GodDaughter2 having dragged me into London at the crack of 10.30am (which is when that Traviata dress rehearsal started), I of course got to Embankment Tube early, on account of being so scared of being late.  I had some time to kill.

So, instead of turning left at the Embankment Tube ticket machines and just trudging up Villiers Street to Trafalgar Square and on to the ENO’s Colosseum, I instead turned right, and went up onto the north London end of the downstream version of the Hungerford Footbridge(s).  It’s a favourite little spot of mine, concerning which, maybe, there will (although I promise nothing) be more here, soon or whenever.

For now, consider just this one photo, taken from that spot, at that time:

Because it is the morning, the light is not what I am used to.  The Big Things of the City of London are not well light, because back lit.

The big picture story here is that the Big Things of the City of London are, slowly but surely, metamorphosing into one Great Big City Thing.

But when I got home and had a closer look, I was intrigued to see two moderately Big Things already clearly to be seen.

You probably noticed this one already:

That’s the Scalpel.  That the Scalpel has been going up has been obvious for some time.

But this one came as rather more of a surprise.  This detail had to be enlarged, or you might miss it, as I did, until I got home and looked carefully:

That, ladies and gents, hiding in among all the bigger Things, is the much touted but seemingly never actually happening (but it actually is) Can of Ham:

The Can of Ham is called that because it will look like a can of ham:

Come to think of it, I have a vague recollection of visiting those Big City Things, about … a while back.  Bear with me while I rootle through the photo-archives.Yes, here we go.  I was there on June 3rd, last year.

The Scalpel was already well under way, thanks to some particularly entertaining cranage:

And it definitely was the Scalpel, because it said so at the bottom:

But the Can of Ham was also already starting to go up:

As you can clearly see if you take a closer look at what it says at the bottom there:

By trying to call this thing “Seventy St. Mary Axe”, but by making it look exactly like a can of ham, and quite a big and visible one, big enough and visible enough for it to need a particular and memorable name, they screwed up on the naming front.  It was only ever going to be called the “Can of Ham”.

Some bunch of idiots long ago tried to get the Gherkin called 30 St Mary Axe, and that never stuck either.

50 St Mary Axe is also a Thing, but such a small Thing that nobody cares what that’s called, so that actually is called 50 St Mary Axe.

I visit the Royal College of Music quite a lot these days, thanks to GodDaughter2 studying there.  There were those Bach Cantatas.  Last Thursday there was a recital of songs by Women Composers, in which GD2 performed.  And this evening, there was the RCMIOS (RCM International Opera School) production of Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.  All excellent.

It doesn’t feel right taking lots of photos while in the place, but here was a snap that I both liked and didn’t feel bad about taking:

They’re hardly going to call that snooping, are they?

The RCM is a truly bizarre agglomeration of buildings.  The corridors joining this bit of it to that bit of it are labyrinthine.  I never know where I am, if only because I am usually following GD2 around the place, rather than finding my own way around.

Here is another snap I reckoned it okay to take, of some building work in progress:

The fact that both of these snaps feature things which are only temporary is what makes me think them not to be breaches of etiquette.  I don’t know if that’s truly right, but it feels right to me.

However, the point of these two photos is, as I later (like: one hour ago) realised, that they are both photos of the same things.  The first photo is the corridor from the inside, and the second photo, in addition to all that grubbing about in the earth at the bottom, also features the same corridor from the outside.  The outside of a corridor is not normally something you get to see, is it?

The reason I found myself inside that corridor is that it is the temporary way of getting from the main part of the Royal College to the college bar and canteen.  I took the above photo on my way from that bar and canteen to the main entrance of the College.  I was on my own at the time.

You Had One Job (a current Twitter favourite of mine) calls this “Brilliant”:

Agreed.

At a site called Idiot Toys they also do lots of gadgets with faces.  Or, they did, because (I just looked) things seem to have slowed down there lately.  But I can’t recall anything nearly as dramatic as the above image.

LATER: this.

This is the last of my postings about my walkabouts beyond Lower Marsh on Jan 5th and on Jan 18th, the three photos below having been taken on Jan 18th.

Just as on Jan 5th, the light was extraordinary.  On Jan 5th, it was, for me, at its most extraordinary on Blackfriars Road, and then at Victoria Station (see the posting immediate below this one).  On Jan 18th, at the same time of the day, it was at its most extraordinary when I was on Blackfriars road bridge, which is what Blackfriars Road turns into when it crosses the river.  Blackfriars Bridge being the one next to the Blackfriars railway station bridge, as you can very clearly see here:

What we see there is the now nearly horizontal sunlight bashing in under the clouds overhead and picking out the bridge.  Very dramatic.  And just as on Jan 5th, the light was particularly good at picking out something painted red.  On Jan 5th, it was a crane, the very same crane that we see in the above photo, in the distance, in front of 240 Blackfriars.  On Jan 18th, it was Blackfriars road bridge itself.

The above photo captured the drama that I saw at the time.  The next photo, taken moments before the one above, isn’t so dramatic.  It felt very dramatic, but my photo captures little of the drama that I saw.  The light that illluminated that scaffolding in the middle looked amazing.  But I now have to point it out to you:

So, why this photo?  Well, for my purposes, it does have one great merit, which is that it shows that the street lights, on the right of the road bridge as we look along it, were not switched on.  Yet moments later, these lights were “switched on”, by the sun, just as similarly un-electrified lights in Victoria Station had been lit up by the sun on Jan 5th:

Behind these lights are the lower floors of One Blackfriars, now nearing completion.

On the fifth and eighteenth days of this month I was in Lower Marsh, which is just south of Waterloo Station, as I often am.  On each of these days, there was bright sunshine, and cloud.

On each day, after I had done my business in Lower Marsh and continued on to Blackfriars Road, and to its two newly constructed edifices: One Blackfriars (the curvey one) and 240 Blackfriars (the “crystaline” one).

The first of these photos, !.1, shows One, and One reflected in 240:

I love a good crane, and 1.2 is rather remarkable, because it shows (a) two construction cranes, (b) these cranes reflected in 240 Blackfriars, and (c) on the surface of that same building and above the reflections of the cranes, the shadows of those same cranes.  If you click on nothing else, click on that.

Photo 1.3 tells us where we are, and shows One of that road scraping the sky,

In 2.1, 2.3 and 3.3, we see another joy of winter, trees without leaves.

The final photo of this little set, 3.3, shows the tower of a crane with some of those trees, and is included because the colours are what you would expect with regular lighting.

Ah, but what if the lighting is irregular?  What if there is bright sunlight hitting a crane tower, but with dark cloud instead of blue sky behind it?  3.2 is what then happens.  Worth another click, I’d say.

And 3.1 shows clouds of a very different sort, again reflected in 240 Blackriars.  Also pretty dramatic.

1.1 to 2.1 taken on the fifth.  2.3 to 3.3 on the eighteenth.

What, no photos of photoers?  Was I the only one photoing?  Could nobody else see the epic dramas of light and dark, construction and reflection, scaffolding and skeletal trees, that I was seeing?  Apparently not.

On the fifth, soon after I had taken the first four of the above photos, my fellow photoers had been all over the man with the flaming tuba.

Photography is light.  But I guess for most photoers, mere light, bouncing off of dreary things like modern buildings, cranes, trees, scaffolding and the like, is not enough.

I had a nice surprise today.  As time passes, the number of places I can buy the Gramophone and the BBC Music Mag keeps on diminishing, one of the few that remains being W.H.Smith in Victoria Station.  It was once again a beautifully lit late afternoon, and when I stepped outside the station concourse, I encountered this beautiful sight:

Yes, the wraps have come off Pavlova.  And far sooner than I had been expecting.

Several of the above photos feature the new Nova building.  This fine edifice was awarded this year’s Carbuncle Cup.  The dreary grumblers who award this award think that it’s a badge of shame, but I generally find it, and its accompanying runner-up collections, to be a great source of information about interesting and often excellent new buildings.  Nova is wonderful, I think.  I intend (although I promise nothing), to say more about this enjoyably showy yet elegant addition to Victoria’s mostly rather lumpish architecture.

In 3.2, I got lucky with an airplane.

Today being the BMdotcom day for cats, and now also for other creatures, here is another creature, in this case a chicken, in an advert:

And here, photoed by me recently, outside the Old Vic theatre, is one of these excellent machines referred to in the advert, in action:

You can surely see what I did there, and I assure you that it was no fluke.  I waited for it to say 8.  I also have 9 and 7, because I wanted to make quite sure.  I have been photoing these excellent machines for quite a while now.

The 8build website.  They’re doing some work on the Old Vic.

On the left in the distance, nearing completion, One Blackfriars.  I find liking this Thing a bit of an effort, but I’ll get there.  I always do with such Things.  According to that (Wikipedia), One Blackfriars is nicknamed “The Vase”.  I smell, although I have no evidence for this, an attempt at preemptive nicknaming, by the people who built this Thing.  “We’ll call it The Vase, to stop London calling it something worse.” That’s what happened with The Shard, after all.  And that name stuck.

I tried to make the title of this “8”, but apparently a number with no letters is not allowed.

About a week ago or less, I found myself in the vicinity of The Wheel.  The light was very good, with lots of sunshine and lots of lurid looking clouds.  So, I took photos.

Below are a clutch of The Wheel related photos.  My opinion of how to photo The Wheel is that you should combine The Wheel with other things.  Like graphic designs featuring The Wheel which are in the vicinity of The Wheel.  It’s the old modified cliché routine.

In this photo clutch, however, I do include one very old school photo of The Wheel.  It’s the photo I took of a postcard (1.2), which features The Wheel.  And look what the postcard calls The Wheel.  It calls it The Wheel: “The Wheel”.  None of this “London Eye” nonsense.  Do large numbers of people in other parts of the world call The Wheel The Wheel?  I do hope so.  And I hope that this habit conquers London.

The next four photos, after the postcard (1.3, 2.1, 2.2, 2.3) are all of The Wheel reflected in a tourist crap shop.  And then 3.1 is of The Wheel reflected in a place, next door, that sells sandwiches.

I like how I totally lined up the circular blue logo with The Wheel reflection, in 2.3.  Could I also have done something similar with the circular things in 2.1 and 2.2, in the latter case an actual picture of The Wheel.  I rather think that I tried, but couldn’t do that.  But, memo to self, return to this enticing spot, on a nice day, and see what I can do.

This is what I like about taking photos in London, rather than in some foreign spot that I am only going to be in once.  If, upon reflection back home, I suspect that I might have been able to do some of the photos better, I can, in London, go back to try to do this.

Then being five and a half years ago, with a sunset behind it and some birds in front of it:

The structure in the foreground there is …:

… which is on the other side of the River from me, across Vauxhall Bridge Road and turn ride along the path next to the River.

Right now, Battersea Power Station is in a rather different state, which you can actually see rather well in that famous view from Ebury Bridge Road, looking out over the railway lines that leave Victoria to go south over the River:

The whole area, in it and around it, is being turned into apartments.  They’re even going to have their own new tube station, at the far end of a new bit of the Northern Line.

On the same day I took this photo (and all the other photos mentioned in that posting (most especially these ones)), I also took these photos of what is happening in and around the Power Station:

The first one there was taken from Battersea Park railway station, the other two shots from nearer to all the building.  That fake-up of how it will look tells you ... how it will look.  If you are a helicopter traveller.

What’s happening in Battersea is the one great exception to the otherwise inexorable drift of London’s centre of gravity eastwards.

Here via here (Ephemeraren’t?).

My favourite (scroll down here) is this one, a Buddha under construction in Thailand:

Sculpture that’s of something.  Scaffolding.  A magnificent crane.

Excellent.

I finally arrive at the official designated purpose of my Tottenham expedition back in November, which was to check out progress on the new stadium.

Here is what this was looking like.  Lots of cranes.  Lots of scaffolding.  And big signs on the perimeter fence celebrating glorious moments in Spurs history:

2.1, in pleasing contrast to the masculinities of football and construction, a girly bus goes by.

3.2 features how the new stadium will look from above.

It will be entertaining to return in a couple of years time, to see how it all ends up looking.

In this report, you can see more pictures of progress, viewed from above.

At present Spurs seem to be doing rather well.  Today, they drew with Man City, having been two goals adrift, which was a result, and they are in second place in the Premiership.

I had been expecting them to be doing rather badly just now, what with this new custom built headquarters being now under construction.

Today, after being knackered yesterday, I had a quiet day, but just before it got dark, I visited my roof, and took photos.  As you can see from a couple of clocks in the pictures (this one (1.1) and this one (3.1)), it was just after half past three, and already it was starting to get dark:

My official purpose was to find out what stage the new US Embassy has got to (1.3).  But I also like 1.2 and 2.1, because they feature bright lights, looking almost as bright in my photos as they did for real.  3.3 features a view of the next door tower block that I hadn’t noticed before, flanked rather pleasingly by chimneys.

The sky (2.2) was also looking good, it being vapour trail weather.

The first of my two trips earlier this week to Tottenham was on Monday, and, as soon as I stepped beyond the front door that I share with my neighbours, the weather put me in very a good mood.  It was exactly as had been prophesied, namely: perfect.  Sky, fifty shades of blue, depending on what else you put next to it, thus:

All of these photos involve scaffolding, which is a thing I love, along with cranes.  (Also bridges.) Scaffolding says that Men Are Working, building a better future for us all.  Scaffolding says that Men With Money think that here, there is more money to be made, selling or renting new or newly refurbished places.  Cranes say the same.  (Bridges say: here are two places worth connecting.)

On a day such as Monday was, scaffolding can look especially fine, because Monday was the kind of day when just about anything was looking fine.

1.1 is of some home improvement going on as seen from just outside my front door.  1.2 and 2.1 are both of the building going on across my courtyard, where they are turning a posh office into posh flats.  And 2.2 is of some scaffolding to be seen in Vauxhall Bridge Road.  (Although there seems to be disagreement between the sign in my photo and the only relevant website I could find, concerning what number to ring to get Superior Access Scaffolding.)

Lovely.

And all of this before I had even arrived at Pimlico Tube.  It was an auspicious start.  The rest of the day did not disappoint.

A few days ago, the weather was gorgeous, in the early morning.  Forewarned by a typically omniscient short-term weather forecast, I got up early and went up to the roof of my block of flats.  I particularly wanted to photo the progress of the building work opposite, and more distantly, the progress of the new US Embassy over towards Battersea, which happens to be very visible from this spot.  But I also photoed roof clutter, near and far:

1.1 That building, on the far side of Victoria Street from me, used to be New Scotland Yard, but the Metropolitan Police are moving (to a building right next to the original Scotland Yard), and it seems that one of London’s finer roof clutter clusters will soon be no more, to be replaced by these new towers.  Blog and learn. 

1.2 Some of the scaffolding opposite, mingling with aerials, and with an older kind of aerial for tuning in to messages from the heavens, otherwise known as a church spire.

2.1 Clutter at its most cluttered close up.  Is that stuff in the foreground maybe something to do with mobile phones?  In the distance, Battersea Power Sation, with one of its chimneys yet to be completely reconstructed.

2.2 Me photoing a satellite dish, and my shadow photoing the shadow of the satellite dish.

Tomorrow’s weather is also due to be gorgeous.

I’ve been photoing the Pavlova Statue outside Victoria Station for a long time.  On the left here is how she was looking, on a particularly sunny day ten years ago:

But look at the state of her now, as shown on the right.  I got quite a shock, I can tell you, when I came upon her about a fortnight ago, looking like this.

The Victoria Palace Theatre is being refurbished.