BBC Tour

We dropped off our Harrod's purchases at the hotel and made the long Tube journey to a particularly unattractive part of town called White City. It is mainly an industrial area that London seems to be particularly successful at making as ugly as possible. I was told there was a shopping mall across from the BBC studios. When I looked all I saw was a collection of unattractive warehouses with a pedestrian bridge over the roadway that looked more like a steel girder that had snapped and lodged itself above the road.

The tour itself was not as good as the one I took thirty years ago. Security is much stricter now and we couldn't walk through working sets as we did back then. Once again, we had to go through metal detectors as we came in and Marian's bag was searched. This happens virtually everywhere we go. But then they've had a bad time with terrorist acts so I certainly can't complain about more protection.

The tour seemed aimed at teenagers rather than adults, even though there were more adults on the tour. Lots of talk about game shows and local personalities. 30 years ago we spent a lot of time on a Masterpiece Theater set. I'm not sorry we went but it wasn't as good as I hoped.

Everything changes, I'm afraid.