Pergelator

Friday, May 8, 2026

RMS Queen Elizabeth

The ocean liner RMS Queen Elizabeth was launched in 1938. She entered service in March 1940 as a troopship in the WW2, and did not make her first commercial voyage as an ocean liner until October 1946. The ship was retired after her final crossing to New York, in December 1968. In 1972, while she was undergoing refurbishment in Hong Kong harbor, a fire broke out and the vessel capsized.

The Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong harbor after the fire

The wreck inspired the idea of using it as covert headquarters for MI6 in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun.

The Man With The Golden Gun (1974) - RMS Queen Elizabeth
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Thursday, May 7, 2026

Crooks: Season 2 - Netflix Series

Crooks: Season 2 | Official Trailer | Netflix
TrailerWorlds TV

Our two heroes, Charly and Joseph, are still after THE COIN:

Gold 5 Ruble of Catherine the Great

This time they bounce between Berlin, Austria and Bangkok, where Joseph has some very useless 'friends', to use the term loosely. There are also two rival gangs there who are engaged in mortal combat over a black idol. Back in Vienna, poor, damaged Rio is hopelessly in love with Tamara (of the bright red hair). Rio is trying to get his hands on THE COIN so he can pay off his gambling debts. Mr. A., some kind of Russian mobster, who might be the rightful owner of THE COIN, wants it back. Chaos, including fist fights, kick boxing, stabbings and at least a couple of massive gun fights. We are also treated to Charly picking numerous locks and cracking open at least one safe. It all ends happily enough, with Mr. A. even reconciling with his daughter, who has become the lead in the Bolshoi ballet company.

Season 1 post here.

Alaska Landslides

Aerial view of the August 2025 landslide and tsunami near South Sawyer Glacier in Alaska

Tam tells us that Second tallest megatsunami ever recorded happened in Alaska last year.

I posted something about a potential landslide in Alaska five years ago:

Nick informs me that Prince William Sound is under a kind of tsunami watch (pdf). They (the guys who watch these things) have latched onto Barry Arm as a potential disaster in the making. I am not quite sure what Barry Arm is, whether it is an arm of a glacier or a piece of land, but there is a glacier involved. The prediction is that sometime in the next 20 years, Barry Arm is going to collapse into Prince William Sound and that is going to trigger a tsunami 1600 feet high which will be like the biggest wave ever! It would cool to surf it, hey? 1600 feet. I can't even imagine. Of course it will dissipate very quickly, it's not like a major underwater fault shift. Still, it will probably be felt all over Prince William Sound, and since all the fishermen up there know about it, it is liable to influence the choice of fishing grounds.

Tam's link is talking about Tracy Arm. Is that in the same place as Barry Arm? No. They are 500 miles apart.