Incontinental

You’re forgiven if you don’t want to hear anything about the Titanic for another century, but heed this: The death of the great ship is intimately connected to the matter of the giant incontinent French toddler robot.

Oh, what isn’t, these days? you ask. Well. The robot — an immense cable-steered puppet, operated by a French company that specializes in such things — was part of the Liverpool Titanic commemoration. It symbolized a girl who’d written a letter to her father. He drowned, thanks to some kinetic iceberg activity. As the enormous robot was dragged around town during festivities, it paused and squatted, and a great gout fountained from its haunches. As a Liverpool newspaper put it: “Many people were really surprised when the Little Girl Giant urinated but a lot of them were delighted and they shouted as if it was a Beatles show.”