A long-haired giant lumbering across Merseyside at a great expense sounds like another laboured joke about Liverpool striker Andy Carroll, but the reality borders on equal levels of tedium.
The city footed £300,000 of a £1.5million bill required to bring the 'Little Girl Giant', her canine companion and her uncle to its streets this weekend to celebrate the centenary of the Titanic's sinking.
And the move drew understandable cynicism from some quarters for its apparent wastefulness.
Retelling the story of May McMurray, whose father died aboard the Titanic, and her struggle to discover news about events on the doomed liner for a 21st century audience may have had a heart-rendering effect on some but what exactly were, or will be the financial benefits to all this?
Liverpool City Council anticipated a turnout of up to a quarter of a million people for the three-day event, dubbed the 'Sea Odyssey: Giant Spectacular' and once again the tired, blindsiding excuses were trotted out.
It is, of course, nothing new as myself and other questioning natives had 'tourism' ringing in our ears almost four years ago while 'La Princesse' was climbing the walls, again to excessive costs.
Aside from dealing local arachnophobes an unnecessary bout of stress and anxiety, it did little more than swell the coffers of the La Machine production company, to the tune of almost £1.9million - something Phil Redmond claimed was 'actually cheaper' than hiring Sir Paul McCartney.
In hindsight, Macca rocking up for his umpteenth homecoming gig would have been a far better investment because there is unlikely to be any correlation between this event and the city's tourism, unlike that drawn in by its football clubs, commercialism and, most prominently, The Beatles.
However Liverpudlians who are of the innate blind faith persuasion will argue to the contrary.
Apparently it was financially naive to consider it anything other than another nouveau riche flight of fancy. But it appears the only city benefiting from the 'Sea Odyssey' and 'La Machine' is Nantes, with its two production companies generating a combined bill of up to £4.4million for the events.
It would have been better spent on something that is proven to have continually generated tourism in the Mathew Street Festival, which will thankfully return for its traditional Bank Holiday weekend slot in August despite government spending cuts leaving the future of the musical spectacle in doubt.
Wooden puppets on cranes are unlikely to contribute much to the city's continually evolving landscape, which has truly become a source of pride for its inhabitants, by comparison.
But commemorations of the Titanic nationwide, just not on Merseyside, have taken on an increasingly perverse nature of late, with the fascination descending into borderline morbidness.
Given that the liner never visited the city's port, the mere fact that the vessel was registered in Liverpool is hardly cause for celebration, not to mention its untimely meeting with an iceberg.
Inevitably readers of this piece will claim that I "don't get it" as a sports journalist or that this is just another Scouser just looking for any excuse to have a moan but neither could be further from the truth.
And at the risk of being accused of attempting to influence political allegiances, is it just mere coincidence that the erstwhle Liverpool City Council scheduled this extravagance barely a fortnight before they will be counting on residents' votes in the local and mayoral elections?
Having witnessed the 'Little Girl Giant', her dog and her uncle first-hand during the course of this weekend, it has to be said that it did captivate the city's more family-orientated types.
Yet the long-term benefits for the city continue to be outweighed by the sheer frivolity of it all.
It certainly was a 'Giant Spectacular' of sorts and the sight of the 'Little Girl Giant' seemingly urinating in the street, some would say, epitomised the whole facade perfectly.
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