On Tuesday night I went to a scrutiny function at the London Assembly's City Hall.  The building is an amazing futuristic round thing, metallic grey in colour.  Inside it keeps with the round theme with access between lower floors by a spiralling ramp.  The function was on the top, ninth, floor which offered great views over the city.  It's right next to the beautiful Tower Bridge and I was even lucky enough to see the bridge raised to allow a ship to travel underneath.  (The bridge is raised about 300 times per year they say.)  And of course I saw David Blaine, the street magician who's latest stunt is to sit for 44 days in a perspex box suspended from a crane near Tower Bridge.  There were a hundred or more people milling about looking up when I was there.  I guess it was handy to have an excuse to go down there so that now I can say I saw him, but really, my life was not enriched for the experience.  What was worth it was seeing the 'busker' who's act seemed to consist of imitating David Blaine sitting or lying in his box.  At least he was making some money out if it!

 

 

Last night I was part of a flash mob!  This was one of the things on my list of 100 things to do in London, so I made the effort to get along there, especially as I have a feeling that the concept will soon die out.  I can't find anything in the news today about it, so perhaps it's already old news.  But it was fun.  We were told to gather in one of six pubs in Soho, depending on our star sign.  This meant that there were effectively six, smaller, mobs before the main mob, as the six pubs were crowded with mobsters!  When I arrived, the crowd had already spilled out onto the footpath.  Soon small peices of paper were being handed out with the instructions for the flash mob.  We had to arrive at Soho Square at 6:30pm on the dot, carrying the book we had earlier been told to bring.  We had to swap this book with a complete stranger.  Whenever you saw a swap take place, you had to clap.  And when you heard clapping, you had to clap!  This meant that for 15 minutes, the large mob (I heard someone estimate it at 400 people) stood in a corner of Soho Sqaure, clapping and cheering vurtually non-stop!  It was good for a giggle.  I had gone alone so I chatted to people there and everyone seemed to have fun!  The funniest thing was the reaction of people who weren't in on it.  They stood around the edge of the mob, craning their necks to see into the 'centre' and see who/what the attraction was.  Only of course there was no centre of the mob.  We were equally involved.  One person saw us all carrying books and when she saw my book was by Frank Skinner, her eyes lit up and she walked off saying to her friend, 'Frank Skinner is here!'  At 6:45pm we all disbursed quickly and I assume that Soho Square was quiet again within minutes.