London Marathon

LONDON MARATHON

The traffic in central London grinds to a standstill on the day of the London Marathon and it is advisable to avoid the area entirely if trying to cross the city by road. The course of the race neatly dissects London in half, never straying too distant from the river Thames and the road closures divide the north of the city from the south for much of the day. Many forget that the race is taking place and wonder why they haven’t moved three car lengths in half an hour, only to then witness the heart sinking reminder of half-bent competitors wandering away aimlessly from the finishing post, gasping for air and wrapped in foil capes emblazoned with the race sponsors’ logos.

Of course, tens of thousands deliberately head to the circuit, to cheer on the runners from the sides of the roads from Blackheath, where the race starts, to The Mall where it finishes. There are twenty-six miles and three hundred and eighty five yards of asphalt on which to stand and encourage the often wilting figures. Many of them are barely able to manage a modest trot as they pass by, dreaming of reaching the finishing post alive.  Regrettably, some indeed do not, as there have been nine fatalities since the first London Marathon, despite the superlative medical support provided by the St John Ambulance volunteers.

By dropping dead, those nine competitors met the same fate as the fabled Greek soldier Pheidippides. The herald collapsed and died from exhaustion after announcing Greek victory over Persia at the Battle Of Marathon in 490 B.C. He ran the twenty-six miles to Athens from the battlefield and on arrival uttered the famous words, ‘we have won’ before expiring and thereby provided the inspiration for our modern day competitive marathons.

The London Marathon dates to 1981 and it is considered one of the five ‘World Marathon Majors.’ It is the only marathon in the world to be run in both hemispheres, as it criss-crosses the Greenwich Meridian along its route. Modeled on the New York marathon, the 2010 race was its thirtieth running. In the early races the top athletes would cross the finishing line hand in hand, but now it is a highly competitive race with fast times. The quickest finishing time in the men’s race is two hours, five minutes and thirty-eight seconds, achieved by Khalid Khannouchi in 2002. This was just a couple of minutes off the world record of two hours, three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. In the women’s race, the fastest time is held by Paula Radcliffe who managed two hours, fifteen minutes and twenty-five seconds in 2003. In the London Wheelchair Marathon the record is set by Kurt Fearnley who achieved the finish in one hour, twenty-eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds. In the women’s wheelchair race the record is one hour, forty-eight minutes and four seconds, set by Sandra Graf.

The mostly flat course, which is seldom above sea level, benefits those who originate from countries with high altitude. Since 2003 the men’s winner has come from a country with thin air and each has prospered from lungfuls of London's dense oxygen filled atmosphere. Despite this, since the inception of the London Marathon, when all the different categories are combined, there have been more victories by British competitors than of any other nationality. The first marathon had a lowly 6747 competitors but to date well over 700,000 people have run the race since inception.
120,000 people applied for the 2010 race and 37,527 started with approximately 36,000 expected to cross the finishing line. There was a fight to get all the key runners to the 2010 race, as the marathon fell just days after an aviation ban was lifted, arising from ash clouds from an Icelandic volcanic eruption. In particular, key competitors from Kenya and Ethiopia literally had ‘marathon’ journeys to reach the United Kingdom, travelling by land, air and sea.

The organisers of the London Marathon state with some confidence that the occasion is the largest annual fundraising event in the world. Across the four compass points, the British are renowned for their generosity and deep-pocketed goodwill when donating money for charity. Well over three hundred million pounds have been raised since the London Marathon’s inception, with eighty per cent of runners arranging sponsorship. Partakers often see their fundraising as being as much of an achievement as the run itself. Nevertheless, the moments after crossing the finishers’ line, clutching the competitors medal and being photographed by adoring family members is said to be euphoric, especially for those who prepared with many months of training.

Many of those collecting money run in ludicrous fancy dress, which helps to draw attention, sometimes television coverage, to their charitable causes. The highlight one year was an Indiana Jones being chased by a giant rock. In 2002, the world record for the slowest time was broken by a ‘runner’ inside a deep sea diving suit. He was to be seen dragging the weighty outfit around for many days afterwards, plodding his route over the twenty-six miles and making welcome pauses for photographs alongside suited office workers. His outfit is now on display in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, with his entry number still attached.

The runners have much to look at along the way, as when they reach the six mile mark they see the Old Royal Naval College and the other sights of ancient Greenwich. They cross over Tower Bridge towards the Tower of London at the halfway point and enter the Isle of Dogs, running beneath the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. Towards the end of the race, they see the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral before reaching the Victoria Embankment (see earlier blog: ‘Embankment’) with views of The London Eye and Big Ben. At the finish they pass Buckingham Palace and mostly collapse into a heap on The Mall, alongside St James’s Palace.
The 2010 London Marathon Results: The men's race was won by the Ethiopian Tsegaye Kebede with a time of 2 hours, 5 minutes and 18 seconds. The Russian Liliya Shobukhova won the women's race in 2 hours and 22 minutes. The men's wheelchair race was won by Josh Cassidy in 1 hour, 34 minutes and 21 seconds. Wakako Tsuchida won the women's wheelchair race in 1 hour, 52 minutes and 33 seconds.

Where to view London Marathon and video clips of London
London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘London Marathon’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months. 

Spring

SPRING

The second week in April has seen sunshine in London and the warmest days since early autumn of 2009. Many flowering trees and plants on the streets of London have suddenly sprung to life and have provided an uplifting sight to the millions who live and work in the metropolis. London is a beautiful sight in spring, with thousands of ornamental cherries lining the streets, in the main of the Japanese varieties, which have been cultivated for their majestic blossoms rather than fruit production, making them ideal for urban streets. 

In London, the first signs of spring have been evident earlier in the year for many seasons now, although 2010 has proved a welcome exception. This year saw London’s coldest winter for thirty years, with the deepest freeze since 1978-1979. Temperatures during December, January and February were often below freezing and only hitting double figures on several dates over those ninety days. Typically, London has a mild climate for its latitude, benefitting from the Gulf Stream, which draws warm moist air up from the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. In addition, the vast urban sprawl heats the atmosphere over the city, generally giving it a couple of degrees higher on average than the surrounding countryside.

This year’s cold winter has kept spring so dormant that not only were daffodils unopened on St David’s Day, but the snowdrops were still in flower seventeen days later on St Patrick’s Day. The Meteorological Office has confirmed that spring of 2010 was delayed by around three weeks, restoring the seasons to the pattern last seen in the 1970’s. A benefit of spring arriving when it should, is that it avoids nature being thrown into confusion, with blossom appearing sometimes as early as January, often only for the quick return of a cold snap rendering spring petals limp and lifeless from frost. This year, with blossom erupting in the mild April air, the cherries are resultantly all filled with the fluffiest and most rewarding pink or white flowers.

A walk through London in the height of spring is most cheering, whether in the city centre or in the suburbs. The pedestrian is never far from open spaces, as London is one of the greenest cities of its size in the world. The parks act as a lung running through the capital and in springtime their beauty is unsurpassed.  In particular, the gardeners of the Royal Parks are always careful to provide ample of spring colour. For instance, a bus ride heading north up Park Lane in spring will provide breathtaking views of undulating fields of crocuses inside the adjacent Hyde Park.  Elsewhere, thousands of spring bulbs are planted on Primrose Hill, a short distance to the north of Regent’s Park which always has avenues of trees alight with spring colour.

The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew have five million different flowering bulbs during springtime. Visitors who only head to Kew Gardens once a year often choose this season and are duly rewarded with the sight of two million crocuses carpeting the site. The harsh winter means that even late flowering spring plants will be set back, with the Kew bluebells not expected until mid-May. Many tiny birds, such as the goldcrest and the wren, are likely to have perished over winter. For hibernating creatures, the late spring could increase their chances of survival, as the cold deterred them from stepping out too early. It is also good news for some migrating birds, which in recent years have arrived too late to feed on caterpillars, that have hatched too early and pupated before their arrival.

The spring air is filled with song of blackbird, great tits, robins, song thrushes, chaffinches and the sound of bees. Honeybees are already buzzing around magnolias, lilacs and the yellow spring flowers of the forsythia. London’s bees are enjoying better health than many of their rural cousins. The hundreds of thousands of urban gardens provide a vast wealth of plant varieties for foraging.  Importantly, London bees benefit from an absence of polluted farmland, as their catchment areas do not extend to the green belt. The ever more frequent ‘colony collapse disorder’ is considered by most beekeepers to be caused by farmers’ pesticides and herbicides and their prolific overuse. Bees have for some reason been unable to find their way back from the four compass points leaving hives almost empty. Urban bees have mostly avoided the poisons and diseases that have been destroying hives in the countryside.

Over the course of the second weekend in April, it was observed that many urban trees with bare branches on the preceding Friday were showing the first leaf points by Monday, particularly horse chestnuts, sycamore and hornbeam. Amongst the last common trees to break into leaf in London are the ash and the oak. The saying, ‘oak before ash, we are in a for a splash - ash before oak, we are in for a soak’ as a portent to indicate a wet or dry summer doesn’t work particularly well in the capital. The city’s ashes come into leaf almost invariably after oaks, even when the city has gone on to experience summers with very high rainfall. So whether the summer of 2010 be wet or dry, take time to enjoy the ever too brief delights of springtime, as its marvels will be evident to all from the humble inner city window box, through to London’s wooded parkland.

Where to view Spring and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Spring’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months. 

Albert Memorial

ALBERT MEMORIAL

The name ‘Albert’ appears all over London, particularly with nineteenth century buildings and construction projects. There are three squares, there is the Albert Bridge, Albert Embankment, Albert Docks, Albert Mansions, Albert Hotel, more than one Albert Tavern, the Royal Albert Hall and its neighbour the Albert Memorial.  They are all named after Prince Albert, The Prince Consort, the husband of Queen Victoria. Prince Albert died many years before the monarch, succumbing to typhoid, at the age of forty-two. The combination of his early death, Victoria’s painful years of mourning and the rapid expansion of London at that time, led to the profuse use of his name in conjunction with many projects of the Victorian era.

After Albert’s untimely death, it was the Lord Mayor of London who first started the initiative for a memorial, with thoughts towards founding a university bearing his name. However, Queen Victoria was determined to have a memorial in its literal sense. During the following years, the plans for the memorial were frequently altered, caused in the main by the deaths of a number of those involved. The memorial we see today was eventually unveiled in 1872, eleven years after Albert’s death and it took a further three years for the statue of Albert to be positioned in his seat, as the centrepiece of the monument. It took twenty full years for the final details to be completed.

The memorial was designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and he considered it to be the masterpiece of his working career. The statue of Prince Albert is robed as a Knight of the Garter and is positioned beneath a decorated Gothic canopy, rising one hundred and seventy six feet above his seated figure. Clearly visible from the four compass points, Albert is shown holding a catalogue from The Great Exhibition of 1851. Prince Albert had taken much pleasure in masterminding the preparations the exhibition, which was held on the lawns of Hyde Park, only a short walk away from the memorial in Kensington Gardens.

More than any other public tribute to Albert, it was declared that ‘this memorial assuaged the ecstasy of Queen Victoria’s grief.’ Put up by public subscription, it is a glorious reminder of Victorian architecture, in fact it is considered the grandest high-Victorian gothic extravaganza of such a scale. It cost one hundred and twenty thousand pounds to build, with, ‘varied and valuable materials befitting the pain of his loss felt right across the British Empire.’ The memorial is inlaid with precious stones and crystals, which were intended, ‘to hold the attention of visitors as they leisurely examined its artistic beauties.’

The Frieze of Parnassus surrounds the central pedestal of the memorial and depicts nearly two hundred figures, consisting of celebrated painters, poets, sculptors, musicians and architects, all reflecting Albert’s enthusiasm for the arts. On top of the corners of the frieze are four groups of sculptures that represent the Victorian industrial arts and sciences of agriculture, commerce, engineering and manufacturing. Beneath the frieze is a pyramid-like quadrangular flight of steps, leading to four further groups of sculptures. They are positioned at the ground level corners and represent Europe, Asia, Africa and America.

The Albert Memorial is in better shape now than since its very earliest years. The fourth and most extensive renovation was completed in 1998, after eleven years of painstaking work and costing eleven million pounds. The potentially fatal rot in its iron skeleton was successfully halted. The repairs involved delicate work on more than a thousand square feet of mosaics. Fifty thousand pounds were spent on replacing the missing gold leaf, after it was stripped off in 1914 as a preventative measure to stop Zeppelins from spotting it in the glare and bombing it. The efforts were worthwhile as the memorial escaped unscathed during The Great War and likewise survived The Blitz of The Second World War.

Prince Albert, facing south, gazes over towards the Royal Albert Hall, (see blog: ROYAL ALBERT HALL) and the nearby modernist Royal College of Art, which was built one hundred years after his death in 1961. A little further on is The Royal Geographical Society, which boasts the first passenger elevator built in London, using technology that would certainly have interested the prince, who died a dozen years before it was constructed. The Albert Memorial is just inside Kensington Gardens, clearly visible from Kensington Road, London W8 5NX. London Underground (Tube): South Kensington or Knightsbridge  

Where to view Albert Memorial and video clips of London

London in motion has some of the best London Stock Footage and London Library Footage with moving clips of many of the above mentioned places to see, are available to browse through by simply visiting the ‘Albert Memorial’ category of this website.  New additions of London video clips are being frequently uploaded and further categories will be appearing over the coming months.