My new favourite quote #4.

"I remember when I was a child prodigy."

-Duncan 16/02/07

I may just change this to the best quotes out of Duncan's mouth.

Londonium.

I've been told on several occasions recently that I've not posted enough pictures or said enough about London and how I am getting on down here, so consider this post as my way of making it up to you all. Mitch and I took a walk on Valentine's evening after a lovely wee meal in Strada by St Paul's (which will feature heavily in the following pictures since it is my favourite building in London). We walked round St Paul's,


across the millenium bridge,


on to the millenium walk along the South Bank,


where I tested the zoom function on my camera...


before we then kept on walking until we passed Blackfriars Bridge,


until we saw the Houses of Parliament!


with that lovely purple lighting at the bottom- where could that come from we wondered? Although not really, since it was patently obvious that it was related to this:


The London Eye! Aye, it's big right enough.


And allows for fancy looking pictures to be taken with the minimum of effort, or artistic talent,


before normal service is resumed.

Mitch and I then walked across the bridge leading up to Westminster, took a wander around Parliament Square, along St James' Park where we debated as to whether we were behind Downing St (we were, but it was awfy dark) and then walked along Wateloo Place to Picadilly Circus,


before we wandered along to a wee cafe called Stockpots West End where Mitch wasn't overly keen on getting her picture taken.


We then made out merry way to Charing Cross Station where Mitch got the Tube home and I settled for the train to Beckenham, but not before I took another wee picture of the wheel, this time in a different colour.




There we are, I do have a load more of other pictures (mostly St Paul's I admit) that I'll post in time, but for now that'll have to do. I have work to do!

My new favourite quote #3.

"I cannot sleep at all on a plane and I am terribly scared of sleeping pills. To accuse me of wasting money - no, I am sorry. Just think of the time I save." - Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) 1965-97, when asked by a German journalist to justify the expense of his Concorde while the nation's economy was in crisis.

That'll be my excuse when I finally get my Concorde...

My new favourite quote #2.

As I was leaving the house this morning:

Talking head on tv: "What does being addicted to prescription drugs mean?"

Erm...

Cannon St Station.

Every day on my way into work I see this building and I can't help but kind of like it- it is brutalist and slightly Stalinist in its construction and size, much the same as a lot of immediate post-war reconstruction buildings in London were. So I did a little search for the architect on wikipedia for it and lo and behold the designer of it was... John Poulson! You may not recognise the name, but I did. Poulson was the architect behind the Aviemore project and responsible for the downfall of George Pottinger as well as blackening the name (by association) of the former Chancellor Reginald Maudling. Basically, Poulson was a right dodgy critter and won a number of his contracts by bribing civil servants and public figures for various public works where possible. He was eventually jailed alongside Pottinger and T. Dan Smith, a former councillor from Newcastle. Poulson was of no great shakes architecturally, but there is something I like about his buildings, even Aviemore which has been derided time and again as a monstrosity, so much so that it doesn't even feature in much of the discussion of post-war Scottish reconstruction and architecture. An oddity given its importance to the area as a symbol of advancement and modernity and how diametrically opposite it is to all Highland architecture- all modernist shapes and jagged edges. So, as if I needed any reminding of the need for me to get my skates on regarding finishing my PhD, it stares me in the face every single day. And still I love it so.

Arrested.

Mitch got arrested yesterday. It was really surprising. They came and knocked on the door when she was in the shower and were insistent that she answer immediately. Of course the first thing I thought of was that they must have the wrong person, I mean what on earth could she have done wrong? Then with all this nonsense to do with the Home Office it occurred to me that maybe it was something to do with her visa. Much to my surprise then that they were knocking on the door because Mitch was being arrested for killing tigers and stealing money from the vikings who used to have lots but now have none. Apparently Mitch had been shooting tigers in the zoo with a gun. My 2 and 5 year old nephews had come to arrest her although I must say I'm not sure how much of what was going on was understood by the 2 year old who seemed content to just be there holding the police badge with a sword and shouting PWEEECE! at her. The poor girl, she had no defence. Not that she had been killing tigers or stealing from the vikings, it was just that there is very little reasoning with a 2 year old and a 5 year old. Much the same as the real police actually now that I come to think about it.