Toot afloat
A SPLENDID spectacle awaits the City on Monday, when the Lord Mayor, Alderman Spratt, takes to the water.- The state barge he sits in will be rowed by ten oarsmen and followed by ,seven floats, of heaven, hell, a dragon, a whale, chariots of truth and time. For this Lord Mayor's Show on Thames will be copied from the 17th century, when the shows were waterborne. More conventional craft will follow, like the Silver Barracuda, presumably symbo- lising a merchant bank. The show is to bring publicity and money to a television company's fund-raising event. I do wish that the City could spare a moment from blowing others' trumpets and realise that its own needs a toot. Never mind — perhaps we shall see the Lord Mayor emulate the doges of Venice and wed the City to the Thames with a golden ring. About time, too. When the mighty Alder- man Salvidge wedded Liverpool to the Mersey, it was suggested that Manchester should make an honest woman of the Ship Canal.
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