Britain | Lining up

What unites a Spice Girl, an opera star and champagne?

A cruise-ship launch in Liverpool

New Cunard cruise liner Queen Anne in Liverpool for the naming ceremony.
Photograph: Alamy
|Liverpool

Ship christenings are not short of pomp and circumstance. The naming ceremony for Queen Anne, a new ship owned by Cunard, a British cruise line, was no exception. Earlier this month officials in civic regalia joined crowds in Liverpool, Cunard’s one-time home. Mel C, a member of the Spice Girls, a British pop band, flashed peace signs; Andrea Bocelli, an Italian opera singer, performed alongside an orchestra. There were confetti cannon, prolonged blasts of the horn and the smashing of a 12-litre Laurent-Perrier champagne bottle against the ship.

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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Lining up”

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