First you hear the pipes. I love to hear bagpipes. They stir my blood. Must be some Scots in my ancestry.

The piper leads in two new guards.

The new guards and the old guards do some robotic strutting about. For a moment there are two sets of guards. I took this picture over the heads of the throngs of people who were watching the show.

Throngs of people with cameras

After that the piper leads away the old guards. Where do they go? Why, down the stairs to the guard room. I figure they lie on a shelf until it’s time to go back.

It’s unbelievable how popular the guards are. Many, many people get their pictures taken beside them, and many photographers take pictures of the people getting their pictures taken.

These kids were my favourites for today. The girl is so perfectly skinny and toothy and gawky, and the boy totally gets it about the essential robotic nature of the whole enterprise.

It’s all so nineteenth century, a time when we liked machines more than people. And look where that got us! (But I like it anyway.)