I know that I’m just a humble cabbie, but didn’t it occur to anyone with the dash to go green, there might just might be a problem in putting all our eggs in one basket? Now we are having to go cap-in-hand for oil when if it wasn’t tied down England would float away, we have so much of the stuff beneath us. Surely we should be matching reducing our dependency on fossil fuels in step with wind, sun and water.
All posts by Gibson Square
Johnson’s London Dictionary: Crossrail
CROSSRAIL (n.) Mythical stagecoach said to magically transport the populace across the Metropolis
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
Protected: Number one cabbie
London in Quotations: Thomas Brown
London is a world by itself. We daily discover in it more new countries, and surprising singularities, than in all the universe besides.
Thomas Brown (1663-1704), Amusements Serious and Comical, Calculated for the Meridian of Londont
London Trivia: Flying cats
On 20 March 1819 Burlington Arcade was opened, not for the convenience of the public, but to stop public access. Annoyed by the constant litter being dropped alongside his house, Lord Burlington was inconvenienced by discarded oyster shells (a cheap snack in the eighteenth century) and dead cats being infrequently thrown over his garden wall. Percy the Poltergeist, is said to have been in residence since 1953, but no dead cats.
On 20 March 1974 Princess Anne and her husband Captain Mark Phillips escaped an apparent kidnap in Pall Mall in which shots were fired
On 20 March 1966 the £30,000 solid gold Jules Rimet Trophy (World Cup) was stolen while on exhibition at Central Hall in Westminster
In 1925 the Marlborough Street end of Liberty was rebuilt in Tudor style using wood from two ships HMS HIndustan and HMS Impregnable
The Embankment hides a smelly secret – Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s sewage system which prevents sewage flowing into the Thames
In 1642 Charles I tried to arrest 5 MPs who criticised him. Since then no monarch has been allowed inside the House of Commons
At his home in Kensington Square, John Stuart Mill left his friend Thomas Carlyle’s manuscript lying around and his maid burned it
When Peter the Great stayed in the Deptford home of John Evelyn in 1698 he trashed his garden and drank all his wine
Now given the postcode of E20 the 2012 Olympic Park will share its address with Walford the London area in the fictional BBC soap Eastenders
Cadbury’s Whole Nut chocolate bar is by far the biggest seller in its dispensing machines at tube stations, the worst seller isn’t disclosed
During a restoration project in the 1920s, tennis balls were found in the rafters of Westminster Hall, the oldest part of Parliament
Diarist Samuel Pepys buried his parmesan cheese and wine in his garden to protect them from the Great Fire of London in 1666
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 