Vox Import

Tower of London

I took a trip to the Tower of London last week, which I was very excited about.  I had always heard stories about the tower, prisoners, torture, daring escapes, great robberies, ghosts and the Crown Jewels held locked up tight.  When I imagined the Tower of London, I thought of something like this:

The Tower

A tall imposing tower, unscalable by thieves a tight lockup for treasonous queens, a resting place for the wealth of the British Royalty.  However, it seems that I had been royally confused about the whole issue.  First of all, the tower part of the Tower of London, isn't just the single tower you see above.  Its actually a small fortress with four towers at each corner:

The White Tower

Second of all, there is a whole set of a buildings that surround this inner tower and two walls that ring the whole complex:

Tower of London: Moat view

This green area used to be a moat, filled by and connected to the Thames river.  Finally, the Crown Jewels are stored in one of the buildings that surround the tower and are not actually inside the tower.

So the whole complex is still pretty impressive and I really enjoyed my tour, but its completely different than what I had imagined.

Oh and the Crown Jewels.  This was probably the only let down.  You enter the building where they are kept and queue up in a line that makes 4 loops back and forth through a room, getting closer to the front.  At the front of the room is a video playing the coronation of one of the queens.  After this room, you queue through three more room just like this one.  Each shows some some other aspect of the ceremonies that involve the Crown Jewels along with video of a slowly rotating example of one of these jewels.  It isn't until after all this that you get to a room where the main crowns are held.  In this room you must get on a moving walkway that takes you by each glass case at about 1 mph.  After that are a few rooms of bejeweled clothing, gold serving platers, etc.  Somewhat interesting, but I guess I was expecting some kind of pirate chest affair, with gold and jewels spilling out onto the floor.

The tower itself currently holds an armory museum and I guess at various times was an armory:

Guns

Caw! quoth the Raven

Outside the tower, but within the walls are the ravens.  These large birds hop around like they own the place, and apparently they are given full liberty.  Supposedly someone had said/decreed/prophesied that if the ravens ever left the Tower of London, that the Monarchy would fall.

Sheep-Lion Cannon

However, other sources say that the legend is recent and that during one of the world wars the ravens were absent with no ill effect to the Monarchy.  Still though, the birds are kept and given full run of the place.  Oh and their wings are clipped just to be safe.

Also in the courtyard were a large collection of cannon lying around, 'gifts' from other countries.   Some of these gifts were given in peace and some were just taken.  My favorite was an elaborately decorated cannon held up at one end by some kind of sheep-lion chimera.  I'm not sure if any artillery unit could wheel this into battle with a straight face.

Finally, the outer wall of the Tower of London had a lot of interesting turrets, towers and gates.  In particular Traitors Gate

Traitors Gate

which is a water entrance right off the Thames.  Originally it was built as the private entrance for one of the kings but later it became the primary gate used for prisoners to be held at the tower, which is how it got its current name.  The lore surrounding this gate was too diffuse for me to have created any real preconceptions, but I have to say, it lives up to feeling and flavor of the Tower of London as I had always envisioned.

Great place for the hearing impared in London

Rad Centre

South bank walk

I took a walk along the south bank of the Thames on Monday starting at the House of Parliament.

Parliment Buildings

The Parliament building includes Big Ben which I didn't realize until I got out of the tube stop.  The first thing you see out of the station is that sandy brown stone, elaborately ribbed in ever increasing detail.  It was a little disorienting.  It took me a few turns around before I looked up and realized I was right underneath Big Ben:

Big Ben

Yup, its pretty big.  I walked across the street to Westminster Abbey and almost (accidentally) got in for free by walking in the back entrance.  I got shooed out and redirected to the front where I paid my £10 fair and square.  Inside is pretty impressive.  Though it seems to be the accumulation of 900 years royal/religious knick-knacks.  Of course these knick-knacks are items made of precious metals and stones made by renowned craftsmen, artwork and famous corpses but still, there's a lot of random things in there.
I also found an example of my namesake while I was there.  In the back is the cloister and in the center the cloister garth:

Cloister Garth

Photos weren't allowed in the Abbey, but I decided I could sneak this one off.  After I got my fill of cloisters, chapter houses, transepts and naves, I walked over the Westminster Bridge and walked along the south side of the Thames. 

Angry Bull?

Here I noticed some strange tile work under the bridge.  Early space invaders?  8-bit art?  I'm not sure either, but it was interesting.  Also of note were some out of place fellows:

Empire Strikes London

I guess they're here for an exhibit on Star Wars at the museum.  Seems fitting since apparently the Empire was British.

Further along the Thames is the new London Eye ferris wheel.  I looks like It'd be fun but the line looked pretty awful.  Plus my airplane looped around the city a few times before it landed so I had some pretty good aerial views already.

Wide Eye

Further on is the Tate Modern museum, built inside an old power plant.  I wanted to take a photo of the building because its enormous brick smokestack and amazingly regular brick facade were amazing, but also pretty ugly too.  It didn't seem like the kind of thing that would really transfer well to film.  Instead I took a photo from inside looking out at the building next door (I'm sure noone has ever taken this shot) from the lower level:

Tate Modern Windows

There's a pretty cool view of the Tate on Google Maps right now.  Check out the shadow I outlined on this map.

For lunch I stopped at one of the many EAT. lunch spots I saw along the river.  They have sandwiches, soup and a few other things, all pre-made and in little containers.  Its simple but its pretty good:

EAT.

Fishes along Southbank

After a good lunch I walked along a little further past the HMS Belfast, a WWII cruiser that could be toured (for £12) and a stretch of walkway lined with fish lamps.  At the end of the walk was the Tower Bridge and across the Thames, the Tower of London.

Tower Bridge Hat

My expert self-portrait skills allowed me to make a hat out of the Bridge.

You could take an elevator to the top of the bridge after crossing it, but it cost yet another £10 and I was tired of shelling out money.

What I really wanted to see was the Tower of London, but by the time I got there it was already 4:30pm and they were only open until 5pm.  So I saved it for the next day.

London, How you Mock my Virgin Eyes

In the freezer section of Sainsburys, a supermarket chain:

Brain, Balls, Faggots in Sauce

Everything to make a first time Yank snicker, all in one box.

Waiting

Earlier at SFO...

I Do Dog Tricks

Here's a fun site I found while debugging some problems at work:

  http://www.idodogtricks.com/index_flash.html

There, all the fun of a dog (tell it to sit, stay, rollover, etc) with none of the mess!

Polysics Rock San-Fran-Fucking-Cisco

Just got back from the Polysics show and it was pretty amazing.  The everyone in the band was dressed in orange jumpsuits and moved around like a robot when they weren't rocking out.  The lead singer talked/screamed to the audience a lot and always referred to the city as "San Fran-Fucking-Cisco".  It was probably one of the most awesome shows I've seen in a long time.

I didn't bring my camera in, so I didn't get any pictures, but here's a video for one of the songs they played:

Polysics- I My Me Mine (Strong Machine 2 Version)

Rock!

Capsule SF Street Fair

Capsule SF - October 14th

Once again the Capsule SF street fair descends on Hayes Valley.  This Sunday, Oct 14th, I will be out representing Piximix with many other local designers.  This show has always had a lot to offer so stop by this Sunday and visit with us!

Supreme Court won't hear the appeal of apparent CIA victim

Summary of article; a US agency acts like a terrorist, refuses to be accountable.

Supreme Court won't hear the appeal of apparent CIA victim

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwor...

Khaled Masri, in Washington last year, says he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Europe and held in an Afghan prison for months in a case of mistaken identity. The Supreme Court today refused to hear his appeal in a lawsuit he filed against the CIA.

Seven Long Years

They said I was crazy.  Some even called me a madman.  But is what I'm doing so crazy?  An experiment seven years in the making, and I'm supposed to abandon it by the guffaws of a few slack jawed nay sayers?  Fie I say!

All it took was a thin layer of cellulose acetate and the ensuing chemical reactions took care of themselves.  Its only nemesis are the stray bits of electromagnetic radiation that are wont to cavalierly destroy such a delicate operation.  They laughed at me when I told them that my experiment could be safely shielded by 1.2 mm of polyethylene.  Well, who's laughing now!

Ah ha HA!  Ha ha HA ha ha HAAA HAAA HAA*cough* *cough* *cough* *cough*

Where was I?  Oh yes, the radiation.  I find it truly amazing that the very thing that could destroy my experiment, is the very thing that has breathed LIFE into it.  Life, that thing we humans so often take for granted!  All it took was 24 well timed bursts in the 400-700 nm range.  In Japanese, they call this transformation シャッターチャンス, or "shattaachansu".

I stood on the brink of light and total darkness, a blackness that could consume my soul.

So it was, that on Friday, October 5th, 2007, I took that 7 year old disposable camera that I strapped to the front of my bike at burning man and I brought it to the Walgreens 1-hour photo lab.  After several hours I am proud to say I have obtained adequate exposure!  Here are a few choice shots:

Additionally, here are a few shots I took to use up the roll when I discovered the camera and on my way to Walgreens:

Take that, the sun!