The 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square

On Sunday I went up to London for the day.   The official reason was to meet up with some other Labour activists, bloggers and general good-eggs but I made sure I got there early so I could do some sight-seeing and visiting of old haunts.  I think it is the first time I have been up to London since I got the new camera in November – part from passing through or going to evenings out where I couldn’t really take the big camera.After all the persistant drizzle of Saturday I was expecting more of the same, but it was hot and sticky.   I started off at Waterloo, went down Spur Rd and Lower Marsh so I could cut through the graffiti tunnel to the London Eye and the Southbank.  As I emerged from the tuinnel into daylight the fisrt thing I saw was a Crawley Luxury coach!    Either they have millions of them or they are stalking me, because I don’t seem to be able to leave the house without seeing one

By the time I walked to, and across, Waterloo Bridge I was feeling the heat a bit so I made my way to Trafalgar Square in order to enjoy the controlled climate of the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery.   When I got there I found a lady on the 4th plinth hula-hooping as part of Anthony Gormley’s One & Other project.

Despite my good intentions to look at something new, I found myself returning to all the same old favourites in the NG – Velazquez, de Hooch, Rembrandt, Canaletto, Guardi, Vermeer, and Turner.  Every time I see the Dutch realist paintings I still can’t get over the realism of them despite the huge clue in the collective title, and always feel a strong urge to not only revisit Amsterdam for the umpteenth time but to get round to visiting Delft.

Leaving the National I was just in time to see the shift change on the 4th plinth, which is acheived through the use of a very cool JCB machine.  When I got home in the evening I looked it up on the web and found that you can still sign up to go in the draw for being on the plinth, so I put my name in straight away.   Ten minutes later I was racked with jealousy to find that Andrew at Wongablog has already been selected.

The Crusting Pipe in Covent Garden

Eventually the time came for me to find my way to Covent Garden to meet up with the comrades – except the comrades were a bit thin on the ground.  For various reasons they all failed to turn up except Paul Burgin, the organiser, and his mate from North Hertford CLP.   Perhaps the rest all succumbed to the lure of the Sunday barbecue?

We had a chat, twiddled our thumbs, ate lunch, and were entertained by the wine bar’s resident magician who looks like Alex James and does close-up magic at tables and then headed off for the pub in the hope that some of the other decided to go straight there.

Reaching the pub we found that it closes early on Sunday…  I promised Paul I would not use the words “brewery” and “piss-up” together as we headed for the nearest alternative pub to discuss electoral reform, the future of Labour and Torchwood so it all turned out OK.

Not a bad day, but it was so busy up there.  Apart from the usual Sunday visitors there were thousands of tour parties from language schools all in their matching t-shirts, or identical orange backpacks or red baseball caps and then to make it even more crowded there was the London 10k run in the morning and everybody who took part stayed around to take in the sights.  Fortunately half the roads were still closed from the run so there was just about enough room.