On 3 December 1976 London witnessed proof that pigs really can fly when Algie, a inflatable pig, broke free from his moorings near Battersea Power Station. Algie was being photographed for a forthcoming Pink Floyd Animals album cover. Curiously being near the flight path the Civil Aviation Authority issued a warning that a flying pig had been set loose, the ensuring publicity didn’t do any harm either for Pink Floyd.
On 3 December 1976 an estimated 3 million people applied for the 11,000 available tickets for Abba’s Albert Hall concerts
During the Jack the Ripper investigation the police paid £100 for two tracker bloodhounds but they got lost and needed the police to find them
Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London, is the only European synagogue which has held regular services continuously for over 300 years
In 1829 with London running out of space to bury its dead architect Thomas Wilson proposed a 94 storey pyramid on Primrose Hill to house 5 million corpses
The last execution to take place at the Tower of London was that of German spy Josef Jacobs, shot by firing squad in 1942
In 1747 William Hogarth painted ‘The Stage Coach’ at the former Angel Inn, 1 Islington High Street, rebuilt and now occupied by Co-op Bank
Soho is named after a medeival hunting cry (‘So-Ho’). No unlike Tally-Ho today. Until the late seventeeth century the area was open fields
Charlton means ‘homestead belonging to the churls’. Churls were the lowest rank of freeman during medieval times
In 1878 over 640 died when the crowded pleasure boat Princess Alice collided with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames
John Spilsbury invented the world’s first jigsaw puzzle at his print shop in Russell Court (near Street), Drury Lane, Covent Garden in 1766
Bow Street police light changed from blue to white as colour upset Queen Victoria when visiting Royal Opera House, Albert had died in Blue Room, Windsor
Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
A guide to the symbols used here and source material can be found on the Trivial Matter page.
