the corner office

A ride into work this week was held up by one of those cool things that you never expect to happen, but they do, and they remind you that you live in London and how lucky you are to do so.

I briefly tried a new cycle route into work (too much of a detour, though the East-West cycle superhighway thingy in London is awesome), which took me over Tower Bridge instead of London Bridge. As I turned onto the bridge, the barriers came down, and traffic came to a standstill.

Next thing, up went the bridge, and we were treated to the sight of a rather strained-looking tugboat and cruise ship making their way through the bridge, down the Thames. I hadn't realised that cruise ships come up the river, but turns out they do.

Plenty of cyclists and pedestrians on the bridge were taking pictures and filming it, and then when the ship came past the people on the ship started waving and cheering, and people on the bridge waved and cheered back. It was all rather nice.

Just about every person on the cabin balconies was wearing a white gown.

And then the bridge came down again, and some sirens started sounding, and a distorted voice on the tannoy said something along the lines of 'don't move until the lights are green', although cyclists and motorcyclists, now bunched up in front across both lanes (on both sides), were squeezing through as the gates started opening, and there was lots of shouting and cussing as people realised that Braveheart-style head-on collisions were in the making, and people hustled and squeezed back into the right lanes, and then things returned back to normal, and I got to work 15 minutes late.