St Paul's On A Rainy Day

The Saint Paul's skyline never grows tiresome. 

St P remains the friendly face in the ever changing and rapidly heightening skyline. When we arrived, building codes famously prevented skyscrapers from surpassing the dome nor blocking the views of it. In response, tall buildings were concentrated in The City (the Natwest Tower being the tallest for several decades at 43 floors, standing out like a giant boner) and Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs, which no banking professional loved nor wished to work - though today, there is a young professional community around it.

Now, buildings shoot up like stalks above the moss : the counsels get big development dollars and any resistance, other than a few cranky letters from Prince Charles lambasting Qatar and other gulf funders, is lame. London will never be ghastly Singapore nor wonderful Tokyo, but its cityline does creep into the 21st Century.

I take the jumbo from East Sheen to the North Berkeley Hills in under 13 hours, all in. Remarkable how normal this is.