50 Shades of Bricks

London is getting a skyline!

The most surprising physical change of the cityscape is that London is finally building a skyline for itself.

The tallest buildings in town used to be the TV tower and apartment blocks.
Blocks meant blocks!

Rectangular monstrosities like those East Germany ones.

That has been changing for a few years. and the city now boasts the most overhyped structure in all of Europe: The Shard. Not worth a link despite a recent PR dump in the new Dr. Who series.

The Shard, right next to London Bridge (the new one, the old one is now in Arizona, really) is the prettiest tourist trap TheEditor found in the city.

Office space there is too expensive even for swanky city businesses, so they are having trouble getting the building filled.

But no trouble fleecing tourists who want to visit the viewing platform. Booking several days in advance sets you back 25 pounds, booking the same day is 30, showing up and asking to be let in is 100 pounds.

Yes, one hundred.

Which makes the EDF London Eye ferris wheel right across from Westminster a bargain. They are friendlier, too.

More new skyscrapers include the dildo and a building that is a bit squashed at the top, as if it had served as a stool for a giant to sit on and gotten compressed and tilted a little.

Outside of the brick and concrete craze sweeping the city and the south bank, London is still the same as it was, say, 40 years ago. Towards the west and southwest, the richer detached homes have their Lamborghinis, top range beemers and custom Mercedes sports cars parked on the gravel driveway just behind the black Victorian iron fences.

To the north and the east, row houses have not changed much since the days of Dickens, and rental blocks bear witness to the times when council houses were built to provide a decent roof for the working people.

In almost all residential buildings, the windows are resolutely single pane wood windows of the type that must have inspired the French to invent the gulliotine.

If you are tempted to export exterior wall color paint to the UK because you saw sales figures so low that there must be a market for them, just don't.

Bricks of at least 50 shades plus a little bit of white and black for the wood frame houses is all you find there.

No wonder, they are running a big depression awareness campaign right now.

On a sunny day, the bricks are kind of cute but in any other kind of weather, the atmosphere of the place becomes soul quenching. 

High rents may add to a depressive feeling for the locals when a studio apartment, or flat as they call it here, starts at around 300 pounds per week. Almost all rents in London are on a per week basis, which adds up over the year compared to a per month lease.

A few trees with blue and white LED light garlands cannot change that either.