Cleaning Nelson's Column

At 170ft (52m) high Nelson's Column is not that easy to clean but on Friday I happened to be walking past and for the first time I saw how they managed to keep Nelson clean. I noticed the large lorry parked in Trafalgar Square the day before and wondered why it was there and now I know.

Not everyone needs a lorry mounted platform to get to the top, as a number of people have climbed the Column as part of various publicity stunts. Here is an extract from Wikipaedia describing some of the attempts.
 Ed Drummond made the first such climb in 1979 for the Anti-Apartheid Movement, making use of the lightning conductor en route. On 31 March 1988 Joe Simpson and John Stevenson climbed the column as part of a Greenpeace Campaign against Acid Rain. On 14 June 1992 it was climbed by Martin Cotterrel, Joe Simpson and John Stevenson on behalf of Greenpeace to protest against the first Earth Summit meeting in Brazil. On 13 April 1995, Simon Nadin free-climbed Nelson's Column with Noel Craine, Jerry Moffat and Johnny Dawes following on top rope, and graded the climb as "E6 6b/5a". This protest time was on behalf of Survival International to publicize the plight of Canada's Inuit people. On 13 May 1998 the Column was climbed by Al Baker, Peter Morris and John Cunningham on behalf of Greenpeace to protest against Old growth logging activity in British Columbia. In May 2003, BASE jumper and stuntman Gary Connery parachuted from the top of the column, in a stunt designed to draw attention to the Chinese policies in Tibet. On 18 April 2016, in the early hours of the morning, Greenpeace activists climbed up the column and placed a breathing mask on Admiral Lord Nelson in protest of dangerous air pollution levels.(Wikipeadia)