london

i thought this house looked good. it’s built in to the underneath of a bridge. it’s now slightly battered but i think that gives it even more character.

my meeting/reception thing in whitehall finished around 8.30pm. as i came out i noticed the amazing summer evening sun shining on the houses of commons. i spent the next half an hour wandering round taking pictures of this amazing thing. hope you like.

i walked through trafalgar square last night and saw these chaps cleaning a glass stage. there are some seats underneath the stage so i suspect it’s a special underneath performance dance thing.
it looked very good (from my angle) but i had to make haste to reach my destination so couldn’t linger.

it works well for swimming pool attendents, so why shouldn’t it work for police men with binoculars in oxford street. he evenhas his own community policemand for company

there’s something about british hotels. especially in london. this one looks particularly run down.
it might be fine inside but outside it look very unappealing. what a strange country this is !

someone was disillusioned with the Sherlock Holmes museum and smashed their mug on Queen Anne street. i hope they found solace (shoelace ?) in the man hole covers on this street.

for a while our national flags were hijacked by upleasant nationalists and had a general association with thuggery.
this year things have changed. the english flag is flying from many buildings and cars. maybe we have turned in to a nation of thugs and racists ? the election results will be out soon and we’ll know for sure.
it’s nice to see a bit of colour though. and it’s only right that the BBC building is flying the flag (the english not british one). they have a small flag in the middle of the tarpaulins.

a shop front mirrored wall by covent garden tube station

the west end of london is great. you can walk down the street and a door opens and you see in to the back of a theatre stage !
here is one such event. note the back of the moose heads and a load of carbon dioxide.

london is constantly under construction (insert tacky animated gif here). as a result new walls appear without warning.
here is one such wall. it has a pleasing line to it.

here’s the houses of parliament through the side of a bridge.

on the other side of the street this morning i spotted this little sign and a tiny hotel which i walk past every morning but have never seen before.
perhaps it doesn’t really exist. But it did get an Egon mention back in 1994 (according to the sign on the door).

i decided to walk my walk to work on the opposite side of the road today. my route is finely honed and the ocasional deliberate disruption can help see things in a different way. the pavement always looks greyer on the other side, but is it ?
i can report that it’s more dangerous over there. i know the traffic light timings and zebra crossing etiquette on my normal side, but the other side of the road is a lot less predictable.
environmentally, the other side of the road is very similar to the normal side of the road. same weather conditions for most of the journey, although i did experience a lot more shade on this sunny morning (which was very welcome).
but oh the visual chaos over there. look at this collection of street frontages. black and white squares are popular but there’s no uniformity of shape or size and there’s random other flooring in there too. this mess carried on right up the street.
i suspect you could get hypnotised if you walked over this bit of street at the right speed.

here’s what i promised earlier

or a bit more zoomediny:

last time i saw all these flags out was when georgey boy came to visit. remember the commemorative walk ? i did it backwards today.

i went to a meeting this evening and the best thing was coming out of an adjacent building at 8pm to see big ben all lit up by a nice yellow evening sun.

i’ve never been to primrose hill before. i decided to go this lunchtime on another hour long exploring expedition.
if you get the tube from Goodge Street to Chalk Hill you can walk to the viewpoint in primrose hill then along the canal to Camden Market and then back from Camden station in about an hour. but you have to walk fast and get your photos quick !
graffiti on the path to prepare you:

now with enhanced biggernizzzation
read the story from the person who wrote these words here
the view:

click for biggenisation
i took a few photos so may attempt a panarama stitch together thing sometime.
and the canal:

i shall return to explore in more detail some other sunny day when i don’t have meetings …