Lovely ironwork in Whitehall.
Through Horse Guards Parade and into St James Park. Slight rain. But still, pelicans! Who needs to pay exorbitant prices to go to London Zoo when you can see real, live pelicans in St James Park. Astounding. Apparently, they were first introduced to the park in 1664 as a gift from the Russian Ambassador.
St James Park is really quite a wacked out place. Check out this little cottage complete with "cottage garden". Right beside the lake and the pelicans and the fifty breeds of duck. It was built in 1841 for the duck keeper. And it includes a club room for the Ornithological Society of London. I love it.
Horse Guards Parade is all imposing Classical architecture, but at one end is this pecular dark monstrosity. It looked so black and secretive. Sinister almost. I got really obsessed with it. Turns out it's The Citadel, built in 1940 or so, and intended to keep Churchill and co safe in the event of a German invasion. It has foundations nine metres deep and a concrete roof six metres thick.
They've tried to hide it a bit with ivy but it just makes it look weirder, which I love.
This dude marched right through Horse Guards Parade with me following behind him. He did that short marching on the spot thing that indicates he's about to stop and stand still, so I pulled up right alongside him, with my iphone camera ready. For a beat he was looking away from me, didn't know I was there, then he turned round, and CLICK - got you! After that of course he chased me down the street and whipped my ass with his big shiny tourist sword. He didn't really but he looks like he'd like to doesn't he.
Finally, the bargain of the day – if you can't work out the conversion to dollars or whatever.
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