The lift schedule for Tower Bridge notes that a “vessel” is due to pass through today at around 5:15pm, but doesn’t indicate what sort of ship it will be.

That normally hints that it is a military vessel, but the lack of tugs suggests not.

Fortunately, the rather excellent Marine Traffic website keeps an eye on all the ship movements in the London area, and I can see that a tall sailing ship is heading up river and its destination is Tower Bridge.

Mystery solved – and a very good looking solution it is too!

The Stavros S Niarchos is a British brig-rigged tall ship owned and operated by the Tall Ships Youth Trust. It would seem that the sailing ship will be tied up in the Pool until Saturday morning, when she leaves at 7:15am.

You can watch the ship pass through Tower Bridge via their webcam if you can’t get down there in person.

As open-air funerals have now been – sort of – legalised, I propose the following for my own funeral.

Yes, I know it is a really bad bit of photoshopping!

Not only a fantastic way to leave the city, physically as well as spiritually, it could be quite a tourist attraction. Will Mayor Johnson move to support the plan?

Hindu wins Northumberland funeral pyre battle

For the avoidance of doubt, I think the people should be free to select their own method of funeral, so long as it doesn’t cause too much annoyance to other people.

Anyway, I am off to Vikings R Us and looking for the fiery funerals booking form on the Port of London Authority website.

Update

A extra thought: There does seem to be a slight irony in that a law which means a seemingly outdoor area, but bounded by the most flimsy of structures is considered to be “indoors” for the purpose of the anti-smoking laws – has now been used to enable cremations, which will result in quite a considerable amount of smoke being emitted.

In the 1970′s-80s large swathes of the docklands area was left as wasteland following the development of container cargo trade – and as such there are quite a lot of photos of the area showing the wastelands left over from the demolition of buildings and warehouses.

In a way, I quite like the desolation and slightly mourn its passing.

Therefore, I was quite delighted to see a building demolished right next to Tower Bridge, and while surrounded by solid fencing, there is a tiny gap you can just about fit a camera through to get some photos.

It’s quite rare to get photo opportunities like this now – especially with the rise of health & safety making it difficult to (ahem) enter the building sites.

Google Maps location if you want to poke your camera through the gaps.

I am a bit of a fan of how people in the past thought the future would look like, and my memory was recently prompted to recall a short black&white film I saw for the first time last year – at an outdoor movie showing in Trafalgar Square.

The film is about a down on his luck gambler who meets up with a character who claims to have a box that predicts the future. We are shown various visions of the future – as imagined by someone in the 1920s.

While Trafalgar Square is now flooded by the river, The Strand next to it is still as busy as before – although strangely, we seem to still be using horses in this futurist vision. Maybe climate change makes the petrol engine illegal?

Most visionary though as the images of the future of transport with the Houses of Parliament turned into a passenger terminal for airships, and Tower bridge having trains running along the upper walkway.

Topical for this week though, was the fact that the Thames had been drained and turned into railway tracks – so that’s why the Thames was removed from the tube map!

You can watch the short film over on YouTube (where else?).

An FYI – on Friday 26th June 2009, there is due to be a flypast over Tower Bridge sometime between 12-1pm as part of the London Armed Forces Day.

I haven’t been able to confirm who is doing the flypast, and the usual suspects are either elsewhere, or their diaries are empty. Nonetheless, might be worth wandering over to watch.

There will be events all afternoon next to Tower Bridge as well – along with a Veterans parade over Tower Bridge at 12:15. There will also be a canon salute from the Tower of London during the parade.

Details here.