Torture and Executions

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I start the day with a session on my knees washing a handful of shirts in the bath. I think I've just saved us about $200. It's still a bit grey but it's not raining, well not yet at least.

We walk across Tower Bridge towards the Tower of London and join a tour with a Yeoman Warder named George. He has a booming loud voice but his accent still makes him hard to understand. He tells us that there's been a fortress of some sort in place here since Roman times, and it's been gradually expanded over the centuries. When they decided they needed a moat an expert was imported from Holland to help them out. It seems his expertise may have been slightly lacking; he managed to dig the moat too deep. There were no sewers in London at the time, so the city's waste ended up all around the Tower, which then didn't smell all that great. Issy says that she thinks this might nevertheless have been a fairly effective ploy for deterring potential attackers.

George is very keen to tell us a lot of gruesome details about what went on here, particularly the executions. Most of those put to death here were kings, queens and other aristocrats, and judging by the numbers of these it sounds like being of royal blood might have been a fairly hazardous occupation in days gone by. It seems that it was considered a privilege to be executed here, as the ceremonies weren't open to the public. Commoners were instead executed in front of large crowds up on nearby Tower Hill. If I was about to be executed I'm not sure I'd be all that fussed about where the event was going to be held or who was going to watch it, but maybe times were different then.

George tells us about the Bloody Tower which is where the two boy princes were allegedly murdered by the not so nice Richard III in the 1400s. The boys' whereabouts remained a mystery for nearly 200 years until some workmen found the remains of two infants in a box during some construction work. It was assumed that these were of the missing princes, and they were then interred in Westminster Abbey.

George seems to take a lot of pleasure in providing gruesome details of torture carried out in the Tower's dungeons using the rack. He says that there's a torture device still in use here today, but only for men. He says that it's called a gift shop.

There's a long queue to visit the Crown Jewels, so we decide to pass on these, and move on to the site's main building - the four cornered White Tower. This is now a museum of armoury and various other similar items, including an exhibit about the last person executed here - a German spy captured during World War Two.

The weather looks like holding so we hitch a ride on a hop on hop off tourist bus. It takes us along the north bank of the Thames, and past The Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace and Green Park. The commentary includes further detail on torture and executions. We learn that Guy Fawkes was tortured for several weeks, before being hung, drawn and quartered, and having his head displayed on a pole on a bridge. We pass a pub called The Hung, Drawn and Quartered. We're getting the impression that the locals seem to have a slightly unhealthy obsession with torture and execution. We wonder why this is. I s'pose it might have something to do with the weather.

Issy says she wouldn't mind seeing a live show while we're here, so we stroll along Shaftesbury Avenue to see what might be on offer. There's no shortage of options. There's also no shortage of establishments wanting to sell us tickets, some of which look decidedly dodgy. We see a slightly more legitimate looking ticket office and decide to take a chance on that. The lady behind the counter says the ones we want are half the normal price. She doesn't say why. We're now wondering whether this place might be dodgy as well; either that, or the show we want to see is really bad, and they're desperate for patrons.

We get back on the bus, which takes us past Trafalgar Square, and down The Strand and Fleet Street. We pass Australia House which is where my dad worked when he was here as a diplomat; his office is just above the front entrance.

We've noticed that there seem to be lots of red lights on the buildings and cranes here . Some of these are high up, but a lot of them are also much lower down near the ground. We wonder what purpose these serve. I hadn't generally associated houses of ill repute and ladies of the night with conservative England, so I doubt the whole of London's a massive red light district. Issy says that they must be there to stop planes crashing into the buildings. I could understand this if the lights were all up high, but what about the ones much closer to the ground. I think it might be a bit too late for a plane to dodge a building if the first the pilot knew it was there was when he saw a red light near the bottom of it. The mystery remains.

It's not at all warm, yet there seem to be lots of people eating outside. Issy says that there must be invisible heaters to warm them up. The locals must be a hardy lot. I wonder if they dine outside in the snow in winter.

We go into a middle eastern restaurant called Bill's. The food's excellent, but we're left wondering about the name - neither of us can remember having met anyone from the Middle East called Bill. We've been here for a couple of days now and we notice that we've yet to be served by anyone who's English. Tonight's food waitress is Spanish and our drinks waitress comes from the outskirts of Sydney. We begin to wonder whether there are any English wait staff in London. Maybe they can't afford to live here. I wonder how anyone can afford to live here. Based on our experience to date London's by far the most expensive place we've been to.

We've noticed that there don't seem to be nearly as many tourists here as there were in Rome, Florence and Paris, all of which were crawling with visitors. Issy says that London seems a lot more like a real working city, and the tourist attractions seem to be all mixed up with the office blocks. In Paris, at least, the business district seemed to be very separate, and we didn't see a lot of people wearing suits and ties and carrying briefcases wandering around under the Eiffel Tower. Maybe this is it. There don't seem to be as many tourists here because they're more spread out. Maybe a lot of tourists just can't afford to come here. I'm not sure we can afford to come here. We certainly couldn't afford to come here for very long.

Another thing that seems to be missing here is all the African street vendors who hassled us everywhere we went in Italy and France, trying to get us to buy selfie sticks and all other manner of useless paraphernalia. Blue contraptions that glowed in the dark seemed to be a very popular seller. The idea of these was to shoot them into the air using some sort of elastic device, and then watch on as they spun around while they floated slowly back to earth. Issy said she found them mesmerising. The vendors were always quick to notice this, which meant that we were always hassled to buy them. Other popular sale items were just about every imaginable common small household object made into the shape of the relevant local tourist icon. In Paris, for example, it was the Eiffel Tower, and in Pisa it was the Leaning Tower. I wonder what England is doing to prevent its beloved country from being invaded by African street vendors. Whatever it is I'm sure it's only a matter of time until the streets of London are awash with Tower of London lampshades and Big Ben bottle openers.

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