City Of London Elections - City Vote ‘09

It might easily have passed you by in the hubbub of City life but today is voting day in the City of London elections which span the 25 City wards to elect the 100 Common Councilmen, responsible for representing the City’s interests in the Court of Common Council.

If you want to find out more about the City of London’s elections and what it means in real terms then I’d recommend having a look at the Cityvote site on the Corporation of London website.

City Vote ‘09
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/cityvote09/

The Monument Reopens Today

The Monument, built to mark the Great Fire of London, reopens at noon today after a lengthy refurbishment programme.  The 18 month project on one of the City’s most recognisable landmarks has cost £4.5million and has seen the stonework cleaned and repaired,  reguilding of the golden orb and also the installation of a live camera to relay views to the bottom for people who can’t make it up the 311 stairs.

The refurbishment has been paid for by the City of London Corporation.

If you want to know more about it, read our article from last week by Andrew Kershman that took a closer look at the Monument.

Ice-capades

Only my elite martial arts skills (think Kung-Fu Panda, not Jackie Chan) kept me on my feet today as I discovered that wearing my nice Rockports yesterday gave me a false sense of how easy the snow/ice was to walk on. The hard reality that work shoes = skates was nearly rammed home by a spectacular near-FAIL on my way to the station which momentarily left me with one arm pointing down, one arm pointing up and left leg parallel to the ground before I gathered it all back in. I didn’t dare look at the people standing at the bus stop opposite as I knew that they’d be laughing, damn them, if not out loud then in their heads. I briefly toyed with the idea of eliminating all witnesses but decided that might bring problems of its own so decided that rapidly hurrying to the station without looking back was the best plan, which was happily confirmed when the train arrived on time and with heating ablaze.

I see Boris Johnson has taken some flak for his now-infamous “This is the right kind of snow, it’s just the wrong kind of quantities.” quote and some Guardian readers were getting worked up over his “massive skive” comment. I’m sure they’ll be a lot of finger-pointing, lots of “snow response” plans will be produced and no-one will remember the slightest thing about them in 18 years time when it happens again.

Hats off to the City of London gritters who were hard at work after the incident I referred to yesterday and cleared the area in no-time at all. In general the streets are in great shape, well at least they’re much better than suburbia.

Anyway, just in case the snow’s all gone by tomorrow here are some photos from Tuesday lunchtime as a reminder:

The Honourable Artillery Company

A selection from Finsbury Square