This afternoon, I set off on a big elephant hunt. There are over 250 elephants and so far I’ve managed to capture 82. They’re all so lovely and I want them to stay forever. London is far more exciting when you clock a colourful elephant down a side street out of the corner of your eye. Pictured below are some of my favourites. The other 78 are here on Flickr. I very much doubt I will photograph all of them as I don’t fancy trekking out to Terminal 5.
Few people know that a housing project named after Lenin was commissioned in London in the early 1940s. Designed by a Russian emigre architect, Berthold Lubetkin, who is now considered one of the giants of constructivism, it was to be called Lenin Court.
But by the early 1950s, when the project was completed, the Cold War was in full flow. As a result, the building was renamed Bevin Court, honouring Britain’s firmly anti-communist Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin.
The memorial, also designed by Lubetkin, marked the site of Lenin’s lodgings at Holford Square and was erected in 1942. It became a focus of pilgrimage for British communists – but was also regularly vandalised and eventually needed a 24-hour police guard.
After the outbreak of the Cold War the memorial was closed and Lenin’s bust removed. Lubetkin managed to bury the memorial plaque surreptitiously.
Despite Lubetkin’s fears, Lenin’s bust itself has survived. For many years it gathered dust in storage at the mayor’s office in Islington. Now the bust is part of the collection of Islington Museum.
Text taken from The London Haunts of VI Lenin because I can’t do words today…
We nipped down to the farm this afternoon. There are goats, sheep, cows, pigs, chickens etc – but this cat was my favourite. It’s a lovely little farm. More (of the farm animals) on Flickr.
I had an hour to kill in St. Pancras International yesterday afternoon, so decided to put my tourist head on and take some snaps of The Meeting Place. It’d been a fair while since I last got up close and personal with the 30ft couple. In 2008, a bronze relief was added around the plinth and I think it looks rayt good.
Girl, London. Likes web/graphic design, photography, beards, crisps, Eurovision, Nintendo, polar bears, UK Border Force and European travel.
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