Next to Tower Bridge on the south side (somewhere near Southwark) is a modern circular building. The floors are of different sizes. It looks like a glass egg with a flat roof.<BR><BR>A picture of it is at the following link. The story is about the congestion charge and some protesters in front of the building.<BR><BR>I took several pictures of the building but didn't walk up to it to see what it was.<BR>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2770827.stm<BR>

This is the new building for the Greater London Assembly (and Mayor of London). Memorably dubbed &quot;the glass testicle&quot; in the press when it was being built.

Also known as &quot;the football helmet&quot;

In the fall, the Beefeater who led our tour called it &quot;The Mayor's Castle&quot;.

Rosie - There are no helmets in British football: just very hard heads (unless you're David Beckham and have just annoyed your manager)

It is there that Ken Livingstone sits chuckling at the success so far of his congestion charges. We shall really know next week, but the present picture is that charging is working, and traffic is flowing well. The other half of the plan is better public transport, pleasanter, faster, emptier, more convenient, and that will take years. We have hopes: Mr Livingstone hired Bob Kiley, the recent czar of the New York subway, to work his magic on our tube.<BR><BR>From your point of view, this is the same Ken Livingstone that gave you cheap seats in West End theatres, and the stroll from the National Gallery onto the pigeon-free Trafalgar Square. His authority?s website is at http://www.london.gov.uk/approot/index.jsp<BR><BR>You can visit the public rooms of City Hall from 8am to 8pm Monday to Friday. The visit lets you see first the exhibition space on the 2nd floor, with a view of the Assembly Chamber and second the ground floor, from where you can walk down the spiral ramp to the lower ground floor, where there is exhibition space, a public information desk (staffed 09.30.-17.00) and the cafeteria. They have easy access for wheelchairs and do on. Weekend openings 1 and 15 March two till eight and 2 and 16 March nine to one incolude these rooms and the Assembly Chamber and London's Living Room, with great views across London -- free. <BR><BR>Mr Livingstoine is an Old Labour man, and has quit the present Labour party, but he dines often and well with City millionaires, and will pick up good ideas anywhere he finds them. Indeed, he sends out to look for them, and pays professors of the London School of Economics and elsewhere to research into long-term policies in other world cities (Tokyo, Zurich, Barcelona and others) and their effects. At free public lectures in London they tell us what they found: please see http://www.indiana.edu/~victoria/lectures.html<BR><BR>You might say, a fertile testicle.<BR><BR>Welcome to London as she changes.<BR><BR>[email protected]<BR>