Shipwrecks and Shaggy Dogs

Position: 44°37’18″N 63°34’52″W

I’m going to tell a joke. This may take a while. By way of context, let’s start with the fact that Halifax, Nova Scotia, has a long, rich, nautical history. Strategically placed at the far eastern end of Canada and conveniently close to the main shipping lanes between Britain and the United States, it has served for centuries as a safe harbor for cargo and passengers. A hundred years ago Halifax suffered a major disaster that nearly destroyed the city, but we will discuss that in another post.

We learned in the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, down on Halifax’s groovy boardwalk, that there are an estimated 10,000 to 25,000 shipwrecks scattered along Nova Scotia’s shores. In fact, the museum maintains a database of 5,000 wrecks, detailing the ships, the crews, and why they sank. Weather and poor navigation were, and still are, two of the leading causes, followed by torpedoing.

Nova Scotia is notorious for its dank, thick fog. Warm currents and air from the south are brought up by the Gulf Stream. These then meet the cold Labrador currents from the north and make for frequent pea-soupers. Combine that with a rugged and rocky shoreline, a lack of Global Positioning Systems (until relatively recently), and you have the circumstances for sinking a whole lot of ships. Surrounded by relatively clear water, it’s no surprise Nova Scotia is a popular destination for wreck divers and hardy treasure hunters.

But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to tell a joke. A joke I first read in an Oxford University Rag Mag. Rag Week, for the uninitiated, is a week of comic festivities, events, and side shows organized by students at English universities to raise money for charities.

Rag Mags are full of politically incorrect humor, mostly recycled jokes that your father might have told after he returned from serving in the army. In today’s vernacular, they are full of locker room humor. There are tales of rag mags that were truly funny, appallingly offensive, and pricelessly collectable. These rumors are what keep the paying public coming back every year hoping for some new material.

I haven’t read a rag mag in 30 years or more, so I can’t speak to the impact of political correctness on the whole scheme. They appear to still be in circulation. Vintage ones are available for purchase on eBay. Like television, or social media, if you’re squeamish about such things as politically incorrect humor you can simply opt out and not buy one, but don’t blame me if you’re stuck for an off colour after-dinner joke at a black-tie event in Whitehall.

Speaking of Samuel Cunard (we weren’t – ed.), he established and led one of the world’s great steamship companies. Born in Halifax, he was at the vanguard of steam technology as it transformed sailing ships into a faster, more reliable means of crossing the Atlantic. His original company was founded in 1840 as the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company. Quite a mouthful by modern standards, even an abbreviation staggers the tongue: BANARMSPacCo, perhaps. Several years after Samuel’s death in 1865, the company was renamed The Cunard Steamship Company, Limited, and soon after became known simply as the Cunard Line.

Thanks to government subsidies and mail contracts, the Cunard Line continued to grow, eventually eclipsing and absorbing the White Star line of Titanic fame. In the end, however glistering its history may have been, Cunard was scuttled into a sub-brand of Carnival Cruise Lines, which, after all, owns almost every cruise liner in the world – except for Disney’s.

This is an English joke and relies, in good part, on how you tell it. If you’re gifted with accents, then apply those skills as you read on. Many jokes from the mother country rely on the curious ways English speakers form their words. How one talks is the butt of jokes in the UK. This holds true, mind you, across all regions, nationalities and social classes. Thus, when you speak in England you will sound funny to others. They will tease you. They will sound funny to you. Follow the golden rule, and smile quizzically.

It’s the summer of 1966 and somewhere near London a shiny Rolls Royce pulls into a petrol station. The attendant, a recent émigré from Dublin, gets up from his chair, tips the peak of his cap and speaks briefly with the chauffeur. With his orders, he saunters around the back of the long vehicle, opens the lid of the petrol tank and inserts the fuel nozzle. As the gas begins to flow, a bell rings periodically indicating that the tank is filling up. It’s a warm day and the passenger, a nattily dressed gentleman in a dark blue double-breasted suit with white stripes and an old school tie, rolls down his window. The attendant leans over and engages him in conversation.

Attendant: Sure, sorr, this is a nice car! What kind of car is it?

Toff: This, my good man, is a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. You know, the Queen drives one just like it.

Attendant: Does she now? That’s fine, sorr, just fine. To be sure. If you don’t mind my asking, sorr, what do you do, that you can afford a nice car like this, then?

Toff: Well, I work for Cunard.

Attendant: Yes, and I work feckin’ hard too, but I can’t afford a car like this!