A short person's guide to a Marillion gig

Or why does Darth Vader always stand in front of me. When I've been stood here for 90 minutes through the support act and the intermission?!

no need to feel glum about feeling glum!

Epping Forest. Protected since Victorian days...

And in the other direction...

I remember when all this was snow... (a few months ago).

And

I remember when all this was fields! Just a few months before that.

These are the manufactured floodplain to protect the surrounding fens. Most of what you see before you is the WWT's reserve, so swan, wigeon, geese and many more abound.

Sun sets over the Vermuyden floodplain at Welney

Just the chatter of wildfowl and the occasional car swish.

Nearly home.

My first alma mater

Was and is, on Staples Road - a brief history of here.

The view from the school is next. For a suburban life, it was a pretty idylic location...

And again in the opposite direction, the "How Tall!!!" impermanence

Round the corner from the Globe Theatre

To Roast or To Roast to Go?
That is the question.

In the end, to go, and the bacon butty had an astounding quantity of bacon!

Then over the road to join the (always a promising sign!) queue at Monmouth. A beautifully light and flaky pain au chocolat, and a (morning strength) flat white.

As a certain David would say *parp*

Street art, or street lighting?

Another confident company founder...

Whatever happened to the daughters and grandchildren?

Stormtroopers in stilletos

"You ask Freddie to tell you the price of milk. Forget it. He will however be able to tell you the price of nail lacquer"

Elton John

Really should be going...

Further adventures in the peregrinations of a geek.

This café's got a good echo...

Juxtaposition of new, and not so new

Bayley Street, just off Bedford Square. My eye was taken by the two lines in front of me.

Street Art, Shoe Lane, EC4

London, Chatham and Dover Railway, 1864

Blackfriars bridge.

I truly admire the confidence the Victorians had. When they built something, be it infrastructure or just a bank building; they had the confidence to assume that it was a permanent, unchanging structure.

The permanence that was broken post WWII. In Cambridge Fosters' Bank now (not so) proudly boasts a Lloyds TSB branch. All over the country National Banks and Westminster Banks are now branded NatWest.

In the background you can see the partially constructed. Shard. I'm sure it'll be around for many years, but i can also be sure it won't have a name built in to last as long.

Victorians had a sense of legacy we could do well to emulate.

St Andrew's Courthouse EC4

I looked, but i could not find the Here Be Dragons sign.

5* Dept of Coffee and Social Affairs, Leather Lane, EC1

Sublime coffee and cake. Recommended!

Should have brought my Nikon. New and not so new London architecture

I do like the Gherkin.

5* Nude Express off Brick Lane, and close to Truman Brewery for Queen Exhibition

Fabulous coffee, superb water station, yummy brownies

Will return :-)

After going to Stormtroopers in stillettos.

For the extra slim Doctor Who

I think there's another fault in the chameleon circuit