Boaty McBoatFace Mk 2?

Have P&O Cruises completely lost their minds?

It’s been announced this week on social media that P&O are actually putting the naming of their new ship, due for release some time in 2020 my sources tell me, to a public vote!

Now we all remember not so long ago that RRS Sir David Attenborough, a polar exploration ship, commissioned for scientific research, was also put to a public vote for the name prior to the finally sensible name was painted on the side.

The humorous  British public actually voted for the ship to be named Boaty McBoatface after some bright spark splashed the comical name across various streams of social media.

Now of course this was never going to be the name of the ship, it would be an embarrassment to the country quite frankly, and the eventual name was far more fitting and suitable as we all know.

However a large number of people did not appreciate this quashing of their vote, branding it wrong and totally undemocratic.

I say to those people, grow up.

Granted it was funny but really? No, it wasn’t going to happen. Ever.

But when I read this about P&O and them being confident of Joe Public coming up with a name for their ship, my instant thought was ‘Oh dear, here we go again’

I mean what’s wrong with naming the ship themselves, are they that this will encourage people to book if they collectively vote the same name?

It just seems a bit daft to me, all one massive publicity stunt, which of course is the general idea, but I don’t like it.

What should be done is they draw a list of say 10 or 20 names of their own, and then put that to a vote. That’s how democracy works, you vote for your preferred party, you don’t make up a party of your own spur of the moment and vote for that, we’d all be bloody Jedi’s if that were the case!

I think P&O could be opening themselves up to a whole hoard of nutcase responses and silly suggestions. Why not ask your current customers to name it? They would at least have some respect for the brand and come up with some sensible ideas.

So far the fleet contains Adonia, Oriana, Aurora, Azura, Ventura, Oceana & Britannia, the only real pattern to this is that they all end in the letter ‘A’.

Does anyone have any good suggestions to follow this theme? I am struggling I must admit. These days you have to think of a name that is ‘polictically correct’ and ‘doesn’t offend people’, so it’s not a easy decision really.

I have come up with suggestion Concorda

It’s a slight spin on the word Concordia, which in the industry reminds us of the lives that were sadly lost aboard Costa Concordia, so a little tribute there.
It also tips the hat to the scrapped ‘Concorde’ aircraft program which was famous in this country for many years.
But it also is part of the root latin meaning ‘Unity’. Something that globally we can all hope and strive for. I think in recent times this would be a symbol to remind people that other than our beliefs, we all sleep, eat and s**t, and it would be wise if we would all unite and just be friends.

it also ends in the letter ‘A’ wuhoo!

So there you are P&O that’s my suggestion.

Thanks for reading today and as always, until next time…………