If there's one thing you can say about this country, it is this. It is precise; precision is its lifeblood.
How else to explain the naming ceremony for Queen Mary 2 this afternoon in Southampton.
As is the ship, it's quite difficult to describe. Except to say it was perfect - in timing and execution and certainly scale. And like the ship, huge.
After a hellacious morning that had to have had royal watchers and big ship tenders rolling their eyes heavenward, the rain stopped, the wind shrank to a stiff breeze and the skies cleared, and in we went, about 1,500 of us, dressed to the nines, to see the Queen and the ceremony that would officially bring Queen Mary 2 into the ranks of ocean liners.
We were shown off the ship, across the dock and into a pier-side tent - theater is more like it. An enormous, heavy plastic-lined structure on the outside, billowy curtain-lined on the inside that housed tiered seating for all of us, a stage big enough to hold hundreds (which it eventually did) and a curtain that stretched as a backdrop behind it all, blocking our view of the water and the Queen Mary 2. In fact, it covered the back of the stage completely. It easily was more than 100 feet wide and 50 to 60 feet tall. Billowing, like everything else, thanks to winds outside that still caused the structure to creak and its outer lining to snap. And lots in the audience to crane their heads upward.
Regardless, the show was to begin promptly at 3:30 p.m. and it did. And it went like clockwork. Precisely.
The Band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines, Portsmouth, came first, playing for precisely 45 minutes. Then the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra entered and took its seats on one side of the stage while the Royal Choral Society entered to fill the other. Music rose and ended then - precisely as the very last woman in the choral reached her chair. Precisely.
And then in came Her Majesty and her lifetime consort His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh and took their seats in the front row and on we went.
A few minutes later, just as British singer Heather Small finished an anthem called Proud, the curtain fell and right there, filling the entire stage as a backdrop was the prow of the Queen Mary 2.
(I did find this one thing a bit odd. No one used the ship's name, until after the Queen made it official. I mean, there it is, big as life, with the name in letters no doubt as tall as I am. But nix on the name until it's official. I had thought about standing up and shouting, "Hey, turn around! It's not 'This Ship.' The ship has a name and it's right behind you!" But that may have been unseemly.
You really had to be there.
Again, minutes later, Her Majesty was invited to the stage.
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| STEVE REIGATE / AP |
| Britain's Queen Elizabeth II officially christened the Queen Mary 2 today in Southampton, England. |
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She spoke one sentence naming the ship, invoked the deity's guarantee that she and her passengers be saved from peril on the sea, hit a button on the podium and way up behind her a bottle of champagne was loosed, bashed the ship, everybody cheered and the vessel had a name.
And that's all she said. And all she wrote. Her Majesty headed back to her chair (yes, darlings, she was fetching in pink coat and pink and purple hat; no purse, for all of you who sent e-mail and asked about its contents), sat through a finale of rousing music, fireworks and light show and then got up and left. And so did we.
It was quite a day.
And I sit here now in my cabin - which is nice, but I'm not sure how two people would survive a week in this thing. I've yet to figure out where to store luggage - the contents, yeah, the bags - um, no room. The phone doesn't work, the television control has no batteries and I'm not sure they were expecting anyone to use more than a small bathroom towel - which is about all there is.
But now it's time for the parties. So, I'm changing - and looking for a way to send this to the States. Seems there's no Internet access either, at least none I can find at the moment.
Hope this gets to you!
Ta ta for now.
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