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Apr. 11th, 2005 08:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringTower Bridge! An icon of London. A bridge that is literally over the top in its decoration. I couldn’t help but stare at its baroque details when I stepped off the bus – it was a feast for the eyes in a way that few such utilitarian works are. Typically an engineer will consider a bridge all the better if it is simple and elegant in its construction, but this tilted the needle all the way over to the other side. It was as if Mad King Ludwig and Walt Disney had designed the thing, complete with a couple of drawbridges that lifted up when a ship passed through. I half expected a portcullis to drop down to block traffic when that happened.
And to my vast surprise, it happened. The ship passing, not the portcullis. I was admiring the view of the Pool of London with the old Second World War cruiser HMS Belfast as its centrepiece, when things began happening. Flashing lights, sirens, and a loudspeaker alerting us to the imminent action.
Most of the action was amongst tourists like me, scrambling for vantage points, but gates were closing, the last few pedestrians chivvied off and the bridge was empty. Save for a couple of tourists running, running for cover. We cheered them home, an attendant in a reflective vest and a scowl drew the gate closed and we all lifted our cameras and composed our shots.
There’s something about an opening bridge that brings out the little boy in all of us. Great slabs of the landscape moving and rising at the touch of a button. Who cannot fail to be amazed? Or to want to be the chap with his hands on the levers? With an audience consisting mainly of people from distant places all pointing cameras at the grand spectacle? I’d swap my life as a bookseller in a moment. I’d be paid more, for a start.
The bridge halves rose until they were almost vertical. “We were walking on that a moment ago,” a father told his son in a moment of shared awe.
And then a yacht motored through. All we could see of it was a bare pole of a single mast, and it seemed like a bit of an anti-climax. All that effort for such a tiny vessel? Perhaps it was a stunt for the tourists, and the boat would tie up downstream for an hour and then motor back on schedule. All for the benefit of tourists and the manufacturers of digital cameras.
Worked for me. I was charmed by this grand toy of a bridge. Stick a row of swivelling seats on each side and I’d happily pay for a ride. And install a portcullis to block off traffic, perhaps spear the odd unwary German or Japanese import.
Somewhere above a well-paid fellow with the best job in Britain drew back on a massive Victorian cast iron lever and the whole thing went into reverse gear. The road halves slowly lowered themselves back to the horizontal, gates opened, traffic started up again and the cameras were put away.
Like hell they were. Just across the river was the Tower of London. Maybe they have things different in other places, but in Australia the only castles are made out of cinderblock and date back to the 1970s.
I drank it all in. This was unbelievable. A genuine mediaeval fortress. In Australia, the only things a thousand years old are a few rock drawings and midden piles of empty oyster shells.
Along with everyone else, I raised my camera and sucked it all in. The walls of sheer stone, pierced by arrow slits and topped by battlements. The few gates, solid and defended by bastions. The walls within the walls. The towers of the Tower.
And look! There is a Beefeater!
Grand stuff, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I posed Bilbo Kiwiberry for a photograph, and I prepared a book for release. A romance with a mysterious tower, I had carried this one from New Zealand and here was the perfect spot. Or maybe over here. Or here with a couple of Beefeaters in the background…
In the end, I sealed it up in a ziploc bag and left it on a bench near the visitors centre where people were tucking into their genuine Olde English Fish & Chips.
Mmmm, got my juices flowing, but look at those prices! As the weather closed in, I forgot about a pricey lunch in the increasing downpour and set off for Whitechapel, ducking from bus stop to portico to subway entrance.
And to my vast surprise, it happened. The ship passing, not the portcullis. I was admiring the view of the Pool of London with the old Second World War cruiser HMS Belfast as its centrepiece, when things began happening. Flashing lights, sirens, and a loudspeaker alerting us to the imminent action.
Most of the action was amongst tourists like me, scrambling for vantage points, but gates were closing, the last few pedestrians chivvied off and the bridge was empty. Save for a couple of tourists running, running for cover. We cheered them home, an attendant in a reflective vest and a scowl drew the gate closed and we all lifted our cameras and composed our shots.
There’s something about an opening bridge that brings out the little boy in all of us. Great slabs of the landscape moving and rising at the touch of a button. Who cannot fail to be amazed? Or to want to be the chap with his hands on the levers? With an audience consisting mainly of people from distant places all pointing cameras at the grand spectacle? I’d swap my life as a bookseller in a moment. I’d be paid more, for a start.
The bridge halves rose until they were almost vertical. “We were walking on that a moment ago,” a father told his son in a moment of shared awe.
And then a yacht motored through. All we could see of it was a bare pole of a single mast, and it seemed like a bit of an anti-climax. All that effort for such a tiny vessel? Perhaps it was a stunt for the tourists, and the boat would tie up downstream for an hour and then motor back on schedule. All for the benefit of tourists and the manufacturers of digital cameras.
Worked for me. I was charmed by this grand toy of a bridge. Stick a row of swivelling seats on each side and I’d happily pay for a ride. And install a portcullis to block off traffic, perhaps spear the odd unwary German or Japanese import.
Somewhere above a well-paid fellow with the best job in Britain drew back on a massive Victorian cast iron lever and the whole thing went into reverse gear. The road halves slowly lowered themselves back to the horizontal, gates opened, traffic started up again and the cameras were put away.
Like hell they were. Just across the river was the Tower of London. Maybe they have things different in other places, but in Australia the only castles are made out of cinderblock and date back to the 1970s.
I drank it all in. This was unbelievable. A genuine mediaeval fortress. In Australia, the only things a thousand years old are a few rock drawings and midden piles of empty oyster shells.
Along with everyone else, I raised my camera and sucked it all in. The walls of sheer stone, pierced by arrow slits and topped by battlements. The few gates, solid and defended by bastions. The walls within the walls. The towers of the Tower.
And look! There is a Beefeater!
Grand stuff, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I posed Bilbo Kiwiberry for a photograph, and I prepared a book for release. A romance with a mysterious tower, I had carried this one from New Zealand and here was the perfect spot. Or maybe over here. Or here with a couple of Beefeaters in the background…
In the end, I sealed it up in a ziploc bag and left it on a bench near the visitors centre where people were tucking into their genuine Olde English Fish & Chips.
Mmmm, got my juices flowing, but look at those prices! As the weather closed in, I forgot about a pricey lunch in the increasing downpour and set off for Whitechapel, ducking from bus stop to portico to subway entrance.
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no subject
Date: 2005-04-11 03:32 pm (UTC)And the Tower of London is exceedingly wondrous, even with all the tourists about. From the ravens to the "oh by the way, this is where slews of royalty (and folk who annoyed royalty) were beheaded - yep, right here, right where you're standing"... In New England we think of something from the 1600s as old, but in London that's practically new construction.
The beer's good, too.