Thursday 14 June 2012

Me and Moira


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!
We get on just fine as you can see.

Monday 26 March 2012

AdSense sucks..



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.

Sunday 18 March 2012

Kissing under Tower Bridge..



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.





Sunday 11 March 2012

Trajan...the Rude Roman of Tower Hill

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.

Friday 9 March 2012

Tower Bridge is not London Bridge


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.
Now you know!


Thursday 1 March 2012

The Tower Bridge Repainted...some objection!

Repaint underway..

The way she was before 1977

under construction in 1892
 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!
You can read about the misguided restoration here...





Wednesday 29 February 2012

Olympic Rings at my Tower Bridge































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!


Tuesday 21 February 2012

Gargoyles on Tower Bridge


























The 'Spooks' on my bridge are Gargoyles you'll find on the lower arches at either end, not the tall central towers. Scary they look too, winged monsters that are there to frighten off evil spirits, not that they are needed since I took over though.
I know why they are really there, the whole bridge is Gothic looking so it harmonises with the nearby Tower of London, I wish they would think like that these days...they put a glass ticket office on the bridge, and in 1977 they painted the black/brown metal work red, white and blue for the Queens silver jubilee, and now they have done it again for her Diamond jubilee. At some point I'm going to have it restored to the original black/brown coat of paint!
Anyway, back to these spooky gargoyles. George has tried to spoof me with BS, he says they fly away and along the river at after midnight and come back before dawn.
I know that is a load of BS because one night, a day after the full moon beyond midnight when the tide was at it's highest, I saw them silhouetted against the moon, they stay there all the time!
So what were we doing on my bridge at that hour? Well, George had walked me there to feel safe while he said a few things and threw a piece of paper he's folded up into the river Thames below.
I asked him what he did that for and he said he'd written down all his troubles on it and the tide would carry them away.
Now I WAS getting worried, he sometimes says (usually after I've had a barking match) that I'm 'nothing but trouble'...was I going to be thrown in the Thames as well? Is this why he'd brought me here in the dead of night?
Obviously not, I'm writing this after all, and anyway, he often says 'what would I do without you' to me! aawweee! xoxox

Sunday 12 February 2012

Human Penguins











Have you ever noticed the way Penguins always look as if they are searching the floor for something tiny? The river bank of the Thames, which me and George visit occasionally because we know a small entrance to get to it, does exactly the same thing to most of the humans who go down there, they start behaving like Penguins, he should know better!
Anyway, when we last down there it was a chance for me to check the work of the painters on the underside of my Tower Bridge, it has been getting slowly repainted this past couple of years, I'll post about that soon, the jobs nearly finished.
I'm not to keen on the river bank except when the tide has gone out it's furthest so there's a sandy beach it's all rough rock, not kind on my paws.
I prefer to set myself down and just watch George and the few other people you see behave like Penguin's, they are looking for things they might want, maybe people drop coins of passing River boats at high tide..by the way, the Thames is tidal around London, there is no bank when it's high tide.
George calls it Beachcombing, but I've never seen him comb anything he's usually looking for River glass, and Hag stones, stones with a hole going through them, it does look nice when he finds some of the glass though, that gold fever look on his face! you sometimes see people George calls Mud larks , they wear funny clothes and dig deep holes , you would think they were after bones, but surely not, there's loads of bones around here, but all green with age. They don't like George or other people because they 'haven't got a license to be here'...they soon pipe down when I tell them they won't be allowed to cross MY bridge if they keep whining. That reminds me, a lot of people collect bits of clay pipes they find, George used to as well but tired of them, there's so much of these dog ends of the day. Dog ends? I'm suspicious of that, but see the video thing George made about that....

Thursday 9 February 2012

I've met Moira again!
















Yippee! I met Moira, the only Lady Yeoman Warder of the Tower there's ever been in centuries, they are known to the world as Beefeaters, but who wouldn't eat beef? Yummie!
I havn't seen her in a while and began to wonder, shes nice to me and George and I was getting worried. I've noticed recently there hasn't been any Beefeaters in the sentry box at the Tower of London's west entrance, by the draw bridge they used to keep Lions under, only civilian security guards in the opposite box. But last night I heard her familiar voice calling me again. After a while it emerged they are too cold and hide in the cosy guard room nearby, I guess it takes another woman to change that, men are so soft!
One of these days I'm going to persuade her to take me past the gate and into the Tower, I want to see these Ravens for a start....and the 'chopping block' George mentioned. Sounds like where the Beef comes from? OK, this is further proof the fairer gender is the stronger one!
Woof! Woof!..it's snowing again, poor men.

Sunday 5 February 2012

Snow in London!

















Snow! I love it, after a fine dusting on my evening walk to my Bridge last night, I woke up to a winter wonderland this morning, alas it's already melting. The photos above were taken a couple of years ago, but don't worry, nobody has changed that you would notice..that's George nearly hanging me to get me into the picture with my Bridge, and of course the other one is Dad.
My Bridge by the way has changed a bit, it's been repainted, except for the top gantry..they had better get a move on, the Jubilee is coming up fast!
It's not the colour I wanted it really, I prefer the pre 1977 (silver Jubilee) black colour that gave it the Gothic look the late Victorian parliament demanded so it would match the Tower of London nearby, but it's too late now
Hey....back to the subject, snow. Not all big people like it, the little ones love it though. I like the edible balls they make out of it for throwing, in moderation mind. They made a Snowman thingy in the yard here, but that mongrel called Ripper we had here pissed on it and it died..the Snowman I mean.
George made a video of me and Dad in the Snow today though....have fun!

Tuesday 24 January 2012

Me & Buffy















I've known Buffy, a Collie, for a few years now, she spends a lot of her time curled up on a blanket next to her mum outside Tower Hill tube station where kind people lend them a hand getting by. It was cold the other night when I spoke to her but Mum kept her warm and vice versa, she's well cared for, like me she always comes first. She's even got a chip like me, I'm still not sure what that is though because I've never seen it.
She told me there's no way she would ever leave Mum, not even for a Penthouse....but whats a nudie magazine got to do with this?
Her territory has got the Tower Hill sundial, part of the Roman wall and Trinity square in it, not as posh as mine with the Tower Bridge and St.Katherine's Dock west in it, but nothing to turn your nose up to either!
Shes looking forward to summer, ain't we all?

Sunday 15 January 2012

Bin Scandal




















My friends walker got fined £40.00 recently for not 'cleaning up' after him, and he was warned he could be fined a £1000.oo if it happened again!
My own walker says it would help if he could actually use the facility bin on the Green near our house ...it's looked like this for weeks on end, most people and dogs wouldn't even want to go near it anymore, is that why it's still looking like this, as is the other waste bin on the green?
I'm glad I get taken all the way to Tower Bridge each day but sometimes I go in the Bushes so George can bury it for me, it's the only way forward! EEuueewww!
Let them get their own house in order before they prosecute people for letting a dog do what a dogs gotta do.