I was so thrilled to be one of the first to go up the Shard last week that I didn't realise I was missing out.

I didn't see a single proposal. (On the plus side, I also missed Boris.)

It's going to be busy up there on 14th. I hope the sun comes out for them.

I don't suppose I'll ever be in the front row at a couture show. The little gold chair would most likely collapse under me.
But do look at this because the Valentino show earlier this evening was simply exquisite.
Sigh.

I'm leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it's not raining.
                                                                                                        Groucho Marx

What can I say ... I went up the Shard and struggled to see as far as Big Ben. The Houses of Parliament were lost in the mist. It wasn't a blizzard, just a grey, horrible day.

On a clear day, you can see for 40 miles and see the sea. On a January morning you can just about make out the London Eye.

It was still a thrill to go up.

It took 19 seconds to get up to level 33 in the first lift, travelling at six metres per second. Then into another lift to reach level 68. (The snowman, alas, is on the 87th floor which is out of bounds.)

I was expecting the lift to be something special. But it's just a lift, not a white knuckle ride. (Actually, the glass lift here is rather more thrilling - and it's free).

But it's breathtaking when you step out, especially onto the outdoor gallery at level 72 (as high as you can go).  Where you can hear the sound of the city instead of banal Muzak-y soundtrack.

Way down below, the trains are like a Hornby train set. The Tower of London could be a toy-town fort.

To make up for the bad weather conditions, you can fiddle with telescopes that show you the view as it would appear on a sunny day or at sunset - facing west - or sunrise - looking down the river. (Same telescopes as at Burj Khalifa in Dubai.)

But the best bit was the performance by the young workman swinging outside in a harness as nonchalantly as if he were on a seesaw in the park ... what a show-off! And yes, we were impressed. I couldn't help wondering if his mum knew what he got up to at work.

I was walking down Piccadilly this afternoon with my head in the air.
As I was leaving the Royal Academy after seeing the Manet exhibition - wonderful, but I'll have to write about it another day - I remembered just in time that I'd been meaning to take a look at Eros to the Ritz, a mini-exhibition about Piccadilly's architecture.
Just in time, because it closes soon. It's witty and absolutely fascinating. (And free to visit, tucked into that space by the restaurant.)
And it sent me wandering down the street, wishing I could see the batty-looking Egyptian Hall (demolished 1905) and wondering why I'd never properly noticed the Chinoiserie frontage on Starbucks. (Used to be Jacksons tea, hence Chinoiserie.)
I suppose the old Pan Am frontage was rather brash ... but I remember when I used to walk past as a child and even the name seemed impossibly glamorous.
I do look up, a lot of the time ... but maybe not enough. I've walked along here countless times without seeing a fraction of what's there. Though I'd say that the best view is from upstairs on a slow-moving 22 bus. (Sorry to everybody I was bumping into. 5pm possibly not the best time for an architectural dawdle.)
If it hadn't been so cold, I'd have walked both sides of the street while it was all fresh in my mind. But next time I'm in town I'm going to walk down Piccadilly with my eyes open.

I've been embracing Meals on Wheels, highly recommended if you're in an area covered by this brilliant idea. (That would be London/Manchester/Edinburgh and a handful of other cities.)
Rather than slipping and sliding to the shops, I had Polish hunters' stew and lemony polenta cake delivered to the door by a charming Polish chef for less than the cost of a greasy takeaway curry. And there's enough leftovers for tonight. (Well, not the polenta cake. I managed that in one.)
Delighted that for once you don't have to live in a swanky postcode to access decent takeaways. It's the first time that anything like this has penetrated as far as this unfashionable suburb.
Unsolicited review - just spreading the word - but I'm ready and willing to be a polenta cake ambassador should the opportunity arise.

I have been welded to this book since I took it out of the library three days ago - started reading it on the train into town - got off the train and headed straight for a cafe so I could read a bit more - got antsy on the way home because I was too loaded with shopping to manage a book - read it with one hand while I was cooking my supper - read it in the bath - read it in bed ...
Read it at my desk this afternoon while I was supposed to be working.
It begins in Paris, in 1940, where a group of black jazz musicians have fled from Berlin - two of them black Americans, but one a mischling, a Rhineland bastard, the illegitimate offspring of a German mother and one of the French Senegalese forces occupying the Rhineland after WW1. There were about 4,000 Germans of African descent. I don't think I have ever read about them before.
I've finished the book. Still got that half-dazed, bereft feeling at stepping back to the here and now, my head still ringing with the blues and the tramp of jackboots. I've barely started the work but that's tomorrow's problem. And there's lots more glowing reviews here.

Love of Winter, George Wesley Bellows, 1914 (Art Institute of Chicago)

There's some things I love about winter but not the slippery slush outside my window today. But there's lots of exhibitions I'm looking forward to in the next few weeks and by the time this painting arrives at the Royal Academy, I'll be ready for spring.