The colour of London [Pantone 429C]

You disagree?  This was taken with the camera pointing straight upwards outside the British Library this morning.  Pantone 429C, indeed - although on this screen, it looks a little darker than that.  It had better cheer up during the week - my parents' garden is magnificently full of roses, but they just sit there sulking in the grey.

By coincidence, I was in the BL to look at, among other things, a book called The Colour of London that has illustrations by a Japanese artist, Yoshio Markino, about whom I'll be talking, fairly briefly, in one of the keynotes that I'm giving this summer (at the "London in Love" conference - I'll be talking about the very concept of "Loving London," and how this concept has a very clearly defined history.  So I wanted to look at Markino's printed work - he's still very interesting, and passionate about fog and women (not necessarily in that order), but after twenty or so of his images - maybe after ten - one starts to feel that what initially looked hazy and initiative in fact becomes his somewhat conservative formula for London, women, and the polluted air.