The name is Duck.

Desdemona Duck....

A vision so far removed from my last memory of the glittering, übercool MI6 building when a sexy, black speedboat hurtles from a concealed glass panel as a suave Pierce Brosnan rips apart the Thames in The World is Not Enough, that humiliation takes on a new nuance as we trundle along the slipway alongside MI6, like a pregnant pachyderm, and slosh into the Thames. Oh yeah! The duck is quacking!

While I would rant about how this is yet another tourist defrauding exercise (and it is...), there is something rather cool being aboard one of the amphibians that actually landed on the beach at Normandy on D-Day. Granted, the experience wouldn't have been quite the same (although methinks WWII would have been won in a heartbeat, what with the enemy laid hapless, peeing their pants at the site of ducks waddling up the beach), but you do feel a wholly inappropriate thrill of knowledge as you crawl back up the slipway from the Thames.

I wonder if it is just mere fortuitous coincidence that has the slipway next to the MI6 building, or is there an unseen hand at play...????

P.S. - all the ducks are named after Shakespeare's ladies... but sadly, Ophelia just sank without a trace..... Bwaaahahaha!!!