All posts by Gibson Square

A Licensed Black London Cab Driver I share my London with you . . . The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

London Trivia: The Peasants’ Revolt

12 June, 2022 Gibson Square 1 Comment

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.

Previously Posted

Previously Posted: Want to buy a bus, going cheap

11 June, 2022 Gibson Square 4 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.

Want to buy a bus, going cheap (16.06.09)

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.

A window on My World

Protected: Shock! Man blogs, aged 75

10 June, 2022 Gibson Square

Thinking allowed

Oh, the irony!

9 June, 2022 Gibson Square 2 Comments

Many who decided to miss celebrating our good fortune at living in a constitutional democracy by leaving the country, ended up waiting hours at the airport. Some slept on the concourse floor, so anxious were they to avoid missing their flight to a country where women’s rights are severely restricted, or a slight indiscretion might put you in jail awaiting trial without legal representation. Well, we all had a great time marking The Queen’s Platinum Anniversary: Trooping the Colour; a 70 aircraft fly past (it went over my house); street parties; rock stars and a pageant. Well, I hope your return was as equally traumatic, the result of greedy airline managers laying off their highly skilled staff.