Irving Sellar Does A Guy De Maupassant
Prufrock in the Sunday Times reported that Irving Sellar, who developed the Shard, has his own table in the restaurant on floor 32.
He must only be following the reasoning of Guy de Maupassant, who often ate lunch in the Eiffel Tower. Wikipedia says this.
Maupassant was but one of a fair number of 19th-century Parisians who did not care for the Eiffel Tower; indeed, he often ate lunch in the restaurant at its base, not out of any preference for the food, but because it was only there that he could avoid seeing its otherwise unavoidable profile.
So does Irvine Sellar feel like that about the monstrous Shard?
Two Capital Ships In The Pool Of London
I then moved upriver to the Pool of London, where HMS Edinburgh had moored alongside HMS Belfast.
The Royal Navy is present in London for the celebrations of the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of the Atlantic. There’s more about the celebrations here on the Royal Navy website.
The Tower of London And Modern Buildings
I walked past the Tower of London on my way to get a DLR train at Tower Gateway station.
In some ways it could have been surrounded by a much worse collection of buildings. Although nothing of the quality of One New Change seems to have been built near to the Tower to blend the ancient and modern.
At least it’s impossible to see the Tower of London and the Tower Hotel at the same time.
The Monstrosity By The Tower
Watching the bridge go up and down, I realised what a classic of monstrous architecture, the Tower Hotel opposite where I stood, is!
I suspect that if anybody applied for planning permission today, they’d be sent back to their drawing board with several fleas in their ears, to think again. Wikipedia sums up the hotel like this.
The Tower Hotel, part of the Guoman collection, is situated on the north bank of the River Thames, on the east side of Tower Bridge, in London. It is built in a modern style considered unattractive by many, indeed it was voted the second ugliest building in London in a 2006 BBC poll. However, it is reputed to offer occupants excellent views from its rooms.
As you see, they do give the rooms credit. But I am very much reminded of Guy de Maupassant’s thoughts on the Eiffel Tower.
I think I went inside once to meet someone with C and our view afterwards was it is the sort of hotel, where you took somebody else’s husband or wife to impress them. I think one of her clients had done that, as I haven’t and I don’t think she ever did!
The Opening And Closing Of Tower Bridge
Surprisingly, I’d never seen the opening and closing of Tower Bridge from up close. But as today, I hadn’t anything planned and the BBC London News said it would open twice at 10:30 and 17:00, I decided to go and look.
The boat that requested these openings was the SB Kitty.
Along To Tower Bridge
I then walked on to Tower Bridge.
The prohotographic exhibition was in front of City Halland was for an organisation called 2020Vision.
I timed my arrival for just before 10:30, as the BBC had announced the bridge would be opening at that time. There is a list of opening times here.
The Best Free Camera Platform In London
I was on the top of One New Change, this morning in the sunshine.
You can also see the Shard all too clearly. But I didn’t take a picture, as it’s ruined enough of my pictures already.
It really is the best free camera platform in the centre of London.
What’s Wrong With Me?
I took this picture of an advert for four of the major tourist attractions in London.
What’s Wrong With Me?
I did go on the London Eye once, but you get better views from the Emirates Air-Line and One New Change, at a much lower cost.
But the London Aquarium, the London Dungeon and Madame Tussauds, would be prime examples of the sort of places, I would never chose to visit.
The latter must be one of the most over-hyped rip-offs in London! If I want to see likenesses of famous people, I go to the National Portrait Gallery, which shows Tussauds t0 be the crap it is. And the National Portrait Gallery is totally free, except for the special exhibitions.
The Water We Drink
The BBC has done a blind tasting test of the tap water from various parts of the United Kingdom.
I don’t drink much water directly, although I do drink a lot of it in cups of tea all day.
I was brought up in London and I suspect that the water I drink now in Hackney is vaguely similar to that I had sixty years ago in Enfield. It’s probably exactly the same to that we had in the Barbican, as that area is only a kiolmetre or so away and I can see the flats from the corner of my road.
I certainly will drink it again, if there is nothing else, which is something I hardly ever did, whilst living away from London.
Except for the four years or so, that I lived in Liverpool, I’ve always lived in hard water areas. In fact, at one time, I lived in Melbourn near Cambridge, which in the 1970s reputedly had the hardest water in England. It also had quite a few sets of twins and the doctor thought there was a connection.
It’s funny, though but a few months ago after a couple of days in Liverpool, the tastes and smells around my mouth were quite different. It was almost if they were much fresher. But that could have been the Liverpudlian sea air.
Incidentally, one of the waters they tasted was from Woodbridge in Suffolk, where C and I lived for twenty or so years. The water didn’t come out well in the taste test! But I do remember C, who was an obsessive water drinker, saying she didn’t like the water, when we moved to Newmarket. She used to drink masses of bottled water, although usually insisted on tap water in a restaurant.
Around The Gherkin
I’ve never been to the base of the Gherkin or 30, St. Mary Axe to name it correctly, until today.
A lot of the buildings between the Gherkin and Liverpool Street station have now been removed and the views of the building are a lot better, as some of the pictures show. Note the reflection of the Gherkin in the windows of TK-Maxx.
The Anonymous Widower 