View allAll Photos Tagged VictoriaEmbankment

Photos taken at the climate march in London on 21st September 2014.

This is a Judge's of Hastings postcard dating from July 1909. It originally had a dark sepia tint, on removal the result is very contrasty. There was a reason why Judge's always published their postcards with a dark sepia tint, it hid a multitude of sins. This is the view from Westminster Bridge looking downstream showing Westminster Pier, part of the Victoria Embankment and ships of the Royal Navy which were taking part in the Thames Naval Pageant. On another Judge's postcard of the ships from the reverse view, they are described as torpedo boats but they are in fact torpedo boat destroyers from the 1890s and although they had reciprocating engines their top speed was 30 knots.

See below for more information about the Thames Naval Pageant.

STUDENTS DayX3 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION (Part 2)

 

Protest and march against University tuition fee increases, 09th Dec. 2010

 

Over 20,000 students from around the country converged on Central London today to march for a third time to protest against the coalition government's plans to massively increase University tuition fees, which will ultimately mean that far fewer students from poorer backgrounds will be able to even consider a University education because of the massive debts incurred which will follow them for the rest of their working lives.

 

I joined the days proceedings in the afternoon as they were assembling in Trafalgar Square. To throw the police off-guard they suddenly took off, en mass, through Admiralty Arch in a bid to get to Parliament Square, which had been forbidden. That evening the House of Commons was voting on the Education Funding Bill, and the students were determined to make sure that Parliament heard their protests.

 

The day started in a good mood, but by the time they reached Parliament pockets of disorder had started breaking out - Flares were lit and thrown, crush barriers and construction site fencing ripped up to be used as weapons against the massed ranks of riot police and later on the mounted police. I had to leave by around 3pm, and by the time I got home and turned on the BBC news all hell had broken loose outside Parliament. Protesters were pelting the police with lumps of masonry, metal poles and scaffolding. They lit large fires, broke down the doors to The Treasury and the new Ministry of Justice buildings, smashing many windows, daubing graffiti everywhere and generally smashing up the joint. Many people were arrested and many people hurt, some badly.

 

As the police gradually started releasing the by-now contained protesters in small numbers, several small groups headed up to Oxford Street, where they smashed the windows of the flagship TopShop store (owned by Sir Phillip Green who is being attacked for shovelling billions of pounds of what should be UK taxable income into tax haven accounts owned by his wife as part of a legal tax dodge), and in Regent Street they engulfed the Bentley containing Prince Charles and his horse-faced wife Camilla who were in the process of swanning orf the the Royal Variety Performance! The protesters started kicking the vehicle. They broke the windows and threw a tin of white paint over the car. One was not amused!

 

Needless to say the Bill was passed in Parliament tonight, and the students have vowed to continue their campaign of demonstration and civil disobedience...

 

All photos ⓒ Pete Riches

 

Please do not use my photos without my prior agreement.

Please do not re-blog my photos without my agreement.

Email: peteriches@gmail.com

1940s WW II snapshot photo taken in wartime London, England ca: 1944 -- The Victoria Embankment and the Palace of Westminster (Houses of Parliament) in the background, the world famous Metropolitan Police Headquarters, Scotland Yard and Cannon Row Police Station is just to the right of the photographer.

STUDENTS DayX3 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION (Part 2)

 

Protest and march against University tuition fee increases, 09th Dec. 2010

 

Over 20,000 students from around the country converged on Central London today to march for a third time to protest against the coalition government's plans to massively increase University tuition fees, which will ultimately mean that far fewer students from poorer backgrounds will be able to even consider a University education because of the massive debts incurred which will follow them for the rest of their working lives.

 

I joined the days proceedings in the afternoon as they were assembling in Trafalgar Square. To throw the police off-guard they suddenly took off, en mass, through Admiralty Arch in a bid to get to Parliament Square, which had been forbidden. That evening the House of Commons was voting on the Education Funding Bill, and the students were determined to make sure that Parliament heard their protests.

 

The day started in a good mood, but by the time they reached Parliament pockets of disorder had started breaking out - Flares were lit and thrown, crush barriers and construction site fencing ripped up to be used as weapons against the massed ranks of riot police and later on the mounted police. I had to leave by around 3pm, and by the time I got home and turned on the BBC news all hell had broken loose outside Parliament. Protesters were pelting the police with lumps of masonry, metal poles and scaffolding. They lit large fires, broke down the doors to The Treasury and the new Ministry of Justice buildings, smashing many windows, daubing graffiti everywhere and generally smashing up the joint. Many people were arrested and many people hurt, some badly.

 

As the police gradually started releasing the by-now contained protesters in small numbers, several small groups headed up to Oxford Street, where they smashed the windows of the flagship TopShop store (owned by Sir Phillip Green who is being attacked for shovelling billions of pounds of what should be UK taxable income into tax haven accounts owned by his wife as part of a legal tax dodge), and in Regent Street they engulfed the Bentley containing Prince Charles and his horse-faced wife Camilla who were in the process of swanning orf the the Royal Variety Performance! The protesters started kicking the vehicle. They broke the windows and threw a tin of white paint over the car. One was not amused!

 

Needless to say the Bill was passed in Parliament tonight, and the students have vowed to continue their campaign of demonstration and civil disobedience...

 

All photos ⓒ Pete Riches

 

Please do not use my photos without my prior agreement.

Please do not re-blog my photos without my agreement.

Email: peteriches@gmail.com

View over the city of London during Sunrise.

 

©2012 Chris Renk - All Rights Reserved

STUDENTS DayX3 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

 

Protest and march against University tuition fee increases, 09th Dec. 2010

 

Over 20,000 students from around the country converged on Central London today to march for a third time to protest against the coalition government's plans to

 

massively increase University tuition fees, which will ultimately mean that far fewer students from poorer backgrounds will be able to even consider a University

 

education because of the massive debts incurred which will follow them for the rest of their working lives.

 

I joined the days proceedings in the afternoon as they were assembling in Trafalgar Square. To throw the police off-guard they suddenly took off, en mass, through

 

Admiralty Arch in a bid to get to Parliament Square, which had been forbidden. That evening the House of Commons was voting on the Education Funding Bill, and the

 

students were determined to make sure that Parliament heard their protests.

 

The day started in a good mood, but by the time they reached Parliament pockets of disorder had started breaking out - Flares were lit and thrown, crush barriers and

 

construction site fencing ripped up to be used as weapons against the massed ranks of riot police and later on the mounted police. I had to leave by around 3pm, and by

 

the time I got home and turned on the BBC news all hell had broken loose outside Parliament. Protesters were pelting the police with lumps of masonry, metal poles and

 

scaffolding. They lit large fires, broke down the doors to The Treasury and the new Ministry of Justice buildings, smashing many windows, daubing graffiti everywhere

 

and generally smashing up the joint. Many people were arrested and many people hurt, some badly.

 

As the police gradually started releasing the by-now contained protesters in small numbers, several small groups headed up to Oxford Street, where they smashed the

 

windows of the flagship TopShop store (owned by Sir Phillip Green who is being attacked for shovelling billions of pounds of what should be UK taxable income into tax

 

haven accounts owned by his wife as part of a legal tax dodge), and in Regent Street they engulfed the Bentley containing Prince Charles and his horse-faced wife

 

Camilla who were in the process of swanning orf the the Royal Variety Performance! The protesters started kicking the vehicle. They broke the windows and threw a tin of

 

white paint over the car. One was not amused!

 

Needless to say the Bill was passed in Parliament tonight, and the students have vowed to continue their campaign of demonstration and civil disobedience...

 

All photos ⓒ Pete Riches

 

Please do not use my photos without my prior agreement.

Please do not re-blog my photos without my agreement.

Email: peteriches@gmail.com

¿Nuestra minúscula conquista de eternidad?

La fotografía es un gran misterio, un medio para depositar la proyección de nuestra alma, sentimientos, miedos, mente y la realidad de ese momento en ilusión de eternidad.

 

My text was inspired by: "...photography is my memory. I've chosen photography to prove that I exist" Ref: edition.cnn.com/2012/10/14/opinion/hernandez-mobile-photo... shared by my friend Ivan.

  

Victoria Embankment, A3211, Whitehall, London, City of Westminster, England, UK

 

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Zeiss Distagon T* 2/25 ZE

Focal Length: 25 mm

Exposure: 8.0 sec at f/11

ISO: 50

Continued : Half a million people march in London to stop the cuts. 26.03.2011

  

Last weekend the TUC's "March for the Alternative" demonstration saw Central London streets packed with half a million Public Sector employees, Disability Rights and anti-war groups, students and many others angry at government cuts. As we all know the day's events were completely stolen by the selfish, cretinous actions of a couple of hundred juvenile "Anarchists" who used the day's events as cover to cause havoc all over Central London, attacking shops, businesses and the police for no reason other than jealousy, sociopathy and a desire to cause criminal damage. These are football thugs by any other name, no more, no less.

 

The so-called Anarchists claim they are fighting back against Capitalism, the Establishment and all Agents of the State - the Police, especially - and are doing what they do to show that they are not Slaves to the State or the Corporations, yet they are the first to complain if they think that someone has behaved illegally towards them like the immature children they are. I don't know if they can see the irony in organising their raids by Blackberry, Android phones and Twitter, but I can't help feeling that if someone attacked them in the street and stole their precious smartphones off them before kicking the living crap out of them they'd be crying and wailing all the way to the nearest police station to report the crime and wait there until Daddy comes to pick them up in the Range Rover...

 

The truth is that they are nothing more than Useful Idiots, serving the propaganda purposes of the very Corporations which they claim to detest, and if they had any vision beyond their aggressive juvenile male urge to smash the place up and piss on all the lamp posts to mark their fictitious territory, they'd maybe understand that they will always fail. You change large systems from within, and it takes time and intelligence, and the ability to win hearts and minds. At the moment in this country there are several million working and lower middle-class people fighting for their very survival at the hands of this ideology-driven right-wing government, and what they don't need are these utter morons robbing them of their huge public display of moral and social unity.

 

Predictably the Media the next week was awash with pornographic photos of Useful Idiots smashing bank windows and other Useful idiots throwing paintbombs at the police, and to all intents and puposes the half a million people who marched that day should have saved all the precious money they wasted hiring coaches, getting trains, driving down to London, because these Useful Idiots made a mockery of their aspirations as working class people.

 

As far as I'm concerned the tedious, unintelligent Black Bloc and Red Sky "anarchists" are as much our enemy as the Banks and Hedge Funds.

 

All photos © 2011 Pete Riches

Do not use my photos without my permission

The Duke of Gloucester, Prince Richard KG GCVO takes the salute from Armed Forces members, Veterans and Cadets during the Armed Forces Day. Picture: LA(Phot) Dan Rosenbaum

  

HOST CITY NOTTINGHAM CELEBRATES ARMED FORCES DAY 2013

  

A Red Arrows fly-past and a gun salute marked the start of Armed Forces Day 2013 in Nottingham.

 

The national event, which is designed to celebrate the Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force (RAF), was held in the city for the first time.

 

About 60,000 people viewed the ceremonies taking place throughout Saturday.

 

More than 150 service personnel, two military bands and 14 horses from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery took part in the parade, as well as 90 marching cadets and veterans from across the UK.

 

After the parade, the crowds flocked to Victoria Embankment where various displays were put on for the members of the public.

Cannon Row (Alpha Delta) Police Constable holds the traffic on the Victoria Embankment for this fast exit from Scotland Yard. Cannon Row Police Station formed part of the Scotland Yard complex designed by famed Scottish architect, Norman Shaw.

  

Cannon Row Police Station '('AD') opened its doors for 'business' in 1902 and finally closed in 1992. It was then amalagmated with Bow Street Police Station and reinvented as Charing Cross Police Station and housed in the old Charing Cross Hospital near Trafalgar Square.

 

The end of a significant amount of Metropolitan Police history and the police service in general when both famous police stations closed.

 

TV Memory Here

 

www.alphadeltaplus.20m.com

 

More About Cannon Row Police Station

 

Cannon Row Police Officers Hyde Park 1926

 

This picture is copyrighted.

The challenge with this one is to work out where I was standing to take this - more of a Guess Whence than a Guess Where, but the whence will give you the where.

Continued : Half a million people march in London to stop the cuts. 26.03.2011

 

This large photo set celebrates the hundreds of thousands of decent, peaceful people who put so much effort into the best march you never saw...

  

Last weekend the TUC's "March for the Alternative" demonstration saw Central London streets packed with half a million Public Sector employees, Disability Rights and anti-war groups, students and many others angry at government cuts. As we all know the day's events were completely stolen by the selfish, cretinous actions of a couple of hundred juvenile "Anarchists" who used the day's events as cover to cause havoc all over Central London, attacking shops, businesses and the police for no reason other than jealousy, sociopathy and a desire to cause criminal damage. These are football thugs by any other name, no more, no less.

 

The so-called Anarchists claim they are fighting back against Capitalism, the Establishment and all Agents of the State - the Police, especially - and are doing what they do to show that they are not Slaves to the State or the Corporations, yet they are the first to complain if they think that someone has behaved illegally towards them like the immature children they are. I don't know if they can see the irony in organising their raids by Blackberry, Android phones and Twitter, but I can't help feeling that if someone attacked them in the street and stole their precious smartphones off them before kicking the living crap out of them they'd be crying and wailing all the way to the nearest police station to report the crime and wait there until Daddy comes to pick them up in the Range Rover...

 

The truth is that they are nothing more than Useful Idiots, serving the propaganda purposes of the very Corporations which they claim to detest, and if they had any vision beyond their aggressive juvenile male urge to smash the place up and piss on all the lamp posts to mark their fictitious territory, they'd maybe understand that they will always fail. You change large systems from within, and it takes time and intelligence, and the ability to win hearts and minds. At the moment in this country there are several million working and lower middle-class people fighting for their very survival at the hands of this ideology-driven right-wing government, and what they don't need are these utter morons robbing them of their huge public display of moral and social unity.

 

Predictably the Media the next week was awash with pornographic photos of Useful Idiots smashing bank windows and other Useful idiots throwing paintbombs at the police, and to all intents and puposes the half a million people who marched that day should have saved all the precious money they wasted hiring coaches, getting trains, driving down to London, because these Useful Idiots made a mockery of their aspirations as working class people.

 

As far as I'm concerned the tedious, unintelligent Black Bloc and Red Sky "anarchists" are as much our enemy as the Banks and Hedge Funds.

 

All photos © 2011 Pete Riches

Do not use my photos without my permission

Sailors march by during the parade held at Market Square in Nottingham for Armed Forces Day. Picture: LA(Phot) Dan Rosenbaum

  

HOST CITY NOTTINGHAM CELEBRATES ARMED FORCES DAY 2013

  

A Red Arrows fly-past and a gun salute marked the start of Armed Forces Day 2013 in Nottingham.

 

The national event, which is designed to celebrate the Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force (RAF), was held in the city for the first time.

 

About 60,000 people viewed the ceremonies taking place throughout Saturday.

 

More than 150 service personnel, two military bands and 14 horses from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery took part in the parade, as well as 90 marching cadets and veterans from across the UK.

 

After the parade, the crowds flocked to Victoria Embankment where various displays were put on for the members of the public.

A Naval Standard Bearer lowers the Ensign during Armed Forces Day in Nottingham. Picture: LA(Phot) Dan Rosenbaum

 

HOST CITY NOTTINGHAM CELEBRATES ARMED FORCES DAY 2013

 

A Red Arrows fly-past and a gun salute marked the start of Armed Forces Day 2013 in Nottingham.

The national event, which is designed to celebrate the Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force (RAF), was held in the city for the first time.

About 60,000 people viewed the ceremonies taking place throughout Saturday.

More than 150 service personnel, two military bands and 14 horses from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery took part in the parade, as well as 90 marching cadets and veterans from across the UK.

After the parade, the crowds flocked to Victoria Embankment where various displays were put on for the members of the public.

A pre Decimal Costermonger on Victoria Embankment near Westminster Pier.

A jam packed Westminster Bridge.

A watercolour from just after WW2 showing Westminster Bridge and a tug with an articulated funnel steaming upstream.

This postcard was posted on 28th April 1948 and the sender who was on holiday in London from Yorkshire describes how she watched 'the procession' from a Fleet Street window. On 26th April King George VI and Queen Elizabeth rode in state to St. Paul's Cathedral to mark their Silver Wedding anniversary.

TfL Bus Stop flag 25774 on the Embankment with coach point identifier 40D and two blank E3 tiles. You can also make out that this is a re-enamelled Request Stop flag. Photographed 9th February 2019.

STUDENTS DayX3 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION

 

Protest and march against University tuition fee increases, 09th Dec. 2010

 

Over 20,000 students from around the country converged on Central London today to march for a third time to protest against the coalition government's plans to

 

massively increase University tuition fees, which will ultimately mean that far fewer students from poorer backgrounds will be able to even consider a University

 

education because of the massive debts incurred which will follow them for the rest of their working lives.

 

I joined the days proceedings in the afternoon as they were assembling in Trafalgar Square. To throw the police off-guard they suddenly took off, en mass, through

 

Admiralty Arch in a bid to get to Parliament Square, which had been forbidden. That evening the House of Commons was voting on the Education Funding Bill, and the

 

students were determined to make sure that Parliament heard their protests.

 

The day started in a good mood, but by the time they reached Parliament pockets of disorder had started breaking out - Flares were lit and thrown, crush barriers and

 

construction site fencing ripped up to be used as weapons against the massed ranks of riot police and later on the mounted police. I had to leave by around 3pm, and by

 

the time I got home and turned on the BBC news all hell had broken loose outside Parliament. Protesters were pelting the police with lumps of masonry, metal poles and

 

scaffolding. They lit large fires, broke down the doors to The Treasury and the new Ministry of Justice buildings, smashing many windows, daubing graffiti everywhere

 

and generally smashing up the joint. Many people were arrested and many people hurt, some badly.

 

As the police gradually started releasing the by-now contained protesters in small numbers, several small groups headed up to Oxford Street, where they smashed the

 

windows of the flagship TopShop store (owned by Sir Phillip Green who is being attacked for shovelling billions of pounds of what should be UK taxable income into tax

 

haven accounts owned by his wife as part of a legal tax dodge), and in Regent Street they engulfed the Bentley containing Prince Charles and his horse-faced wife

 

Camilla who were in the process of swanning orf the the Royal Variety Performance! The protesters started kicking the vehicle. They broke the windows and threw a tin of

 

white paint over the car. One was not amused!

 

Needless to say the Bill was passed in Parliament tonight, and the students have vowed to continue their campaign of demonstration and civil disobedience...

 

All photos ⓒ Pete Riches

 

Please do not use my photos without my prior agreement.

Please do not re-blog my photos without my agreement.

Email: peteriches@gmail.com

STUDENTS DayX3 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION (Part 2)

 

Protest and march against University tuition fee increases, 09th Dec. 2010

 

Over 20,000 students from around the country converged on Central London today to march for a third time to protest against the coalition government's plans to massively increase University tuition fees, which will ultimately mean that far fewer students from poorer backgrounds will be able to even consider a University education because of the massive debts incurred which will follow them for the rest of their working lives.

 

I joined the days proceedings in the afternoon as they were assembling in Trafalgar Square. To throw the police off-guard they suddenly took off, en mass, through Admiralty Arch in a bid to get to Parliament Square, which had been forbidden. That evening the House of Commons was voting on the Education Funding Bill, and the students were determined to make sure that Parliament heard their protests.

 

The day started in a good mood, but by the time they reached Parliament pockets of disorder had started breaking out - Flares were lit and thrown, crush barriers and construction site fencing ripped up to be used as weapons against the massed ranks of riot police and later on the mounted police. I had to leave by around 3pm, and by the time I got home and turned on the BBC news all hell had broken loose outside Parliament. Protesters were pelting the police with lumps of masonry, metal poles and scaffolding. They lit large fires, broke down the doors to The Treasury and the new Ministry of Justice buildings, smashing many windows, daubing graffiti everywhere and generally smashing up the joint. Many people were arrested and many people hurt, some badly.

 

As the police gradually started releasing the by-now contained protesters in small numbers, several small groups headed up to Oxford Street, where they smashed the windows of the flagship TopShop store (owned by Sir Phillip Green who is being attacked for shovelling billions of pounds of what should be UK taxable income into tax haven accounts owned by his wife as part of a legal tax dodge), and in Regent Street they engulfed the Bentley containing Prince Charles and his horse-faced wife Camilla who were in the process of swanning orf the the Royal Variety Performance! The protesters started kicking the vehicle. They broke the windows and threw a tin of white paint over the car. One was not amused!

 

Needless to say the Bill was passed in Parliament tonight, and the students have vowed to continue their campaign of demonstration and civil disobedience...

 

All photos ⓒ Pete Riches

 

Please do not use my photos without my prior agreement.

Please do not re-blog my photos without my agreement.

Email: peteriches@gmail.com

Found on the Victoria Embankment near to a statue entitled 'Taxi". An Abstract entry

The Duke of Gloucester, Prince Richard KG, GCVO speaks with war veterans during Armed Forces Day in Nottingham. Picture : LA(Phot) Dan Rosenbaum

  

HOST CITY NOTTINGHAM CELEBRATES ARMED FORCES DAY 2013

  

A Red Arrows fly-past and a gun salute marked the start of Armed Forces Day 2013 in Nottingham.

 

The national event, which is designed to celebrate the Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force (RAF), was held in the city for the first time.

 

About 60,000 people viewed the ceremonies taking place throughout Saturday.

 

More than 150 service personnel, two military bands and 14 horses from the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery took part in the parade, as well as 90 marching cadets and veterans from across the UK.

 

After the parade, the crowds flocked to Victoria Embankment where various displays were put on for the members of the public.

Consent forms held at FRPU(E), HMS Excellent, Portsmouth

Victoria Embankment near Hungerford Bridge on 3rd April 1976

Storey (then known as Sarah Bailey) began her Paralympic career as a swimmer, winning two golds, three silvers and a bronze in Barcelona in 1992 at 14. She continued swimming in the next three Paralympic Games before switching to cycling in 2005. Ref: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Storey

 

It was her 11th Paralympic gold medal won across a 20-year career in the pool and on her bike to take her level with Baroness Grey-Thompson and swimmer Dave Roberts. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-2199310/Lon...

 

Sarah Storey is Great Britain's most decorated female Paralympian in history having won 11 Gold, 8 Silver and 3 Bronze medals across an impressive 6 Paralympic Games. There is also no doubt she is one of the most versatile athlete's in the World having won World and Paralympic Gold medals for her country across two sports. Ref: www.teamstoreysport.com/sarah-storey.html

  

Victoria Embankment, A3211, Whitehall,

 

London, City of Westminster, England, UK

 

Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II

Lens: Zeiss Distagon T* 2/25 ZE

Focal Length: 25 mm

Exposure: ¹⁄₂₀ sec at f/2.0

ISO: 1600

A LEVC TX traveling north east along Victoria Embankment, just about to pass beneath Waterloo Bridge.

Metropolitan Police Officers attached to Cannon Row Police Station (Alpha Delta) escort members of the PDSA (People's Dispensary For Sick Animals) en route to Trafalgar Square for a meeting.

 

The officers would be attached to Cannon Row Police Station (Alpha Delta) the Headquarters of the Metropolitan Police's 'A' or Whitehall Division that formed part of the world famous Scotland Yard designed by the Scottish architect Norman Shaw in 1898.

 

Cannon Row Police Station handled all of the major ceremonial occasions in the Capital from 1902 plus the many large demonstrations that took place most weeks on Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Parliament Square and Downing Street.

 

As well as the above, the station was responsible for the protection of the Monarch and the Royal Family when resident at Buckingham Palace, Clarence House, Holyrood House (Scotland), Balmoral Castle, (Scotland), Castle of Mey (Scotland), Windsor Castle (Berkshire), Royal Lodge, (Berkshire).

 

For more about Cannon Row Police Station click on the links below:

STUDENTS DayX3 NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION (Part 2)

 

Protest and march against University tuition fee increases, 09th Dec. 2010

 

Over 20,000 students from around the country converged on Central London today to march for a third time to protest against the coalition government's plans to massively increase University tuition fees, which will ultimately mean that far fewer students from poorer backgrounds will be able to even consider a University education because of the massive debts incurred which will follow them for the rest of their working lives.

 

I joined the days proceedings in the afternoon as they were assembling in Trafalgar Square. To throw the police off-guard they suddenly took off, en mass, through Admiralty Arch in a bid to get to Parliament Square, which had been forbidden. That evening the House of Commons was voting on the Education Funding Bill, and the students were determined to make sure that Parliament heard their protests.

 

The day started in a good mood, but by the time they reached Parliament pockets of disorder had started breaking out - Flares were lit and thrown, crush barriers and construction site fencing ripped up to be used as weapons against the massed ranks of riot police and later on the mounted police. I had to leave by around 3pm, and by the time I got home and turned on the BBC news all hell had broken loose outside Parliament. Protesters were pelting the police with lumps of masonry, metal poles and scaffolding. They lit large fires, broke down the doors to The Treasury and the new Ministry of Justice buildings, smashing many windows, daubing graffiti everywhere and generally smashing up the joint. Many people were arrested and many people hurt, some badly.

 

As the police gradually started releasing the by-now contained protesters in small numbers, several small groups headed up to Oxford Street, where they smashed the windows of the flagship TopShop store (owned by Sir Phillip Green who is being attacked for shovelling billions of pounds of what should be UK taxable income into tax haven accounts owned by his wife as part of a legal tax dodge), and in Regent Street they engulfed the Bentley containing Prince Charles and his horse-faced wife Camilla who were in the process of swanning orf the the Royal Variety Performance! The protesters started kicking the vehicle. They broke the windows and threw a tin of white paint over the car. One was not amused!

 

Needless to say the Bill was passed in Parliament tonight, and the students have vowed to continue their campaign of demonstration and civil disobedience...

 

All photos ⓒ Pete Riches

 

Please do not use my photos without my prior agreement.

Please do not re-blog my photos without my agreement.

Email: peteriches@gmail.com

Cleopatra's Needle, Victoria Embankment, London

Three exposures (0, -2, +2 ev) autobracketed to create the HDR then converted to sepia.

 

Per ardua ad astra ("Through Adversity to the Stars") is the motto of the Royal Air Force.

 

"The Royal Air Force Memorial is a 1923 military memorial on Victoria Embankment in central London, dedicated to the memory of the casualties of the Royal Air Force in World War I (and, by extension, all subsequent conflicts). It is sited near Cleopatra's Needle, between the north-bank ends of Charing Cross Bridge and Westminster Bridge, and directly to the east of the main Ministry of Defence building on Whitehall. It was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, and William Reid Dick sculpted the eagle on top (drawn from the RAF's badge)."

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Air_Force_Memorial

River Thames from the South Bank in London.

 

We were looking for the Christmas Market that was around here.

 

Turns out that the South Bank Centre's Winter Festival starts from under the Hungerford Bridge. Was also some fun fair rides there as well!

  

Waterloo Bridge

  

boat - Port of London Authority

  

HD video clip

Continued : Half a million people march in London to stop the cuts. 26.03.2011

  

Last weekend the TUC's "March for the Alternative" demonstration saw Central London streets packed with half a million Public Sector employees, Disability Rights and anti-war groups, students and many others angry at government cuts. As we all know the day's events were completely stolen by the selfish, cretinous actions of a couple of hundred juvenile "Anarchists" who used the day's events as cover to cause havoc all over Central London, attacking shops, businesses and the police for no reason other than jealousy, sociopathy and a desire to cause criminal damage. These are football thugs by any other name, no more, no less.

 

The so-called Anarchists claim they are fighting back against Capitalism, the Establishment and all Agents of the State - the Police, especially - and are doing what they do to show that they are not Slaves to the State or the Corporations, yet they are the first to complain if they think that someone has behaved illegally towards them like the immature children they are. I don't know if they can see the irony in organising their raids by Blackberry, Android phones and Twitter, but I can't help feeling that if someone attacked them in the street and stole their precious smartphones off them before kicking the living crap out of them they'd be crying and wailing all the way to the nearest police station to report the crime and wait there until Daddy comes to pick them up in the Range Rover...

 

The truth is that they are nothing more than Useful Idiots, serving the propaganda purposes of the very Corporations which they claim to detest, and if they had any vision beyond their aggressive juvenile male urge to smash the place up and piss on all the lamp posts to mark their fictitious territory, they'd maybe understand that they will always fail. You change large systems from within, and it takes time and intelligence, and the ability to win hearts and minds. At the moment in this country there are several million working and lower middle-class people fighting for their very survival at the hands of this ideology-driven right-wing government, and what they don't need are these utter morons robbing them of their huge public display of moral and social unity.

 

Predictably the Media the next week was awash with pornographic photos of Useful Idiots smashing bank windows and other Useful idiots throwing paintbombs at the police, and to all intents and puposes the half a million people who marched that day should have saved all the precious money they wasted hiring coaches, getting trains, driving down to London, because these Useful Idiots made a mockery of their aspirations as working class people.

 

As far as I'm concerned the tedious, unintelligent Black Bloc and Red Sky "anarchists" are as much our enemy as the Banks and Hedge Funds.

 

All photos © 2011 Pete Riches

Do not use my photos without my permission

Victoria Embankment, Nottingham

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