A new beginning?

Day 2 of four days of interviewing in London this week and it was chucking down with rain. So I took the tube both to Petty France and back, after we'd done for the day, to Waterloo. So this photo was actually taken on my walk back yesterday. The Central Methodist Hall is a substantial building in the heart of Westminster across the road from Westminster Abbey. Construction started in 1905 and it opened in 1911. It is still used for worship today but also functions as a conference centre. I did attend a conference there once but can't remember when or what it was about. It also has quite a nice cafe on  the basement floor. The Great Hall seats 2,300 and it was there, as this plaque, commemorates, that the first meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations took place in 1946. The League of Nations, formed after the First World War, had failed miserably to stop nations going to war and, after the horrors of the Second World War,  no doubt this first meeting of the new United Nations body was instilled with hope that, this time,  nation would speak peace to nation. Not gone well, that. Moving from the sublime to the ridiculous, when England staged the World Cup in 1966 an exhibition celebrating the tournament was put on at the Central Hall and featured the trophy itself, the Jules Rimet Cup,  whence it was stolen! It was found a few days later by a man out walking his dog, Pickles. Pickles became a national celebrity. I've no idea what his owner's name was! Oh yes  and England won the World Cup that year - the one and only time.