As a tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II this quiz is all about our longest reigning Monarch. As before the correct answer will turn green when it’s clicked upon and expanded to give more information. The incorrect answers will turn red giving the correct explanation.
All posts by Gibson Square
London in Quotations: Charles Lamb
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The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, wagons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden; the very women of the town; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night; . . . I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fullness of joy at so much life.
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Charles Lamb (1779-1834)
London Trivia: Marlborough Diamond stolen
On 11 September 1980 the ‘Marlborough Diamond’, totalling 26-carats, was stolen by two Chicago gangsters from the Graff jewellers shop in Knightsbridge. They got away with a total of £1,429,000 worth of gems and were arrested in Chicago as they stepped off the plane. The diamond was never recovered.
On 11 September 1978 Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov died of suspected ricin poisoning, it was suspected that the poison was delivered via the point of an umbrella
The last person to be executed at the Tower of London was German soldier Josef Jakobs in 1941, shot by a military firing squad
Until 1994 there were no ‘roads’ in the City, there’s now one, Goswell Road becoming part of the Square Mile in 1994 after boundary changes
Wyndham’s theatre programme 1940. “In the interests of public health this theatre is disinfected with Jeyes Fluid”
In the Old Red Lion, Islington Thomas Paine wrote The Rights of Man and Lenin eavesdropped on conversations via the dumb waiter lift shaft
Peter Cook lived at 17 Church Row, Hampstead where he regularly entertained friends such as Peter Sellars and Willie Rushton
Due to its status as a fashion Mecca and length, Regent Street is also referred to as the ‘Mile of Style’ as distinct from Oxford Street
The London 2012 Olympics organizers wanted Keith Moon to play at Olympics ceremony. They realized later that he had been dead for 34 years
Don’t believe the signs telling you how many steps there are: at Belsize Park Station the sign says 219 steps, but there are actually 189
In 1812 Bryan Donkin and John Hall set up the world’s first canning factory in Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey
Margaret Thatcher went to the same Mayfair hairdresser, Evansky as Barbara Castle, while Thatcher sat in main area Castle had a private room
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: Sponsor A Pothole
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.
Sponsor A Pothole (18.08.09)
Now here’s a question for you, and no conferring. How many potholes are there on Britain’s roads? The answer is to be found at the bottom of this post.
Oxford City Council has proposed a plan to “Sponsor A Pothole” because it does not have enough funding to cover the cost of maintaining the streets. A spokesman said the scheme would “reward” businesses and local people who paid for pothole repairs with roadside signs “in honour” of their contribution.
London’s worst offender has to be The City of London its roads are so bad they have better roads in Iraq. As a cabbie, my arms ache with the vibration travelling up the steering column, when traversing the City’s streets.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? One of the wealthiest square miles in the world and the streets that Dick Whittington imagined were paved with gold, now need a 4×4 to negotiate.
So instead of discarded McDonald’s packaging left in the gutter, soon we might have signs proclaiming in no parking yellow “I’m Lovin’ It” stencilled across the tarmac.