The South Bank is the party zone in London -- the concrete people's pleasure palace where we take to safety glass flight over the streetfood, skaters and interactive installations. North Bank is more austere, more businesslike. The spaces are smaller and the views are longer.
But the wet air, rolling up off the Thames, won't let the world stay grey. Here it has built a multicoloured lichen garden on a parapet overlooking the river. And here, weeds sprout from stone stairs, not yet fried by the dry or burned off by municipal weeders:
An air of tragedy clings to the bleak black beaches that are exposed at low tide. The graffiti is small and mean, or dark and troubling. The views that should feel commanding instead feel overshadowed by the weight of deadlocked government and turgid indecision.
And over everything, Big Ben rising, bell silenced, wrapped in grey and nets like an art gallery reinterpretation of a pagoda:
But the wet air, rolling up off the Thames, won't let the world stay grey. Here it has built a multicoloured lichen garden on a parapet overlooking the river. And here, weeds sprout from stone stairs, not yet fried by the dry or burned off by municipal weeders:
An air of tragedy clings to the bleak black beaches that are exposed at low tide. The graffiti is small and mean, or dark and troubling. The views that should feel commanding instead feel overshadowed by the weight of deadlocked government and turgid indecision.
And over everything, Big Ben rising, bell silenced, wrapped in grey and nets like an art gallery reinterpretation of a pagoda:
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