Back to London this week for more photos for this Sunday mag piece and at this rate you'll be expecting a whole supplement plus cover given over to me me me so I'd best clarify. It's me and half a dozen others and it's a feature about bloggers and critics and this time we caused quite a stir leaning against the wall of the Tate Modern. Speaking for myself and modelling not really being my forte, we looked very inertly Band on the Run-ish (remember that album cover?), but caused enough of a commotion for passers-by who, not knowing us from Adam, also stopped to take pictures just in case we might somehow be famous. It suddenly felt like a moment of high symbolism, bloggers with backs to the wall or waiting to be shot?
We all laughed at the impossibility of it all before everyone dashed back to their day jobs and I carried on wandering around London because it was my day off and I had seven hours to kill before my train home.
Frankly, having been up since 4.45am I would have killed for a snooze on a bench somewhere.
A London wander is always fantastic when you don't live or work there and I love it. Suddenly the dirty old Thames looks like a magical river and the London skyline dazzlingly exciting and different from all the grass and trees I'm used to.
The Wobbly Millenium Bridge was in high demand for photo-shoots, there was a lot of posing in progress.
I wasn't quick enough to snap Mayor of London Boris Johnson, gone in a vanishing haze of floppy nordic hair, but I did catch these ballet dancers who, dare I say might be more pert and more pleasing on the eye than our Boris?
That might be unfair because, as yet, I have no picture of Boris in tights to make an informed comparison.
Then on to the next gathering on the bridge and this was obviously a Strictly Come Dancing event because judge Bruno Tonioli was brewing a tango with dancer Erin Boag. With apologies to Erin, I didn't really catch her best side.
Moving swiftly on across the
bridge, St Paul's Cathedral perfectly placed and I realised I hadn't
been in there for years. There is something uplifting about a cathedral
wander, from the history in the smoothly worn flagstones beneath your
feet to the soaring echoing lofty spaces, the windows and the
memorials, but less so if you have to pay £10.
Now I know it costs to keep these buildings afloat but since when a compulsory £10 entry charge?
They've
even covered the 'oh but I just want to sit and reflect' angle with a
big sign pointing you towards a little chapel inside the door and
set-aside specifically for said purpose with an on-call chaplain
hovering ready to be summoned. I did wonder what would have happened if
I'd pressed my case with 'but I want to reflect under the dome not in
there'.
Could you legitimately be turned away from a place of Anglican worship because you didn't have £10?
Feeling
even more lapsed and less and less Anglican I walked out and, ignoring
all signs about no cameras /no mobiles /no candy floss / no kite-flying,
snapped Lord Kitchener in quietly chilly and lonely repose behind bars.
I
trudged off to have lunch in The Salvation Army cafe. They let me in
without charging, perhaps I should defect? Don't be misled by any images of dreary East End hostels, The Sally Army have a
state of the art headquarters by the Millenium Bridge with a beautiful
light, bright cafe serving reasonably priced and very appetising food downstairs.
Then I went off on my afternoon adventures having been egged on by the
West End Whingers that very morning, plus I sighted another 'celebrity'
and a dog in the afternoon too, but that's enough excitement for one
day.
Contain yourselves, more tomorrow.
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