Friday, July 06, 2012

Shard light show

Mike and I decided on a whim to head out to watch the light show that was being put on last night to celebrate the completion of the Shard building. It had been billed as a spectacular show, so we were reasonably optimistic, although perhaps a little cynical as always, as we set off.

We decided to go to Greenwich Point, easy to get to and hopefully offering good views. This was once we'd established that we wouldn't be able to get to the Royal Observatory, despite it being billed as a vantage point by the Shard PR team, as the park closes at 9:30pm. (I discovered today that they'd also suggested Horniman Gardens as another vantage point, but they weren't open at the time of the light show either...)

The lights were due to start at 10:15, and I took a quick snap on my camera to check I'd be able to get some pictures...

  Can't see any lights there...

Then we waited. And waited. And waited some more. We saw a couple of green lasers. Then nothing and more of nothing, leading us to speculate that the entire show was aimed purely at north London. We gave up eventually, having watched for quite some time, and headed down to the pub along with plenty of other disappointed folk. The shot below is really as good as it got:

 188/366 Shard light show fail

There's a green laser there, honest! The buildings at Canary Wharf were a more spectacular sight.

 Canary wharf

I will return to the Point though, with my tripod, as the views across London are brilliant and worthy of spending some time over without worrying about trying to spot a few lasers.