On 10 February 1840 despite her assertion that marriage was “a shocking alternative to living with one’s mother”, Queen Victoria Prince Albert in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace, they would go on to produce 9 chldren. Her mother was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her, complaining that her mother’s close proximity promised “torment for many years”.

On 10 February 1971 Frank Zappa was banned from performing at the Albert Hall as a consequence of pf the lyrics in his New Rock Opera Two-Hundred Hotels

By law London cabbies don’t have to wear seat belts while working, but must be belted up while driving on their way home

London has four UNESCO World Heritage sites: The Tower of London, Maritime Greenwich, Westminster Palace and Kew’s Royal Botanical Gardens

In 1850 to deal with London’s sewage problem it was proposed building a system in spokes feeding raw effluent into shops to sell to farmers

Portobello Road takes its name from the 1739 sea battle where the English captured the Portobello naval base in Panama from the Spanish

An Italian dishwasher at the Savoy Hotel was so inspired by the quality of the guests he started the company bearing his name – Guccio Gucci

The Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley, built in 1910 and opened in 1912, is the oldest continuously working unaltered movie theatre in England

In 2012 London became the first city to host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948

The recorded voice on the No. 17 bus announces it as ‘Her Majesty’s Prison, Pentonville’, as if to soften the blow for those visiting

London in the 1860s when its population was one third that of today’s, 80,000 prostitutes worked making the period “the heyday of the whore”

After King Charles II’s son Duke of Monmouth was executed for treason at The Tower his head was sewn back on so he could sit for a portrait

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.