Lloyd's open house

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They may have been described, however unfairly, as corner shopkeepers with a mild acumen for self-publicity, but the Society of Lloyd's does know how to put on a building.

The sheer design that went into the Lloyd's 1986 building is staggering. Every huge circular overhead light teeters on the brink of caricaturing itself by its self-consciously industrial look.

Every metal fitting is drilled with numerous small holes to counterpoint, in miniature, the porthole shaped windows in the "Captains Room", which despite its name is otherwise about as nautical as any featureless below-street-level meeting room could get.

They and hundreds of other buildings kindly throw the doors open every autumn as part of London's "open house" and let everyone in to take a look around, or in my case, take a few photos.

There is even a competition - results out some time after 30 Sept. Here's my better entries. All my other entries at Lloyd's photo contest

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