Day Four - Changing Guards on Fleet Street

After all my bragging about the weather thus far ... it poured today. My walk to Buckingham Palace was stinking hot in the sun but, as if Mother Nature has a sense of irony, it began to spit as I sat on the palace steps waiting for the Changing of the Guards ceremony to begin. (It is at this point I realise the umbrella I lugged all the way from Australia is still in my room!) After spitting all through the ceremony, the minute the guards cleared the road in front of the palace and the whole thing was over, it was as if Mother Nature had run out of patience and the heavens opened! I bet she enjoyed watching us all scatter for cover.

Later in the afternoon I visited an old Tiser journo (Andrew Hough, for those who know him) at the Daily Telegraph office - or Telegraph Towers as it is apparently swishly known. Its an impressive office with escalators leading up from the lobby. The newsroom is the biggest or second biggest open-plan newsroom in Europe apparently, in a spoke design with a circle conference desk in the centre and hub desks radiating out. They project their website and videos etc onto massive wall-screens around the room, there's a small TV studio and the editor and dep ed actually sit out on the floor most of the time. This might seem odd but its actually the only other proper newsroom I've been in...! Being there and talking to Houghy made me miss work ... for a moment :P

Observations: I want to work on Fleet Street before I die! Changing of the Guard ceremony actually not that engaging (heaps of people left before it was finished)

Mistakes: forgetting the umbrella - will be by my side always from now on.