Today’s Royal Jubilee Pageant on the Thames was a useful trial run for the 2013 Chelsea Fringe Flower Festival Pageant, proposed for 2013. The lessons to learn are
- Best not to have the whole event on one very wet day
- The boats definitely need more flowers than today’s event – Union Jacks are no substitute
- Music is a great addition
- Dressing up a commercial barge for the royal party is kinda undignified
So here are my suggestions for the 2013 Chelsea Fringe event
- The royal party should travel from Westminster to open the Chelsea Flower Show in the new royal barge Gloriana (seen leading the procession on the left photo, above (and also in the photo below)
- Flower barge events should take place each day.
- One or more blooming boats should travel with flood tide each day from the Pool of London to Chelsea. This would be as popular with tourists as the changing of the guard in the Mall and Buckingham Palace.
Image courtesy DC07703
Is the pageant taking place at low tide?
They raised the flood barrier at Woolwich to keep the water level high. This is something which some people think should be done all the time, to make the river more like an amenity lake.
A tidal river is generally able to maintain better ecological health than a managed amenity lake. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estuarine_water_circulation ]
Good point. I wonder if letting all the water drain out at night would solve the problem
The age of the river effects the rivers geographic characteristics. The Thames is a partially stratified estuary which is typical of wide, shallow rivers. Apparently the critical factor in rivers of this type for ecological health is the creation of residual flows.
[ http://www.stanford.edu/dept/cee/faculty/monismith/StaceyEtal2001JGR.pdf ]