Comics, postcards and ghost ships

[shewhomust]

We were severally not at home on Tuesday. durham_rambler was at the Lit & Phil for the opening of Gail-Nina's postcard exhibition (back by popular request) and I was at the Graphic Novels Reading Group - I'm going to miss the next two sessions, so I was keen to be at this one. Afterwards I trotted down to the Lit & Phil, with just time for a glass of wine, a quick look at maybe two frames of postcards, and some conversation - and the conversation carried on into dinner at Pizza Express, which was very agreeable, both for the company and for a degree of reconciliation with Pizza Express. For a long time it was our pizzeria of choice, but after a couple of unsatisfactory meals, I had rather gone off it. Tuesday was fine; I'll give it another chance.

So it wasn't until last night that I was able to watch Hunt for the Arctic Ghost Ship (repeated on 4seven, a channel I'd never met before).

I have a continuing interest in the Franklin expedition, and knew that one of Franklin's ships had been found last year. I guessed that a programme called 'Hunt for the Arctic Ghost Ship' was going to play up the sensational, play down the tedious detail (and I, of course, am all about the tedious detail). So I wasn't expecting too much, and I'm not going to grouch about them not even mentioning Rae, I understand how that happened (though we had time for Dickens telling him off). But I'd have liked a little more hard information (there are things in this newspaper report which weren't in the hour-long programme).

In its favour, the programme was very easy on the eye, with lots of footage of chunks of ice floating through a sunlit sea, and of distant sailing ships in the ice (how did they do that? are they models, or cgi, or what? I think we should be told). And footage of divers swimming round the wreck, looking into what must, apparently, have been Franklin's cabin, bringing up the ship's bell - this was worth the price of admission.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

(and I, of course, am all about the tedious detail)

::adoration::

Though '“I am delighted to confirm . . . it is in fact the HMS Erebus,” Harper said during question period.' rings a bit creepy. He's delighted? I find the entire subject horrific. Fascinatingly horrific.


lots of footage of chunks of ice floating through a sunlit sea, and of distant sailing ships in the ice (how did they do that? are they models, or cgi, or what? I think we should be told).

::mmph::

Now I'm wishing that we had access to 4seven.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

The ships were ex-warships, hence the creepy names -

I don't know who made the programme: the narration was a British actor, but the expedition was Canadian, and so was the footage, so you could probably find something similar if you looked.

[sovay]

And footage of divers swimming round the wreck, looking into what must, apparently, have been Franklin's cabin, bringing up the ship's bell - this was worth the price of admission.

That must have been a wonderful thing to be part of.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It was a pleasure to watch the crew, who were all thrilled to be part of it. Nor had I realised quite how big a deal this is in Canada...

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

The Inu were right.

Rae was right!

End of, really.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Well, that, certainly.

But that in itself raises some questions, because the ship was not found where it was believed to be abandoned. The programme tried to make an upbeat, if ironic, ending out of this: that it must have been steered to within this maze of islands by surviving crew, who had thus inadvertently navigated the North-West passage... Which is a peculiar interpretation. But had the time since the discovery revealed anything about how it got there? They weren't saying.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Believed to be- not was.

It was pretty much where the Inu has told Rae it was.

Why TV types have to make a mystery out of the obvious is beyond me.