Nearby, a colossal fountain soars up from a lake around which the sculptor Anthony Caro shows this well-selected and artfully positioned survey of his works from the 1960s to this decade.
Rees is talking about the Leadenhall Building, a 225m-tall skeletal glass-and-steel wedge that soars up from the streets of the City, the latest arrival in an ever-growing menagerie of novelty silhouettes that he has ushered in during his 28 years as choreographer of this coveted stretch of skyline.
The view back to shore is jaw-dropping - the length of the island soaring up from my black paddles.
Wagner called his sunken orchestra pit the "mystic abyss"; in this production there were three abysses, and the sound took on a hallucinatory, sculptured richness as it soared up from one pit or another.
As the fire burned, a half-dozen great white gulls or cranes — muslin kites carried on sticks by runners — soared up from the horizon and started flying in our direction.
But the real marvel is de Nangle's own back garden, not more than 100ft x 45ft, which he has turned into a jungle of tree ferns, 25 or perhaps 30 of them, soaring up from a lush green carpet of mind-your-own business (Soleirolia soleirolii) which stretches right across from one wooden-boarded boundary to the other.
According to figures released by the French Customs, seizures of khat leaves are soaring, up from 1.8 tonnes in 2011 to 4.5 tonnes in 2012, putting it on a par with cocaine (4.6 tonnes) but still far behind cannabis (24 tonnes).
Soaring up from sea level to 4,095m, Kinabalu makes Borneo the planet's third highest island after Hawaii and New Guinea.
There must be scores and scores of them soaring up from multiple bases, up to 150 feet high, the largest standing in solitary majesty.
It's greener, much larger, and spectacularly more dramatic, with saw-tooth crags soaring up from the sea, and huge bays.
Now that the city's bars, clubs and museums are measured on a per-person scale, the Wisconsin hot spot soars up the list: from 26th to 15th and 28th to 11th in nightlife and culture, respectively.
