Titanic Memorial Cruise

I see that a cruise ship carrying descendants of some of the people who died on the Titanic set sail from Southampton docks in southern England yesterday. The ship is retracing the doomed liner’s route on its maiden voyage 100 years ago. The Titanic Memorial Cruise is carrying 1,309 passengers which is the same number as were on the Titanic all those years ago.

Our voyage of a lifetime will sail from Southampton on 8th April 2012 the twelve night cruise on board the MS Balmoral and will follow the RMS Titanic’s original itinerary, passing by Cherbourg on the French coast before calling into the Irish port of Cobh.

Along the way they’ll visit the place where the supposedly unsinkable ship collided with an iceberg. Passengers and crew will pay their respects at a special memorial service to take place at the exact time the Titanic sank 100 years ago.

It’d be rather amazing to be on such a voyage but I imagine it’d feel a little bit eerie. I reckon everyone on board would take a little bit more notice than usual when the crew went through the safety and emergency demonstrations.

So do you think you would have joined the memorial cruise if you’d had the opportunity?



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101 Dalmatians beats Avatar at box office

While the movie world is trumpetting Avatar as the highest grossing movie of all time, many are missing the fact that it was actually beaten at the box office by a 1961 animated Disney classic about dalmations.

It also still lags behind movies like Star Wars, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Sting, The Sound of Music and Doctor Zhivago.

Of course it all depends on what you’re using to determine the biggest movies of all time. Avatar certainly is the highest grossing movie of all time. That means it’s taken the most money of any movie ever produced but it’s only at number 26 (so far) as far as tickets sold. I have no doubt that it will continue to climb but it may never even reach the top ten.

The Hollywood Reporter has pulished an article titled Why ‘Avatar’ is actually the 26th biggest movie. It lists the biggest movies by ticket sales rather than income.

There are so many factors that will have an effect on the statistics such as price of tickets over the years, the introduction of things like television, video, DVD, Blu-ray, internet and a range of other entertainment alternatives. I suppose it’s easier to simply quote the dollar amounts that a movie is making.

So which movie has put the most backsides on seats at the cinema? It’s still the 1939 classic Gone With the Wind, selling 202,044,600 tickets.

Just for the record, here are the top 20 movies in order of tickets sold.

1 “Gone With the Wind” (1939) 202,044,600
2 “Star Wars” (1977) 178,119,600
3 “The Sound of Music” (1965) 142,415,400
4 “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) 141,854,300
5 “The Ten Commandments” (1956) 131,000,000
6 “Titanic” (1997) 128,345,900
7 “Jaws” (1975) 128,078,800
8 “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) 124,135,500
9 “The Exorcist” (1973) 110,568,700
10 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) 109,000,000
11 “101 Dalmatians” (1961) 99,917,300
12 “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980) 98,180,600
13 “Ben-Hur” (1959) 98,000,000
14 “Return of the Jedi” (1983) 94,059,400
15 “The Sting” (1973) 89,142,900
16 “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981) 88,141,900
17 “Jurassic Park” (1993) 86,205,800
18 “The Graduate” (1967) 85,571,400
19 “Star Wars: Episode I” (1999) 84,825,800
20 “Fantasia” (1941) 83,043,500



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