The temperatures in London have been bonkers, more like May. The garden can’t understand and if this goes on much longer we will be mowing the lawn throughout the whole year. At least it’s keeping the heating bills down. And it’s given me the incentive to dig out one compost bin before sifting it into a builder’s sack and then reorganizing the rest
I followed a walking tour around the City named The World Reimagined.
This comprises a series of globes that various artists have decorated in ways that reflect their thoughts on what the world today, and specifically the City of London might have been like had the transatlantic slave trade not happened as well as giving a voice and a face to those lost in the mists of that bloody history.
The globes are all eye catching, all thought-provoking. Other similar tours have been installed in other parts of London and other cities with direct connections to that trade, eg Liverpool. The tour ends on 31/10. I will do a separate post on the globes.
Walking the City, there are other images that catch the eye. Here are a few…
Bracken House, built as a home for the Financial Times and with this eye-catching clock/calendar. Anyone guess who’s that as the boss in the centre?
St Paul’s Cathedral… outside is a statue of Queen Anne under whose reign the same old transatlantic slave trade did rather well
Mind you, on a Sunday, being around St Paul’s is something of a noisy experience
Beyond St Paul’s I passed Bow Church
And the Guildhall, with its busts of those seventeenth century historical favourites, Pepys, Wren, Cromwell and Shakespeare
Further on there is the Bank of England – for some reason, also called the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street – I should look that one up
next to the Royal Exchange, part of the rich insurance heritage hereabouts,
As is the weird outside in Lloyds building, not a million miles from another iconic London landmark, the Gherkin
and beyond that, and nearly at the end of my stroll, our very own Ghostbusters building, Mitre Court
All very jolly, unlike the standoff between our aging dowager and the kid’s cat Tipsy with whom she fails to see eye to eye. Good to see the old bird standing her ground, defending her territory…
I wonder which one is growling?
I don’t want you to go away with the idea that Tipsy isn’t relaxed and enjoying her time here…
TanGental 
Some fabulous shots of London.
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Looks like the walk took you to my old stamping ground! Nice to see those places again.
Queen Anne was a constitutional monarch so I don’t think she had a direct link to the success of the slave trade at that time…
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You’re being nice; that whole constitutional monarchy piece was pretty new then (Charlie I was 60 years before) and the tax on slaves that went to the Crown (and that was the Crown) was a grand source of funds… so she might not have prompted or promoted it but did she directly benefit? Oh sure.
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Well put it this way – she wasn’t the only one and your phrasing did rather make it look as though she was Director of the entire British Slave Trade Operations!
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Ok. Fair point. And it’s also true that even had she objected there was sod all she could have done to stop it. The miracle really is not that it happened but enough people made it stop when there was so much money in it continuing.
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Another lovely trip round our great cididel.
Fantastic to see the cats getting on so well, like Hinge and Bracket!
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They are a bit like a double act
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Bless
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Lovely tour, Geoff. I’m guessing the boss at the center of the Bracken House clock is Sir Winston.
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Spot on; Bracken House was build just after the war at a time when he was v popular! In the 1990s when Japanese developers were investing in London, one, Kumagai Gumi bought it from the FT for 150 million on the basis they’d know it down and build a glass tower. The government the listed it (historic status/architectural merit) and it dropped in value by about 40 million. There was a bit of a stink over that one….
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I’ll bet.
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A great tour, Geoff. I look forward to seeing the globes.
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I do like the globes, both concept and execution.
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Thank you for your look round the city. It reminded me of early days at work there more than sixty years ago.
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Been a few changes but a lot is the same apart probably from the cleaner buildings now thr soot has been removed from nearly all old ones
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The soot removal has been a big change, I agree.
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A fine photographic tour. How the skyline has changed since I began working in Lloyd’s old, old, old building in 1960
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Yep a different world
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I agree. The weather is bonkers. We have roses just coming into bloom, and an alstromeria is just putting out some new buds. Our geraniums are still going strong. I’ve usually taken them in by now.
As for the grass. Let’s not go there. Needing cutting in November?
I’ve not been to London since we’ll before the pandemic. Pity I missed the globes. They look interesting.
I suppose Sunday is the best day to go. I can’t take crowds any more. I get to feel claustrophobic. Not something that bothered me in the past.
Have you noticed we seem to have a new way of identifying eras? It used to be AD (more recently CE) and BC (BCE). Now it’s BP and AP (before pandemic and after pandemic.) 😄
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I’d not picked up on thr last couple and I’m not changing from BC and AD any more than my pronouns are changing. I mean why add the E? Who are we confusing him with?
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I’m not changing either, Geoff. BC and AD has been good for centuries. Why change it?
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That bloke looks suspiciously like Jennie Randolph-Churchill’s kid … hmm, what was his name again? 😀
Another love photographic pootle around town. Thank’ee kindly good sir. 🙂
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Chinston Wordle?
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Yeah, that’s ‘im! 😀
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