Happy 175th, Cunard

I confess to a soft spot for Cunard. When the company's US office was at 555 Fifth Avenue in New York City, I wrote reams of Cunard catalogs, promotional copy, and newsletters. I sailed on QE2 and the beautiful Sagafjord, ships now retired. The key fact about cruise marketing is that it, like the ships themselves, literally can't afford to stand still. 

So it's great to see that Cunard is celebrating its 175th year with appropriate pomp and circumstance:

• An image-driven video that makes good use of artifacts and even quotes Mark Twain for us Yankees
• A year full of events that reflect the glorious history: Lusitania remembered, the 3 Queens Meeting in Liverpool, and a sailing that evokes the original Transatlantic Crossing 
• A felicious tagline: Cunard 175 Years / Forever Cunard

The website promises a Timeline, but it seems identical to the video. (Business anniversary tip: Call it a Timeline only if it is a true chronological presentation.) And how about a book? None is shown on the Cunard website, but a web search reveals one history that has been published in the UK (2014) and one to come in the US (mid-2015). I hope one or both are being made available to customers aboard the ships, and I hope they pay homage to the beautiful 150th anniversary book written by the prose-perfect John Maxtone Graham.