London's fractured skyline, with plopped-in skyscrapers like those you'd see in Dubai or Kuala Lumpur. On the right is the aptly nicknamed "Gherkin." The one on the left, still under construction, is the notorious "Fryscraper" aka "Walkie-Scorchie," which made international headlines when reflected sun from its curved facade melted the convertible top of a car parked on the street and wags cooked eggs on the sidewalk; it was announced while we were there that the death ray would be muted with the addition of brise-soleils to the front facade.

London is so rich but is also so damaged by the incoming wealth: 60,000 vacant buildings owned by offshore investors who are parking their money and skewing property values to the point that, as the Labour Party leader said, there was a complete disconnect between the cost of real estate and the incomes of average British families.

A piece of verse memorializing a girl named Susanna Barford in an ancient church on London's South Bank.

A squad of pirates waiting to board the Golden Hind, a replica of Sir Francis Drake's freebooter, at South Bank.

Lamborghini in the driveway of a relatively small townhouse in the Stockbroker Belt, at Kew.

A mural at St. Ives, the lovely artsy Cornish coastal town.

Cornish menu somewhere: does too much clotted cream lead to clotted blood????

View of Tintagel, King Arthur's legendary birthplace on the Cornish coast, proving that our travellers' luck is not perfect...

And where do the birds who haven't been violated cross the road?

A topiary fox (pursued by topiary hounds on another wall of yew hedge) at Knightshayes Court in Devon.

An example of the British heart-stopper breakfast of sausage, beans, eggs, bacon/ham, tomato, potato and industrial toast; no wonder there's a British Heart Foundation shopfront on the main street of most English and Welsh towns.

Tyntesfield, one of the fabulous National Trust properties in Somerset.

Surf shop at St. David's, the cathedral and monastery town more famous for Wales's patron saint than for its beach boys.

Welsh coast, a rather wild and stormy place....

A lolly shop in Cardigan, Wales. I'm reminded of the Canadian paint company which was seeking new, exciting names for some of its products and decided to call a pale, grey-green paint "British Teeth."

Pastel-coloured Victorian houses along the seafront at Aberystwyth, Wales.

Stone walls, ruins, cattle, sheep – the Welsh coast.

Closed-up cinema in Welshpool, Wales (probably the only Streamline Moderne building we saw in Britain): same issue there as in cinemas elsewhere in the world.