london – One Chance to See the World

Heading back home for Christmas

I wanted to post an apology as well as an update, for the lack of content in recent months. This is largely due to me staying inside to limit the risk of catching the virus before seeing my family, and also a big loss of motivation as a result.

Maybe this lack of motivation has helped me behave and stay indoors for as long as I have. So I can’t be too mad at it.

But the time has come to head home. I have had lots of holidays that I haven’t taken this year, and for this I have the rest of December off. I will stay with family until the end of the month, and head down to London again on New Years Eve.

I had a breakfast, double checked I had my things and headed to Kings Cross.

When I say breakfast, I actually broke my year long McDonald’s ban. Got so close to a year without a single meal from here!

But it’s what I needed to get me up and out, and walking through Kings Cross was surprisingly quiet. I thought more would be making the journey back home. The Harry Potter attraction was back, as was the photographer. I chatted to him for a few minutes, he told me a few businesses had to sadly close in the station, and that of course the lines for the 9 3/4 trolley was no where near what it used to be. I of course had to take a selfie, pretty standard routine now.

I wore a mask throughout, and didn’t want to risk travelling closer to Christmas as it could be very busy. My train is very quiet thankfully. It is a dilemma for me as I do not want to promote travel or reckless behaviour that could increase the spread, but I know that I haven’t been out during the easing of the second lockdown, despite it being allowed. I have also had two negative covid tests. London only went into a full lockdown yesterday, but I refrained from going out to ensure I was safe on the journey up, as well as for my mum and sister and everyone I may encounter. We are also sticking to the three-house bubble the government has recommended the country sticks to.

I am going to post here at least once a month I think. This will be achievable and enough time to get enough content to post about, if next year starts how this one ends. There will always be things to post about in London even if we are still forced indoors, so I don’t worry about that. However I apologise for not having much on here recently.

But I hope every single one of you has a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and please stay safe and sensible!! It won’t be easy for most of us and we have to tread lightly, but let’s all think forward to how great 2021 could be and not dwell on how bad this year was.

Thank you to everyone that reads this and continues to view my posts, I really appreciate it.

Love to all!!!

Early bird or night owl?

I have been following a lot of London photographers lately to get some inspiration. One thing I envy is just how empty the streets are in their photographs, they look abandoned!

Even in the height of lockdown, London’s streets were not totally empty, and getting up early seems to be the best way to get that abandoned vibe. The early bird catches the worm is very true in this case. The problem is I am not an early bird.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCGQWKAMK_v/

But I am getting better. The earlier I wake the less busy tourists areas are, it really is rewarding and makes me excited to leave the house. And as I get older (cheese alert) I am appreciating everyday more and more, and realising how much time a sleep-in can waste. Too much.

Here are some shots not long before sunset at St Paul’s Cathedral. The ‘what‘ installation above is a part of a wider project around the city, with many other words dotted around nearby streets.

*Google’s what the actual full sentence is*

Thanks to Londonist for the answer, the full sentence reads ‘What are you going to meet if you turn this corner?‘

The Millennium Bridge perhaps?

Cute dogs on walkies?

The Shard perhaps, taken on a different, more cloudy day.

This street gave me a real Harry Potter vibe, and was a great way to see the Shard unobstructed from across the Thames. The new pictures I am uploading here and to Instagram are new ones I have taken in the past few weeks of lockdown, and edited using Lightroom. I will have at least one new shot a day for the next month or so, so plenty of London to see if you have five minutes spare to check them out!

But back to the question. Early bird or night owl? Have recent events changed your habits or have you stuck to your guns?

Let me know, and happy hump day!

Sam

Due to the Coronavirus outbreak I am somewhat limited as to what I can do in London, but I aim to post as much as I can during this time. I promise to have some great posts coming your way once this is all over as I continue to explore London.

Stay safe and happy blogging!

Sam

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Will you miss anything about lockdown?

From Instagram, 29th June 2020.

Covent Garden before the post-lockdown crowds.⁠

I am going to miss the emptier streets in a way, currently 2020 has seen me lose faith in humanity more and more with every month that passes. More reasons to hate each other and less willingness for conversation. So a lonely walk without human interaction is therapeutic.
⁠
But then again the lockdown has seen us online more than usual, and this is where trolls and their toxic thoughts reside more than anywhere. At least people are rarely as toxic in person as they are behind a keyboard. We need real life conversations again as talking behind a username is a recipe for disaster.⁠

—

I have enjoyed the lack of interaction on my walks at times, but then again realise face to face interaction is usually much more pleasant than it is online. So the jam packed tube rides that we all label as ‘unfriendly’ in London will be welcomed with open arms… if I had that much room to do so. The commutes crammed but silent sound like heaven right now.

At this current moment, silence is like gold.

I hope you are managing to avoid the negativity, and more importantly, avoid being sucked into to it. It is contagious and sticks to you like glue. And once in that negative headspace it is hard to make that shift towards happiness again.

Stay motivated, stay optimistic and we will get through this, whatever it is that you are personally fighting for.

Stay safe and happy blogging!

Sam

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Two amazing moments I experienced in London last week

It is easy to talk about how bad this year has been. So I thought I would take a moment to show you two pretty awesome experiences I have had in the past seven days.

On the 18th June, the Red Arrows flew alongside the Patrouille de France over Buckingham Palace. It marks 80 years since Charles de Gaulle made a famous speech to the people of France to fight Nazi occupation. They flew over Paris on the same day.

The weather couldn’t have improved at a better time. Earlier that day it was cloudy and raining, however nothing but blue skies to delight onlookers thereafter.

But not every spectacle in London is expected, some just happen right in front of us. Take this moment two days ago, as I was about to cross a road at Piccadilly Circus. I was taking photos and had my GoPro with me, and could tell something was happening with all the heads turning.

I got my GoPro out as a dozen or so Supercars rocked up to the traffic lights, and stayed for a whole ten minutes at the delight of passers by. I filmed the whole thing and uploaded to YouTube, and the footage can be seen below.

I have no idea what the police thought about them holding up traffic for ten minutes, but as present as police were that day (due to protests), the cars were able to stay without repercussion. In fact they only drove off after one driver decided they had been there long enough, whilst the crowds grew. I understand that there isn’t much social distancing happening here, but I was never packed in with a crowd and when I did lean over someone, I was well back with my GoPro extended out in front of me.

I just wanted to cross a road. I wasn’t expecting so many people to turn up around me, or for any of this at all!

So the world isn’t all bad, some interesting things are still happening around us if we keep looking for them.

I hope you have some of your own stories too, what fun things did you get up to over the weekend?

Let me know of them in the comments!

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Stay safe and happy blogging!

Sam

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Hogwarts is closed?!

I was on the Millennium Bridge the other day during sunset. It is a great place to walk, between St Paul’s and the Tate Modern, and to stop and think for a moment whilst overlooking the Thames. Lots of time to think however not enough energy to do so. That’s how I feel at this moment.

I am putting together a post regarding everything that’s happening right now, but admittedly I have been putting it off. I hope to have it up this week though. It isn’t that I don’t want to talk about it, more finding where to start. And I am mentally drained by this year as well. Typing feels like walking through thick mud at the minute but I am easing back into it.

So here is a short post about a recent wander. Something I have always enjoyed talking about and walking is really helping keep me sane right now. It is also very interesting to see how the city has changed and is evolving over time, now more lively than it has been for months.

…

Kings Cross is a short walk from me with a movie connection to the Millennium Bridge. Can you guess the connection?

That’s right, Harry Potter. Brownie Points if you can name the movies they both appear in!

During the lockdown the powers that be have decided to take down the Platform 9 3/4 attraction and replace it with a bench. Not much of a surprise, but I was intrigued to know what it would look like today. Would they have boxed it up or fenced it off??

Neither, just taken it off the wall completely.

For anyone unfamiliar, this is what it looks like normally. I am hoping it returns soon.

I would love to know how many train stations around the world have cool little features like this one. Airports such as Singapore Airport have made the waiting game cool, offering something new and exciting to look at whilst waiting for a flight. More train stations should do the same in my opinion!

(Click the arrow for more images)

https://www.instagram.com/p/CBiJtHKMCTo/

Have you seen the Platform 9 3/4 attraction in London Kings Cross? Do you think they will reinstall it?

Let me know what you think of it’s fate… and I hope you are all having a great week, whatever Hogwarts House you’re in 😉

Stay safe and happy blogging!

Sam

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The lone violinist

It was a walk on the 18th May to Piccadilly Circus, a difficult time in a difficult year. Now I look back, it was an easier time in an increasingly more difficult year. The quiet walk absent of footsteps other than my own, very few cars and birdsong heard above anything else.

Then, the sound of music slowly getting louder, a busker playing without an audience to hear it.

She played between the boarded up doors of the businesses behind her, all around her in fact. The only life coming from the huge advertisement boards Piccadilly Circus is known for, advertising to an empty square. For the rare photo opportunity I put some money in her collection case, probably a quid or two, whatever spare change I had on me. Being a professional she hardly acknowledged it as I did, as if I was the hundredth person to do it that day.

Come to think of it, I probably should have counted the coins in there. I wonder how much interaction she had seen that afternoon.

The only interaction I had seen was this deliveryman standing beside her. Giving her encouragement or asking for her number? Waiting for his next collection or waiting for a song request? I am not sure, but she hardly gave him a look. Whatever it was the attendance doubled in that moment.

A couple days later I was taking photos close to Westminster, when the streets were a little quieter and before the barbaric murder of George Floyd. It’s crazy how bad we think 2020 is, until we give it another month. Now, protests have marched through these streets and the statues that I saw couldn’t be more fitting.

Nelson Mandela, and Millicent Fawcett, individuals pursuing the goal of equality and freedom, immortalized as statues not far from the Houses of Parliament. Other statues have been vandalized or even taken down due to connections with slavery.

After all these years we still need to fight for such freedoms. Even if we are slowly chiseling away at the rock of inequality there is still a long way to go. And every day there is evidence of this around the world. The buildings are nice but it isn’t just buildings that need to be worked on over time, human rights need to move along with it.

It makes me wonder how far into the future we will have to look to find a humanity confident that it is being treated fairly across the board. Will we have to wait for the inevitable merge of ethnicities in the coming centuries? Or will it be before then? What we do know is that it isn’t now, clearly what we have isn’t working.

What we need more than ever is conversation. It isn’t necessarily the difference of opinion that is causing problems, but our way of managing it. Our inability to sit and talk about topics we have different stances on, and our lack of ability to want to change our opinions also. From the left to the right, the problem seems consistent across the board. We won’t get anywhere without conversation, and this has to be promoted on social media, in the workplace, in our governments.

I just hope that this conversation begins before we get too disconnected with each other.

‘We have never been so connected, whilst being so disconnected’

Stay safe and happy blogging!

Sam

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Why you should visit this Korean house above a busy London road

Street art has made me more observant as a person. I have learned to keep my head up and look around. Even in the seemingly boring streets around the CBD, there is always an opportunity for discovery.

Wormwood Street is one of those streets. Above it a Korean house seemingly fell from the skies onto a concrete bridge, the work of Do Ho Suh, a Seoul- born installation artist.

Where to find it

Wormwood Street is within London’s CBD, the closest tube station being Liverpool Street. Moorgate, Bank and Aldgate surround it and are all within a 10 minute walk.

The art is easy to find once there, displayed directly above the main road and pavements beneath. I was lucky, stumbling upon it during my lockdown walks meaning a huge reduction in traffic. So much so in fact that I could actually walk down the road and right underneath it without disrupting traffic.

On victoria-miro.com, it states the following about the sculptor:

In exquisitely made works, Do Ho Suh explores contemporary arrangements of space and the unstable boundaries of its categorisation along lines of individuality and collectivity, physicality and immateriality, mobility and fixity. Influenced by his peripatetic existence – leaving his native South Korea to study and live in the United States, he has more recently moved between New York, Seoul and London – an enduring theme of the artist’s practice is the connection between the individual and the group across global cultures.

Like an oasis in the desert, the piece provides and escape out of highrise corporate London and into the streets of Korea. Not only does this stand out due to the architectural and cultural differences, it chooses to reside in an area almost inhabitable. Above a busy road, on a bridge, where the rent is probably unfathomable to most of us.

According to Londonist, this installation is part of Art Night and Sculpture in the City, something I have blogged about recently after making other small discoveries. I have another post on some nearby artwork for this project here.

I love this kind of thing, something so unexpected that stares you straight in the face after turning a corner. And a reminder to always keep your head up wherever you go, as every corner is an opportunity for a little escape from normality.

Thank you to Do Ho Suh for this one.

Credits:

Victoria-Miro- artist bio

Londonist

Stay home, stay safe and happy blogging!

Sam

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London quiz!: How many famous spots can be seen from the Millennium Bridge?

Hey everyone, happy Tuesday! With the lockdown easing a little I have been taking longer walks in London. The majority of the most popular sights are within an hours walk for me, and I have been taking turns walking around the areas whilst they are much quieter than normal. St Pauls, Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, Kings Cross, London Eye, Buckingham Palace… and with three cameras I am starting to build up a folder or two of new shots.

What I like about the GoPro is the burst function, allowing 15 shots to be taken in a couple seconds. This is good for capturing something fast moving, such as a backflip, and catching each sequence. I found it was also good for getting a 180 degree view of my surroundings, by hitting shoot and quickly rotating.

I look like a ballerina doing it, but thankfully there isn’t too many people around to see this.

I posted the shots to Instagram as the carousel format allows you to flick through as if you are there.

PS: Don’t look at the hashtags!! It gives the game away :p

https://www.instagram.com/p/CAXqCyUMpz1/

The only problem is the fisheye lens makes a smooth transition between shots pretty hard, unlike panoramic mode on most smart phones.

But it was able to take in each and every angle facing east, and all the sights that can be seen from the bridge.

Using the pictures, how many famous landmarks can you see? Clue: Big Ben and the London Eye are behind me, so aren’t hidden between the buildings 😉

Happy hunting!!

Stay home, stay safe and happy blogging!

Sam

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Caged in

How is everyone feeling? It is strange how this world is full of nations handling all of this so differently. Some still on lockdown, some more relaxed and without any more deaths… the UK seems to have handled this a lot worse than a lot of countries. I hope you are all keeping well, wherever you are reading this from.

Times like these make me realise how strange life is. The past few decades- which isn’t very long in the grand scheme of things I know- have been relatively comfortable for most of us. This really makes me take a stable life for granted. And how crazy it would feel to have a spanner thrown in the works like so many have witnessed in the past.

War, famine, plagues, volcanoes, tsunamis, meteor strikes, genocide, holocausts… there are so many ways the world and it’s people can f*ck us up. In my 30 years of existence, a virus has been the biggest threat so far. And a virus that isn’t anywhere near as devastating as it could be, even if we could have handled it better. Although many have lost their lives to it, we have still been very lucky that this isn’t as devastating as so many events have been throughout our recent history.

And with this, I keep reminding myself not to be annoyed that the UK is still on lockdown, despite our screw ups that have cost the lives of so many which is tragic. We are still so much better off than so many of our ancestors.

I feel caged right now, but at the same time so very fortunate.

Stay home, stay safe and happy blogging!

Sam

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This is where Stormzy ‘Vossi-Bop’ed

Some of you will know this building as the Royal Exchange. The area above Bank Underground and the home of the Bank of England.

Others will know this area as the one Stormzy recently filmed a music video in, being surrounded by dancers wearing Boris wigs. The moment happens at 30 seconds, although it is fun to watch him rap on a closed Westminster Bridge in front of a half restored Big Ben.

This was before the lockdown, he is just rich and powerful enough to get Westminster Bridge closed I guess.

skynews-stormzy-vossi-bop-boris-johnson_4650997 — Picture: Stormzy/YouTube

It’s interesting to see the setting of a music video. I know this area is much, much more than that but the song has probably introduced it to a lot of people. After all it has been seen over 88 million times. And here it is when it isn’t closed for rap.

I got the same beautiful weather though!

Not sure if rap is your cup of tea, but I had to share once I remembered where I had seen it recently. I do like that Stormzy is happy to show off certain parts of London though to the masses, and that British rap has come a long way.

Vossi Bop is a dance for anyone wondering. A good way to get that daily exercise in during isolation!

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