the little girl who would never become queen

There was a recent survey in the newspaper ("The Guardian", for all of you tree-hugging lefties - which incidentally is read by my MoJ colleagues every day, in contrast to its rather dour cousin, "The Independent" which is generally left untouched behind my desk) rating the most disappointing landmarks in the world for travellers. Amongst them, was everything from the Eiffel Tour (check), Las Ramblas in Barcelona (check), Buckingham Palace (check), Stonehenge (damn, there goes my weekend plans) to the London Eye (check).

I must say that the London Eye (erm, correction: the British Airways London Eye) is quite a sight when bathed in an early sunset. On Vicki's last evening in London, 3 of us wandered down to Southwark for dinner and then moseyed our way on to Waterloo to take a flight on this new London icon. Fortunately the lines weren't long as Frances and I had threatened to abort mission if we were going to have to wait more than an hour. The security was not as intense as one would have thought - I got jibed for holding Vicki's bags of shopping, and Frances was questioned more persistently when she ignored a question of where she was from. My explanation of "I'm from Australia, but I'm actually living here, and gosh golly blather" drained the life out of the security guard's eyes.

So up we went - so slowly that we had to check whether we were actually moving (you can tell when you look down at the land below). We had some great views of Westminster Palace (i.e the Houses of Parliament) and one of the main train stations at Charing Cross (where I regularly disembark when getting into central London). Unfortunately, we couldn't see many other landmarks, but it was nice just to see London from afar, and tick off another sight on my checklist.

Speaking of tourists. One late afternoon after work, I was running down the stairs to catch the train (my first of 3 to get home) when the door beeping started and I managed to squeeze myself into the mush of people. However, behind me was probably the most ambitious family I have ever seen. Father holding young son's hand made it on in the nick of time. Mother and young daughter (holding bags of touristy shopping) got caught in the doors and couldn't dislodge their bags of shopping in the doors. Let me just paint a picture of how strong the doors are when they close: 2 men at the doors were unable to open the doors which were fastened shut (except for the space left in between with one very crushed bag with the words Buckingham Palace on it). Panic on tourist family's face ensured. Eventually, a whole group of us managed to open the doors, the Tube rep on the platform waved the driver to proceed and we were off.

The family was lucky - it would have been a bigger problem had the little girl been injured if she was caught in between the doors. What was not so lucky, was the Buckingham Palace gift shop bag. As they checked inside the bag, I heard a wail and out came a very squashed Queen's Crown. It had been mashed in half and it was a crown no longer, but more a flat origami balloon. Remember those origami paper balloons you folded up and then blew it up? Well, that's what it resembled.

I very unkindly stifled a laugh and let karma take its toll.

I missed 2 trains home that evening.