Judging by the number of ads that covered his pedestal (you see only a small portion of them here), this is what this guy does, full-time. But we all have our social media presence, don’t we.
Queen’s House in Greenwich, London was built by Inigo Jones in the 17th century. As he was rather good at this kind of thing, it turned out to be an architectural masterpiece, bringing classical style to English architecture for the first time. The Great Hall is a perfect cube and this staircase — the first ever built in the country that lacks a central pillar — is just gorgeous. (Although not quite perfect, do you notice? There is a wider step up there forming the landing of the next floor up, and the spiral ‘kinks’ as a result.) Apparently it ‘holds itself up’, meaning that the steps cantilever out from the wall and the weight of each is supported by the one below, and eventually the ground.
It’s a bit of a shame that only a decade or so after the house was finished, the English Civil War meant there was no Queen for a while. By the time the monarchy was restored, they never used it much. But it remains a very nice house. With paintings in it.
The last night of the trip was spent on the 12th floor of the Walthamstow Travelodge, from which this was the view on opening the curtains in the morning, the first rays of light just catching some of the buildings and, in the background, the smoke or steam rising from the industrial area over there.
This afternoon, four weeks and five hours after leaving, I arrived back home. Time to rest for a little while…. well, a couple of weeks anyway.
I went to two football matches today. In the evening, one at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium, a vast construction of steel and glass and with all these escalators that make it look like an airport. In the morning, here — Hackney Marshes, with none of those things. I have to say, I preferred the morning.
This trip started in London on 6th January and ends here too. But it’s time to go home.
Landed at 5am at Heathrow. Just over two hours later I was here, looking for a cup of tea, which was surprisingly difficult to find in Leicester Square at this early time in the day. But one could still enter the casino, which two guys in the middle distance are seriously considering. And so ends the monstrously long month that has been January 2025: did it really only have 31 days this year? I don’t believe it.
I don’t entirely do the Cult of Celebrity but tonight I’m making an exception. I think most of the audience of The Tempest — with Sigourney Weaver as Prospero — stuck to the rules and did not spend the whole performance taking pictures (and she was on stage throughout every minute): but no one said anything about the curtain call. It’s not often one gets to see a movie legend in the flesh.
In the brilliant 1980s TV series Edge of Darkness (which I really must watch again some time), there is a scene in which the hero evades his pursuers by deliberately running into the Barbican Centre. It’s an in-joke, but it works: forty years on this is still a rather difficult building complex to find one’s way around. Even as I took this shot there were two young American tourist types stood to my right, debating just which of the concrete ramps and overpasses and underpasses they needed to try next. But what the hell — I still like the place, both to visit and to photograph, and it does give good statuary.
The gentleman in the hat, pondering the action, is Steve Gritt, coach of Hornchurch FC. Though this story is, I am sure, of only the vaguest interest to most people, the reason I depict him on here today is that back in 1997 Mr. Gritt was appointed manager of Brighton & Hove Albion FC (a.k.a. ‘my lot’), when they were 11 points adrift at the bottom of the entire Football League and facing relegation and oblivion. A few months later, however, he had achieved the seemingly impossible, and Brighton survived with an (in)famous 1-1 draw at Hereford, who went down instead. 27 years later and the Albion are playing their eighth season in the Premier League. Not that Steve Gritt had anything much more to do with that part of the tale (he left the club in 1998) but all Brighton fans certainly owe him our thanks.
And so, realising that he was the coach of the club I had randomly come to see, I waited to shake his hand and give him that thanks as he came off the pitch. And I was pleased I had had the opportunity, and took it. OK, random stalker moment over, moving on…
Maybe not ‘outstanding’, but Friday night was pretty good; the first part of a fine weekend away, to celebrate Clare’s birthday (Saturday).
If you’re wondering what exactly is so outstanding here, it’s a school, trumpeting its Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) rating. Not a modest institution.
A Friday night in London, but not for leisure purposes. Technically, I am working here tomorrow. Arrival at my place of residence tonight (a Travelodge, nothing glamourous or particularly metropolitan) was not until about 15 minutes after this was taken.
Still, there is nothing wrong with being in London — it’s a fine city and that fact certainly explains why this is the fourth-most depicted place on the blog, this is shot number 144 from London, meaning it’s appeared roughly once every 33 days, or only just less than once a month on average.
Being 42 