Londoners boarding for a Saturday night Thames cruise
Launches, skiffs and ferries carry the night adventurers
Under the Union Jack but not the White Ensign
What looks like a busy harbour of noisy party goers
Pales in comparison to Shanghai and Guangzhou weekends
Giant floating plasma screens and flotillas of bright neon junks
Empires live and die as the pages of history slowly turn
The Industrial Age is over and neo-colonial order is finally on the same route
Building back is a self-fulfilling prophecy
Chadburns of the steamship age showed ahead, idle or astern
At the captain’s choice…
Photo Hugh Ardoin The Night Shift Gallery