Fireworks!

Autumn colours waiting for the fireworks

Eating our eggs at breakfast and looking through the London travel guide trying to decide what to do today, Dave notices that the second Saturday of November is the Lord Mayor's show.  This occurs every year and it's where the Lord Mayor of London travels from Mansion House, the Mayor's home in the centre of London, to the Royal Courts of Justice, about 3 kms away, pausing at St Paul's to receive a blessing along the way.

The Lord Mayor's of London have been doing this every year for nearly 800 years, nothing has stopped the procession, not wars, fires or plagues.  It's kind of impressive that the tradition is that strong.  It dates back to 1213 when King John granted the city of London the right to chose its own mayor, but his condition was that the mayor had to travel upriver to Westminster

The London Eye at night

and pledge allegiance to the crown.  The Lord Mayor of London is one of the oldest elected officials in the world and this vast procession has built up around this annual journey. 

St Paul's glowing at night

Whilst the actual trip is only about 3 kms long, the actual procession length is about 5kms.  That's a lot of floats.

Looking back towards the river bank, definitely need some sort of tripod

I was a bit surprised to hear that the trip is an annual one as I was sure there hadn't been another mayoral election lately.  My nightly free

Crossing Waterloo bridge after the show

newspaper has been keeping me up-to-date on the battle between Boris and Ken for the mayoral election next year.  I thought, perhaps they have changed the term of the mayoral office over the years, as an annual election is a massive expense, and really what can you get done in one year, though they kept the procession, because they love the tradition. 

Turns out there are actually two mayors of London, the Lord Mayor of London (elected every year) and the Mayor of London.  The Lord Mayor is the head of the City of London Corporation, which is a tiny area covering mainly the city, whilst the Mayor of London is the actual Mayor of London, controlling the entire greater London area.  Confused, I know I am? 

The City of London Corporation got me, but it turns out that is just the local governing body over "the square mile".  This means that the Lord Mayor of London is mainly a ceremonial role, they give about 800 speeches a year promoting the city of London's interests.  The Mayor of London has only been around since 2000, and Boris and Ken have been the only two people to hold this office, with Ken battling for his third attempt at the role. I'm not really sure what they did before 2000, some sort of local government perhaps?

Big Ben looking pretty in the evening

Westminster Abbey looking very different in the twilight

The main thing we were interested in though was the 5pm fireworks show, it is meant to be the best in London.  Those people in Australia may think that 5pm is a little early for fireworks, but we are down to under 9 hour days now, the sun sets at about 4:20pm at the moment.  I'm actually enjoying the shorter days, it means you can have these fireworks shows, and see a completely different side of London, and be home before the drunks come out.  You get a much different feel here than fireworks shows in Australia, many more families here and a much more relaxed vibe.  I don't have any photos of the fireworks, I need more practise at taking those, and perhaps a tripod of some sort. 

It was a funny feeling watching the fireworks, it was a good show by the way, there were a lot of other people watching and it felt a bit strange to be in such a large gathering where everyone is experiencing and feeling the same way, some sort of strange shared humanity I suppose. 

On the way back home I also got to see my first owl in action.  At first I thought it was a bat, being much more used to seeing them at night.  But then the wing shape was all wrong and then it actually went too-whoo.  Too awesome!

A show is never complete without a penny-farthing