This evening I was chastised by the woman in the charity shop on Lower Marsh for dropping things off on a Monday. As if I should know this is against the rules.
I pointed out one of my curtains from Toronto covering a chair in the shop, feeling somewhat nostalgic.
After that, she relented and took my offering, which included a scarf with an emblem representing one of the city wards of the Palio horse race in Siena.
I bought it there a long time ago, but I've never liked it since.
After that, I walked to the Thames. The tide was in so there was no chance of beachcombing along the shore.
Instead, I walked from Westminster Bridge with the North wind biting at the back of my neck to Vauxhall, and stood where the first bridge was built across the water 3,000 years ago.
Further along, I lost track of the river at Wandsworth and New Covent Garden Flower Market so returned, walking beyond where I began to Blackfriars. There was a sharp gale blowing first at my face and then against my cheek as I followed the winding path beside the river.
A man was playing banjo in the cold and I gave him a pound, the usual folk singer and guitarist was not out tonight. I hope only due to the cold.
Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs, is one of London's two business districts, and boasts many a majestic bank tower -- they loom in the distance from views along the Thames.
The site in East London was developed by Canadian firm Olympia and York in the 1980s and 1990s. Almost 100 acres of the area is is owned by Canary Wharf Group.
Any vehicle that tries to enter is stopped by security guards and searched before it is allowed to pass at a sort of Checkpoint Charlie. It has always struck me as strange since people can walk freely into the area or enter by boat, bicycle, bus, from the Docklands Light Railway or the tube.
The area is pure dystopian sci fi -- a post-modern site littered with arcane referents to its historical past as part of the East India Docks where shipments arrived by boat from all over the world.
The roadblocks are manned by people I think of as the Wharfians -- in my mind, a caste of people set apart from the rest of us by the weight of their own self-importance and their symbolic role as our protectors. Their presence gives workers in the Wharf a certain smug cache.
Today as I re-entered the perimeter, one of the Wharfians asked me if I was taking pictures of them and I said no -- because I wasn't I had taken a picture of the road block, not them. I was also trying to get a shot of a black plastic thing they run over the handle of the vehicles, which reminds me of the bomb detectors that Newsnight investigative reporters discovered were just aerials detecting nothing.
When I told the guard I hadn't taken a picture of them, he demanded to take my BlackBerry and look at the pictures on it. I said, "no". He said you can't take pictures, and I said you can't tell me not to and you can't take my blackberry. He wanted to know what I was doing there in the Wharf and I flashed my staff pass at him and I kept going.
I knew they would catch up with me and sure enough a while later, a guard came up behind me saying excuse me -- I let him say it a few times before I responded. He said: I hear you've been taking pictures! I said, yes, I have. He wanted to know what I was doing there and who I am. I said to him, you tell me what you are doing here and who you are -- how is it that you pursue a woman walking alone along the street in such an aggressive manner?
He said you aren't allowed to take pictures, I said I am on camera in this place 24/7 so I don't think you have any grounds to refuse me the right to film here. Also, I pointed out that anyone could take a picture of these chaps without them knowing from a car or the road or even a building nearby.
I ended up showing him my press pass because I didn't want to get frisked, and he did end up looking quite sheepish.
Is it legal to deny people the right to take pictures?
The Financial Times ran a story on November 19th, praising the redevelopment of London's Bankside neighbourhood:
"Few places can boast a shop specialising in dog collars, professional boxing gyms and an international art gallery within a short walk of each other. But that’s what makes Bankside one of the most interesting areas of London. For years it suffered the legacy of war damage and industrial decline; a rundown riverside, empty warehouses and decrepit housing; its grimy streets overshadowed by the railway viaducts that lead to that most chaotic of terminals, London Bridge station. So close to the City of London, so near the West End, but so far away.
"Now all that is changing fast. Office blocks have shot up in the More London development and the Shard – a dramatic architectural statement that will be the tallest building in Europe – is to be unveiled in 2012.
"Neo Bankside, a striking quartet of 'pavilions' emerging alongside Tate Modern . . .
"Nothing symbolises the area’s regeneration more than the Tate Modern, which opened in 2000, the FT story states.
But will tower blocks be more appealing than warehouses and railway viaducts?
There is no doubt that modern architecture has a place in London, as it does in every big city.
But do we need to measure the impact of the increasing height of these buildings on London's contemporary historic character?
The FT refers to the Shard, designed by architect Renzo Piano, and under construction behind London Bridge Station, as a "dramatic architectural statement". The Shard will be a pointed high-rise 310 m (1,017 ft) tall (including 72 floors, plus 15 further radiator floors in the roof), entirely clad in glass.
"The shape of the tower is generous at the bottom and narrow at the top, disappearing into the air like a 16th century pinnacle, or the mast top of a very tall ship," Piano says in an "inspiration" statement on The Shard website. "The architecture of the Shard is firmly based in the historic form of London's masts and spires."
But since the tall ships are long gone, how will it fit in with the historic form of London's cityscape?
As a resident of the area, I have noticed that the Shard already dominates the Bankside landscape and beyond. Much like the Norman Foster-designed Gherkin building in the City, it appears "every place and no place", standing out like an alien structure.
For example, The Tower of London is overshadowed by the appearance of The Shard behind it when approaching in a southerly direction from Tower Gateway to the north of the river, despite the geographical distance. Many of Bankside's tiny streets are now dominated by the Shard.
The FT refers to the Neo Bankside project, designed by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners, as "'a striking quartet of pavilions' emerging alongside Tate Modern", when in fact these four soon-to-be glass high-rise residential towers with red accents are still far from complete.
The view of Tate Modern, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, from the St Paul's side of the River Thames and the Millennium Bridge is already compromised because the structures jut up above it detracting from iconic appearance of the building.
There is nothing new about glass-clad, geometric buildings. Ever since German architect Walter Gropius designed the Fagus Factory (1911-13) major architects have focused on designs using glass and steel to construct buildings.
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