I hurry past the Bank of England’s face every morning. As I walk past it today, it’s standing astride two roads, slightly wedge-shaped, and from the front, looks like a seething, lumpen animal squatting on its haunches, about to pounce. It wouldn’t be nimble or quick, but with that kind of heft, it wouldn’t need to be. The columns look like the bars in a muzzle, or perhaps the grille of Hannibal Lecter’s mask.
Meanwhile, behind it, in what’s is anything but an accident of planning, surges the mirror-plated megacock of the latest skyscraper.
In front of me, police escort bikes, cars and vans which have today blocked off the street.
The cars are all sinister black, shining preternaturally. Meanwhile, people transport vans are parked across all the lanes of traffic. They’re guarded by City of London Police in body armour, with machine guns.
They’re shielding a large delegation of Chinese people in identical black suits who are filing into the back of a luxury hotel.
The City of London police have their own uniforms, with gold and brown trimmings and a strange red checkerboard pattern on the helmet. City of London is of course pretty much a law, and city, and an island to itself, much like the Vatican. However, City Police outfits are less fun than their Vatican counterparts. That said, they are more functional, and the automatic guns would do a quicker job than a pike. They do look similarly ersatz and ridiculous, although it’s hard to top multicoloured bloomers if we’re honest.
As I’m standing there, a lone, elderly black traffic warden approaches each of the people-transport vans and gives them a ticket for parking on double yellow lines. The police watch him impassively.
The Chinese delegation passes him and nods with gratitude, assuming he is doing them a great service. He watches them with a broad grin, and nods back cordially.