On 6 February 2007 uniquely in the history of world football, London staged four internationals that night, not one of which involved England. There were 60,000 at the Emirates Stadium for Brazil v. Portugal; 24,500 at Loftus Road for Australia v. Denmark; Craven Cottage hosted South Korea v. Greece, and Griffin Park saw Ghana play Nigeria. An estimated 400 million worldwide watched the matches.

On 6 February 2005 Tony Blair became Labour’s longest serving Prime Minister after 2,838 days in office, in 1997 he became the youngest premier of the 20th century, when he came to power at the age of 43

Wapping High Street is home to the Thames Police, founded in 1798 as the Marine Police, the world’s oldest organised police force

Medieval London’s streets moral impurity was underlined by their names: Codpiece Lane, Sluts’ Hole, Cuckold Court, Whores’ Nest, Maiden Lane

King William III’s statue in St. James’s Square, shows his horse riding over a molehill which caused it to rear and the king fell dying as a result

Bridewell Palace was where in 1528 a papal delegation had preliminary meetings to discuss Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon

A blue plaque commemorates the site of the Tabard Inn, immortalised in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in Talbot Yard, Southwark

Waterstone’s Piccadilly London’s largest bookshop claims to be Europe’s biggest, six floors, over eight miles of shelves, with over 200,000 titles

The Surbiton Club hired a ‘marker’ for its billiard room with an allowance of 18 gallons on beer a month. The first was not surprisingly sacked for drunkenness

The Central Line has the most tube stations with no surface building (Bank, Bethnal Green, Chancery Lane, Gants Hill, Notting Hill Gate)

The Worshipful Company of Clockmakers possesses the world’s oldest collection of clocks and watches, now housed at the Science Museum it possesses some 600 watches, 80 clocks and 25 marine timekeepers

Next time you call someone a ‘right Charlie’ think twice. It’s Rhyming Slang origin is Charlie ‘HUNT’ – so not very polite at all!

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.