CANADIAN CONTENT ALERT!
STAND BY FOR CAN-CON!
Last week I used the phrase "ghost ship of cannibal rats" in a thread, and later realized that probably nobody knew what the
**** I was talking about.
It's a song by Canadian punk-rock band Billy Talent. Billy Talent isn't a guy, it's a band. They're named after one of the characters in the movie "Hard Core Logo". I'm not a Billy Talent fan, but the song stuck with me because of the story behind it. The song was inspired by the story of this abandoned Russian cruise ship, which was supposed to be towed from Newfoundland to South America to be cut into scrap metal. But it was lost at sea, and was eventually sighted drifting towards Britain.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Lyubov_OrlovaApparently there was concern that the ship was infested with rats, who would be set loose if the ship wrecked on the British Isles. Further, it was believed that the rats would breed prolifically, eat anything and everything on the ship, and when nothing else was left, would start eating each other. Yikes!
Billy Talent saw the situation as a metaphor for our race-to-the-bottom, cut-throat, stab each other in the back, dog-eat-dog world.
"Don't be afraid of the view from economy class--
It's just the captain and crew jumping off of the mast!
All aboard on the ghost ship of cannibal rats!
All aboard on the ghost ship of cannibal rats!"
-k