Buoys will be buoys

Sometimes, people give you gifts and you say "Thanks, but you shouldn't have!". I imagine that's what Belfast City Council said when the Commissioner of Irish Lights (the person in charge of lighthouses) gave them these three buoys.

Ugly really doesn't come close to describing their hideousness. They're located in a small park (cunningly called Buoy Park), near my work, and ironically right outside the University of Ulster College of Art and Design - possibly as an example of things not to copy.

Of course, maritime buoys are designed for utility, not aesthetics, which is possibly why you don't see too many of them sitting high and dry in public parks. To make matters worse, there appears to have been some debate in the past about what colour they should be painted. At one point, they were painted blue - which you wouldn't imagine is a great colour for a buoy. Kind of camouflage, when you think about it. 

In former times, there were fountains under the buoys which sprayed up at them, harking back to their watery past. That's not a bad idea, but the fountains haven't been working for years.

In the background, there's St Anne's Cathedral again and its spiky protuberance. It's really not the most attractive area of Belfast...