Tuesday Walkabout
A full day in London - mostly spent on the river. Lots
of pictures of buildings. Oh... and I caught up with Keanu in Covent
Garden.
My plan was to go out to Greenwich to visit the Royal
Observatory and to do the London Transport Museum. Through a series of wrong
turns and poor timing I didn't manage to actually get a lot done, but I did see
lots of stuff.
I caught the Underground to Westminster Station, which is a remarkable place. It's a relatively new station, and it really is like walking through the set of a science fiction movie.
I walked out to the pier and it started to rain. I was hoping to be at Greenwich for noon, but I'd missed the boat I wanted by a few minutes so I decided to go to the London Transport Museum first.
As I came up out of the Underground station at Covent Garden I noticed that people all seemed to be looking at something down the street and whispering. Keanu Reeves was standing outside the Starbucks, drinking a coffee.
I marched up to him, said hello, and told him I was from Toronto. I thought about saying hello from his old school buddy Joey, but I didn't want to bother him too much. I did shake his hand though.
You know that awkward, nervous, foot-shiffling, hair-flipping act he does in the Bill and Ted movies? He wasn't acting.
In retrospect, I think it must be very weird knowing there's all those people standing off in the distance whispering about you and pointing. I think it would make me utterly paranoid.
After catching up Keanu, I went to the London Transport Museum, which was good, but not as good as their gift shop. The museum was infested with school children who, as I've said many times before, don't know how to play with stuff properly. They run up to interactive exhibits, hit them/push them/pull them/twist them as hard and as quickly as they can, and then run off when there's no explosion or thundering sound.
When I was done that, I walked down to Trafalgar and then made a critical error. I figured the Mall was parallel to Whitehall, and that it would only take slightly longer to get to Westminster if I walked down that way. Doh. They are actually pretty much at right angles to each other, so I didn't get to Westminster Pier until fairly late in the day.
On the way I stopped and said hello to the Queen. You know how I like to point out that "it's the small things" that make the difference between us and them? Well sometimes it's the big things...
I caught the boat for Greenwich, which was filled with Japanese tourists of course.
The trip gives you a nice perspective on the city. You get to see all the bridges and buildings from an unusual vantage point. And of course you pass the ubiquitous London Eye.
Jane told me that they did a photo contest a while ago for pictures of London and they got flooded with pictures of the Eye. It's a stunning piece of work - quite brilliant. Although it didn't start out so smoothly. They had a lot of trouble getting it to stand upright. The Eye was built with money from British Airways, and at one point when it was still lying flat over the Thames, Virgin Airlines flew a blimp over it with the words "British Airways can't get it up."
The Oxo Tower is an interesting building too. Evidently there is some local law about having large signs on buildings. Consequently you don't have corporate logos blazing down at you from the top of every building. (A fine idea, if you ask me.) The Oxo company - the people who make the bouillon cubes - recognising that their name was an interesting graphic in of itself - seized the opportunity to put a nice art deco style tower on their building.
At night it lights up and all the art deco disappears, leaving behind just the name. Very crafty.
To say that London has some amazing architecture is to master the understatement. The range of styles and ages may be unparalleled by anywhere else in the world. And there's no sign of it stopping. Some of the most interesting and daring designs are here. From the Houses of Parliament to the Lloyds of London building, it starts to get a bit overwhelming at times.
At one point in the river journey, we were between these buildings:
On the north, the City of London School with St Paul's Cathedral in the background.
On the south, the Tate Modern (previously the South Bank Power Station).
And Just on the other side of it, the new home of the Greater London Authority.
Further on is a new structure that no one seems to be sure of. It seems to be known universally as "the gherkin". It's hard to get a sense of the scale of this thing, but note the size of the tower crane beside it.
It reminds me of The Shape Of Things To Come, or some other 50's science fiction film. Toronto will seem so boring after all this.
The boat finally got to Greenwich after an hour (another huge miscalculation on my part). This is the famous Royal Observatory. I'm told there are very interesting exhibits there.
Unfortunately, they close at 4:30 (4:30!!!), so after I walked to the top of the hill all I got to do was look down on the breathtaking beauty of Greenwich, and then walk down and catch the boat back to town.
I met up with Jane and Jerry and we went to a sushi bar called Sushi Wong.
And then it was back home to watch a show on BBC about how the rest of the world perceives the United States.
They had people around the world who had done surveys about perceptions of American culture, politics, military power, foreign policy, and economics. The results were pretty predictable, although it was interesting to see that, outside of the US, the Americans are considered a bigger threat than Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Russia, etc. Only Al Qaeda was considered a bigger threat than the US. The majority of people in South Korea considered the US a bigger threat than North Korea.
The Canadian results were reported by Peter Mansbridge. It was a bit weird seeing him on British TV.
I caught the Underground to Westminster Station, which is a remarkable place. It's a relatively new station, and it really is like walking through the set of a science fiction movie.
I walked out to the pier and it started to rain. I was hoping to be at Greenwich for noon, but I'd missed the boat I wanted by a few minutes so I decided to go to the London Transport Museum first.
As I came up out of the Underground station at Covent Garden I noticed that people all seemed to be looking at something down the street and whispering. Keanu Reeves was standing outside the Starbucks, drinking a coffee.
I marched up to him, said hello, and told him I was from Toronto. I thought about saying hello from his old school buddy Joey, but I didn't want to bother him too much. I did shake his hand though.
You know that awkward, nervous, foot-shiffling, hair-flipping act he does in the Bill and Ted movies? He wasn't acting.
In retrospect, I think it must be very weird knowing there's all those people standing off in the distance whispering about you and pointing. I think it would make me utterly paranoid.
After catching up Keanu, I went to the London Transport Museum, which was good, but not as good as their gift shop. The museum was infested with school children who, as I've said many times before, don't know how to play with stuff properly. They run up to interactive exhibits, hit them/push them/pull them/twist them as hard and as quickly as they can, and then run off when there's no explosion or thundering sound.
When I was done that, I walked down to Trafalgar and then made a critical error. I figured the Mall was parallel to Whitehall, and that it would only take slightly longer to get to Westminster if I walked down that way. Doh. They are actually pretty much at right angles to each other, so I didn't get to Westminster Pier until fairly late in the day.
On the way I stopped and said hello to the Queen. You know how I like to point out that "it's the small things" that make the difference between us and them? Well sometimes it's the big things...
I caught the boat for Greenwich, which was filled with Japanese tourists of course.
The trip gives you a nice perspective on the city. You get to see all the bridges and buildings from an unusual vantage point. And of course you pass the ubiquitous London Eye.
Jane told me that they did a photo contest a while ago for pictures of London and they got flooded with pictures of the Eye. It's a stunning piece of work - quite brilliant. Although it didn't start out so smoothly. They had a lot of trouble getting it to stand upright. The Eye was built with money from British Airways, and at one point when it was still lying flat over the Thames, Virgin Airlines flew a blimp over it with the words "British Airways can't get it up."
The Oxo Tower is an interesting building too. Evidently there is some local law about having large signs on buildings. Consequently you don't have corporate logos blazing down at you from the top of every building. (A fine idea, if you ask me.) The Oxo company - the people who make the bouillon cubes - recognising that their name was an interesting graphic in of itself - seized the opportunity to put a nice art deco style tower on their building.
At night it lights up and all the art deco disappears, leaving behind just the name. Very crafty.
To say that London has some amazing architecture is to master the understatement. The range of styles and ages may be unparalleled by anywhere else in the world. And there's no sign of it stopping. Some of the most interesting and daring designs are here. From the Houses of Parliament to the Lloyds of London building, it starts to get a bit overwhelming at times.
At one point in the river journey, we were between these buildings:
On the north, the City of London School with St Paul's Cathedral in the background.
On the south, the Tate Modern (previously the South Bank Power Station).
And Just on the other side of it, the new home of the Greater London Authority.
Further on is a new structure that no one seems to be sure of. It seems to be known universally as "the gherkin". It's hard to get a sense of the scale of this thing, but note the size of the tower crane beside it.
It reminds me of The Shape Of Things To Come, or some other 50's science fiction film. Toronto will seem so boring after all this.
The boat finally got to Greenwich after an hour (another huge miscalculation on my part). This is the famous Royal Observatory. I'm told there are very interesting exhibits there.
Unfortunately, they close at 4:30 (4:30!!!), so after I walked to the top of the hill all I got to do was look down on the breathtaking beauty of Greenwich, and then walk down and catch the boat back to town.
I met up with Jane and Jerry and we went to a sushi bar called Sushi Wong.
And then it was back home to watch a show on BBC about how the rest of the world perceives the United States.
They had people around the world who had done surveys about perceptions of American culture, politics, military power, foreign policy, and economics. The results were pretty predictable, although it was interesting to see that, outside of the US, the Americans are considered a bigger threat than Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Russia, etc. Only Al Qaeda was considered a bigger threat than the US. The majority of people in South Korea considered the US a bigger threat than North Korea.
The Canadian results were reported by Peter Mansbridge. It was a bit weird seeing him on British TV.
Posted: Tue - June 17, 2003 at 02:39 PM Meltdown Out and About Email Comments
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Published On: Jul 02, 2003 09:07 AM
Total entries in this category: 17
Published On: Jul 02, 2003 09:07 AM