The Royal Exchange

Our office is next to the Royal Bank of Scotland branch, between the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. So when someone parks their car on a double yellow line right outside our door, and then goes off for a couple of hours, it causes problems. When the owner returned to his car, the police had broken both triangular rear windows, forced the trunk open, investigated with robots, and shut down the entire financial district for a couple of hours.

We all wound up down in the building's basement, which is apparently very safe, and quite spacious. I bumped into my friend Anandha, whom I met in the Boston office a couple of years ago. One of his more enterprising teammates rustled up a couple of dozen Stella Artois which happened to be lying about in a fridge in the basement, and we settled down to swap stories and catch up. Somehow, we managed to endure the wait until the all-clear was given.

The really intriguing thing is that the guy who parked his car there was furious with the police for damaging it. I'm guessing he can't be held liable for the cost of shutting down England's economy for two hours - probably he'll just have to pay 100 pounds or so for parking illegally on a double line. Which in my opinion is probably worth the price of the answer he'll be able to give when asked, "So, what did you do today?"