Something Else That’s Nearly There

Shard 220312
The Shard from the Millennium Bridge 22nd March 2012

The post below said that I’d been given good advice that one final push should see completion of a decent draft of the novel. Co-incidentally, that’s similar to the progress of something else that’s been featured in this blog occasionally (and pictures of which seem to get a fair number of hits).

The Shard is due to be finished by May this year. However, it’s still got a small way to go. I can see its progress most days from the office where I’ve been working (although, by definition, it can probably be seen from more offices than any other building now). The spire at the top is apparently complete but the uppermost floors aren’t yet finished.

I’ll be fascinated to see how the crane is removed. There’s a similar type of crane right next to where I usually work and I was really interested to see how that was erected. But that’s not 72 storeys up in the air.

So here’s a photo I took on a run last Thursday — there won’t be many more opportunities to photograph the building’s construction. Seeing as my novel features a lot of London, although its timescales predate the rapid rising of the Shard on the skyline, it would be a nice bit of karma (as a couple of my characters like to talk about) for both to be completed at the same time.

UPDATE: On the same day I posted this, the BBC website reported that the last pieces of the steel spire on top of the Shard had been lifted into place. They say the construction will be finished in June (does that I mean I give myself an extra month with the novel?)