I have been guilty of two things. The first one caused the second. You can guess that the second thing is the fact that the "blog has not been updated in over a week.

The first thing that I was guilty of was working two nights of overtime at work this week. Normally I would politely excuse myself, but everyone else was staying. Add to that I am still the FNG around there. I stayed a little late.

Add to that, our excursions have been a little more mundane. Last Sunday, we took the Tube to the London Bridge stop and spent most of the day walking along the south side of the Thames. We has a lovely view of the skyline of London.

One of the amazing things about London and, I would guess all European cities, is the mix of the very old and the very new. Standing on the south bank of the Thames, one can see City Hall, the Swiss Re building (also known as the gherkin and other less polite things) Tower Bridge, London Bridge and the dome of St Paul's Cathedral.

The prior week we had two outings on our High Street. One was good. The other, well, I wish I had my two pounds fifty back.

We went to the free comedy night on Wednesday. It is in a little basement bar up the street from our flat. It is interesting to watch skilled comedians try out new material. It is painful to watch wannabes flatten the crowd into cringeing silence. The hit of the night for me was a man named Ray Prestone. He was about eighty years old. In fact, his closing joke was "I've got to go now, I've got another show in December." He told every old hairy manky million-year-old joke you've ever heard. The whole audience knew every punchline. And he killed.

Last Thursday, we went to a talk at an independent book store by two local authors. Both had just released books, one about the bridges in London and the other about the old London Routemaster Double-Decker Bus. I wished to be back watching the wannabe comedians. For people who make their living with words, they couldn't think of many interesting ones for their live talks. Perhaps their books are better...

As there is not much more to tell, I leave you with a photo essay from some of our recent time spent walking about in London.







London is a classy place. The buskers sing opera. This is from Covent Garden.
















Us at the Victoria & Albert Museum. This is a part of London that we will be re-visiting. It is a spectacular museum with seemingly limitless displays.









The pedestrian walkway along the south side of the Thames. This area was at one time a docklands for ships coming along the river. The old warehouses have been converted into lofts
and shops.















This was taken on the south side of the Thames.
Tower bridge in the background you will recognize.
The glass egg on the right is London's City Hall.














Trying to outrun the police = bad idea. Their radio and their
car are both faster than you.







We happened across a fashion shoot.
The metaphysical result of the act of photographing a photographer while in the act of photographing caused a large rip in the space-time continuum. My bad...






The caption from an outdoor photo exhibition of photos taken in
Japan by Hiroji Kubota.