On 2 September 1666 in the early hours of that Sunday morning The Great Fire of London started in Pudding Lane. Strong easterly winds spread the fire, by the time it died out 5 days later, at least 13,000 houses; 94 places of worship had been destroyed; and 6 had died. The London mayor expressed a lack of concern that the fire would become dangerous, saying that “a woman might piss it out,” before going back to sleep.
On 2 September 1826 Bartholomew’s Fair opened with a woman sword swallower, a dwarf lady and crocodiles as well as food and beverages
In 1952 a Nigerian visitor was fined £50 for committing an indecent act with a pigeon in Trafalgar Square and £10 for having it for tea
In September 2015 the Royal Vauxhall Tavern was given Grade II listing, the first location in the UK to be listed for LGBT significance
Into computing? Half of Charles Babbage’s brain is preserved at the Science Museum, the other half is at the Hunterian Museum
Peter Piaktow aka Peter The Painter was the anarchist gang leader responsible for the murder of 3 policemen at the Siege of Sidney Street in 1911
The Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens holds the record for the longest exhibition by a single female artist in the world
Brick Lane Music Hall, North Woolwich Road in a converted church is the world’s only permanent music hall showing daily Cockney Singsongs
The public reaction to the £400.000 Zion logo for London 2012 Olympics was that it resembles the Simpsons cartoon character, Lisa Simpson performing fellatio
If you say Finsbury Park backwards you get a Krapy Rubsnif and Balham is the only Underground station that doesn’t have any of the letters of the word ‘underground’ in it
Harrod’s has 11,500 bulbs on its façade. To keep its nightly appearance 300 have to be changed every week. But how many men does it take?
Zoological Society of London found that 83 per cent of Londoners when asked to name something commonly found in the Thames declared a shopping trolley
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.
