United Kingdom

I have had a rough week. I have felt frustrated and angry all week, and have been filled with some doubt that I made the right move in coming here to London.

It’s not that I am thinking that I shouldn’t have moved, but rather that I should have moved somewhere else.

The weather has been bad and job hunting has been really frustrating me. I’ve been in London for a little over 3 months now, and if you include the month and a half that I was looking for work before I came over, that’s almost 5 months of looking. I have been getting interviews, and at one point almost had a job, but it was snatched away at the last moment due to a hiring freeze implemented because of the downturn in the world-wide economy and the credit-crunch.

Part of the reason for my foul mood though, I think is my recent trip to Brussels and returning to London. I experienced something similar on my return from Paris after seeing the Bastille Day celebrations.

As I wrote about in that entry, Paris is one of the prime reasons I moved to Europe, and when I was there in July, I couldn’t help but keep asking myself the question, “should I have moved here instead of London?”

I spent 45 days in Paris back in 2005, which added with three days in July means I have spent a total of 48 days in Paris. Coincidentally on July 19th, 2008, just after my return from Paris, I celebrated my 48th day in London. There’s nothing really special about the number 48, other than the fact that I had spent 48 days in both places. So I sat down and wrote about it, though never published it as a blog. Here's what I wrote at the time:

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On Saturday, July 19th, 2008, I have spent 48 days in both Paris and London. 48 days. An equal dose of both cities. After my trip to Paris, I have been wondering if I made the right choice or the wrong choice in moving to London. If Paris is what made me want to move to Europe, why London? Because it was easier hardly seems like a great reason.

As I wrote in my little notebook in bold letter when in Paris

Q: Did I move to the wrong city?

It’s a good question. Every time I wander around in Paris, I feel a sense of awe. Any sense of awe quickly faded about London.

I remind myself that I have never “lived” in Paris, never had to do the things I’ve had to do in London, like banking, job, place to live. As well, my experience with Paris has always been at the heart of it, within the city limits. If I lived in Paris, would I live in the city, or would you find me out in the suburbs.

Perhaps the charm I feel in Paris would not be so strong if I had to do these things?

Perhaps not, though. I have always been enchanted by Paris. I’ve never really been grabbed by London, even during my vacation time here in 2007.

London seems like a “functional” place to me. It is laid out to function as a city, a place of commerce, a place to meet. It is clinical, though not soulless. It is designed to be an efficient machine.

Paris, despite Haussman’s massive renewal and the creation of wide boulevards, strikes me as “ornate,” a city designed to be a work of art itself. A place to be admired and awed.

Paris is art to London’s machine.

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Eventually that feeling faded as more realistic thoughts settled in, and the new adventure of moving to the Docklands and living near Canary Wharf came along.

Then I headed to Brussels, and was enchanted by a new city, especially an experience on Saturday night at my hotel’s bar.

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It was Saturday night, and after returning from Bruges, I decided to have drink. As I was tired, I decided to have one close to my hotel, and nothing is closer to a hotel room than the lobby of that hotel.

I was sitting in the Schengen bar at the Renaissance Hotel. The hotel is a Marriott brand just a block from the European Parliament, so it gets a lot of folks from around the world who are doing business with EU. The bar was pretty busy, full of people speaking in different languages and accents. The TV played the Euronews channel, covering news from around the world with a European perspective.

It made me very happy to be part of something so international, even if it was just from the outskirts of the action, sitting alone at a bar while Europe’s and the world’s politics and business went on around me.

I will admit that one of the reasons I moved out of Canada was to be part of something larger. I wanted to be part of the international community, be part of something that was happening. Europe seemed to be that place.

As I left North America, Canada and the USA seem to be closing themselves off, fortifying themselves against the outside world and even dividing themselves into smaller bits internally - red vs. blue states, north vs. south, Quebec vs. the rest of Canada, east vs. west, Northern Ontario vs. Southern Ontario.

Europe is coming together. The European Union is growing, the coming together of nations to form a larger community, an international meeting place. Despite setback with the recent Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty to give the EU more powers, proponents of the EU want to continue to build the union, stronger and larger.

Sitting in that bar, I felt like I was somehow part of building that union, that I was taking part in the building of that international community.

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I left Brussels on Monday on the Eurostar. About an hour and 15 minutes into the journey, we passed into the tunnel under the English Channel, heading back to the island that is England.

“Here I am, trying to be part of a more international community, and I do it by moving to an island?” I thought to myself, and a funk settled in.

So that’s why have been feeling frustrated with my slow job hunt all week. I don’t think it is the job hunting. I think it is the fact that I am suffering from post-trip blues. Even a short stint away makes the place you live seem a little duller by comparison.

After all, this week I have cleaned my bathroom, called my landlord about a leaky kitchen sink, did a load of laundry, shopped for groceries, talked to 5 different recruiters about 5 different positions and dressed up and went on an interview for a job that I realized two minutes into the interview I didn’t want.

How can that compare to sitting in a bar, listening to the world’s politicos discuss important things in many different languages and being awash with the feeling that you are part of Europe, that you are an international citizen?

If instead of the Isle of Dogs, I had found myself cleaning my bathroom, worrying about my leaky tap and doing loads of laundry while looking through the want ads in a Brussels flat, I wonder if I would have felt very much like an international citizen, or would have just felt like somebody without a job who had all day to do his chores?

University College London was founded in 1826. Prior to its founding, the only other two universities in England were Oxford and Cambridge, which only allowed men who were members of the Church of England. UCL was formed with a goal of being non-discriminatory and open to all. It was the first university in England to admit students of any race, class or religion, and the first to welcome women on equal terms with men. Even today, UCL is ranked 22nd in the world by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s annual Academic Ranking of World Universities.

There main building, above, was designed by famed architect William Wilkins, who later went on to design the National Gallery here in London as well. As you can tell by the columns, it is not surprising to learn that he toured Greece as a young man and then later became one of the most important figures in the English Greek Revival of the early 1800s.

Blah, blah, blah. Who cares? I am much too old to care about university rankings, a little old to be wandering aimless around University campuses with all the young co-eds and don't really care much for Doric, Ionic or Corinthian columns.

No, there is only one reason I went to UCL, and that was to see the DEAD GUY IN A BOX!

Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher and jurist (legal dude, in plain English) who lived from 1748 until 1832. He was a well known law reformer who helped fashion the law codes of a number of countries, and pushed all his life to create a code of laws that delivered on his philosophy of delivering "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."

He is often credited with creating a design for the Panopticon, a prison which allowed the guards, positioned in the middle of the jail in an circular observation room, to see all the cells, which radiated out as spokes from the central hub, though it was an idea that he had seen when visiting his brother in Russia.

He is, however, the creator of the word international. It's hard for me to believe that no one had come up with a word to explain that concept previously, but in 1780 in his work "An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation," he wrote of international jurisprudence. A footnote on the word international said the following:

The word international, it must be acknowledged, is a new one; though, it is hoped, sufficiently analogous and intelligible.

I must admit, that last night I was lying in bed trying to come up with new words myself by taking prefixes and sticking them with existing words. The best I could come up with is georecognition, which is the state of being globally recognizable. For example, "Sure, people in North America know Jessica Simpson, but Britney Spears, she's got georecognition. Even when she slinks away to the Philippines they still want to put pictures of her derriere in the magazines. They all want a piece of her." Go on, start using it. Just remember you read it here first.

Anyway, back to the DEAD GUY IN A BOX!

In Bentham's will, he requested that his friend Dr. Southwood Smith preserve his body as a mummy, which Bentham coined as being his "AUTO-ICON."

Dr. Smith obliged, but messed up the preservation of the head, robbing it of any facial expression, and thus replaced it with a wax replica. The head was preserved and kept along with the Auto-icon for a time, but now is locked away in a secure location.

Bentham was considered by many to be the spiritual father of UCL and as a proponent of women's rights and decriminalization of homosexuality, was in tune with the UCL's goal to open its doors to all, regardless of race, creed or political belief. Therefore, in 1850 University College London acquired the Auto-icon and put it on display in the South Cloisters in the main building of the College.

The cabinet contains Bentham's preserved skeleton, dressed in his own clothes, and surmounted by a wax head.

Why Bentham did this is a question that no one knows the answer to, but some speculate that it was an attempt to question religious sensibilities about life and death, to make us look at the discarded corpse of a man and wonder why we venerate the bodies of those that have passed before us.

Frankly, I just thought it was both a little cool and icky at the same time. I wonder if they dress it up for Hallowe'en? They could put cobwebs around the box, and dress Bentham up as a zombie or a ghoul!

Given the veneration that the UCL website heaps upon Bentham, maybe not. Then again, given the stories of the pranks that were rained upon poor old Jeremy's head when it was in the box, including being locked in an Aberdeen train station locker and being used for game of football, perhaps they would.

Into the dark shadowed spaces below us, while we watched, whole batches of incendiary bombs fell. We saw two dozen go off in two seconds. They flashed terrifically, then quickly simmered down to pin points of dazzling white, burning ferociously. These white pin points would go out one by one, as the unseen heroes of the moment smothered them with sand. But also, while we watched, other pin points would burn on, and soon a yellow flame would leap up from the white center. They had done their work - another building was on fire.
- Ernie Pyle, World War II correspondent, Pulitzer Prize Winner (source: Eyewitness to History )

On the afternoon of September 7th, 1940, 348 German bombers, escorted by 617 German fighter escorts flew over the east end of London, dropping a massive amount of bombs on the port of London. While the attacks that day were aimed at the port to deliver an economic blow, a number of bombs fell off target and 448 Londoners died that day in what became locally as “Black Saturday.” It was the first day of 57 days of sustained bombing of London and the United Kingdom, and the first phase of a bombing campaign that lasted into the Spring of 1941, eventually killing 43,000 civilians across the United Kingdom. It is known now as The Blitz.

London has long been a port city, with easy access to the sea via the Thames River. As the British Empire expanded, the city became the central hub for the shipment of goods from around the Empire. To handle this increasing trade throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, a number of docks were built to the east of the City of London proper, starting with the West India Dock in 1802.

West India Dock, opened in 1802, today home to the Dockland's Museum, bars, restaurants and a very nice Marriott hotel

With the Nazi’s take over of France in June of 1940, the Nazi’s turned their attention to the United Kingdom. On the 18 June, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, in a speech at the House of Commons declared, "The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin."

Statue of Churchill, sitting beside Roosevelt on a bench near Bond Street

The Battle of Britain began with a bombing campaign by the German Luftwaffe against military targets, specifically air fields, and industrial targets in Birmingham and Liverpool. On August the 24th, some German bombers strayed off target and dropped bombs across the north end of London. In retaliation, the British Royal Air Force carried out attacks on Berlin which killed 10 people. Hitler was apparently very upset at the attack on Berlin, and on September 5th ordered the attacks on London and other major British cities.

As Hitler had ordered attacks that would disrupt the life of London and the United Kingdom, it is no surprise that the docks were one of the major targets of the German bombers. By 1939, London was one of the busiest port in the United Kingdom, handling 60 million tons of goods which accounted for 38% of the entire trade of the United Kingdom.

Cranes at West India Quay. Previously used to load and unload cargo, now used to give the place a little nautical atmosphere

That first night, on Black Saturday, over 1000 bombs had hit the Docklands, causing an inferno that covered 250 acres of land. The fire was so strong at the Surrey Docks that glass in buildings not on fire started shattering from the heat. Firefighters were brought in from all over London and even from out of town to fight the fires.

Not only were the buildings on fire, but also the contents of the many warehouses holding trade from across the British Empire. A firefighter described how some of the goods from far away corners of the British Empire made fighting the fires even more difficult.

“There were pepper fires, loading the surrounding air heavily with stinging particles so that when a fireman took a deep breath it felt like breathing fire itself. There were rum fires, with torrents of blazing liquid pouring from the warehouse door and barrels exploding like bombs themselves.” source: Port Cities UK

Memorial erected in 1991 by artist John W Mills, dedicated to the 1002 firefighters who died fighting fires in London during the Blitz. It shows three firefighters - two holding a hose and one directing operations. It is just across the street from St. Paul's Cathedral

The next 56 days saw nightly bombing of London, and many Londoners found shelter in the deep stations of the underground. The area of the port was bombed repeatedly, and many areas were completely destroyed.

The bombing campaign continued through the winter and into the spring of 1941. May 10th, 1941 saw 500 German bombers drop over 700 tons of explosive on the capital, killing close to 1500 people.

The churchyard of St. James' church off of Piccadilly was laid out after the 2nd World War as a Garden of Remembrance to commemorate the courage of Londoners during the Blitz. This statue holds a olive branch, and on the base says Peace.

May 10th was the last night of the bombing campaign as the Germans turned their attention eastward to Russia. By the end of the blitz, over 25,000 bombs had fallen on the docklands, destroying 11,000 homes and many commercial buildings. Across London, 1.4 million people were homeless.

In St. Mary-Le-Bow church, one of the stained glass windows on the north side of the church shows St Paul with his Epistles, surrounded by bombed City of London churches. This church, while not technically in the east end of London, is said to define one of the most enduring images of east end London, the Cockney. A "true" Cockney is someone born within earshot of the Bow Bells, the bells in the church's tower.

Despite the end of The Blitz, London and the docklands still suffered from bombing and rocket attacks for the rest of the war, including V1 and V2 rockets. The port continued to operate, however much of it’s traffic was diverted to other ports in the United Kingdom.

Looking at the docklands today with the large towers of Canary Wharf, the condos and ExCel centre around the Royal Victoria Dock and the part surrounding the East India Dock, you might think that the German bombing campaign was the end of the docks as a port.

It wasn’t the German bombs that did in the docks. Much like the rest of London, which was rebuilt in the image of pre-war London with minor improvements in some places (like indoor plumbing), the docks were for the most part rebuilt as a working port once the war ended, and by the mid-1950s the part was fully operational again. By the mid-1960s the port was back to its pre-WWII levels, handling 60 million tons of cargo.

Eventually though, it was a combination of shallow water, twisty bends and small docks that did in the docklands as a working port. By the late 1960s, more and more cargo was being handled at the larger downstream port of Tilbury, as it could take the large container ships that were becoming the norm in the industry. By 1980, all the docks within London had closed.

A Japanese container ship glides through the Panama Canal. These ships, built to just fit into the canal, were much too large to fit into the docks in London, and there was no room for the large cranes needed to unload the boats.

In 1999, a memorial to those killed in air raids during World War II was unveiled at St. Paul’s church. Designed by Richard Kindersley, the memorial is a low circular stone inscribed round the sides with the words, “remember before God the people London 1939-45.”

Atop the stone, at the centre are the words

In war, resolution: In defeat, defiance: in victory, magnanimity: in pace, goodwill

London is teeming with werewolves. You can hardly escape them.

I just missed capturing in full view this werewolf as he strolled down Piccadilly Street. He was about to attack the woman with the rollerbag suitcase, but saw my camera and dashed out of the frame. I clicked quick enough to just get a partial view of his hairy face in the frame.

I was reminded of this fact recently in of all places Toronto. I was listening to the top-40 radio station that was previously called The Mix but has now been rebranded as Virgin Radio. Sir Richard Branson slaps his Virgin logo on yet something else. He’s almost has hard to escape as the werewolves.

The radio was playing a new song by Kid Rock which seemed to consist of Kid Rock singing over the music from the verses of Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon and the chorus of Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Hearing the bits of the Warren Zevon song got me thinking about all the places named in Werewolves of London, and I decided I should go and check them out, keeping of course a gun loaded with silver bullets and a vial of holy water handy, just in case.

For those that don’t know the song, or those that know it and after being reminded of it want to hear it, you can listen to it on youtube and check out the lyrics at this site.

I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the streets of Soho in the rain

In the centre of the West End is the area of Soho, a diverse area of high street shops, pubs and clubs (for both the gay and straight crowds), sex shops and residences for both the rich and the poor.

The area’s name comes from the 17th century, when the area was used for hunting. “Soho,” the hunters would call, “there is the fox.” No wonder werewolves stalk the area, they are looking for payback for the hunting of their canid brothers.

Soho seems a fitting place for werewolves, really, given the number of places that seem to cater to our most animalistic of desires, those for food, drink, sex and dance music.

He was looking for a place called Lee Ho Fook's
Going to get himself a big dish of beef chow mein

If a werewolf was stalking from beef chow mein, Soho would be a good place to do it. There is some debate whether Chinatown is part of Soho or not, but it certainly is very close to it.

Lee Ho Fook’s is the name of a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, on the pedestrianized Gerrard Street at numbers 15-16.

The next part I wasn’t so much looking forward to, that of the eating of Lee Ho Fook’s offerings. Perhaps werewolves, used to supping on the raw flesh of the wiry “little old ladies” that they mutilated last night, aren’t too particular about their asian cuisine. However, the fully human customers who had reviewed the place online were unanimous in their view that the place sucked. However, as any great artist suffers for his art, I was prepared to suffer through a meal at Lee Ho Fook’s.

By art, I mean my writing, and by writing, I mean this blog. Many will dispute that this blog constitutes art. In fact, there are probably a group that would dispute the assertion that this is even writing, but I digress.

Luckily for both my art and my stomach, Lee Ho Fook’s had this sign posted on the door.

Saved by renovations!

I did, however, go to another Chinese restaurant and get a beef and noodle dish, just to keep in the spirit of the thing.

He's the hairy-handed gent who ran amuck in Kent
Lately he's been overheard in Mayfair

While the song is about London, there is this one mention of someplace that is actually not in London. Kent is a county to the south-east of London which includes both the white cliffs of Dover and the entrance to the channel tunnel. I haven’t been to Kent, other than travelling through it on my way to Brighton and France. I mean, it sounds a scary place, what with werewolves running amuck.

Canterbury is in Kent, which is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury who is the chief Bishop of the Anglican Church. The current Archbishop is one Rowan Williams, who if you look at pictures of him, you might think him a rather hairy individual. Hmmm, werewolves in Kent and a hirsute bishop. Coincidence?

Unlike Kent, Mayfair is in London. Mayfair is just to the west of Soho and bordered on the other side of Hyde Park. The area, named after the annual fair that used to be held in the area, was one of the most fashionable residential areas in the 17th and 18th century.

Over the years the area has converted to being a mostly commercial district, including being home to a number of the most expensive and exclusive hotels in London, including places like the Ritz and Claridge’s

Well, I saw Lon Chaney walking with the Queen

Mayfair is bordered on the south by Green Park, which, along with St. James’ Park forms the beautiful park area surrounding Buckingham Palace.

Now, I have never seen the Queen out walking, and in fact right now she is off on summer vacation, but I think if she was to walk, she would probably take a stroll along The Queen’s Walk in Green Park.

The Queen’s Walk was built by Queen Caroline, wife of King George II, as a walk towards the Queen’s Basin, a large reservoir in the park. The reservoir is gone now, filled in by Queen Victoria (I guess she wasn’t a fan of water), but the walk still exists today.

I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's
His hair was perfect

The Trader Vic’s in London is in the Hilton Hotel just north of Hyde Park Corner in Mayfair, one of the many previously mentioned luxury hotels in the area.

While this was my first visit to the London brand of Trader Vic’s, I had been at a Trader Vic’s before when I was in Beverly Hills. No werewolves in Beverly Hills that I saw, though the place does have a few monsters of it’s own. Reconstructed by plastic surgery and kept alive by injections of platypus’s placentas and nightly sleeps in their oxygen chambers, some of the old codgers weren’t much more than Frankenstein’s Monster with better credit. The place is so image conscious that I can’t imagine a werewolf would have to spend long in Beverly Hills before someone would be suggesting a “really good doctor” to apply a course of laser hair removal treatments.

Trader Vic’s in London is much like Trader Vic’s in Los Angeles, in that it is a tacky Polynesian theme.

I had a Pina Colada, though I don’t think anyone mistook me for a werewolf. After spending a morning wandering around in the rain in Soho, my hair was much less than perfect.

Better stay away from him
He'll rip your lungs out, Jim
I'd like to meet his tailor

I don’t know where werewolves have their clothes tailored, however if they really have perfect hair and hang out in bars in Mayfair, then they probably wear bespoke. In London, the place to buy your tailor made suits is Savile Row. Werewolves shopping in one of the many tailors along Savile Row could find themselves rubbing shoulders with Prince Charles, Daniel Craig and Jude Law.

Savile Row used to be a posh residential area, but like other areas in Mayfair, turned to commercial properties in the 18th century with tailors starting to populate the area. The area became well known for bespoke tailoring by 1846, when the “founder” of Savile Row, Mr. Henry Poole inherited his father’s tailoring business at No. 32.

As we continue into the new millennium, though, Savile Row is in danger. The rise of men’s fashion houses in France and Italy along with the rise of rents in central London threaten the existence of the tailors along the row. So get out there and buy your suits now, while you still can.

Good thing it was only a half moon. A full moon and I probably would have had my lungs ripped out.

Enjoy London, lycanthropes
Werewolves of London

More Olympic Fever. Looks like the temperature is really rising!

Seems I can't escape the Olympics, especially when you are living with 3 very patriotic Brits. This past weekend and the last few days have been very good to Britain in Beijing. They won a mass of Gold medals, and now sit at 3rd in the overall standings, behind only China and the USA. Many of those medals came in Sailing and Cycling, where Team GB's strategy of co-locating all their cycling athletes in Manchester at a state of the art, well-funded facility has paid off handsomely. Of the 10 events at the velodrome this Olympics, GB has won 12 medals, including 7 golds, putting them well ahead of the next closest team, Spain, with 3 medals.

I wandered down to Trafalgar Square today to catch two of those Olympic golds in the Men and Women's Sprints. A massive video screen has been set up in Trafalgar Square, and has become an impromptu living room / party room, with moments of tension as people watch events, and moments of levity as they celebrate the winners.

Victoria Pendleton won her gold medal match in the Women's Sprint, bringing cheers from the assembled crowd.

Next up, Chris Hoy of Great Britain beat Jason Kenny, also of Great Britain, to give a Gold and Silver finish to the Men's Sprint, and made Chris Hoy the first British person to win 3 gold medals in a games since 1908. More cheers from the crowds, the medal ceremony and then the song... God Save the Queen. I've been hearing it a lot lately.

Haven't heard too much of O Canada, unfortunately. It's only been played twice this Olympics. Sigh. I guess there is always 2012.

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Today, I found a barber not far from my place that I like. He's just across the river in Greenwich. £12 for a "Gents" cut. I guess I am a gent. Did a nice job with my hair, and despite the fact that he gave me a bit of a dressing down due to the fact that I sometimes shave my own neck between cuts (which causes ingrown hairs), I am for sure going back. Yay, yet another little bit of "settlement" news.

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While the 2012 Olympic site at Stratford is still mostly dirt, one site is up and running already, the ExCel Centre in the east end of the Docklands. I took a walk down that way the other day. It's a pretty impressive building, at least from the footbridge going across the Royal Victoria Docks. The roof is all spikey, white bars, almost like a giant constructor set.

Unfortunately, from the ground it's just a big box. To make a nice picture of it, you have to dress it up with something in the foreground blocking part of the view, like this handily placed crane.

ExCel will be hosting Boxing, Fencing, Judo, Table Tennis, Taekwondo, Weightlifting and Wrestling.

Walking out to the ExCel Centre I followed the North Bank of the Thames, and then cut up and walked along the north side of the Royal Victoria Dock. The area around Royal Victoria Dock is well developed, with a number of nice apartment buildings and a few bars and restaurants.

On my way back, I decided to see a different part of London, so I crossed over the DLR tracks to Victoria Dock Road. It is just north of the ExCel Centre and the condo apartments at Royal Victoria Docks, but is a very different place from it's neighbour on the south side of the DLR tracks.

On the north side of the DLR tracks is a lot of run down looking housing, and mostly scuzzy looking businesses, many of which seemed closed permanently.

Walking further along towards Canning Town, I came across a car on the side of the road that was completely destroyed by fire. 4 cars down from that, a car with it's passenger side window smashed, glove box open and papers strewn around the car. I thought about taking a photo, as it reminded me almost of the kind of shots you see from war zones, but then though better of hauling out my camera in an area where, apparently, people smash and grab and on occasion burn cars.

Past Canning Town Station, though, suddenly everything changes again, with more pricey looking condos and shiny office blocks. A lot of the businesses along the Victoria Dock road close to Canning Town were shut down, not for lack of business, but because the land was reclaimed for a massive redevelopment project. When walking along, I couldn't help but feel that it would only be a matter of time until the gentrification oozed its way north and east and all those burnt out cars and run down flats would be replaced by condo high-rises and California-Thai-Mexican fusion restaurants.

Closer to the Thames River in Silvertown, development hasn't quite taken hold. It's still an industrial area with few opportunities for a pedestrian to get close to the water. About the only reclaimed part there is the area called Trinity Buoy Wharf, which has been remade from a Buoy manufacturing and maintenance facility into a centre for arts and artists.

(I didn't get to try Fatboy's Dinner. They were closed for August vacation).

Ironically, as part of the scheme, they have converted a lot of large shipping containers into art studios and small craft shops. This is ironic as it was ultimately the shipping container and the Port of London's inability to deal with the massive cranes and ships required to move shipping containers that lead the docklands to close and be redeveloped.

Then again, given they are artists, perhaps that is a statement in of itself?

Further east, south of Royal Victoria Dock and heading towards London City Airport is a large section of land that is unused. The area used to be manufacturing and shipping, but with the closure of the docks, it has mostly gone to fallow.

Walking along North Woolwich Road, I found another casualty of the docks closing.

With no thirsty dockhands looking for a pint, there is no reason to keep the pub open. Boarded up, abandoned and surrounding by two metal fences, the Graving Dock Tavern closed up in the 2002. Graving Docks, by the way, where used to clean the hulls of the ships.

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Continuing to geographically hop around without any sort of rhyme or reason, here's some photos from an underpass near Waterloo Station. Graffiti is allowed and encouraged in this area, and there are some interesting pieces of art.

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I know I've shown this picture before, but I really like it.

There is something very cool about the juxtaposition of the farm animals and the skyscrapers. I think every city should have a farm pasture right in the middle of downtown. It would be a great way for stressed-out office workers to relax during their lunch breaks.

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Hmm, an entry without any sort of point or purpose. If this were actual literature, people would probably complain, but as this is a free blog on the internet, I know that...