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London Again
September 1st, 2007 at 23:53
Over the summer, I think I’ve been to London more times than I have to the town centre of my own town. Yesterday was no exception; I went to London to be an awful tourist again with Katy. The day was alarmingly expensive, as rather than go to free museums like skanks, we went and had a look at attractions that you have to pay for.
First of all, as it was an important day – Princess Diana was supposed to be descending from Heaven or something. So we went to Buckingham Palace and the Chapel where the service was being held to see what was happening… she was the Queen Of Our Hearts after all. There were just a lot of people about, so we didn’t stick around or see any celebrities, unfortunately.
We decided to go to the Tower of London. And it was pretty good – it damn well should have been for the £13 entry fee. A Yeoman warder gave a brief tour of the grounds. He was more “fun” than you’d expect him to be – making jokes about the horrible murder of the two Princes at the Tower a few hundred years ago, that sort of thing.
The tour had four stops, and concluded in the church that’s within the grounds, where Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Gray and her husband were buried. As a republican atheist, I think its safe to say that it felt a tiny bit awkward.
The Crown Jewels are housed in the Tower too – you can tell where they are as they’re the only bit where the guard outside, rather than being an old beardy chap in a dress, hold a machine gun with a bayonet, marches and never smiles. The jewels themselves are pretty good, if not a little bit gaudy. I mean, I get it, the Royals are an anti-democratic institution who have a fair bit of cash – there’s no need to flaunt it that much.
After the Tower of London, we decided to head to the London Eye, but we took the river boat rather than the boring old tube. It was expensive, at £12, but well worth it. Not because of the views – I’ve been to London loads of times recently, and know the area like the back of my hand – it’s got to the point where I no longer get excited when I see the Royal Institute of Civil Engineers. I liked it because of the commentary.
It wasn’t a tour boat. It was essentially a train that could float and inexplicably carries exclusively tourists. A voice came over the tannoy explaining that whilst it wasn’t a tour, the driver felt compelled to give a commentary to not let down the tourists. He was a proper cock-er-ney too, and this made it excellent.
He said “Nahh” instead of “now”, and dropped the leading ‘H’ on words. He even said “Not a lot of people know that”, a few times, sounding exactly like the Dead Ringers impression of Michael Caine (aka Greg Dyke). He also had exactly the mindset you’d expect a proper Londoner to have:
“Nahh, this ‘ere to your right is the London Ass’embly. It cost forty-two mill-yon pahnds ahnd two mill’yon of ‘at was spent on consultants to come up with a name. Ahfter ahll ‘at, they called it City ‘all”.
It was hilarious. I think cockneys are generally hilarious. I guess this might become a problem if I ever live in London.
The London Eye was excellent, narrowly justifying the £15 it costs to go on it. The views it gives are pretty incredible – you can see everything from the ground directly below the Eye to the roof of the Houses of Parliament, where bang in the middle is a portacabin. Classy. Apparently it’s where Parliamentary employees go for a smoke now that it’s been banned indoors.
Unfortunately, this was the one trip to London where I forgot to take my camera. Its a good job I didn’t see anything terribly famous I might want to have a photo of me in front of.
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