The London Sky, on Dispatch from the Razor's Edge

"All the forces which have produced the London sky have made something which all Londoners know, and which no one who has never seen London has ever seen."
- G.K. Chesterton

Fellow transient on Millennium Bridge. (That's Waterloo Bridge, then Tower Bridge, behind.)

The so-called "Erotic Gherkin" - a very new, and very conspicuous, addition to the London (lack of) skyline. (A gherkin is a pickle. I personally find this nickname redundant - like calling something the "phallic shaft" or some such.)

Another amazing innovation: you need never wonder when the bus is coming. (Is this place cool, or what?)

Also quite cool is Fifers in his hipster shirt in a black-lit corridor of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. (And holding his bespoke, single-piece-of-hardwood umbrella, from London's oldest brolly shop.)

The British Museum, taken as a whole, is one of the wonders of the world.

Chinese New Year celebration in Trafalgar Square.

And paper lanterns on Gerard Street, the main Chinatown drag.

Getting our dragons on.

Sunset over Earl's Court.

Returned to my desk at the end of the day to find a freak snow shower going on outside. Shot a couple through the window, then ran downstairs and out on the street, where I snapped with abandon – including as the flakes landed, and melted, upon my lens – and as God just took everyone by surprise with this. I shot the following series, about which I'm pretty chuffed:

Newsagents put up big headlines to sell papers. Often, they're quite entertaining. On that stand, you can see the Evening Standard, the Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Daily Telegraph, the Financial Times, and some of the tabloids (as well as Time Out). London has a dizzying array of daily and weekly publications.
This is Hammersmith Bridge in West London, which I was privileged to walk, and row, under for a few weekends, having (briefly, it seems) joined the Sons of the Thames rowing club.
Up the embankment, toward the SOTT boathouse.
These trees have clearly adopted a form of natural camouflage, allowing them to blend in with the hunters and paintball players creeping around them in camouflage fatigues.
It's been in vogue for awhile to cover up restoration of historic buildings with facades of the facades, so scaffolding and whatnot doesn't blemish the view – for instance this blowup of an architectural drawing draped over the work on the front of St. Pauls.
However, around here, now they've taken to just throwing up huge reproductions of classic art works over anything unsightly. It's like the whole city's becoming one big gallery. Did I mention this place is cool?
Thank God, the days finally lengthened to the point where it was light both when I was going to, and leaving, work. Here's the sky one recent evening as I exited.
Here it is one recent evening when I got home.
Did I mention the poetry on the Underground? Just another sign of the change in season. (And of London's status as "coolest city on the planet".)

london photography

Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very long walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

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Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.


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