I actually love skyscrapers. I don't know if that counts as a guilty secret. A lot of people don't, they find them an obscene symbol of this world gone wrong, but, heyho there we go.
I don't think London's been ruined by its skyscrapers, or defaced by them. When I was young, the tallest buildings were the Post Office Tower (now BT Tower) and the NatWest Tower, which are now pretty low in the pecking order, but London's hardly gone skyscraper crazy.
I find it a rather comforting, exciting thing every time I come in on the fast or slow train from Kent, or Essex, capturing that first glimpse of the small cluster at Canary Wharf, then the small cluster in the city. That's it, those are the clusters, of medium-size, somewhat eccentric cloud-grazers. It's hardly Hong Kong.
I remember One Canada Square being built, but I didn't see it first hand. I did see The Shard being built first hand. I went into Guys Hospital for INR level blood checks every few weeks, first for a few months in 2007, then from early 2009 to mid-2012, those three years pretty much the exact timespan of The Shard being built.
I'd come out of London Bridge station then cross a walkway directly passing the construction site, which took you to the first floor of the hospital. I didn't know, and wasn't curious, what it was for quite a while. Just a big building site. But then, I thought, jeez, they're not getting anywhere fast with that, so I realised it was a pretty big project, and found out it was going to be Britain's tallest building.
I'd sometimes stop and watch for a few minutes - hardly very exciting. As I say, not much seemed to be happening for quite a long time, then when it started to go up up, it went up fast.
It would generally be every six weeks or so I'd have the tests. They were a pain in the arse, caused by the fact warfarin is an unstable substance which reacts with various other things and can change the effect it has over a period of time, so it was about making sure your blood was thin but not too thin. A standard INR level is 1, and as a blood-thinned person you were looking for something between 2 and 3. Over 3 was a bit much and ran the risk of internal bleeding.
So, if I went out for a drink the night before, I might mess up my level and I'd need to come in again a week or so later, so I tried to make sure my levels would be ok. then it would only need to be every 6-8 weeks.
One time, early on in my treatment, when I was on an 8mg per day dosage (so I'd take 1 5 and 3 1's) I absent-mindedly took 3 5's. Realising my mistake and quite new to the game, I called NHS hotline and they said "well, we're not sure, but take yourself into A and E just in case". So I did, and the triage nurse, a nervous lady who failed to find my vein three times in a row, which was the last thing anyone needed, put down in my notes "DRUG OVERDOSE" which was one to tick off the old bucket list. Anyway, it was fine, was just advised not to headbutt any walls for a couple of days.
Anyway, at Guys, phlebotomy patients shared a waiting room with cancer patients, which was, for a guy in his early 30s who didn't really have much wrong with him, a sobering occurrence, espiecially, as happened occasionally, seeing people I recognised.
I'd stand at the back of the small waiting room with not enough chairs, try not to catch anyone's eyes, wait to hear my mispronounced name, hope not to miss it, hope my veins were popping and my blood was flowing. A real relief now to be on rivaroxaban, a more stable antocoagulant which doesn't require the regular tests.
Anyway, skyscrapers. I've not been up the Shard, but I like to have a good look at it from London Bridge station. It's a pretty sinister character. I went up the Empire State Building, as well as the Hancock Tower and Willis (Sears) Tower in Chicago and unshamed to say I found all those experiences very moving and thrilling.
I do get the anti-skyscrapers thing. In New York, a lot of the tall buildings are surprisingly mundane, Trumpian and dirty. If you're going to go big, go weird. And skyscrapers should not be oppressive and cut down space. They should increase the sense of travel and distance, of being to look and move beyond.
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