London Trivia: Jurassic junket

31 December, 2023 Gibson Square 1 Comment

On 31 December 1853 celebrating the installation of life-sized dinosaur models at Sydenham Park. A 20 strong dinner party was held inside the stomach of the partly completed a concrete iguanodon made by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins of the Crystal Palace Company. The model was surrounded by a tent decorated with a chandelier and four plaques honouring famous palaeontologists. Guests were served by waiters, what was on the menu is unknown.

On the 31 December 1923 the chimes of Big Ben were first broadcast by the BBC and every evening since are transmitted live via a microphone

On 31 December 1919 the first woman law student was admitted to study at Lincoln’s Inn which had been in existence since at least 1422

Westminster Catholic Cathedral, Victoria Street stands on the foundations of Tothill Fields Prison demolished in 1884

In 1952 pollution was so bad a theatre performance at Sadler’s Wells had to be abandoned as smog crept into the auditorium

The Palace of Westminster has 8 bars, 6 restaurants, 1,000 rooms, 100 staircases, 11 courtyards, a hair salon, and rifle-shooting range

The harrowing battle scenes in the last hour of Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket were filmed at Beckton Gas a latticework and appropriate advertising hoardings added make it believable

Russian for railway station ‘vokzal’ derives from Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens as its first track went from St. Petersburg to a pleasure garden

Arsenal are the only football team to have a Tube station named after them, called Gillespie Road it was renamed in 1932 when the team went to Highbury

Heathrow Airport is so named because the land it was built on was once a sleepy hamlet called Heath Row

Cock Lane didn’t get its name due to any association with poultry, but because it was the only street to be licensed for prostitution

Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg who lived off Farringdon Road predicted there would be a special part in heaven reserved for the English

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.

Previously Posted

Previously Posted: Zil Lanes

30 December, 2023 Gibson Square 2 Comments

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.

Zil Lanes (28.12.2010)

Today’s post comes with a health warning, before reading further please hold onto something to steady yourself, or better still sit down. It has taken east Londoner Paul Charman two years using the Freedom of Information Act to bring to our attention just what we signed up for when London won the bid for the 2012 Olympics.

Don’t expect to find an available hotel room for the duration of the Games, London has to provide the International Olympic Committee (“IOC”), staff and officials with 40,000 hotel rooms including 1,800 four- and five-star hotel suites, ensuring the Dorchester, Grosvenor House and London Hilton are already booked solid, in addition an Olympic Village for athletes is being built in east London at a cost of £325 million.

Dedicated traffic lanes nicknamed “Zil Lanes” from Soviet Russia will provide 250 miles of traffic free travel, even the Royal Family doesn’t enjoy that privilege, and one lane stretches from London to Weymouth to facilitate access to the sailing events. Using those Zil Lanes (no buses, bikes or taxis allowed) will be 500 air-conditioned limos, complete with uniformed drivers.

All advertising for the duration of the Games can only contain material approved by the IOC, so unless you are a sponsor, to the Games your product may not see the light of day in London. Even spectators may not wear clothing advertising a non-Olympic sponsored brand, so forget wearing your football stripe to east London. Journalists and photographers are not allowed signage of any kind, and so if a photo-journalist used Nikon cameras presumably if Nikon is not on the approved list, tape will have to e placed over the camera’ identity. London police have to be made available to enforce any infringements to these draconian requirements, so for the duration of the 2012 Games most of London will remain a state within a state with many of our right and freedoms subservient to the requirements of the International Olympic Committee.

Every lamppost in the Capital looks to have hung from it what the IOC call pageantry, and because French is the Olympics second language expect the “pageantry” to appear in England and French.

This post can only be a taster for what is expected by the IOC, if you still have the need for more information to what London has signed up for, read the excellent article by Ed Howker and Andrew Gilligan in the Spectator.

A window on My World

December’s monthly musings

29 December, 2023 Gibson Square 5 Comments

🚓 What Cab News

From next January Uber is encouraging London cabbies to join their platform, despite this shameless company spending a decade trying, and failing, to destroy London’s black cab trade. This is the same company that has shown little regard for the well-being of its passengers. This is the company that makes a mockery of the UK tax system. This is a company that has no regard for women’s safety. This is a company that had exploited its drivers until it lost its case in court. This is also the company that has subsidised fares to the tune of billions in an attempt to bankrupt the centuries-old black cab trade. They need us to help grow their market share, and give them some kind of legitimacy. Oh! Did I mention our first court hearing suing them is in January?

🎧 What I’m Listening

London Particular (BBC Sounds) London is not one but many cities, a city of curious anomalies and dark secrets, of hidden portals to other dimensions, a city so vast and varied that the weird and the uncanny blend seamlessly with the ordinary, where the person sitting next to you on the bus, or walking beside you on the pavement, may, in fact, be a visitor from another time.

📖 What I’m Reading

Ten-Second Staircase by Christopher Fowler. I’m now on Book 4 of 20 of his Bryant and May mysteries by this quintessential author of London noir. Diagnosed with a tenacious form of cancer at the very start of lockdown, last year marked a sad premature end to the sparkiest of creative minds.

📺 What I’m watching

I’ve been watching BBC’s Planet Earth III, this beautifully filmed and meticulously researched series that has run for 20 years. What should been an uplifting programme, I’ve found depressing, 30 per cent of species have become extinct since David Attenborough started Series I. I hope my grandson’s generation does a better job than we have.

❓ What else

The Chicken and Frog Bookshop in Brentwood has shifted a few copies of my book. This great local retailer specialises in selling children’s books and teaching youngsters, which might say something about my magnum opus.

📆 What date?

100 years ago on 1st January 1924, the Met Office issued its first Shipping Forecast broadcast, at this time it was called Weather Shipping.

Thinking allowed

Happy Christmas from the Back Of Beyond

28 December, 2023 Gibson Square 2 Comments

With thousands of acres of farmland and woodland in every direction, it’s great to see this festive decoration from Sadiq, unfortunately very few will see it as it’s pretty unpopulated around this edge of London.

Puppydog tails

Johnson’s London Dictionary: Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree

27 December, 2023 Gibson Square 2 Comments

TRAFALGAR SQUARE CHRISTMAS TREE (n.) Gift from Oslo that doth is displayed in London bedecked with single rows of lights that make the specimen resemble a rocket rather than a celebration of unity at Christmas.

Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon