LONDON WALL (n.) Turnpike deemed to be unique as being of dual carriageway that doth separate opposing vehicular traffic, nay confused with wall of same name.
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
And there is London! – England’s heart and soul. / By the proud flowing of her famous Thames, / She circulates through countless lands and isles / Her greatness; gloriously she rules, / At once the awe and sceptre of the world.
Robert Montgomery (b.1972), London, Religion and Poetry: Being Selections Spiritual and Moral
On 12 June 1381 the Kent insurgents of the Peasants’ Revolt, an uprising headed by Wat Tyler, that stemmed from the taxes imposed on the working population for the wars against France and a growing despondency against the feudal system, arrived at Blackheath and encamped there.
On 12 June 1997 due to the untiring efforts of the American director and actor, Sam Wanamaker, the modern Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, sited not 250 yards from the original site, that was opened on this same day in 1599
Mount Pleasant PO is on the site of Coldbath Fields Prison which forbade inmates from speaking and made them spend hours on the treadmill
The pillars in the basement of St. Pancras Station are spaced exactly 3 beer barrels apart designed as Bass beer arrives from Midlands
The playwright Ben Jonson was buried standing up in Westminster Abbey – at his own request, saying he was too poor to take up more space
Conservative MP Sir Henry Bellingham is a direct descendant of John Bellingham the assassin of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in 1812
Leicester Square was where Maurice Micklewhite saw poster for The Caine Mutiny and chose Michael Caine as new name
Westfield Stratford, the largest shopping centre in Europe, cost the equivalent of the GDP of the 25 world’s poorest countries to build
Harold Thornton invented table football in 1922 attempting to recreate Spurs with a box of matches, he played it at Bar Kick, Shoreditch High Street
The tunnel between East Finchley and Morden (via Bank) is the longest on the Underground measuring 27.8km (17.25 miles)
The Company of Watermen and Lightermen are not a full Livery Company – excluded because they charged people fleeing the Great Fire in 1666
Rosewood Hotel’s Manor House Suite is the only hotel suite in the world with its own postcode: WC1V 7DZ for the rest of the hotel: WC1V 7EN
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.
For those new to CabbieBlog or readers who are slightly forgetful, on Saturdays I’m republishing posts, many going back over a decade. Some will still be very relevant while others have become dated over time. Just think of this post as your weekend paper supplement.
Arthur Daily would have managed to move them. But it seems that the London mayor’s first attempt to sell off the capital’s bendy buses has not met with success. A batch of thirty-one of these 58ft-long monsters from Mercedes Benz advertised in a trade magazine has failed to attract a buyer after six weeks.
Those with the £80,000 spare can buy one of the 350 which ultimately will be sold.
But buyers may have been put off by their chequered history. Introduced by then-mayor of London Ken Livingstone in 2001, bendy buses were temporarily taken out of service in 2005 when three suddenly caught fire. A year later, the evidence presented to the London Assembly showed that they are more likely to be involved in an accident than other buses in the fleet. Critics also said fare-dodgers were sneaking on the buses using the back doors, instead of the front ones next to the driver.
Go on, give a bus a home it would look great on the drive.
CabbieBlog 