And so we arrive at Piccadilly Circus. No clowns or elephants; well, none of the literal kind anyway. The term "circus" refers to the Latin term for a circular space, not to the form of entertainment under the big top of course.

This is probably one of the worst photos ever taken of one of the most famous places in London. However as you can see it was raining, I had only a general knowledge of the geography of the city at the time, and frankly we ended up here before I even realised that we WERE here, so it was more a case of "point, shoot and pray".

At one time this would have been regarded as the centre point of the British Empire, although its original purpose was far more mundane; specifically, it was created in the early 1800s to allow Regent Street (running roughly south-east toward here) to connect with Piccadilly (running roughly east north-east). The fact that these streets do not cross perpendicularly means that some of the buildings around them have a funky curved shape happening.

According to Google Maps, Regent Street is also now poetically known as the A4201. I mentioned in an earlier shot that Park Lane had also been assigned a similarly romantic and memorable name. What the hell is WRONG with these people? Is there some kind of bureaucratic worm that is infesting the London roads authority's collective brain or something? Who the hell is going to remember a name like A4201 over a name like Regent Street? But I digress.

We are looking straight on to the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, which was named after the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury who died in 1885. He was a philanthropist, politician and social reformer who introduced some extremely important reforms to the education system and reforms which reduced the exploitation of child labour. On top of the fountain is a statue which was created by sculptor Alfred Gilbert which is frequently referred to as the statue of Eros. It isn't; it is a sculpture of his twin brother Anteros, the god of requited (yes, requited, not unrequited) love.