At last we get a glimpse of the Houses of Parliament, or more precisely the building that contains them, the Palace of Westminster. This is of course an ancient building, the home of parliamentary democracy in the English-speaking world. A beacon that has stood for hundreds of years... except it hasn't.

If you can say one thing about London, it's that it likes burning. The place goes up in flames on a disturbingly regular basis for a city where it's raining most of the time. Here in Australia? At least we have an excuse. Although to be honest, I'd prefer that we didn't and that it would just rain for about 2 months to put out every damn bushfire in the country.

The Palace of Whitehall? Sizzle, sizzle, crackle, crackle. Pudding Lane? Oh, and the rest of London with it? Throw another log on the fire. The original Palace of Westminster? Burn, baby, burn. Twice, in fact. The first palace dated from the 11th century, and became the primary residence of the monarch until 1512. At that time, yes, you guessed it, a lot of the place burnt down. However there was enough left for it to serve as the Houses of Parliament except, of course, that went up in flames in 1834 and what we see today is the new palace that was constructed between 1840 and 1876.

Carl H. Sagan on a popsicle stick, we have buildings in Australia that are older than that. In fact so does the USA given that the palace that we see now was not completed until 100 years after their independence.

Of course, 1876 isn't all that recent but nonetheless it's worth bearing in mind that a lot of what we see, even in cities like London, isn't really as ancient or historic as we might think it is.

That notwithstanding, seeing the tower of the palace through the trees like that did raise a small smile of recognition. The thought that "yes, I am really here".