Iceberg.  What comes to mind when you hear that word? I would bet for most people it is the RMS Titanic. There are a few things in life that I sort of obsess over and the story of the Titanic is one of them. I first heard the story as a young child when someone taught me the song:

Oh they sailed the ship Titanic
Across the ocean blue
And they thought they’d built a ship
That the water couldn’t go through
But the good lord raised his hand
And said “That ship’ll never land”
It was sad when the great ship went down.
Well it was sad, it was so sad
It was sad when the great ship went down
To the bottom of the…………..
Husbands and wives little children lost their lives
It was sad when the great ship went down.

Rather bizarre someone made a catchy tune out of a disaster that killed more than 1500 people. But there were many bizarre things about the story. I seriously thought I’d heard them all until recently. It seems one never knows it all when it comes to the Titanic.

When the first recovery ship arrived at the site they found they had not brought enough embalming materials and coffins. The crew aboard decided to save the bodies of first class passengers first. They identified passengers who had been travelling first class by the quality of the clothing they were wearing. The rest of the bodies were buried at sea. Even in death inequality prevailed. This story didn’t surprise me but still, kind of sad that even as corpses some passengers mattered so much more than others.

Since I am also a fan of idioms it was to my sheer delight that I also learned a new idiom recently that originated from the sinking. There is an expression that says “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic”. Of course, this means to do something insignificant or something that will soon be made a futile waste of time. I have never heard the expression used before. But now that I have struggled my way through this post because I was stupid enough to sign up for a daily blogging challenge feel free to use it yourself.

“Pssssst, that underdog woman sure rearranged the deck chairs on the ‘i’ post, don’t you think?”

That. Was. Painful. Good-night.