The Importance of Being Idle

Tired, Tour Of London

I've just finished three days of very early mornings and long days, travelling down to London and back. To start with just driving in London is a trial, there are so many idiots you need to keep an eye on (most notably yourself; whatever you think you know about driving does not apply in our nations capital), but once you start to get that down you can actually start to look about and admire the view; in fact it's taken me three days to realise that on the way home I ALWAYS drive past BBC Broadcasting House, where the very radio programmes I am listening to are coming from. I also seem to go through Trafalgar Square on a pretty much daily basis. Today I also went straight past the Houses of Parliament (wonderful view as I was coming over the bridge across the Thames) and in previous days I've visited St Pauls Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Marble Arch to name but a few. However the weirdest thing/place I've seen was today, when I went through the Rotherhithe Tunnel, a tunnel about a mile long that goes under the Thames. From the look of it it's probably late Victorian (judging from the wrought iron work on the emergency exit stairs and very neat white tiles used to line the tunnel), and is very narrow and doesn't appear to have been designed with the prescience to anticipate the widespread use of the car (which, to be fair had hardly been invented at all at the time). Most disturbing (once you get used to the idea that you are driving through a one hundred plus year old tunnel under a huge river) is the haze which seems to settle down there, as though the exhaust fumes are just settling down there in a yellow green mist. I guess that's what the smogs used to be like, back in the good old bad old days, eh?
Anyway, it's late, I'm tired and hungry and it's time for Heroes! And for the last two days of the week I get a lie in before going to deal with the hell that is DHL! Yay me!

posted by BadMonkey @ 8:55 PM