London blog: Nelson's Column

The air actually tastes like smoke -- not cigarette smoke, but that gunpowder smoke that drifts down from the fireworks. It's still hanging in the air from the party last night. I don't go to London on New Year's Eve anymore but back in the day (I'm talking about twenty years ago) we used to queue up for Trafalgar Square. It was a lot different in those days because they actively discouraged you from coming. They did just about everything possible to put people off. They used to search you...