Today is Friday, brought to you by the letter T (for Tower)

So, today... we went to the Tower of London. One of the lovely things about staying in Greenwich is traveling into the city by ferry. The
Tower is so imposing - almost the best thing about it is being suddenly up close to such an amazing old castle in the middle of the city.

We had a great time racketing around... weirdly, the animal sculptures were a highlight. Feel really sorry about how trapped they were - at least a few of them managed to chomp their keepers and visitors from time to time. Unlike the human prisoners whose only revenge seemed to be a spot of graffiti here and there.

We didn't hook up with any of the tour groups but heard forced cheering for the Queen and for England every so often - just in case we'd forgotten...

There were lots of helicopters and police launches whizzing around today - they've been running anti-terrorism exercises over the last few days, including large ground to air anti-missile thingies that have been in a park not all that far from us. The whole olympics preparations are a huge deal (no surprises there).

It was also local body election day yesterday. Sadly, it's looking as tho Boris may have seen off Red Ken. Who has an election on a Thursday, anyway?

By the time we'd covered most of the Tower we were ravenous (no pun intended) and took off in search of a pub. We ended up at the Nag's Head in Charing Cross - partly because that was the starting point for our podcast walking tour of London's coffee houses. Lunch was cheddar/pickle and ham/mustard sandwiches, washed down with more local ale. I really love pub lunches...

The coffee house walking tour was good fun and somehow led us to be in perfect position to see an undercover cop arrest an old vagrant-y looking dude. The onlookers were all busy weighing up whether to intervene - it looked a lot like a young guy having a go at an older, defenceless guy - until we saw the handcuffs and heard "you know why you're under arrest" - none of us were sure, actually, but it didn't seem like the best time to ask.

Another (expected) tour highlight was FLAT WHITE. Home of the best coffee in London - and run by kiwis (of course). I have to say the flat whites we had were fantastic. We also stopped in at Bar Italia which dates back to the 1950s and served us two lovely espressos and a very fine portuguese custard tart.

If it hadn't been for wandering past Lilywhites, causing Geoff to have a nasty flashback about the purchase and eventual loss of his ski boots, the afternoon would have been an unqualified success. Don't feel too bad about it, Dave. Geoff is pretty much over it now...

Most of today's pictures are on the iPod (as opposed to my now 3G capable iPad) so will be uploaded separately - hopefully they will be self explanatory and you can match them up with the very interesting story of our Friday...

Tomorrow it's hip hop Othello at the Globe. Can hardly wait...