There's Always Something to Do at Southbank

I'm going to start today's post with a very odd photo, but bear with me:

No, I haven't run out of interesting things to photograph in London. No, I haven't gone insane. The above photo represents a turning point in our London lives, and is the reason that Bob was smirking like a fool when we met up at Waterloo Station this afternoon. Bob ate a banana on the train from Whitton to Waterloo, and when he got off the train, he looked for a bin to get rid of the peel. Of course, with all the anti-terrorism precautions in London, finding a trash bin in a major rail station is impossible. There isn't any place to throw away anything. As Bob walked through the station, he must have been a bit frustrated about this, and approached a transport officer. "There aren't any bins in this place!" Bob said, holding up his banana peel, to which the officer replied, "Just throw in the corner." "What? Pardon?" Bob said incredulously. "IN THE CORNER! OVER THERE!" the officer repeated, in a tone that suggested he couldn't believe he had to repeat himself. Bob did as instructed by the officer (one of many responsible for maintaining Waterloo Station), and when he told me the story, I couldn't believe it and demanded to see evidence of the event. And there it was: an officer-instructed piece of litter. So this is the turning point: Bob, good Canadian that he is, littered--and in a public building! Does it count since he was told to do so by an official? Anyway, we headed over to the Royal Festival Hall where we found this Soapbox Maze, part of the London Literature Festival:
A place to write questions, express opinions, start conversations, and, in my case, get told by someone under his breath to "Go back to China" (oh, we had a confrontation, we did--I don't ignore that type of stupidity), the Soapbox Maze was a good idea in principle, but was filled with the "I wuz here" and "I love London" scrawls that don't really fit the intention of the installation. Still, there were some interesting notes, even if they didn't all stick to the parameters of writing down ideas and opinions.


After our time in the maze, we left the hall to sip coffee while sitting in deckchairs on the boardwalk. Somehow, we managed to tear ourselves away from our perfect seats and walked over to the nearby National Theatre to hear a quartet play some French-inspired pop and jazz. Accordion and the singer's pleasing voice nicely complemented the mainly French songs (and a nice rendition of Lou Reed's Perfect Day)
and the music made for a jaunty backdrop while we took in the excellent Press Photographers' Year Exhibit on the mezzanine. Afterwards, we went outside to the temporary "Theatre Square" in front of the National Theatre--set up for the summer-long Watch This Space free theatre festival--to see a performance by OzStar Airlines, a pair of Australians who play the roles of bizarre flight attendants for this fictional airline. Their premise was that we were all on the plane with them and that their job was to keep us entertained for the duration of our flight. They started out dressed the part
and one member of the group had an amusing time trying to demonstrate the safety vest while keeping the hula hoop going (blowing the whistle and pulling the tabs proved especially difficult).
Later in the show, one member plucked a mobile from a man in the crowd ("I'm sorry sir, no electronic devices while we're in the air"), letting the confused caller know that her friend couldn't talk right now because he was on an airplane to Australia and that he'd call her back after the plane landed. With a finale of five hoops and other acrobatics, we landed and the flight attendants bid us farewell.