Regent's Park Before Dark: Part 2

So on we go, up through the main body of the park's west side - I won't bother with pictures of that as I'm sure you're all familiar with what flat, grassy football fields look like - and then up to Regents Park Canal, which runs along the norther curve of the circular shaped park. Along this canal lay the London Zoo and I would have given it a whirl except entrance was fifteen quid and I would have only had an hour before closing. I quickly realized that that apes and giraffe's would all be from the same places as the apes etc. that I'd seen in Canadian zoos, so it wasn't a big loss. That being said, here's a snap of the portion of the zoo which lay along the canal.And then looking down the other way...Crossing this canal took me to a separate section of the park called Primrose Hill. It's from the highest point of this hill that you can achieve a magnificent view of all sorts of neighborhoods I've been talking about on this site for the past year - Soho, Embankment, Oxford Circus, Westminster, Tottenham Court Road, King's Cross...and if you cast your eyes far enough you can even see such as Shoreditch, Barbican and Canary Wharf to the east (left) or Westminster, Kensington and Hammersmith to the West (right).I took a couple of short MPEG's, the first working from east to west and then the second working the other way, but with more of a zoom. I'd suggest viewing them with the sound off as the wind was high that day, causing a great deal of uncomfortable noise to be picked up by the camera's tiny mike.


The BT telecommunications tower features prominently and perhaps these videos will reinforce what I've said about it being an immensely useful landscape for finding your bearings in North London.Eventually I came down from Primrose Hill and went back along Regent's Park Canal, heading into the North Eastern quadrant of the main park. Spotting a wild boar, I tried to grab a picture through the fence. The durn focus kept on the fence instead of the boar, but I think it's fun to see anyways.Just by the Zoo is, understandably, the headquarters for the ZSL.And now you are joining me as I swung around and starting heading southward along the eastern half of the park.Eventually I came across this little monument which, at a distance, I presumed to be some churchy church church church thing for which I had little interest.Boy, was I wrong!I fully appreciate that, in the final tally, the British going and conquering a quarter of the Earth's land area was not A Particularly Nice Thing and that it entailed some pretty heinous injustices. But it is refreshing to see someone saying "Thanks for the good stuff that came with that!", it's nice to see something which goes against the grain of almost cartoonishly villainous portrayals of imperialists if only for a greater variety of discourse. I remember often enjoying seeing this side of the Indian reaction to the English occupation in the literature I studied in my related University courses - and it wasn't always from the wealthy Brahmin class, either. As I say, though, I'm not endorsing imperialism here so much as I am a plurality of thought!.The ol' BT tower again, as seen from the South-East quadrant of the park.
This is one of the Money Buildings which lay along the eastern side of the park's perimeter. Alas, I cannot recall what it was! I do recall there were a few private residences along this stretch where, as with those homes by the heart of the Thames, the residents are not suffering from a terribly desperate need for your PayPal donations.