Today was quite special, on my walk to the Tower Bridge I passed the gatehouse at the western corner of the Tower of London and my friend Moira was there, she is the first and so far only lady Yeoman warder of the Tower (aka 'Beefeaters, but don't say that to one!) and this time George had his camera and Moira wasn't swamped with tourists, so we posed for this photo after we had some girl talk between ourselves. You can see an earlier post on here about how she proved women are tougher than men!
Google AdSense disabled my account and clawed back the £80.00 I had saved up, they said it was 'click fraud'...at a time when nothing was happening anyway! I feel very accused and they never took the trouble to show what they meant....I think they are very unscrupulous. It's disgusting.
It's put me off blogging for now, left a nasty after taste.
Now I know why George always seems to stop and give me a kiss 'n cuddle when we pass through the arch under the shoreside part of Tower bridge, it's lucky to kiss when you pass under my bridge! You can lean over the rails looking down at the open top river boats that do sight seeing tours up and down the rive Thames and sometimes see couples embrace for the passage under. Imagine what would go on if a boat tied up there because it had broke down or something...it would ROCK!
Sometimes the Captain on the river cruisers will let people know about this lucky rite over the PA system, especially on summer evening cruises.....don't forget to look up if the moon is waning a match box full of someones troubles might be incoming.
Every time I go by Tower Hill tube station and go down the stairs to the edge of the Tower of London's moat, after a conversation with Buffy the Collie who owns the place and is usually about I pass this statue of a Roman Emperor called Trajan. Hes next to a section of the Romans London wall that still stands at Tower hill, where the Tudor era public executions were.
His right index finger is held aloft, poking out the FO sign at commuters going to work, or home, at tourists passing by in the thousands every day, all day. If he wasn't made of Bronze I'd rip his ass to shreds!
But hang on..why oh why did the British build a monument to the Emperor of a foreign invader...especially making lurid gestures? To show how rude he was? I can understand the Trajan column in Rome, but this? If this was close enough to the Tower Bridge to be on my patch I'd make them move it, preferably to Rome in it's original packing if they still have it. Why, I'll get George to do a magickal spell that will have these 'scrap metallers' come and steal it in the night to be melted down and turned into coins, pennies and wire etc....yes, I'll have a word with him! Watch this space.
Every so often when George is walking me near the Tower of London area tourists see him with me and realise he's local because he's with a dog (try finding the British around there!) and ask him 'where is London bridge?'
He looks at them and asks 'are you sure you don't mean Tower Bridge?' and the answer is always yes.
London bridge is the next bridge upstream, it has been there since the Romans built one, well...many times replaced of course, there's even a song about it falling down. See more here.
The current London bridge was built in the late 1960's, the one before it was purchased by American millionaire Robert McCulloch and taken in bits to Lake Havasu in Arizona, where it was reassembled around a new steel frame. Word has it even he thought he was buying my Tower Bridge, but he ardently denied this, he knows the truth, fact is the mistake is so common it even occurs on manufactured goods like the Horse brass pictured above, it's from Georges own collection, so I got him to type this post for me!
My beautiful, unique Tower Bridge is the bridge in London the world knows and people come to see, and even pay to tour it's engine rooms and walkways, but that has this assumption it's London bridge.
Between 2008 and 2011 the metal parts my Tower Bridge were repainted, and pretty it is too in it's blue and white, with some bits of red colours. It took 22,000 litres of paint.The photo above shows that work in progress and you can see the before & after effect in it quite clearly. I wish I was consulted though, this colour scheme was only applied in 1977 to commemorate the Queens silver jubilee. Now it's ready for her Diamond jubilee and won't need another repaint for 25 years.Prior to that it was chocolate brown iron work, the masonry element is Cornish granite and Portland stone by the way, shes an iron bridge really, sent composite by it's masonry cladding that would make her the beauty she is and also meet a requirement of parliament of the late 19th century that she should have a Gothic look about her so as to be architecturally sympathetic to the nearby Tower of London . What's Gothic about red, white and blue? Nothing. Nobody else but the powers that be would have got such planning permission that's for sure!Can I humbly suggest that in about 2036 when they do the job again they restore it to how our classy ancestors wanted it? I really think I would prefer it, and as the courtyard I live in has just been painted blue and white I didn't need my bridge painted this way too!
There was an astonishing sight on the river near my bridge yesterday, a tug boat was towing a platform with thingy's George called 'Olympic rings' on it, it kept on going around in circles. I think they were waiting for the bridge to raise, it was taking it's time, so maybe there was something wrong in the engine room of the bridge...I'll have to find out, I expect to be informed of these things though.
But what was the boat with the rings about? It's all part of the publicity for these international Olympic games coming to London in the summer, watching humans run on TV I really think Britain would get all the medals for the races if they let us dogs do the job....I can run way faster than any human!
Some of the Beefeaters where there too, they were being told by a bossy man what to do and he made then wave to this boat...'more briskly....faster'! he said, I think those ex-Sergeant Majors the Beefeaters were secretly very pissed off at this, they don't usually have to take orders of anybody, he even managed to make George stand back...now I'm really disappointed. Maybe that's why George made a video of them doing the 'Windsor wave'...I thought he was talking about a boat at first. Confusing, but I've put the video on here...it's so funny!
