Titanic

There's not a lot I can say that hasn't been said already, everywhere, constantly. But I've always been kind of fascinated by Titanic and today marked the 100th anniversary of her sailing from Southampton.

That's pretty momentous. I'd have been on the memorial cruise if I'd known about it in advance, had the money and all sorts of other things.

Actually, no, I probably wouldn't have been. I'm no sailor. Possibly due to a lifelong obsession with Titanic, but I don't fully trust boats not to sink; I seriously don't like rocky crossings. And I get very seasick.

For the record, should the memorial cruise, in a truly unlikely manner, hit an iceberg and sink, I'm guessing that there will definitely be enough lifeboats for everyone on board and then some.

It is possible that had the passengers on the Titanic not been sending telegrams that they could have received and heeded warnings. 100 years on and every minute of every hour of every passenger will be tweeted/facebooked/blogged, not to mention the media coverage. Any iceberg sightings will be known to everyone in the world and any mishaps responded to with haste never before recorded.

So no, I don't think it's going to sink. I'm not sure what it will do when it gets to the site of the crash. Will it stop and sit for three hours and then come home? Will it carry on to New York?

Pause to Google.

Ah. The itinery, which I misread as Titanery and think they missed a trick there.

The plan is to arrive at the site of the Titanic wreck - along with Memorial Titanic II, which is going the other direction - and have a memorial service there at the exact time the Titanic sank. Which is either touching and apt, or weirdly macabre. One of those.

The period costumed people alarm me somewhat. Literal reenactment is probably unwise.

Instead of transferring some of the passengers to lifeboats and sinking the rest, the boat is to travel onto Halifax and then New York, tracing the rest of the journey for the survivors (New York) and the recovered bodies of the victims (Halifax).

Who said macabre?

I think on the night of the 14 April I shall watch the film in my own safely on land manner of tribute. Yes, that film. Not the good one, the shiny one.