THE largest liner ever to be built, at a colossal cost of £550 billion, has docked in Southampton in readiness for her naming by HM The Queen.

Patriotic airs, Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia, wafted ashore from this wonderful vessel. She arrived, decked out magnificently, in the Cunard (should that be Canard?) livery, flying the Red Ensign and skippered by Commodore Ronald Warwick, whose father was the skipper of the Queen Elizabeth 2.

Is she not to be named Queen Mary 2?

Come about a bit! There is nothing British about this ship!

Wasn't she built in France, when our shipyards were crying out for work? Shouldn't she have sailed to Marseilles, flying the French Tricolour, greeted by a rousing rendition of The Marseillaise and named by M Mitterand?

Is there not a small spelling mistake? Should she not be called Queen Marie A (Antoinette)? Perhaps this is a French windup - atonement for Crecy, Agincourt and Waterloo!

Perhaps the French could be persuaded to build our two new aircraft carriers, to be named Queen Elizabeth and The Prince of Wales?

Perhaps the Champagne bottle will refuse to break on her bow, or it may even cause a slight dent and the onset of rust?

LEONARD SAINSBURY, Court Close, Little Dewchurch, Hereford.