London

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a bus going over the Battersea bridge over the Thames. The Battersea Bridge is a series of stone arches. To the north of the Battersea Bridge is the Albert Bridge, which is a 19th century cable stayed bridge, but which has a look unlike modern cable stayed bridges due to being constructed with chains rather than cables. (I think this may make it a "chain stayed bridge". Not sure about that. However, it has a substantial structure above the deck, and it is lit up at night and is quite pretty.



To the east of the Albert Bridge is the Chelsea Bridge, which is a more classic chain suspension bridge. It is also very nice when lit up in the evening.




However, the Battersea bridge is just a series of stone arches, and there is nothing in particular to light up at night. In fact, if you attempt to photograph it at night, you see essentially nothing at all.



In any event, I was going over the Battersea Bridge on a bus. Two of the other passengers on the bus were a mother and a little girl of about six or seven. The little girl looked east at the two beautiful lit up bridges, and asked "Why do those bridges have so many lights and this one doesn't?"

The mother paused for a few seconds and then answered.

"Because this is Battersea and that is Chelsea".

Entirely untrue, but a terribly fine explanation.