and in the middle of investigation

Warning: this blog post contains nothing but references to popular culture

As everyone may or may not know, today was the 40th anniversary of the photograph taken for the cover of The Beatles album Abbey Road. Why do I know this? I saw it somewhere online. Yay Internet!
So of course, I made my way down to that famous crossing to see what there was to be seen. Let me note one thing: London on the weekends is pretty terrible. Two of the main Underground lines were closed for maintenance, there were about a million tourists everywhere, it was really hot and I had to walk about 15 minutes from the closest Tube station still operating. Still, I made it there all right.
This is the studio itself. It's pretty boringly nondescript in every way. People have livened it up a tad by adding graffiti all over the gates, mostly their names but occasionally references to songs or bands or drawings of cartoon characters.
This is the famous crosswalk itself. You can see the crowd gathered - it got pretty packed very quickly. Also note the large amounts of TV cameras. I'm pretty sure I'm on some sort of TV station today, but I don't really have the patience to figure out which one.
At one point, a group of Beatles impersonators showed up dressed like the album cover, and it became a sort of mob scene, which was weird but entertaining. I like this picture because it sort of looks like it could have been taken in the 60s (well, except for the modern cameras but you get what I mean)
Again, people totally packing in here. I'm not including myself because I am stuck in this crowd on accident and I'm just taking pictures because hey, why not.
People waving peace signs and the album itself.
Here's the Paul impersonator standing in front of the studio. He really looks very little like Paul, which makes the huge mob crowding to take pictures even funnier.
Traffic got completely backed up, since they didn't think to reroute it, and this bus stopped dead and everyone got off for about half an hour.
This was cute - a bunch of people brought guitars and played songs and everyone sang along. It was a really adorable moment, because it was a few hundred people all just singing together - very nice. Also, no one knows the words to many popular songs, no one can sing the harmony parts, and everyone always wants to skip ahead so there was a lot of musical confusion.
A semi-inflatable version of what I think is supposed to Paul McCartney? with a live person inside moving it showed up as well.
But in the end, I got what I came for: my very own Abbey Road crossing picture. Note: this picture was actually taken much earlier, before the huge mobs, but it was still pretty crowded and there was a lot of trouble with cars wanting to come through. (note: this is the first picture I have of this trip that I'm actually in.)
After that whole mess, I wandered over to nearby Baker Street, to visit another famous address: 221B Baker Street, home of the World's Greatest Detective and the World's Greatest Mouse Detective.
A nice little sign there. There's a museum, but I didn't go mostly because I didn't have any cash on me and my card was acting up (long story). Still, pretty cute. I might go back if I have time.
Right outside of the Baker Street station, there's this great statue of the man himself. I really approve of all this literary reference stuff in cities, we definitely need some more of it.

And, on the advice of a certain someone putting together a literary calendar, I even managed to snap a shot of the famous Criterion Grill restaurant, which as you recall, is where Watson was dining when he first heard of Sherlock Holmes. It's still around and is quite expensive, so I did not manage to dine there.

Exciting times! Expect more to come; I've got big plans for tomorrow.