The Shot Tower The Shot Tower on the South Bank
has now vanished. No elegies from me, for I had hated the thing ever since that day when I found myself in a cold sweat of vertigo half-way up the rickety iron staircase that spiralled up the hor- rible interior wall. When I last saw it it was just a nasty stump, a lingam-like lump with a lot of wires sticking out the top like whiskers. An American was with me and he was livid with rage. 'Year after year,' he said, 'I've been com- ing to the same riverside suite in the Savoy, and you just can't imagine how much I enjoyed looking out across the river to the old Shot Tower. Why, it was like an old friend to me.' For all my dislike of his cherished object, I sympathised with him. My goodness, I know how I'd feel if they knocked down the Empire State Building, the sight of which has comforted me, so often when I looked across at it top-swathed in the candy-floss mist of early morning. Not that my New Yorker friend would give a daffin if they got rid of it tomorrow together with Rockefeller, Chrysler, Seagram, Woolworth, Six- Six-Six, and other such spectacular sugar-sticks. I think they should have consulted the people who put those full-page ads in the New Yorker before they knocked down the Shot Tower. Already they've put the foot guards at Buckingham Palace behind the railings. They'll be dressing up the Yeomen of the Guard in battle dress next.
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