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The beautiful Sullivan Memorial – an outstanding work by Goscombe John - can be seen in Embankment Gardens. The mourning girl (an allegorical figure of Music) collapsing against the stele below the portrait of the playwright associates the sculptor firmly with the New Sculpture movement. He did in fact create a goodly selection of art nouveauish girls, though nothing else so ambitious as this, which might surprise those most familiar with his multitudes of fairly conventional outdoor statues of middle-aged men. He did another Sullivan memorial (a plaque with a portrait, an image of St John the Baptist, and a couple of putti) for St Paul’s.

Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO (13 May 1842–22 November 1900) was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry, best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W S Gilbert, including such enduring works as HMS Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado.

Sullivan composed 23 operas, 13 major orchestral works, eight choral works and oratorios, two ballets, incidental music to several plays, and numerous hymns and other church pieces, songs, and piano and chamber pieces. The best known of his hymns and songs include "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "The Lost Chord".

When it was first seen in a Moscow parade in May 1965 the T-62 was regarded in the West as just another improved version of the T-54/55. As later evidence would reveal it was, in fact, virtually a new tank. Although not immediately obvious the hull is both longer and wider than the earlier models and the turret ring diameter greater, to enable it to mount a larger gun.

It carried slightly thicker armour than its predecessors but the Russians still gave a higher priority to mobility than protection and continued to rely on large numbers - T-62 production exceeded 20,000 vehicles. All tanks of this type were criticised on two counts; one was poor elevation/depression of the main gun, the other was limited ammunition stowage - about 40 rounds in each tank.

The armour protection is poor by modern standards and various attempts have been made to upgrade it. Indeed the world defence industry generally is continually devising improvements to these Russian tanks in the hope of generating more business since, with the numbers involved, they are likely to remain in service well into the 21st century.

The T-62 was designed by the Vagonka Bureau to replace the T-55, under the leadership of Leonid Kartsev. Three prototype tanks, known as the Obiekt 165, were built during 1958. These vehicles mounted the more powerful D54TS rifled 100mm gun in a larger turret than that of the T-55. The new gun used a fixed round 1.2m long that could not be handled easily in a tank turret.

Following trials the gun was redesigned to use a shorter round (1.1m long) of 115mm and was named the U5T or 2A20 115mm smooth bore tank gun. Kartsev adapted the Obiekt 165 to carry the U5T and a prototype of the new tank, called the Obiekt 166, was completed and tested in 1959.

Trials showed that even the shorter cartridge cases of the U5T gun were very difficult to handle within the confines of a tank turret. As a result the Obiekt 166 was modified to eject the spent cartridge case through a small hatch in the roof of the turret after the gun was fired.

Kartsev’s tank then fell foul of political infighting. The Main Armour Directorate of the Soviet Army was officially sponsoring a rival design from the Kharkov Bureau, the Obiekt 430, and tried to block the production of the Obiekt 166. (The Obiekt 430 eventually became the T-64.) However, following the introduction of the American M60A1 tank with its 105mm gun and thick turret armour that could not be penetrated by the T-54/T-55 or Obiekt 430, a decision was made to put the Obiekt 166 into production as the T-62.

T-62s were supplied to 23 countries, with 1,600 delivered to the Iraqi Army which used them in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, the 1991 Gulf War (when this example was captured) and in the unsuccessful 2003 defence against invasion.

About 160 T-62s were captured by Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur war and put into service as the Tiran 6. Some Tiran 6 were modified to mount the US M68 105mm rifled gun and were called Tiran 67. T-62s were also used by the USSR in Afghanistan (1979-1988) and in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

A delicate little shell compared with those covering the main venues. This is the smallest, and southernmost of the shells that comprise the Sydney Opera House complex.

It is currently occupied by the restaurant Guillaume at Bennelong. For the New Year's Eve fireworks in 2011, the cost for the evening there was A$1,000 per person!

For those of you interested in the details about the Opera House, its history and construction, please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Opera_House.

Here we see three visitors and a mannequin in the galley of HMS Belfast. The visitors are looking at the huge steam cauldrons (known as coppers) in front of the mannequin. These cauldrons were one of the main ways of preparing hot food for the 800+ crew normally on board.

What's interesting is that although the scale of food preparation here is significantly bigger, there's not a lot of difference between this galley and ones I worked in during the 1970s and 1980s (and I suspect there's not a huge difference in more modern ones, even allowing for the arrival of microwave cookers and pre-prepared meals).

East Finchley station was built by the Edgware, Highgate and London Railway (EH&LR) and was originally opened as East End Station on 22 August 1867 by the Great Northern Railway (GNR) (which had taken over the EH&LR) in what was then rural Middlesex. The station was on a line that ran from Finsbury Park to Edgware via Highgate. The station was given its current name in 1886.

After the 1921 Railways Act created the Big Four railway companies, the line was, from 1923, part of the London & North Eastern Railway (LNER). The section of the High Barnet branch north of East Finchley was incorporated into the London Underground network through the "Northern Heights" project begun in the late 1930s.

For the introduction of London Underground services, the Victorian station was completely demolished and was rebuilt to an Art Deco/Streamline Moderne design by Charles Holden. As part of the rebuild, the station was provided with two additional platforms, giving four in total . This was necessary as the original intention of the "Northern Heights" project was that trains would be able to run south from East Finchley via two routes. One route would have run over the existing tracks to LNER's Highgate station (above ground and now derelict) and onwards via Crouch End to Finsbury Park: this route was never completed. The other route ran through newly constructed tunnels running into a new deep-level Highgate station built under the LNER one and onwards to Archway, Camden Town and central London: this is the route south of East Finchley as it now exists.

The platforms comprise two parallel islands with tracks on both sides. The inner pair of tracks (visible above) served the 'high level' route to Highgate, whilst the outer pair served the tunnel route. Underground trains first served the station on 3 July 1939 which acted as a temporary terminus for the Northern Line whilst the electrification of the line to the north was completed. Northern Line services to High Barnet began on 14 April 1940. The station continued to be served by LNER steam trains from Highgate (High-level) station until 2 March 1941 when that service was discontinued. The inner platforms are now generally used only by trains starting or terminating at East Finchley and those coming from or going to the depot south of the station.

After the war, most of the remaining plans of the "Northern Heights" project were cancelled and the section of the LNER line from East Finchley to Finsbury Park was not incorporated into the Northern Line. Underground services never ran from East Finchley through Highgate 'high level' station as planned although the line was occasionally used for Underground stock transfers up to its complete abandonment in 1970.

A strong feature of the station is the semi-circular glazed stairways (seen above) leading to the enclosed bridge over the tracks occupied by staff offices. These, combined with the station's block-like mass and the narrow deck-like platform buildings, lend the building the atmosphere of a ship.