London and the Shires

More to follow on "Through the Lens."

A Point of View

The camera should record what the eye sees. Cropping, framing and aligning are habits I just can’t break so the views are essentially contrived.

I took a long walk in London on Thursday. Despite collecting a Travel Card to ride the tube my pedometer still totted up thirteen miles of pavements, bridges, platforms, stairs and tunnels. Exercise and the bitterly cold fresh air have left my hip joints like iron grinding on iron. I pointed my camera at the Palace of Westminster and the British Airways London Eye and the resulting pictures are now here on Through the Lens along with various other images from the trip.

A dark contemplative mood drew me to Highgate Cemetery. This ancient bone yard to the north is loaded with high Victorian funeral architecture. Mausoleums are half hidden under thick, twisted creepers in remembrance of beings who were once important. The eastern side is a vast untamed wilderness of leaning statues and grimy tombstones amid dense undergrowth. The sense of Gothic horror is palpable. I would like to have spent more time there but some inconsiderate people turned up for a private funeral and visitors were ushered away.

I thought of a red-faced sexton leaning on his shovel, mopping his brow after a morning’s backbreaking effort. Not so, a bright yellow JCB stood a respectful distance from the grieving party having wrenched a hole in the ground with a single sweep of its coffin-sized bucket.

Driving to within range of the tube network is usually two hours each way but this time the homeward journey took four hours. The Police closed a section of the M3 because a coach had caught fire. So just when I was keen to get home and soak my aching muscles in a hot bath I had to endure extra time sitting in my stationary Mondeo. I couldn’t go forwards, couldn’t go back – so I had to sit it out. Why close all three lanes of the motorway for two hours just to squirt water on a burning vehicle? The hard shoulder became littered with overheated cars and lorries causing additional blockages. When finally I reached it, the incident scene was typical of modern over-reaction. About twenty cop cars and three fire engines surrounding a melted coach and scores of men in fluorescent bibs running amok.

Next time I’ll be riding - the Yamaha is nimble enough to squeeze through the slimmest of gaps.

Strangers in London

I scribbled this several months ago and some will already have seen it. I was inspired by the sights and sounds of a recent long day out in London. Always impressive yet still good to get home...

Pitch black lark calls, buttered toast with blackest coffee
Drying roads and pale blue skies call strangers to the smoke
Limo ditched at regal Kew and silver tube to town
Riding grey steel rails we are ticket-holding folk.

Vaulted halls hold timeless works of brush and oil
A nation’s treasures staring back with tired eyes
Guards of ancient age asleep by priceless charge
Room by giant room we mark them off, each prize.

Heavy surge of grey and green slides under famous bridge
Bobbing craft ply upstream against its mighty weight
Then turn and race the homeward leg with ease
Pavements mirror skies as dark as grey wet slate.

A pin-stripe holds his lunch in tiny carrier bags
Power-dressing blonde clicks by in tall black heels
White beard tinged with yellow smoke stares as
Rider swoops through red lights, locks his wheels.

Canary Wharf recalls the days of cutters hauling loads
Of ginger spice from islands never seen
No dockers carry barrels now but still the traders profit
Their wares remain unseen except on screen.

Isle of Dogs now glitters, a city of glass and steel
Half a million souls at work from fifty storeys high
Peering over Limehouse Reach or gazing over Greenwich
So far over London that I think a man could fly.

Eyes smarting from the wind, feet numb tired and sore
So Hampshire seems a better place to spend the evening hours
Say farewell to crowded roads and streets of shabby style
A shire boy has had enough today of spires and towers.

"London calling at the top of the dial,
After all this won't you give me a smile?"
The Clash - London Calling

Docklands Light Railway

Sifting through my London photos from Friday these caught my eye. We took a favourite trip on the DLR from Tower Hill out to Canary Wharf. Standing on the platform at Tower Hill you see the East End sitting next to the City, with the new glass "Gherkin" in the background.

Take the stairs to the top floor

This is the giant Citigroup building beaten into second only by Canary Wharf Tower.

...and back to traditional gothic architecture

From Docklands you can now ride the new Jubilee Line extension south of the river. We got off at London Bridge and walked across the bridge for this view.

London or Manhattan?

Definitely London