When I went out with Ingrid today for our afternoon walk / nap, I found several streets around Aldgate East cordoned off, with lots of idle-looking police stopping curious passers-by from entering. Behind the blue-and-white plastic ribbons were more police, several groups of men in hard hats and various unusual vehicles (large trucks labelled “RESCUE”, for example). While there was no frantic action, they didn’t seem to be packing up to leave, either.

Curiously, I asked one of the policemen what was going on, and was told that “a house fell down.”

A house? Fell down? In central London? Not the sort of thing one expects to happen in one’s neighbourhood, in the 21st century!

Once I’d circled round to the other side of the cordoned-off area, I could indeed see a house in a very collapsed state. I vaguely recall seeing that building surrounded by scaffolding for a while, but works had mostly been going on inside. I wonder how they managed this – they (whoever “they” were) must have hollowed out the building completely, or burrowed like badgers, to make it collapse so totally. Luckily no one was hurt.

Things I learned today:

• Houses do fall down
• The Salvation Army provides sandwiches to emergency workers. Among the unusual-but-not-surprising vehicles (two large cranes, impressively antenna’ed trucks marked “COMMAND UNIT” and “CONFERENCE UNIT”, etc.) crowding around the remains of the house, I spotted a red canteen truck bearing the Salvation Army logo. What a nice way to make emergency workers’ life easier – every Englishman I’ve ever met is immediately comforted by a hot cuppa.