Where to watch the Queen's Jubilee Pageant

There's a lot of riverbank to choose from, so  here are some thoughts on how to select your spot.

Firstly it looks like its going to be wet, so the best places will be buildings by the river, apartments and offices i.e. indoors. The trouble is they'll be in hot demand so its time to have contacts and pull in some favours. One organisation I know with offices by the Thames is having a family day - how cool is that.

Then remember its a long way from Putney Bridge to Cadogan Square where the Queen boards her boat, so if you're upriver you'll miss a lot, though there are big screens being set up.

Another problem is a lot of the good locations are off limits, like the bridges obviously, for security reasons. Then some places have been reserved for functions, like around the Tower:

That still leaves a lot of choice.

Couple of things to think about are:

• is there shelter?
• what's the backdrop for photos?
• how crowded will it be?

I'd have thought somewhere with an icon like the Houses of Parliament or London Eye the other side of the river would be good but again that's likely to be crowded.

Maybe somewhere further down stream around the Millennium Bridge with the big poster, the Globe and the Shard as background?

Oh and there are lots of portaloos appearing on the bridges.

Good luck!

Boats and Bunting

Today I had a meeting in town, a tough one, but there were two silver linings.

Firstly the time and location meant I could get the Putney river bus into central London, following the same route as the Queen will on Sunday. Both banks were lined with red, white and blue, what must have been miles of bunting.

Secondly after it finished I could spend my lunch hour wandering around London and Tower Bridges camera to hand where the first of the Parade of Sail were arriving.

So here are a couple of pics for you:

Bonus marks for identifying the boats and their history.

It was all a lot quieter up river between Putney and Hammersmith, where the boats are due to arrive tomorrow:

Diamond Jubilee Fever

London is going Queen's Diamond Jubilee crazy!

Bunting is going up in shops and across roads, street parties are being planned by the thousands, stores are advertising everything from Pimms (oh, yes please) to coloured cupcakes (no thanks).

There's a whole 4 day weekend of events from racing (horses that is), mega gig outside Buck P. (questionable line up if you ask me), carriage procession, church service (its not all fun), a flyby (writing QEII in the sky) and finally the real QEII herself on the balcony to do her waving thing.

Of course the highlight is the 1,000 boat pageant of boats on the Thames: as many ships for one woman as when Helen of Troy made Paris's heart go into thumping overdrive.

A lot more information is available out there, from the BBC's dedicated subsite to the newspapers (e.g. the Guardian's downloadable map here. Techies might be interested to note its being hosted on Google Drive), London focus sites like LondonTown.com have their own take here and of course the official site here.

On the Thames Jubilee Pageant site as well as the map shown above you can also find a lot of information about some of the boats taking part including:

• Fireboats
• Dunkirk Little Ships
• Avenue of Sail (which are separate and moored below London Bridge)
• Historic + Service boats
• Human powered boats (or at least that's what they should be called)
• Recreational motorboats
• Explore Vessels (not entirely sure what that means but they sound and look interesting)
• Narrowboats (I've seen them a few times)
• Kayaks (if rowers toss oars what do kayakers do?)
• Barges 
• Herald Music Barges (can they Handel the pressure - geddit???)
• Passenger Boats
• Royal Squadron

Plus without downloadable PDFs there are working boats, flags of the pageant and a whole swarm of police launches, RNLI orange specials, mean and menacing Royal Marines and the PLA to keep everyone in order.

Phew! What a list! Should be absolutely amazing even if the weather is threatening to be historically appropriate.

But I'm going to miss almost it all.

Ah well, there'll be another one in 350 years or so and Buff assures me that he has it all under control.

Installation review: Underscore

A quick post about last weekend before the Queen's Jubilee mega-bash takes over.

Last Sunday, when the sun still shone over London town, there was an installation in Wandsworth Park on the Thames opposite the Hurlingham, called Underscore.

It allowed you to follow the route of this weekend's pageant, but underwater, with your ears.

As you walked along a curly path under those pregnantly green trees you passed by wooden boxes with names like Kew Bridge, Embankment and Thames Gateway, on which stood monochrome clothed artists with megaphones.

They performed sounds that had been recorded at those places along the way, animalistic croaks and machine like thuds.

I enjoyed the aural walk under Thames so much I did it many times, both upstream and down, then went for an ice cream.

It was a good afternoon.

What's on the fourth plinth now?

Replacing Nelson's ship in a bottle, a homage to "the heroism of growing up"
 

Theatre review: One Man, Two Guvnors - in three words

Very very funny

The Cutty Sark is closed on Mondays

A top tip for those in London.

If the weather is great and you wonder if it would be worth taking Monday off work to visit the Cutty Sark, then don't.

The Cutty Sark is closed on Mondays.
 

Diamond Jubilee's Biggest Poster and Culture in Stone

When Liz goes boating next weekend (along with 1,000 other vessels) she will pass this epically big poster from the Silver Jubilee back in 1977.

100 x 70 metres it has been hung on the sides of Sea Container house between Waterloo and Blackfriars.

I was a bit worried about the office workers stuck behind it, their windows darkened by the royal images, as in years gone by I've been to many a meeting there. But fortunately it's currently being renovated.

At its base you'll find the Gallery@Oxo which is currently showing an exhibition of Shona sculpture from Zimbabwe called "Culture in stone" - small but well worth visiting.

More pictures from: Culture in stone

London's burning, 2012 update

London's burning, London's burning

Open a cold one, open a cold one

BBQ! BBQ!

Watch the sun set, watch the sun set

 
 

Putney river bus runs aground

Uh oh!

This is the Putney river bus hard aground earlier this week. It was stuck on a mud bank for 20 minutes or so, blocking half of the river, prop churning white foam, turning grey waters brown.

If this were to happen during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee 1,000 boat parade it would be bad.

The Thames Barrier is meant to be raised during the pageant to ensure sufficient water but will it be enough?

At low water the Thames isn't that deep - see here and here for more information.

Queen's Diamond Jubilee - update

Excitement is building for the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and the 1,000 boat parade on the Thames.

To give you a flavour here are just a couple of the flood of updates:

• The National Maritime Museum has an exhibition called Royal River: Power, Pageantry and the Thames (see picture above)
• There's an article about the exhibition from curator and historian David Starkey about the Thames being 'liquid history'
• They say that nothing on this scale has been seen on the Thames since the days of Charles II
• It is expected to take 75 minutes for the flotilla to pass by on its way under 14 bridges
• To get really into the diamond spirit, CPO Diamond on HMS Diamond is to receive a Diamond Jubilee medal
• The lead boat will be the rowing barge Gloriana, powered by Olympic oarsmen Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent.
• A flyby is planned with the Royal Air Force spelling out ERII in the skies.
• Not all the boats will be joining the parade on the Thames: in particular those Tall Ships that are unable to fit under bridges will remain in the Pool of London - see video here.
• There's been gossip about how the Queen might actually be dreading "the ship thing"
• The mayor certainly isn't dreading the day, saying how it will be better than Dunkirk (well, duh)
• Security has been increased after the boat race fiasco
• The royal couple, William and Kate (bless), will be on-board the Queen ceremonial barge
• The barge will be decorate with a sculpture of Old Father Thames and decorated with half a million gold coloured buttons 
• As the boats pass the MI6 building the musical barges will play the theme from James Bond and the Dambuster's theme as they pass the MoD building
• There's an App for that - yes, go to iTunes to download an application that describes the Thames over the route the regatta will take

There was also this post of mine about preparations - and yes, those mooring buoys are appearing as if the Thames has an outbreak of yellow spotted measles.

Any more good links?


Picture from: the NMM

Book Review: London Under

Opening a new Peter Ackroyd is a bit like cutting the foil on a bottle of vintage port. There's the thrill of anticipation, reading the short paragraphs on the outside with an approving nod before finding a cosy chair to relish its smooth joys.

And it doesn't disappoint, as long as its not corked (i.e. fiction - the less said about First Light the better).

In this slim book there are indeed riches of vocabulary and turn of phrase, ornate and decorated, sentences rising as high as a croquembouche.

Previously I reviewed Ackroyd's Thames and it was a memorable book - maybe too long, for it is a style that can overwhelm the reader. Maybe that's why I skipped his follow-up London, The Biography (a typical bold claim, to use the definite article) in favour of Beter Sackroyd's "Piddle - A Gentle Stream".

London Under as you might expect is an exploration of the lands below our feet, the catacombs, rivers, sewers, water pipes, electric, communications, tube lines, pedestrian tunnels, secret bunkers and bomb shelters. To go below the surface is to burrow into history, layers of London stripped away as we travel back to pre-Roman Britain.

Time itself seems subject to his whim: "Time itself does not matter in the presence of the lost river" he says to which I respond with a baffled frown of someone who once could do space-time tensor algebra.

As you might expect from Ackroyd, pretty much anything can be a sign of the sacred, so that, for example, the water pipes "create a blessed space" - but there are demonic undertones underground too. He sometimes isn't sure which - maybe both, which no doubt is spiritual equivalent of double cream, naughty but nice.

There is mention of course of the controversial and much debated Thames Tunnel (as blogged here), though rather strangely he calls it "not widely known or discussed", which makes we wonder whether we have strayed into a parallel universe, otherwise called planet Ackroyd.

Having said all of this it is a great read and totally quaffable in a minimum of sittings.

Just remember to have a pinch or two of salt to hand.


Picture from: Amazon

Opera non-review: Einstein on the beach

I had a ticket to Philip Glass's 5 hour spectacular "Einstein on the beach" at the Barbican but alas was hit by a horrid 'flu so was unable to go. However the following non-review came out of my (literally) fevered brow:

     It.
     It.
     It.
     It is.
     It is.
     It is.
     It is. It.
     It is. It.
     It is. It.
     It is. It. It is. It. It is. It. It is. It.
     It is very.
     It is very.
     It is very.
     It is very. It is very. It is very. It is very.
     It is. Is very. It is. Is very. It is. Is very. It is. Is very.
     Long. Its is. Long. It is. Long. It is.
     It is very long.
     It is very long.
     It is very long.
     It is. It. It is. It. It is. It.
     Very long. Very long. Very long.
     It is very long. It is very long. It is very long.
     It is very long. It is very long. It is very long.
     It is very long. It is very long. It is very long.
     Long.
     Long.
     Long.

Picture from: The Barbican

Victoria's London vs. Elizabeth's London

This year is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee; Liz's that is, not Vicki's.

Queen Victoria had her Diamond Jubilee back in 1897 and London has changed quite a bit since then - or at least parts of it have.

But not all, as can be seen by the two photos above. Greenwich has survived mostly unchanged, though of course the river traffic is very different: faster but less elegant.

More in a new book called The Queen's London.


Picture from: The Telegraph here.

The Thames needs Lifeboats!

The people of London are concerned.

"Why oh why are there no lifeboat services on the Thames?" ask 84% of them and two thirds of Londoners agree there should be one.

But what's strange is that there are indeed lifeboats - in fact there are four RNLI stations on the Thames which are the busiest in Britain and have been supporting this stretch of water for 10 years now.

"C'est bizzare"

London and the Shard

Nelson's Ship in a Bottle - Victory!

Its a good day for art and the National Maritime Museum (NMM)!

The Art Fund has successfully raised enough money to keep Yinka Shonibare's sculpture Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle for the NMM in Greenwich.

It looked good on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square (above) and it will look equally impressive outside the NMM and as a campaign supporter I'll be no doubt be down in Greenwich some time to admire it.

What's more it will be in place in time for the Queen to see it when she visits Greenwich for the opening of the Cutty Sark and the NMM's 75th anniversary on the 25th April, which is this Wednesday.


Updated: The Queen in Greenwich as reported on the BBC web site here.

London Kayakathon 2012

There's so much going on in London its impossible to keep up.

Apparently back in 2010 someone had the great idea of having a kayaking marathon on the Thames on the same day as the London Marathon. This year was the third outing, but the first I've caught: no doubt the previous two either missed or pigeon holed as just yet another group out on the river.

It's called a "Kayakathon"  which to be honest sounds a little close to the "Jubilympics" of the wonderful "Twenty Twelve" docu-comedy just finished on the Beeb.

Anyhow congrats to all of those taking part and in particular well done for avoiding getting run down by Kingwood (above).

There is that little voice in my head saying that as the river is tidal the distance through the water isn't 26.2 miles but I've just told it to shut up its all about raising money for charity and I didn't see you heading out on the water!

"So its all good then!" (*)

(*) my favourite quote from Twenty Twelve which I'm rather enjoying using at random but vaguely appropriate moments

Preparations for the Queen's Jubilee Pageant

You have to treat rivers and seas with respect.

There's not just the sad story over on Never Sea Land of the deaths in an offshore sailing race, as you could drown right here in Thames. Of course there are things you can do to make the sport safer - like clip on or not drink over six units of alcohol, as in this collision report.

That's a valuable lesson for the Queen's Jubilee Pageant (blogged earlier) where there's going to be a 1,000 strong flotilla of boats packed into the narrow waters of the Thames.

It helps that of course they'll mostly be going the same direction (one hopes) but still I can see why the PLA would want to do a bit of rehearsals. At least that's what I think they were doing last weekend when there were 40 - 50 boats churning up the waters.

Most in the first of two bunches of boats were plastic production line models but there were a few more interesting ones in the second (above).

Further preparations can be seen towards Hammersmith Bridge where the first of the buoys have been laid:

BTW, the vacant lot across the river in this photo is where they're going to build the exclusive riverside development "Fulham Reach" with decoration allegedly inspired by Oscar Wilde as blogged here.

London's changing skyline

This has for long been the image of London. Historic and imperial, valuing the traditional over the new.

But cutting into the skyline is the unmistakable dagger that is the Shard.

Modern and imposing, signalling to the world a city unafraid to find itself in the 21st Century.

It's a lovely evening to wander by the Thames opposite the Tower, sharing the view with hundreds if not thousands of tourists.

Welcome to London, 2012.