London calling, will you accept the charges?

Dear London -

1. Breakfast toast doesn't need to deep fried. There is no need for waking up in the morning to a big mouthful of flour covered in dripping cooking grease. Same goes with tomatoes. Stop molesting your vegetables.

In fact, your deep frying privileges have been revoked until further notice.



2. I know that during WWII you cleverly removed all your street signs for fear of giving the eminent Nazi ground invasion any advantage, but IT'S TIME TO PUT THEM BACK. The Germans have already invaded and they've brought their printed floral shirts and their twee blond children. Is it so dangerous now to give them proper directions to the Diana Memorial?

3. Soap dispensers in hostel washrooms are clearly meant as a cruel joke among the staff.

4. Consider that yelling isn't the only conversational volume.



5. After traversing the streets of your fine city, I have now become an unwilling amateur scatologist.

6. The Tube map is a lie.



7. Re: Customer service.
Consider hiring front line service people who do not act as if they'd just escape from a group of rough and tumble kidnappers who'd kept them in the dark basement and beat them on the head repeatedly with frying pans and they have only just escaped by drugging themselves and their captors and then stumbling out to safety of the check-in desk of their nearest hostel.



8. Flushable toilets. There's really no point to an unflushable toilet. Consider.



9. Where is the rain? I was promised big buckets of misery and so far it has been nothing but hot, clear and sunny days. You have failed me London. Failed.

Love an ardent admirer,
Miss Brown




Now, the pretty:


The view from Trafalgar Square looking out to the West End where theatre comes from. From studying the statues in the square, I think I can safely assume that Nelson fought the battle of Trafalgar in a toga and laurel wreath. And he was ugly.



The other side of Trafalgar Square with the National Gallery and the most disturbing statue they could have considered putting in a public space.

... I cannot believe that I am agreeing with Prince Charles about something.



Buckingham Palace. Shame they don't sell t-shirts saying: "I almost got run over trying to take a proper picture of Buckingham Palace" as I know about forty-five German tourists who'd be interested.



To keep the plebs out. There are also a number of security cameras dotting the premises. All of which swiveled towards me as I took this picture.



The job of these poor saps is to go round the flower beds outside the Palace pulling off all the dead flowers from plants. And you thought your job was redundant and soul-destroying.



Around the Palace, there are delightfully imperialist towers with all of Britain's colonies engraved on the front and topped by naked babies. Newfoundland has its own column because they were too lazy to join Confederation on time.



From the Victoria statue outside of Buckingham Palace: This hammer and sickle imagery must have been really embarrassing after 1917.



Parliament and that clock tower that was destroyed in Doctor Who.



The scariest part of England isn't the phone booths which smells like unwashed library patrons, but the policemen trolling Parliament and all the tourist attractions with loaded machine guns.



You say you want a revolution?
Well, I've got a revolution right here, baby.
Babies on spikes, civil war, regicide and frilly collars?
All check.

-Free stylin' poet, Olly "Roundhead" Cromwell



I swear to god I could have just rolled up in my pickup truck and drove away with Rodin's Burghers of Calais. It was just sitting there in a park full of tourists who were just as amazed as I was that the Burghers of Calais was just sitting there in a park full of tourists.



The globe theatre!
The Globe Theatre!
THE GLOBE THEATRE!!!
... it's only a model. :(



Regent's Park where only happy people are allowed to walk. There was not a single unhappy or grim face in the entire enclosure. Only happy old people in love or necking teenagers or cheerful parents with curly haired moppets. It was unbearable.



A very happy fountain in Regent's Park.



And then out of nowhere, there was the Creepy Carousel of Death!



The British Museum whose motto through the years appears to have been adapted from Pirates of the Caribbean: "Take what you can! Give nothing back!"



The Flying Monkeys of Doom. Apparently these were made by shamans to scare away illness and disease and impressionable young tourists.



Wellington's Arch. Which is an arch. Dedicated to Wellington.



The Captain Jack Harkness of the the battle of Waterloo.



The Victoria and Albert museum which is my favourite museum with beds that I can't sleep in.



If you can't see it clearly, this guy is merrily slicing off the leg of the topsy-turvey gentleman while the chubby cherubs hopes for barbecue.



Un-unionized labour is so pretty.



Baroque interiors.



Extremely phallic garden statues.



Westminster Abbey where I refused to pay ₤8.50 to see a load of plaques.



St. Paul's Cathedral was worth the ₤9.00 and the fifteen minutes it took me to find the "₤" symbol on my character map.



You'd better appreciate the 520 steps I had to lumber up to get to the top of the Cathedral and take this pictures.

145 of those on the most rickety staircase in creation.



530 steps people. Christopher Wren is not a nice person.

In conclusion:



Evil demon cow gives London two thumbs up.