The fact that the dollar now buys you twice the number of Chinese made Big Ben snow globes than it did this time last year (and tax free shopping is now back for tourists), means that US tourists ‘are flocking to our shores’ and will probably continue to do so right up to the King’s Coronation sometime next year – incidentally they should announce the date to give hotels time to jack up prices. This means we’ll probably continue to see even more luxury hotels going up in the West End over the next few years, and more heritage parts of London destroyed, which ironically is why the Americans visit the Motherland.
All posts by Gibson Square
Johnson’s London Dictionary: Pigeon
PIGEON (n.) Grey bird often seen in Trafalgar Square whose purpose is to entertain tourists, a bird that doth make an excellent pie.
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
October’s monthly musings
🚓 What Cab News
The City of London is going to exclude cabs twenty-four hours a day from Bank Junction. Nowadays you can’t drive along Cheapside end to end and you can’t drive down Bishopsgate. Many cabbies already avoid working in the City, but when this goes into place, they’ll stop working the Square Mile completely.
🎧 What I’m Listening
For two years Blue Badge Guides Emily and Alex have been podcasting weekly snippets on their Ladies Who London as a way to (as they say) bring London’s quirky, fun history to everyone in the comfort of their own homes. Having just discovered them I have a lot of episodes to catch up on.
📖 What I’m Reading
For some time now I’ve been a member of NetGalley, which offer books for review. Ex-Home Secretary Alan Johnson now writes novels, his latest is The Late Train to Gipsy Hill. While most politicians turn to novels as a way of showing how inside track they were. Johnson eschews this approach and just gives us a thriller not without prescience given later events in Ukraine.
📺 What I’m watching
Sewage. Pressure group Thames 21 appeared on a BBC Panorama to show reporter Joe Crowley a mound of wet wipes on the Thames foreshore at Barnes. Designed to be a safety valve for occasional use, London’s overloaded sewage system routinely discharges raw sewage into the Thames, on average once a week, discharges have now become regular and routine. Thames21 showed the BBC Panorama team around one of the five Thames sites where wet wipes have accumulated in such quantities they have physically changed the shape of the riverbed and are informally known as the Great Wet Wipe Reef. Incredibly only 7 per cent of Britain’s rivers are in good health, and sewage pollution is one of the major causes. Ignore at your peril.
❓ What else
With the Queen laid to rest the arguments have begun over where to put her statue. Currently, there is only one full-size statue in Windsor Great Park. The bookies’ favourite is, of course, the fourth plinth, but that, according to ArtNet, would mean bringing to an end the “best-known public art commission in the world”. The plinth is not suitable for the memorial for the late queen either, as it sits in an awkward location in front of the National Gallery terrace, and close to the busy public toilets. Some politicians are lobbying for a statue in Parliament Square, other plans include renaming streets, parks, and even Heathrow airport in her honour.
London in Quotations: Georgina Meinertzhagen
You must not expect much friendliness from a John Bull who does not see his way to get something out of you. On the other hand, for learning commerce, London is without exception the best school.
Georgina Meinertzhagen (1850-1914)
London Trivia: High table dining
On 23 October 1843 fourteen stonemasons who had worked on Nelson’s Column ate a celebratory meal atop the platform before the statue of the famous admiral was placed aloft.
On 23 October 1731 a fire broke out at Ashburnham House, Little Dean’s Yard destroying or damaging 114 books bequeathed to the nation
There are five prisons in London and four of them were built by the Victorians (Wormwood Scrubs, Wandsworth, Pentonville and Brixton). Brixton is the oldest prison in London still in use
It was Lord Byron’s valet – James Brown – who established Brown’s Hotel in 1837. Agatha Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel is based on Brown’s Hotel
Mayfair’s most eccentric dentist was Martin von Butchell, when his wife, Mary, died in 1775 he had her embalmed and turned her into a visitor attraction to drum up more business
‘So hour by hour, be thou my guide, that by thy power, no step may slide.’ The words to Big Ben’s chimes known as the Westminster Quarters and is the most common clock chime melody
A blue plaque commemorates the site of the Tabard Inn, immortalised in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in Talbot Yard, Southwark
The George Inn is a National Trust-owned, medieval pub in Southwark and one of the few Grade I listed public houses in England
For the London 1908 Olympics there was the first purpose-built Olympic swimming pool, at the Paris Olympics of 1900 the competitors had to race through sewage in the River Seine
A spiral escalator was installed in 1907 at Holloway Road station, but linear escalators were favoured for the rest of the network. A small section of the spiral escalator is in the Acton depot
In 1809 as part of a hoax a resident of 54 Berners Street was visited by hundreds of maids requesting jobs and tradesmen delivering goods
Medieval London’s streets moral impurity was underlined by their names: Codpiece Lane, Sluts’ Hole, Cuckold Court, Whores’ Nest, Maiden Lane
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.
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