Langham Place

Some nights I cannot settle, the idea of sleep enough to drive me out of the flat and into the world.

For those in the US, London has Boris bikes. Every few streets stand neat rows of well-maintained, blue bicycles locked to the pavement, ready for hire. I have driven all over the UK, but never in London. That's what taxis are for.

But as I stood and plotted at the Boris bike rack at The Brunswick, I thought, "Surely, I can handle a bike."

Well...Boris Bikes are bricks with wheels -- heavy as stone and built for someone five inches taller than my 5'1". The only hope I had of putting my feet on the ground would be to jump off the bike.

Any luck and a taxi would not have shown me the express lane to the pavement.

The first twenty minutes of the ride was spent spinning circles around Bloomsbury. Though the traffic was light, the disappearing/reappearing bicycle lanes and random curbs kept me on my toes.

Stopped for traffic in front of Waterstone's Gower Street I realized, "I'm not dead." Holding up traffic, wobbling all over the bicycle lane, and otherwise pissing off every commuter in Bloomsbury at 22:30 on a Wednesday night, but very definitely not dead.

So I kept going.

All Souls Church, The Langham, and The BBC all sit at the confluence of Upper Regent Street with Portland Place, All Souls Place, and Langham Place. There were days when I walked through this intersection three or four times. It wasn't until I wobbled down Riding House Street on a Boris bike toward the bright glow of All Souls spire that I saw more than bricks and mortar: the great arching behemoth that is the BBC, the Victorian splendour of the Langham Hotel, the beauty which is John Nash's All Souls church.

The next day, I didn't walk past, but stopped and took the photograph used in the Langham Place print.

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