'Abbey Birthday Brother!

In honour of Eugene's 24th Birthday today, we decided to make a pilgrimage to the famous crossing just down from Abbey Road Studios, and to make the birthday call from right out the front. We caught the train from Clapham Junction into Waterloo Station, and then caught the Jubilee Line out to St. John's Wood.

It was a surreal experience to see the crossing (I had flashes of Beatle-mania), and then to walk across it- many times as it turns out! Trying to get a good photo on this crossing is extremely difficult I'll give you the tip- all of our attempts to capture a quality image paled in comparison to the shot shown above- it's actually a really busy section of road (made extra busy by the cricket match being played at the Lord's Cricket Ground which is-very close by- today), and I think the Beatles must have had the road closed off in order to stage that shot- and what a shot it is! No photo shop/editing functions back in when this epic album was released back in the September of 1969.

Along the walls of the studio are messages written to the Beatles, as well as many of their song's lyrics- Eugene asked me to tell him what I saw as we spoke, and I rattled off a few of the quotes that were scrawled on the studio walls, one of which read "Pink Floyd is Better!" I was a bit taken aback until Ue was able to point out to me that Pink Floyd in fact had recorded their Dark Side of the Moon album there in 1973.

We ended up spending about an hour or so hanging around the crossing, dodging buses and enjoying the sunshine until the battery in the camera was just about empty, and we decided to head back to St. John's station.

Given how close we were to Waterloo station, and that I didn't need to start work until the following day, we decided to head back there and walk from the station to Leake Street, where the Banksy Tunnel is. The space is a disused road tunnel in south London (right near Leake Street) that has been turned into a giant exhibition space by graffiti artist Banksy.

Murals in the Bristol artist's famous stencil style appear with work by other artists in a half-mile stretch of the tunnel. It really is a phenomenal space (with classical music booming through a number of speakers in the ceiling!) where graf artists are allowed to graf what-ever and whenever (there are a few exceptions) they like without fear of prosecution. The official Banksy exhibition 'opened' in the tunnel on May the 2nd last year, and sadly (although it is ultimately the nature of this sort of art work) most of Banky's work has been sprayed over with other images.

Unfortunately, the camera battery was dead by the time we arrived at the Tunnel so I have no hard evidence, but we were able to find several of Banksy's works that have been preserved- probably because they are in hard to reach sections of the tunnel. Incredible works all the same, and although I'm guessing the Tunnel isn't mentioned in the Top 10 things you should't leave London without doing, I really rate it.

Radi-coooool.

Just to complete Ue's UK birthday celebrations in style, we decided to pop into a local Clapham pub, The Windor Castle, for a lunch of fish and chips and peas (salad, not mushy), washed down with exactly 568mls of pear cider. I just wish he'd been here to celebrate with us!

Happy Birthday Blinky :)