And yet London is a solid city, in spite of the broken images it evokes in the mind of a wanderer like myself. There is a grandeur there, an impersonal power of endurance that is somehow comforting beneath the rot.
James Wright (1927-1980), A Wild Perfection: The Selected Letters of James Wright
On 20 February 1702 William of Orange was riding Sorrel, in Hampton Court Park, the horse stumbled on a molehill and fell throwing the King who broke his collarbone, with fatal consequences. This incident was to give rise to a new Jacobite toast, ‘To the little gentleman in black velvet’. An equestrian statue of William III in St. James’s Square has His Majesty upon Sorrel with the little molehill near the horse’s hooves.
On 20 February 1547 the Coronation of Edward VI took place at Westminster Abbey, he was just nine years old
On 20 February 1965 the crimson backed hardwood ‘Ghost Chair’ at Brompton Oratory Roman Catholic Church was stolen, it would resurface years later in a ruined South American church
César Ritz founded the Carlton Hotel now replaced by New Zealand House in the Haymarket after being sacked from the Savoy
One advantage of motor vehicles replacing the horse was a decrease in typhoid as the great piles of dung disappeared from London’s streets
Winston Churchill, exiled leaders Charles de Gaulle and Jan Masaryk used the Savoy Hotel and Grill as their London home during World War II
Theatre Royal Drury Lane London’s oldest theatre originally a playhouse on the site in 1662 Charles II made them part of the Royal Household
The National Army Museum has the bloodied saw used to remove the Marquess of Anglesey’s leg after being shattered by cannon fire at Waterloo
Wimbledon is now the only Grand Slam tournament still played on natural grass, maintained by 16 ground staff plus 12 during Championships
London’s first mechanically driven taxi was battery powered but slower than their horse-drawn predecessors as a result went bust in 5 years
Willliam Blake’s ‘dark satanic mills’ mentioned in his poem Jerusalem were the Albion Mills near his Lambeth home
When RAC Club’s President, the Duke of Sutherland, had one of his four Rolls-Royces outside the Club its engine was kept running for immediate departure
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.
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.
It’s hard to believe now but once, and I’m afraid you will have to take my word for this, once Leicester Square was a rather splendid public space. But in 1936 town planners decided to steal a march on Hitler and start destroying London first.
The old Alhambra Theatre was a prime site for ‘redevelopment’.
Max Miller who at the time was probably the most famous entertainer in England, heard it was being demolished he went along for the last look at the building he’d performed on many occasions.
When he arrived at lunchtime on hearing that the famous stage was about to be taken down he climbed on the boards and gave the workmen a hilarious one-hour performance. Ten minutes after he’d finished, the stage was gone for ever.
Near the end of his life he confessed that his proudest professional moment was as he put it “closing the old Alhambra”.
When did it become necessary for us to abbreviate everything in our lives? I’ve been pondering the situation since undertaking a series of medical tests: MRI, A&E, ECG and ENT, you name it, there’s an acronym or abbreviation for it.
Everywhere you look there’s another. Kentucky Fried Chicken became KFC, Transport for London is TfL and the Metropolitan Police is just the Met. The BBC’s excellent Line of Duty is littered with them. I’m sure there are dozens of other examples, and I just don’t know why.
Are we supposed to be saving seconds of our valuable time by just voicing the letters? I assume that they feel they are so familiar that they don’t need to have the words said to be identifiable.
I’ll admit that I am old-fashioned. I don’t care for change. I’d be happy to say the words, and most days I have the time.
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