Friday, December 5

I’m up early and on the Central Line to St. Paul’s and then to The City. Saint Paul’s is un-photographable. I can’t get back far enough. There is much new development around St. Paul’s. Alistair says that the last time London had been so prosperous, was during the Victorian era.

An underground violinist plays Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah.

Walk along The City’s Threadneedle Street, Robert Frank worked here, the part demolished building I’ve come to photograph at 1 St. Mary’s Axe, is completely demolished. Number 1 St. Mary’s Axe, was known for be-headings. The financial district’s streets are cold and hard.

I meet Joelle for lunch.

An underground guitarist plays Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven.

We spend the afternoon walking through the theatre district of Covent Garden. At nightfall, we walk under Waterloo Bridge and along the Victoria Embankment. Next to Cleopatra’s Needle an inscription reads;

The scars that disfigure the pedestal of the obelisk. The bases of the sphinxes and the right hand sphinx. Were caused by fragments of a bomb dropped in the roadway close to this spot. In the first raid on London by German aeroplanes a few minutes before midnight on Tuesday 4th September 1917.

September the 4th is my birthday.

We cross the river on the Jubilee Bridge, walk along The Thames Path past the stores selling freshly roasted take away food, walk by the giant Eye of London, over Westminster Bridge, along Whitehall, through the Horse Guards Parade, along The Mall, Haymarket, finally Piccadilly Circus.