Horizon 22 and Bowes Park Pride quiz

Have you ever even heard of Horizon 22? I suspect it is one of the best free attractions in London that almost no one will have come across. Indeed since it is free there is no incentive to advertise it. And you can't just rock up and go in. You have to book in advance, but that is the only hurdle.

So what is it? Well it is probably the best view in London. It is said to be the highest building viewing platform in Europe, although only by 10 metres, beating the Shard. The Shard is the taller building, and indeed the Shard can be seen across the river in the photo below. The viewing platform is the top of a huge office block in the City, and I suspect having free public access was thrown in as part of getting planning permission. It is only free during the daytime. In evenings it is open for hire for events and that accounted for my visit this week. My department held our biennial client party there for around 400 guests. The picture below is from first arrival before people had arrived in numbers.

This is the amazing view (on unfortunately a less than amazing evening weather wise, but at least it didn't rain)

And later view - guess we could have had an amazing sunset without such heavy cloud cover

But it was a great night and I think the clients all liked it. It was an excellent space - not only great views outside but an open enough area that you could easily spot people you wanted to see across a crowded room.

In stark contrast the next night was the Bowes Park gay pride fundraising quiz at my local pub. A very small but crowded room. You definitely couldn't get more folk in unless they were standing on tables

And if not standing on tables there was a fair bit of standing on chairs during the diva based music rounds

It is fair to say that our straight team were not among the front runners in the gay quiz - the gay flag round was particularly impossible. Know any of these? Didn't know most of these even existed - polyamoral, genderfluid, aromantic (and not as one of my team thought, aromatic!)

But it was all a lot of fun and the pub did well out of it in terms of drinks - with non competitors also filling the back room (and to a lesser extent the beer garden as it was a showery night!)