have a lovely trip
(sorry for off-topic)

[Adam Went]

Graham:

I do agree with you that A Night To Remember is more factually accurate, and a very good film overall - despite the fact that it doesn't show the Titanic splitting in half, as Cameron's film does (excusable as obviously the ship hadn't yet been discovered in 1958 when ANTR came out.)

I'm not a huge fan of Cameron's Titanic, but it's not as bad as some make it out to be, and more importantly, James Cameron is a good person and genuinely cares about the Titanic and its people. When 96 year old last Titanic survivor Millvina Dean was struggling to meet her nursing home expenses and was starting to have to sell her autograph and Titanic memorabilia just to make ends meet, Cameron, along with others, donated tens of thousands of dollars of their own money to her to make sure she could live the rest of her life out more than comfortably. He also returned to the wreck in the early 2000's to film Ghosts Of The Abyss, a truly excellent film.

Suzi:

Wow, what a fascinating family story!

Cheers,
Adam.

[Bob Hinton]

To Fly or Not to Fly, that could be the very last question...

When my wife and I flew into Kiev a few years back we were intrigued to see swarms of mechanics ripping parts out of a whole flock of old Russian Ilyushin bombers parked near the runway. I asked another passenger what they were doing. He, a veteran of flying in the Eastern bloc, explained they were scavenging spare parts for the Ukrainian Airways. We had to journey on to the Crimea so we had the choice of flying by internal airlines or a 24 hour trip by train. We enjoyed our train trip!