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Published: January 8th 2007
St. Paul's Cathedral
sporting twice as many columns as it's actually using.Adam took me around to see other bits of London I hadn't yet had time for. We started across the Millenium Bridge which crosses the Thames between the Tate Modern and St. Paul's Cathedral. Apparently when it was first built the architects had not considered frequencies and quickly discovered that they had built it on the same frequency as the average human footstep (as I don't fully understand how this works, I'm afraid I haven't described it very well, but the engineers among you I hope can make sense of it). The point is, when they opened it up and people started walking across, the whole bridge started to sway! This sounded like great fun to me but apparently they deemed it dangerous and had to make some adjustments before opening it up again.
We had a nice and steady walk across it leading us to our next stop at St. Paul's cathedral. Adam tells me that when the Cathedral was first built it had half the number of columns supporting its dome. The King upon seeing this decided that it was insecure and was sure to fall down. Despite Sir Christopher Wren's insistence that this would not happen, that
Inside the Cathedral
The domes from inside, only about half way up to the first gallery. I don't think I'd ever seen a cathedral from between its walls- I just thought it was pretty cool. though the King was the King, he was the architect and trust him, it was safe, the King ordered that he build another set of columns to support the dome. So there are now twice as many columns as originally intended, but if you look closely you can see that half the columns fall an inch or 2 short of the roof thus providing no additional support whatsoever. And it has yet to come crumbling down. Even after bombing damage in the war which you can see if you climb many hundreds of stairs to the galleries (which I did) and you can see into the building's innards. At the very top is an impressive panoramic view of London. But the coolest part is only about half way up where you find the Whispering Gallery. Here you can whisper into the wall and someone will hear it through the wall all the way across the gallery. Granted it's a little complicated at points, but when it works it's really quite eerie. No pictures allowed inside though. The other fun fact I gathered from Adam on this visit was about the direction of spiral staircases. Anyone know why they wind down
The millenium bridge
Across the river is the Tate Modern. around to the left? Apparently it's built for defense because if you're coming down the stairs fighting your attackers you have your right hand, the sword carrying had, free to swing and chop whereas the enemy's is impeded by the column at the center of the staircase giving him a distint disadvantage. Oh so clever.
We also went to the Victoria and Albert Museum choc full of design work of all kinds from fashion to iron works. The glass-blown chandelier in the lobby was quite impressive. Of course the vintage designer clothes were a treat to see. Then we only had energy to make it through the iron works before we had to go sit down for a drink around the corner. Final stop of the day was the extravagant department store Harrod's. It's crazy. The most absurdly lavish jewelry I've ever seen. And you can buy puppies the next floor up! Or a refrigerator (all of which are plugged in and running in the store=the biggest waste of energy ever!). It was indeed quite an experience. And now I can say I've been to Harrod's. My my.
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Mark Jaster
non-member comment
Harrod's
Hey Emma, You know, when I was a school boy in London, we lived in Embassy housing on a very posh residential square (Montpelier) near Harrod's, and we bought one of the puppies you mention. It was a Jack Russel Terrier, and we named him Harrod ("of Knightsbridge, Limited") after his store of origin.