Even lost in contemplation there, however, you will be aware of the show beginning in the central arena every couple of hours. Peter Gabriel's music starts like an approaching squadron of Heinkel bombers and at times becomes thunderous. The acoustic boom of the Dome means that - perhaps thankfully - it is impossible to make out the lyrics. As for the action, devised by rock-show architect Mark Fisher and choreographed by Micha Bergese, it's - well, it's OK. I was disappointed, not least because I know how good Fisher is when he stages extravaganzas for Pink Floyd, U2, the Rolling Stones and so on. Also, Fisher had categorically assured me in 1998 that the show would not be like a 1970s concept album. But this is precisely how it has turned out.
It is a limp eco-tale of earth people and sky people, about industrialisation and what have you, and about a star-crossed couple who finally get it together in the air. The tiny figures soaring high over our heads are strangely unimpressive - simply because they are too far away for us to be able to make out their faces. The very height they work at - which is unprecedented, and should totally wow us - counts against the effect. There are some good coups de theatre here, but in daylight the show does not hold the space, or the attention - though it looks better after dark.
More immediate fun is the specially-commissioned time-travelling Blackadder film in the giant Skyscape cinema just outside the Dome - included in your ticket price. This is a hoot, which is more than can be said of the thankfully short Vic Reeves film that precedes it, "The Good Ship Citizen". For once, Reeves' quicksilver, surreal wit comes over as leaden.
But none of the individual set pieces really matters all that much. The overall experience is what counts in such places. Ask anyone who went to the Festival of Britain in 1951 what exactly was inside the all-aluminium Dome of Discovery on the South Bank, or the pavilions round it. Almost nobody can remember. What they can remember, though, is the impression of light and gaiety at a time of post-war austerity, of dancing in the rain to Geraldo's swing orchestra, of the whole excitement of going there. Likewise the Great Exhibition of 1851. Plenty of the displays from around the world were pretty tawdry, according to contemporary accounts. The taste-makers of the day hated them. But they were in the Crystal Palace, and that was enough. The great glasshouse - Victorian high-tech at its best - captured the public's imagination. It acted as a focus for the nation. So history tells us that the only thing the Dome needs to be a success is to have enough activities and events to achieve a critical mass. This, it manages pretty well. Your day will be filled, I promise.
These days, of course, most of it is interactive. We do not just gawp at exhibition displays, we engage with them. The Dome has taken this very seriously, but unfortunately has placed far too much trust in computers. You see people in the Dome wandering up to a screen, hitting a few keys or punching a button or twiddling a trackball, getting bored as they wait for five seconds, and then wandering off again before the screen has a chance to do whatever it is meant to do. But when it comes to firing rubber balls out of compressed-air cannons, or playing eco-pinball in Living Island, now you're talking.
