A dumbstruck Duke

Sep 25 2007 by Mr Brocklebank, Liverpool Daily Post

HAD HRH the Duke of Kent taken a vow of silence when he formally and mutely opened the new Princes Landing Stage and City of Liverpool Cruise Liner Terminal?

Does the Royal Family now see itself as a business which charges by the word, and Liverpool Culture Company in turn tried to save a few shekels on its £20m short-fall by keeping him gagged?

*

PRACTICALLY every Liverpool city councillor was a guest on board QE2 during her 40th anniversary visit to christen the new terminal.

One notable exception was Cllr Marilyn Fielding, who stayed ashore. Was this because she has no passport, driving licence or bus pass? It appears, if you have no photo ID, then you do not exist in officialdom’s eyes.

*

FREE-LOADING councillors apart, why was the city’s welcome for QE2 so invisible?

Would it not have been nice to have had some quality food vendors and stalls along Princes Parade (like those at Hope Street Feast) during the liner’s visit for the thousands viewing Britain’s most famous ship? Why was there no welcoming band, such as the King’s Regiment?

In St Petersburg, such musical ship welcomes are de rigueur – usually playing Beatles medleys (why did not we think of that?). And was this not a case for a sprinkling of Portaloos to help relieve inner stress? The trouble, Jeeves, is that we have no sense of style.

*

AFTER all the nail-biting anxiety about finishing the terminal in time and Cunard Line’s willingness to commit QE2 to make that vital opening visit, cruise terminal manager Angie Redhead was not kept waiting long for the answer.

Within no time of the terminal’s first occupant Seven Seas Voyager casting off, she received a call from Cunard’s Miami head office, trilling: "Hi, Angie, we hear you’ve had a fabulous time with the Voyager."

Just like in the Civil War, it appears that American spies still infest Liverpool.

*

WELL into 2008 and Culture year, the city’s jewels in the crown remain the Pier Head’s Three Graces. So what a brilliant idea to have one of them, the Port of Liverpool Building, covered up for major renovation.

*

Surely owners Downing could have done this work earlier or postponed it for a year until the events which will allegedly attract millions have been and gone?

*

LIVERPOOL’S former great passion for ship-gawping was revived at a stroke with QE2’s visit, completed by fireworks on a fine and warm evening following torrential rain. As the late Prof Quentin Hughes claimed, observing similarly blessed weather in mid-December at the renaming of Cunard’s Caronia: "God must be a Scouser."