The Princess's Backside

Beautiful, hot sultry day, threatening, but not delivering, thunder (though there were a few grumbles as I was writing this, and hiss of heavy rain, gone now).

I made another visit to the docklands this afternoon, to pick up another pass, this time for three months. I must try to get there more often. I have barely touched the place, just moseyed around the edges.

Which is all I had time for on this occasion. A huge cruise ship, The Grand Princess, was paying a visit. The thing was so massive that it was hard to get an interesting angle; the whole dock was in its shadow. I have mixed feelings about cruise ships, those ostentatiously removed theme-park-shopping-malls, hermetically sealed from the rest of the universe (apparently that penthouse bridge at the top is a ballroom!). I don't know how long I could stick it on one of those things, even if I was prepared to act the part of an old codger. But I am curious. At the very least, it would make a fascinating photographic project.

The way these things are built now is a far remove from the quaint, stately funnels of The Titanic, those hammer-and-tongs remnants of the Industrial Age, or even the more recent 'liners' that used to ply between Cork and New York. Nowadays, the whole streamlined bubble-shape bespeaks Technology; more like a starship than a boat, The Enterprise or something from Star Wars; and no doubt there is a whole interior night sky of shiny surfaces, distractions from the coming dark, the Big Sleep pressing at the portholes and the walls of the cabin: mirror balls, spotlight, mood lights, whatever you fancy. Princess Leia and her pouffe would have been right at home.

PS
Actually the ship's shape (and the angle) reminds me of that scene in Alien (one of my all time favourite films) when they are approaching the crashed space-craft looming at them out of the fog.