As our Summer In The City journey continues, we take one last look at the busy Oxford Circus before heading south down Regent Street.

We pass several well-known stores (including the fabulous new Apple store - a must-visit for all Apple computer / iPod / Apple TV / iPhone fans!).

Its great seeing all the people in Regent Street milling around, window-shopping; some laden with bags, some noticing the camera and  trying to seek attention!

All too soon we are at Piccadilly Circus, famous for its Statue of Eros and also the great advert hoardings, most now digital movie screens which the camera lingers to watch for a while.

Just as we turn back for one last look at Eros, I suffer sudden battery failure! The camera tries a couple of time to capture more footage but in vain as video of Piccadilly Circus is replaced dramatically with a TV test card! Ok... a bit of artistic licence to advertise the launch of the forthcoming HD 1080 service but I did actually suffer sudden battery failure which explains the very short episode this week and the drop in pictures at the end of this episode.

Yes HD video picture lovers, message received: its back to the original Sony lens and that tripod-based 'locked-off and look' from next week...!

As our Summer In The City journey continues, we start where we left off last time, at the north entrance to Portland Place.

This road is well-known for its large old town houses, now mostly embassies and office headquarters.

Particular buildings are highlighted, including RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects), the Chinese embassy with its huge shortwave antenna, the British Telecom tower in the distance, the luxurious Langham Hotel, and All Souls Church.

Portland Place is most well-known as the home of the BBC's Broadcasting House.  LondonArchitecture.co.uk describes this building as "reflecting the height of Art Deco architecture, it is something of a parody of itself with its transmission towers and wires. The broad sweep of Portland stone running along Portland Place gives an impression of strength and permanence." (for more click here )

Filming notes:
Several of you have contacted me about seeing colour aberrations in some shots of the Summer In The City journey episodes so far. Hands up, I bought an, ahem, inexpensive wide-angle lens ... and it sometimes shows up as slight red or blue colour fringing at the edges of the picture.

From episode 5 of Summer In The City (publishing in two weeks time) I will be filming with just the normal Sony lens - and with the tripod to get back the highly-detailed and rich pictures of my normal 'locked off and look' filming technique. Apologies to videophiles out there, I promise to get LLTV back as your source for the finest pictures of London ASAP.

The Summer In The City journey continues where we left off at the end of the previous episode, Camden Lock.

We now take the canal path from the lock (where narrowboats ascend or descend between two different sections of the canal) walking towards Regents Park. The canal is a peaceful, idyllic, 'hidden' London that few tourists know about.

Half way through the episode we arrive at the north entrance to Regents Park and walk south through some beautiful floral gardens and fountains.

Finally we end up exiting Regents Park at its southern perimeter and cross Marylebone Road into Park Cresent. As this episode concludes there is a sense that this peaceful part of the journey is about to end...

LLTV’s Summer In The City 2007 episodes kick off with a tube ride on an underground train to Camden Town that starts over-ground, passing Golders Green station before entering the tunnel underground to central London.

Once we arrive at Camden Town, we take a look through this bustling suburb with its shops of ‘way-out man/groovy/hip-chick/goth� clothing!

We pass the MTV television studios (formerly the TV-AM building) and arrive at Camden Lock looking over Regent’s Canal ....where next week’s episode will continue the journey!

For more on the Summer In The City journey taking place throughout the summer, read the article in LLTV News at www.londonlandscapetv.info

Imagine you've just arrived in London for the first time from an airport or railway station, and you're taking a taxi ride. What would you see? You would be absorbing the sights of the buildings, people, shops, other vehicles, signs, advert hoardings, driving on the left, and more. When you see a city for the first time like this, it's an intense sensory experience which I hope I have been able to recreate in this episode.

This episode takes you through two districts close to the centre of London: Brixton and Victoria. The camera is set up on the dashboard and sees everything I see in front of me as I drive the car through the heart of these places.

Technical note:
You will notice that this episode has two black bands at the top and bottom of the picture. I positioned the video as a narrower strip than the standard widescreen format because at the bottom of the original video footage is a close-up of the windscreen wiper! Since this does not contribute to the scene it would only take up the attention of the video compressor and soften the more useful parts of the picture. Lowering the picture and taking out the windscreen wiper using black bands means that much less data is absorbed here and the moving images are sharper. Even so, the moving pictures are softer than a true still landscape, so I'll present you HD landscape-o-philes (like me) with a nice still landscape next week, I promise!

On a stormy Sunday (1st July 2007) and with central London experiencing a heightened security alert, I decided to head out to Alexandra Park - home of Alexandra Palace - with its views towards the distant towers in the city of London which is 6.5 miles (10 km) south of the park.

In this episode, I take in a couple of shots of the palace building (these days not much to look at except for its circular rose window) and TV tower, then I turn the camera around to point south to central London.

Alexandra Palace itself is no longer much to look at. A fire in the 1980s destroyed much of the building and it has only been partially rebuilt. However the historic BBC TV studios and (still operational) TV transmitter still exist. The tower was the first in the world to transmit TV pictures, from 1936 (for more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Palace ).

 

A selection of well known - and secret - places in London where people go to walk, relax, and see the city. Starting in the ornately covered Leadenhall Market we then head to St. Christopher's Place, a peaceful shopping and cafe 'square' with its access from Oxford Street only indicated by a tall clock! Next we head to Canada Square, Canary Wharf - the heart of the newly developed Docklands. This shot was filmed when... actually I'll leave the clues for you to find on the large Reuters news screen dominating the square! From Canada Square we move Thames-side with a set of static shots that observe the people-only spaces riverside or across pedestrian bridges.

A journey in London's upmarket Mayfair district from Grosvenor Square to Berkeley Square, taking in the magnificent buildings and gardens in both squares. (US viewers may be interested to learn that Grosvenor Square is host to the American Embassy)

This episode opens with a close-up view of the Victoria Monument which is built in front of Buckingham Palace. As we observe the many tourists in front of the palace we notice that there is increasing movement of the military personnel within its compound. The next thing we know, the gates have opened and a military band is playing, followed by today’s duty guards who are leaving the palace (this time the turn of the Royal Air Force - the Navy and Army also take turns). We watch the military parade march off down the Mall, a great long parade road leading from Buckingham Palace all the way to Trafalgar Square in the distance. The Mall is festooned with Union Flags its entire length. Finally the military band has disappeared, returning the Mall to the thousands of sightseers enjoying the sunshine.

The Fire Monument is a 61-metre (202ft) stone column commemorating the Great Fire of London - a fire in a bakery which started at a location exactly the distance away from the column as is represented by its height: 61m.

The Great Fire started in a the bakery in Pudding Lane (a street which still exists) shortly after midnight on 2nd September 1666 and spread rapidly through the closely-built wooden houses. The fire raged for three days, destroying more than 13,000 homes as well as the original St. Paul's Cathedral.

You can climb the 311 steps to the top of the column and enjoy the skyline of London from the viewing platform.... or simply enjoy watching the views in your high-definition window now by playing this episode!

Having reached the top, the views showin in this episode are (in order):
1) Looking down on traffic and people in nearby streets (three views),
2) North to the City of London (financial district),
3) South-East towards Tower Bridge and HMS Belfast,
4) South across the Thames (two views),
5) South to the South London skyline,
6) West towards the Millennium Wheel and West End,
7) South-West close-up of Blackfriars Bridge,
8) North-West London skyline (spot the BT Tower),
9) South-East and a closer view towards at Tower Bridge.

For more information on the Great Fire of London and the Fire Monument, this Wikipedia entry is a good starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monument

To link directly to a Google satellite map centered on the Fire Monument, follow this link: Fire Monument - and I'll leave it to you to 'drive' Google map from there to get a sense of the location.

A short HD video showing the aftermath of the fire to the Cutty Sark, a 19th century tea clipper sailing ship built in the 19th century and now a major tourist attraction at Greenwich in South London. Fortunately the ship was being renovated at the time and much of her equipment had been removed. Nevertheless her core timbers and metal frame were badly scorched. Please note that this video was hastily put together without a decent vantage point to view the ship, with "immediacy" being key over video-photographic quality. The video is provided for the benefit of LLTV subscribers and is available for download on a temporary basis.

The River Thames flows through the heart of London, a great water artery that provides a wide foreground to the many landmark bridges and buildings that it flows past on its way to the English Channel. We start our visual journey looking at Waterloo Bridge with St. Pauls Cathedral and the CIty of London beyond. Next, we step down to the river's sandy south shore and look up at the Hungerford Bridge with its recent Golden Jubilee Pedestrian Suspension Bridge extensions. We then stay on the beach as we look once again at Waterloo Bridge. Our next view consists of three shots looking further along the south shore towards Blackfriars Bridge with the buildings of the City of London dominating the background. This sandy / stoney south shore is open to the public at low tide. Our next bridge is the Millennium Bridge, a 330m steel structure erected in time to celebrate the coming of the year 2000, linking the City of London at St. Paul's Cathedral with the Tate Modern Gallery at Bankside. We return to view the ve craft ploughing up and down the Thames, this time passing the "Traitors Gate" - a historical river entrance to the Tower of London. Next to Tower of London is Tower Bridge, where we take a southerly view of this impressive structure before we close-in to the roadway capable of being raised to let tall ships through. Our next view is of the World War II battle cruiser HMS Belfast, now occupying a more peaceful role as a floating tourist attraction. Fountains line many parts of the South Bank of the river, this shot being of one by the London Bridge City Pier. Close to Tower Bridge is the curved modern structure of London's City Hall, home of London's Government, the London Assembly. Finally we take a moment to join in the celebrations that form part of the opening of Potters Fields, a new Thames-side park between Tower Bridge and City Hall. Musician Pete Joyce shows off his saxophonist skills - you can hire Pete by contacting him at the email address shown briefly on-screen at this point.

Park Life - April 2007 London's parks offer a haven of tree-lined countryside in the heart of the capital. Indeed, there are parks spread throughout the suburbs so however urban a Londoner's home environment, they are only a short walk from their nearby little bit of rural haven. This high-definition video podcast will transport you to two major parks, Regents Park and Hyde Park. We start at the Regents Canal, a historic man-made river that passes along the northern perimeter of the park. The canal was built between 1816 and 1820 as part of Britain's water-based national canal transport system (still very much in use today for leisure craft). We then move to human-powered ground transport: walking, cycling, boarding and skating along the main pedestrian route in Hyde Park looking north from the Wellington House southern gate up towards Speakers Corner. Further up the same path we look through the trees to people in the distance enjoying the sunshine, before taking a closer general view of Londoners relaxing and playing in the warm spring weather. We then head back to Regents Park to watch two young giraffes at London Zoo, before returning to the canal this time sitting by the edge of the water watching people go by. Filmed Sunday 15th April 2007.