It’s not often that I’m in the City in the morning.   Yesterday I made the mistake of running up the Monument, all 311 steps of it.   Almost nothing to see at the top, just office blocks.   Hard to reconstruct the symbolism of the Fire of London, the sense of achievement in the reconstruction of the City, Christopher Wren as Surveyor General, helped by Robert Hooke, submitting various alternative designs to the City authorities and then using it subsequently as a telescope.   Caius Gabriel Cibber was responsible for the carving of the emblematic plaque in which Charles II directs operations, assisted by liberty, architecture and science.   There used to be a model of it which was owned by William Chambers and by descent to Isambard Kingdom Brunel:-