By Our Sinking Ship Correspondent, Lucy Tania

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN SOUTHAMPTON AND NEW YORK CITY, ATLANTIC OCEAN – The captain of the notorious transatlantic steam-liner, the Titanic, declared in a press conference last night that he and his crew “did all [they] could” to save the vessel and its more than 2000 passengers.

“We did everything in our power to prevent those 1500 souls from perishing in a watery grave,” intoned a sombre and sodden Captain John Borisson, dripping water all over the media room carpet.

“We followed our own initiative, ignoring the advice of our advisors, and sailed directly into the iceberg. No one could have predicted what was to follow.” 

However, questions have been raised about the Titanic crew’s preparedness for the incident, given that the boat’s impending doom could be seen from the China Sea. Other reports suggest the crew privately opined that the Great Brittanic was ‘unsinkable’ shortly before setting off, and that the Cheltenham-based band onboard continued to play even as the ship was going down, in clear signs of an air of complacency around the cabin.

The skipper defended his team’s decision-making, arguing, “Now is not the time for recriminations or pointing the finger of blame. That will come once all the bodies have been buried – on land, rather than at the bottom of the sea. I refuse to go down with this ship.”

“When the navigators saw the warning signs of a terrifying block of ice looming before us, I made an executive decision – and this was a scientific judgement – to put my fingers in my ears and stay on the same course as before,” he continued, wringing out his sopping wet cravat in a sympathetic manner.

“I too wanted Rose and Jack to end up together and was devastated when he slipped below the waves, but his death was sadly inevitable, as I’d already seen the film.”

Said Boris Johnson, “Mayday! Mayday! Glug glug glug.”