| April 17th 2010 |
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Stephenson's Rocket in Kensington Gardens
Glorious sunny day in London Town today. Wall-to-wall blue sky and warm sunshine. Not bad for mid-April! Took a stroll around Kensington Gardens. Very busy but a wonderful atmosphere with people enjoying the spring sunshine and a number of sunbathers with their tops off (sadly just blokes!).
Very spring-like with a lot of greenery showing. The horse chestnut trees are just about in full leaf. The Serpentine Lake was very busy too with rowing boats and pedalos. They are running a replica of Stephenson's Rocket. They have laid about 100 metres of track. This is being organised by the nearby Science Museum, where they have the original Rocket. It's free admission to the Science Museum, fantastic place, they have a whole floor of planes including a spitfire hanging from the roof! This replica rocket was an amazing machine. I was really surprised by how quiet it was when it was running. Related Links Science Museum Posted in categories Transport Weather Events Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=47 |
| April 10th 2010 |
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Portobello Market Busker
Visited Portobello Market for the first time today. Very splendid and groovy place...will be visiting again! Nice sunny day and very busy! Spotted this chap playing the guitar...hot jazz!
Related Links Portobello Market Posted in categories People Places Weather Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=46 |
| April 6th 2010 |
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Election Fever!
It was announced today that the General Election will be held on Thursday May 6th. Thought I would go down to Westminster and pick up some of the buzz. It was a lovely sunny day, and there was certainly a buzz about the place. I was on College Green across from the Houses of Parliament, where all the media had set up, and there was a constant stream of politicians passing through for interviews.
Great to see Tony Benn there. The man who said "I'm resigning from Parliament to concentrate on politics"! I heard him doing an interview, he said "it's not about politcians, it's about the electorate". That sentence alone puts him above most of today's politicians. There was a chap protesting about the barbaric US/UK attack on Iraq. He was parading his billboard and doing his best to get in the way of the cameras. Kudos to him, he was on his own and was promoting a good cause. He was very pleased to pose for me, and asked me to take some pictures of him with his own camera, showing Parliament in the background. I met some people also taking advantage of the buzz and the media presence, from Fingertips.net. They were promoting their new news website. It's a nice site, it's new and fresh and made to be easy to use and intuative. It gives you the news you want. You can customise it to suit your needs. Carly was bright, and doing a good job of promoting the site, she is also pretty tasty and with there being a lot of politicians around, she had on thigh-length boots as part of her promotion outfit (sorry chaps, didn't get a picture of them!). Related Links Fingertips.net Posted in categories Politics People Weather Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=45 |
| April 3rd 2010 |
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Boat Race 2010
Went to the start of the 2010 Boat Race between Cambridge and Oxford, today. I was on Putney Bridge for the start. First time I had seen it. Pretty interesting, good atmosphere, good crowds.
I walked there from South Kensington. Perhaps two miles. Best way to get there. Discovered shortly after I left the house, that I needed the loo. Bugger. I was thinking my route ahead, straight down Fulham Road, and figuring where I could get a loo. Figured that the Fulham Broadway shopping centre would have a loo in it. Hadn't been there before, but it's a shopping centre, so it must have a loo. Got there, looking for the loo signs, spotted them quickly, good. Straight to the loo. Just before it there's a sign "Toilets 20p" ...f*ck! I didn't have a bean on me, I was only out for a walk. Decided I would have to give the attendant a sob story. Rehearsed my line "you let me into your loo or I make a mess of your floor". Got to the turnstile, no-one around...so I leaped it!! Bit of a lad...bit of a geezer! Then I figured that it might be on CCTV and I would have armed-police surrounding the building...they don't need much excuse in London Town to cause a drama. Surprisingly enough, got out the loo and got away with it! Weather was quite good, at least it wasn't raining, a touch breezy and a touch on the cold side, but not bad for the race...you can see the water in the pictures, it's reasonably flat. Cambridge won the race. Posted in categories Events Places Weather Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=44 |
| March 21st 2010 |
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Van Gogh Exhibition
Went to the Vincent Van Gogh exhibition (The Real Van Gogh: The Artist And His Letters) at the Royal Academy, Piccadilly. Very interesting. Good to see lots of Van Gogh pictures together in the same place! His letters were very interesting too, mainly to his brother. Most of them contained drawings, which were mini works of art in their own right!
Certainly felt like you knew the man by the time you had got around the exhibition. Sad too when you think he was only 37 when he topped himself, but nice paintings of the Assylum he was in, the gardens and the view from his window, which he painted when he didn't feel well enough to go outside. Many of the paintings were from 1889 and 1890, the year he died. During this time he painted seventy paintings in seventy days, many of them regarded as his best, and one of them (one of the two Olive Trees pictures there) was apparently his favourite. Interesting, as I thought the other one of the olive trees (swirly clouds) was my favourite. Good show but pretty busy being a Sunday afternoon. Nice sunny day, as you can see from the pic, about 15 degrees. Related Links Royal Academy Posted in categories Events Places Weather Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=43 |
| March 6th 2010 |
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De Tomaso Mangusta
Spotted this De Tomaso Mangusta from my window, driving along Old Brompton Road. First time I have seen one of these. Beautiful car!Posted in categories Cars Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=42 |
| February 26th 2010 |
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Spring Has Sprung?!
Spotted daffodil shoots in Hyde Park today (at least I think they're daffodils). Temperature just about hit double-figures today, which is the best it has been for a while. Stormy weather and a lot of rain forecast for Sunday.Posted in categories Nature Weather Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=41 |
| February 10th 2010 |
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Harrods Horse Power!
Looks like Harrods are "doing their bit" for the environment! I suspect they don't actually do deliveries with this, but use it for publicity...like they need it! I have seen this about town before, but just happened to be passing them today when they parked at the back of the store.Related Links Harrods Posted in categories Transport Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=40 |
| January 30th 2010 |
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Blair at Iraq Inquiry - Protest
Joined the protest outside the Iraq Inquiry yesterday, at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in Westminster. Tony Blair was giving evidence.
True to his nature as the supreme snake-oil salesman, he slipped into the inquiry and slipped out by a back door. He did not face the protestors. Natural behaviour for a coward, I suppose. There wasn't a huge number of protesters there, but the protest was from 8am to 6pm (about the time most people went away, but I was there 'til nearer to 7pm). So people came and went during the day. Plus there was pockets of protestors around the building, not all being in the same place at the same time. The reason for the protests around the building was because we were not certain where Blair would come out. Naturally for Teflon Tony, he would want to slither away from his critics. This he did successfully with the help of a huge police presence. No-one saw him leave. When I left, most of the coppers had left, most of the protestors had left and some of the media were packing up. I still think he was in the building. Could be wrong, but I can't see how he got away without being seen. I was determined to see him because I wanted to shout at him, so I hung about for as long as I could, but it was bloody freezing, Friday night, most people gone away...so eventually I did the same thing. I'll tell you what bugs me. All the media could talk about was Blair's "performance". It's not a fucking theatre, it's an inquiry (ostensibly) into the mass slaughter of innocent Iraqis. Mind you, for Blair it probably is a performance, but the media shouldn't encourage it. Witnesses aren't there to perform, they are there to answer questions. Blair came across as the master bullshitter that he is, and sadly a lot of gullible people buy it. I should say, we couldn't hear his evidence at the demonstration, I heard quite a bit of it on the radio earlier. Nothing new in it. He must have mentioned Security Council resolutions, and Iraq being in breach of them, about 100 times. That's interesting. There is no country more in defiance of Security Council resolutions than Israel, but I don't recall him saying we should attack them. In any event, the resolutions in question, did not authorise the use of force and for this reason, the Foreign Office lawyers advising Blair, said an attack would be illegal. This of course he ignored, just as he ignored the million demonstrators in London pre-attack. He did however, dutifully obey one Texan oilman. Posted in categories Events Places Politics Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=39 |
| January 19th 2010 |
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Iraq Inquiry Demonstration
Tony Blair is appearing before the Iraq inquiry on Friday 29th January, and a demonstration is planned for the day by the Stop The War Coalition. This news is released at the same time as a poll that says 1 in 4 Britons believe that Blair should stand trial for war crimes.
The inquiry is being held at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, near Parliament Square in Westminster. Related Links Stop The War Posted in categories Events Politics Post URL https://londontownblog.com/posts.php?post=38 |
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