For reasons now lost in the mists of time, I started uploading daily trivia. First I used what’s now called a burner phone to what was then called Twitter, although not realising at the time that social media is a two-way street. Then with my first iPhone, I discovered that multiple tweets could be scheduled, and more importantly that the snippets could appear here on CabbieBlog. Over time the posting services that I used have each fallen by the wayside or have imposed cost restrictions on the number of postings: Twuffer, Twittimer, TweetLater which morphed into SocialOomph. I then went to Buffer which allows, using a free account, 10 postings at a time. But now X doesn’t allow API keys from these third-party sources unless a large premium is paid. Now I’ve had to turn to Google Calendar to bring you the ‘Daily London Trivia’, tediously uploading the data, and using WordPress’ Upcoming Events widget. Now this new widget developed for their Gutenberg platform sometimes gives ‘No upcoming events’ instead of today’s trivia, their Happiness Engineers (an oxymoron) are trying to find a solution.
All posts by Gibson Square
Johnson’s London Dictionary: Changing the Guard
CHANGING THE GUARD (n.) A tradition that doth display our imperial might to impressionable tourists promoting the purchase of cheap Chinese-made souvenirs of toy soldiers.
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
Copyright conundrum
First an apology to all those subscribers who received multiple emails on the first Monday in October.
Occasionally at certain times when I don’t have a suitable image actually taken by me, I make use of pictures hosted on a site published under a Creative Commons Licence.
CabbieBlog is committed to respecting copyright law and other intellectual property rights. To support this approach CabbieBlog takes every reasonable effort to ensure rights holders are contacted for permission before reproduction of their work on the pages of this website, on the comment sections and for all other uses.
Unfortunately, not all webmasters have been so meticulous regarding copyright ownership. As the publisher, I am held to be liable, even when the photo supplier has made the omission.
Since this blog started much has changed in the cyberverse and today we now have Copyright Trolls who scan the internet for infringements, and according to the excellent IanVisits website, they can charge the site owner £400 per incident.
Back to the apology
To ensure that CabbieBlog doesn’t infringe on the hard work of other creatives, post pictures that I cannot ascertain their origins are now password protected.
All is not lost
Many of CabbieBlog’s ‘best bits’ are reposted (without illustrations) every Saturday under the Previously Posted banner. But should you have an overwhelming desire to read any other old missives, some stretching back 15 years, please contact me and I’ll check out the post for copyright infringement and then send you a unique password enabling you to view that article.
The small print
CabbieBlog is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Any omissions or errors are inadvertent and will be corrected for future publication on written notification by the rights holder or their representative.
London in Quotations: Jonathan Barnes
The city defeated him. It refused to be bent into shape; it stayed a willful, sprawling, sinful place. It even told him as much. When he walked through the gutted wreck of old Saint Paul’s, he tripped and fell over a piece of rubble — a tombstone. When he got to his feet and dusted himself down he saw that it read, in Latin, ‘Resurgam’ — ‘I Will Rise Again.
Jonathan Barnes (b.1979), The Somnambulist (Domino Men)
London Trivia: Midnight express
On 8 October 1952 at 8.18 am the Perth to Euston sleeper express overshot signals at Harrow and ploughed into a stationary local train waiting at the station. A northbound train then ran into the wreckage, 112 died and 150 were injured, it remains the worst peacetime rail crash in the United Kingdom. The accident accelerated the introduction of Automatic Warning System informing drivers they had passed an adverse signal.
On 8 October 1965 Britain got its tallest building when the Post Office Tower (renamed BT) topped out at 580ft plus 70ft for the radio mast
Shad Thames was known as Jacob’s Island a notoriously dangerous place, featured in Oliver Twist where Bill Sikes meets his end hanging by a rope above Folly Ditch’s mud
The 1.8km long Limehouse Link tunnel cost £293 million to build in 1993, around £163,000 per metre, making it Britain’s most expensive road scheme
Cock Lane opposite Bart’s is where John Bunyan, author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, died of a fever in 1688
Catholic monarch Mary Tudor watched Protestant martyrs burn at the stake at Smithfield from the gatehouse of St Bartholomew-the-Great
In An American Werewolf in London (1981) its lycanthropic protagonist, David meets his timely end in Winchester Walk, Borough
The Savoy Hotel’s Chef Escoffier created the dish Peach Melba for opera singer Dame Nellie Melba who was a regular guest
Oldest surviving regular contest in the World Doggett’s Coat and Badge Race rowing up the Thames between two Swan pubs: London Bridge to Chelsea
The London taxi must have a turning circle no more than 25 foot to enable it to U-turn from a cab rank and to complete a single turn outside the Savoy Hotel
The toothbrush was invented in Newgate prison by William Addis in 1770. Inspired by a broom, he inserted bristles into an animal bone
Petticoat Lane is not on any London map as it was renamed Middlesex Street in 1830, though known to Londoners it doesn’t officially exist
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.
CabbieBlog 