Age: In one form or another, more than 1,000 years old.
Appearance: Shrinking fast.
Shrinking? Indeed. Like a beloved, nuclear-armed woolly jumper in the 60C wash of the global financial crisis. Under the government's latest Strategic Defence and Security Review, the fleet could soon reach its smallest size since the reign of Henry VIII.
So we'll have to squeeze our sailors into tiny little ships? No, that would be very silly. And impossible.
You mean we're going to have a navy staffed by children? Again no, for similar reasons. There just won't be as many ships.
Ah. But the ones there are will all be normal-sized? Bigger, actually. In exchange for scrapping half the fleet, navy chiefs hope to secure funding for two new aircraft carriers, at a cost of £5.2bn. In exchange, we're due to lose around 19 ships from our 42-strong fleet, including minesweepers, frigates, submarines and destroyers. The resulting fleet of 23 ships will be significantly smaller than the Tudor navy.
The modern one would probably still win in a fight though. Perhaps not.
Because it'll be manned by children, you mean? No, because the new fleet looks set to have some serious weaknesses. Although there will be two new aircraft carriers, the aircraft themselves are still the subject of intense debate. The navy may yet be forced to scrap its Harrier jump jets as well.
So we could just end up with two giant, seaborne roads? More or less.
Meaning not only will we have fewer ships but the ships we do have could be useless? Well, not totally useless. Sometimes you need a big, seafaring motorway.
I suddenly feel a lot less safe. Relax. To quote an old navy saying: "It's better to shrink than to sink."
That's not very reassuring. No, no, it's not.
Do say: "If it's good enough for Henry VIII, it's good enough for modern naval warfare."
Don't say: "Sounds to me like the navy's already run by children."
