Most unlikely search term used to find this blog last week:
I don't like to be crude...pornographic pictures
By the looks of things, yes.
Exhibit A: As you can see, the facade is now fully glazed. Until recently there has been a single column of unglazed windows up which the tracks for the builders' lift ran. 
There is now only a need for one lift, which is attached discreetly at the rear. If your eyes are as keen as your following of this blog (or you've learned that clicking on a picture here almost always brings up a bigger version) you'll also see to the right that the glazing extends all the way to the top of the top tier.
Exhibit B: All the wires dangling at the bottom of the Tower are tidied away inside some fetching zebra striped encasement. The annoying thing is that I have taken photos of the pre-cladding clutter, but I think I've deleted them all, so you'll have to take my word for it that the transformation was both rapid and thorough.
Exhibit C: Judging from this photo, the building is saying 'Hello world!' like a glazed Alan Whicker. On a less anthropomorphic bent, why someone has chosen to put a picture of the Willis Building in the Willis Building's window is a mystery to me. Maybe the actual aim is to create a Willis Building fractal. When I was at Uni I had to sit through a week long proof of a continuous function on the open interval (0,1) having dimension greater than 1 but less than 2. The annoying thing was that I understood it until right near the end. After the lecturer finished the demonstration, with sweat pouring from his brow and a nervous tick developing deep in his belly, he told us it wouldn't appear in the exam. Sod.
To finish, here's a series of photos, from October to the present.
I am, at heart, a boring sod. I set up Google Analytics for the blog, and like nothing better than to see how people have got here. I intend to have a weekly 'keyword of the week' for my favourite combination of words which have inadvertently lead someone here (You may recall that 1800's Erotica has been a popular one).
Imagine my delight today when I see that someone has come to the blog by typing in 'Wrexham police station architect.'
Wrexham is my home town, and the police station is the only building taller than about 5 storeys in the whole place. It's the first tall building I ever came across (I used to walk past it every time I went swimming, at Wrexham swimming baths, which is also a very distinctive building - one of only 2 hyperbolic paraboloid roofs in Europe, so I'm told). It quite likely inspired my lifelong casual interest in skyscrapers and the like.
I don't think I've ever specifically mentioned the police station on the blog, so it's really quite serendipitous that somebody, looking for information I don't have, inadvertently prompted me to talk about the first 'skyscraper' of my life.
London Skyline is on holiday.That's what I should've said last week before actually going on holiday. Because that's how you say it, isn't it, in website world. You don't refer to yourself in the first or third person, even if it's patently obvious that the website is the rambling product of one human being's keyboard. That's the rule. I think the way it happens in order for me to go on holiday is that first London Skyline has to go on holiday, and once that's happened I go on holiday from London Skyline. That's how it felt to me anyway. And, now I come to examine it, the blogger interface has acquired a suspicious tan. I think it lived it large in Benidorm.
'Excuse me - is the co-pilot male?'It ended up being (and I'm not just saying this for effect) the smoothest landing I've ever had the pleasure of participating in. Egg on face for him.
'I'm sorry sir?'
'It's just that... that woman doing the announcement just now; that was the pilot, right?'
'Yes'
'I just need to be sure there's a man up there too... just in case.'
One day I was taking photos of the beach. As I was doing so a fat man was climbing out of the water. His wife was not very pleased with that and yelled what I can only assume to be the Turkish equivalent of 'What the Fuck, Larry?!', Susie from Curb Your Enthusiasm style.A treat tonight - 2 posts for the price of 2.
I mentioned once before that I inspired ( I think) somebody to take photos of the Willis Building. on Saturday a similar thing happened at the Broadgate Tower.
I was stood on Bishopsgate taking photos and a mother/aunt with two youngish children walked by. As i lowered my camera I saw the boy's eyes look at me, the camera, and then where the camera had been pointing. When he saw the subject of the photo he just said 'Wow!' It's a bit worrying that he had just walked straight past the building without noticing a thing until he saw me. But then again, I am quite eye-catching, even to the untrained eye I suppose.
And well might he wow. It's an awe-inspiring sight, it is. Going back to talking about cranes for a second, there are still 3 working on the actual Tower, but it's now so tall that, up close, all but the one on your side of the building can be completely hidden from view.
Cranes: Where would tall buildings be without them?
Completed, that's where.
A sign that 201 Bishopsgate is progressing nicely is that one of the cranes has been dismantled, leaving but a stump behind.
Another feature of the cranes I noticed at the weekend (but which isn't new - I've checked the old photos) is that the tower cranes for the Broadgate Tower are anchored to the tower itself. Tower cranes always do seem flimsy things. On reflection, the ones at Broadgate do look a bit slimmer than your average stand-alone ones, and tying them to the building under construction does probably mean they can make economies when it comes to crane girth.
Intermission
Today's song is brought to you by Squarepusher, and it's from the Lost in Translation Soundtrack. It's a good skyscraper song.
Back to the cranes. You might remember the yellow platforms on the Broadgate Tower, which I researched their purpose, and came up with the conclusion that they're for micro cranes to deposit their loads on. I've since changed my mind. I reckon they're just for the normal tower cranes to deposit their loads on as I can't see any sign of the mini cranes.
The Broadgate Tower is glazing over. It wasn't so long ago that I measured the rate of completion of the Tower in Diamonds. Now I can do likewise for the vertical reach of the glass. 
As you can see from the photo, it's nearly 1 diamond high. As this photo from mid March shows, the extent of the glazing has grown by half a diamond in 1 month. Assuming a linear growth rate, this means the tower will be fully glazed in about another 4-5months. Scenes such as that to the right will soon be a thing of the past.
One thing that concerns me is that the outer casing overlayed onto the main supporting struts (eg the outline of the diamonds) are concave, and will surely just collect grime. They're also ideal nesting sites for pigeons. Now, i like pigeons, but I'm pretty sure the developers would rather keep the tower pigeon poo free.
It's difficult to tell from external appearance how close to completion a skyscraper is. I'll write tomorrow about the Willis Building, where I think it's most likely on the last lap (it's due for 'practical completion' (whatever that means) soon anyway). But, as I've just said, the Broadgate Tower, proceeding at the same rate as today, should be fully glazed by sometime in early Autumn... though it's not scheduled for completion until May 2008. Maybe progress gets significantly slower the higher up you go.
Here is a demonstration that 201 Bishopsgate is glazing over too. And that Bishopsgate is a far less busy street at the weekend.
Yesterday's surfeit of signs has spurred me on to add this photo. I think the 'DANGER pedestrians crossing' may be a little overkill on the building site safety front. I doubt traffic goes very fast on this particular thoroughfare, being as you have to go round a sharp bend and get some gates opened for you to get this far.
Here's another sign. The wording at the bottom says 'Two imposing new office buildings.' Given the level of dialogue surrounding all the other new skyscrapers - 'it's impact on the view will be minimal... it'll fit in just fine... damging to the skyline's character? Pshaw!' - it's quite refreshing to see that one of them is unabashedly proud to be a colossus.
On the other hand, maybe this is how it pans out after planning is granted. All meek proclamations (eg 'It may be 35 stories, but they are very small storeys... honest') when you need approval, but as soon as the licence is signed, out come the heavy metal music and the tattoos and dirty high-rise machismo. If the Walkie Talkie gets approved maybe the posters round the construction site will say somethingalong the lines of '20 Fenchurch Street - an eyesore, and proud of it.' The Leadenhall Building will have similar fare - 'The Leadenhall Building - I'm the daddy now.' Bishopsgate Tower - 'Mwahahahahaha'.
Broadgate Tower may be imposing, but it has had some difficulty attracting tennants (maybe it's the mixed messages of the imposing image combined with the namby pamby corporate responsibility of the billboards around it). In 2002 (from the Telegraph):
But that's all in the past now Law firm Reed Smith have agreed to let most of the tower. It's a good job there are billions of anonymous finance, law and consultancy companies out there that no-one's ever heard of. Ridiculous number of them. They all hang out in a city bar called 'The Underwriter.' Smoking cigars made out of gold bars. And eating truffles wrapped in rare manuscripts such as the dead sea scrolls. Philistines!British Land is in discussions with Ashurst Morris Crisp, the firm of lawyers, over pre-letting around 400,000 square feet of its 700,000 sq ft ... BL has simply been waiting to pre-let part of it before starting. John Ritblat, the executive chairman of British Land, has been saying for some time that he would start the scheme speculatively if no occupier would take a pre-let. Several occupiers have looked at the scheme including Lehman Brothers, Accenture, Barclays Bank.
