Topic: Discovering London - Part Two

This Time: Alexandra Palace - Harringey N22 7AY London

Built in 1873 as the "People's Palace", burnt down 16 days later and reopened in 1875. It is today used for venues of all sorts. But instead of great blabla, just some poetic moments in my blog. And if you read my blog properly (which - no doubt - you definitively do...) you remember parts of it:

The Pooters walked to Watney Lodge

One Sunday morning hot and still

Where public footpaths used to dodge

Round elms and oaks to Muswell Hill.

That burning buttercuppy day

The local dogs were curled in sleep,

The writhing trunks of flowery May

Were polished by the sides of sheep.

And only footsteps in a lane

And birdsong broke the silence round

And chuffs of the Great Northern train

For Alexandra Palace bound

The Watney Lodge I seem to see

Is gabled gothic hard and red,

With here a monkey puzzle tree

And there a round geranium bed.

Each mansion, each new-planted pine,

Each short and ostentatious drive

Meant Morning Prayer and beef and wine

And Queen Victoria alive.

John Betjeman - Diary of a Nobody



Palace with a view...


And for today's lyrics:
So, anyway
There I was
Just sitting on your porch
Drinking in
The sweetest decline
The sweetest decline
Sober mind

Beth Orton - Sweetest Decline