Where I discover Simon is not fond of heights.

The London Eye is 135 metres/ 445 feet high, and gives phenomenal views of London.

Although the views are far more effective if you actually, you know, look out the windows.

The day started with London doing what it does best: raining. One of those light non-committal rains, as if the weather just couldn't be bothered putting on a proper rainstorm, but was content merely to be an annoying drizzle.

Simon joined Anna, Mario, Emma and I at the apartments, and we stopped off at his local coffee place, where we were told by a staff member that Prince Harry's girlfriend had stopped in for coffee the other day. It generated a lively and pleasant discussion, although personally the part of me that didn't believe her struggled with the part of me that doesn't care.

We navigated the Tube without losing Mario (despite my best efforts), and made it to the Eye around 11.30, just as the weather started to clear.

Which was fortunate as our first adventure was a tour on the Thames, and the top deck was rather damp when we showed up. But not a drop on the actual tour.

The tour took us past the places you'd expect: Parliament, Big Ben, the reconstructed Globe Theatre, St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London, the various bridges including London Bridge and the Millenium Bridge, the latter famously destroyed by Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Our tour guide, who was marvellously entertaining, may have wished the Death Eaters had continued down river and taken out 30 St Mary Axe (AKA the Gherkin), the Leadenhall Building (AKA the Cheesegrater), 20 Fenchurch Street (AKA the Walkie-Talkie).*

He really doesn't like modern architecture. While he criticised all three buildings, our guide reserved his greatest contempt for the Shard (AKA the Shard), with a glorious outpouring of vituperative bile. 

That alone was worth the price of admission.

After the river tour we had lunch at the Sherlock Holmes Pub, because you can't go to too many stereotypical English places when touring. To complete the authentic English experience Simon and Emma had the ploughman's lunch, Anna and Mario had the fish and chips, and I had a hamburger.

With British beef. On a bap. So kinda sorta traditional English.

Then we did the Eye. Thirty minutes of terror for Simon. Apparently his first time was worse. Damned if I know why he was prepared to do it twice.

I had very low expectations, figuring it was just a tourist con, but it was fabulous. The weather was perfect, and it gave me great views of London. While snapping my 337th photo (pixels are free) I overheard a guy who looked like Ricky Gervaus' body double telling his kids about key features, including Battersea Power Station.

I asked him if that was the one used on the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals. He said it was, adding that personally he thought Dark Side of the Moon was the better album. I agreed, adding that Dark Side of the Moon was probably the greatest album of all time.

Friends for life.

It also turned out he grew up in Shoreditch, the area we're staying in. Kind of a rough area, but he didnt think much of it. He and his wife decided it was time to move out one day after he came home, stepping over the drunk on his doorstep.

"Of course," he said. "Why?"

"Did you step over that drunk when you came in?" His wife asked.

"He wasn't drunk. He was dead."

They now live in Essex.**

Afterwards we walked past Parliament and Westminster Abbey up through Trafalgar Square to Covent Garden. On the way we stopped for coffee in Leicester Square at a really horrible chain called Cafe Rouge, staffed by French people who did their very best to support the stereotype of French waiters and waitresses not really giving a shit about service.

We didn't stay for dinner.

However we did find a very nice restaurant in Soho, with a delightful young Hungarian waitress. I went for the authentic English experience, ordering the grouse. The clincher was the note in the menu: "Game may contain shot".

Hiw could I pass this up?What is more quintessentially English than freshly-slaughtered game birds, mown down in their prime by a crazed shot-gun wielding chef?

Eventually we made it back, and discovered that Thursday nights in Curtain Street are really, really loud. Drunken lout having a good time loud. Worse, we discovered that restaurant staff in the restaurant below our rooms who finish around 1am but sit in the courtyard until 5.30am talking are even louder, double-glazing be damned.

Survivable, but I won't be unhappy when we move on somewhere quieter.

* The curved surfaces of the Walkie-Talkie actually focus the light from the sun so effectively they heat up the street below. There are claims the intensity is high enough that it's melted bits on parked cars. Architects say they are "working on the problem", which probably means opening another bottle of champagne and having a good laugh.

** Which to many Londoners is slightly worse than being dead.