An enormously entertaining headline, from the Plymouth (England) Herald on January 23rd:
Ghost ship full of cannibal rats could be about to crash into Devon coast
(Plymouth is in Devon.)
The story sounds too delicious to be true, and apparently it’s not. Still, the image of a ghost ship full of cannibal rats is haunting.
The story begins:
There are fears a ghost ship full of diseased cannibal rats could be about to crash into the coast of Devon or Cornwall.
The abandoned Lyubov Orlova has been missing since it cut adrift while being towed from Canada nearly a year ago.
The 40-year-old liner has been driven across the Atlantic by high winds and is thought close to the UK shore.
Based on emergency beacons activated last year aboard the ship, it is feared the 40-year-old Yugoslavian liner registered to Russia could crash into the shore of Devon, Cornwall, Ireland or Scotland.
(Note that the story is tailored for Devon — the journalism of local colo(u)r — though Cornwall, Ireland, and Scotland would also have an interest in the matter.)
The piece in the online Smithsonian Magazine (by Rose Eveleth on the 23rd) denies the diseased rats part of the story, under the headline
No, an Abandoned Ship Full of Diseased Rats Is Not Floating Towards Britain
Meanwhile, my friend Steven Levine posts playfully on Facebook:
I think I’m going to start an Indy band just so I can rename it on a regular basis. For this weekend’s gigs we’re The Cannibal Rats.
Shades of the Giant Rat of Sumatra (Sherlock Holmes, then later references, notable the Firesign Theatre, featuring Hemlock Stones).
January 25, 2014 at 7:29 am |
The first time I came across this story the headline was “Cannibal Rat-Infested Ghost Ship Lyubov Orlova ‘Heading for Britain'” ( http://uk.news.yahoo.com/cannibal-rat-infested-ghost-ship-lyubov-orlova-39-132016334.html#0QA5xgk ), which made me wonder for a second, this being before my first morning’s coffee, what exactly a cannibal ghost ship was. Does it eat other ships? Is it a cruise line run by and for cannibals?
January 26, 2014 at 4:30 am |
Well, there’s always ROUS.
January 26, 2014 at 5:18 am |
For the readers: the reference is to Rodents Of Unusual Size, in the 1987 movie The Princess Bride.
January 28, 2014 at 5:41 am
To be fair, I flubbed it by not soecifying the details. In the movie, it’s an initialism and appears in plural — R-O-U-Ses.
January 27, 2014 at 6:33 am |
The story has been collecting somewhat snarky comments on Facebook. My current favorite, from Michael Palmer:
January 27, 2014 at 6:38 am |
Michael Palmer also suggests that the ship could be refittted for a Cannibal Cruise Lines. (See Carnival Cruise Lines.)