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

Abbreviations

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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.

Puppydog tails

Johnson’s London Dictionary: Bow Bells

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BOW BELLS (n.) Hollow bodies of cast metal that, for reasons unknown, doth give provenance to those born within earshot

Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon

Puppydog tails

London Opinion

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As a London cabbie, I just had to include on CabbieBlog a magazine which most Londoners didn’t realise existed, but most cabbies could have edited. London Opinion ran for 50 years, first as a weekly from 26 December 1903 to 27 June 1931, then monthly until April 1954.

At its height of popularity, it was one of the most influential publications in the world. On 5th September 1914 at the start of the First World War, it published a cover, the image of which encouraged more than two million men to sign up in the first years of the war before conscription was introduced in 1916.

The ‘Kitchener Poster’ has proved to be incredibly powerful, prime ministers, film stars and presidents have emulated that pose.

But if you want London opinion today you can get it from any driver of a London cab, the magazine was subsumed into Men Only.

London in Quotations

London in Quotations: Roy Porter

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London is a cluster of communities, great and small, famous and unsung; a city of contrasts, a congregation of diversity.

Roy Porter (1946-2002), London: A Social History

London trivia

London Trivia: Votes for Women

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On 13 February 1907 with the continuing protests for female emancipation, it had been expected that the King’s Speech would outline giving votes for women. Without that assurance, leaders of the Suffragettes and 400 supporters marched on Parliament only to be confronted by massed police outside Westminster Abbey. Scuffles ensued and 60 were arrested, but several managed to get into the lobby of the Houses of Parliament.

On 13 February 1247 an earthquake was felt in London “. . . which threw downe many of the houses . . and occasioned other considerable damage . . .”

Thames River Police formed by dockland merchants from hired privateers in 1798 to prevent theft is the world’s oldest surviving police force

There are 61 human figures on the Albert Memorial (Albert died 1861); 19 men (born 1819); 42 women (died age 42); 9 animals (had 9 children)

On 13 February 1832 saw the appearance of cholera at London, before it had run its course the disease had claimed some 52,000 lives.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ Communist Manifesto was first published in German in Liverpool Street by German printer J. E. Burghard in 1848

Big Ben chimes in the note of E. So if you play guitar, you can play along by hitting your bottom string open, note that the pitch of the Big Ben is closer to F than E in modern concert pitch

On average the London Eye receives more visitors per year than the Taj Mahal and the Great Pyramids of Giza

Wembley Stadium is the most user-friendly stadium known to man, its 2,618 toilets are more than we will find at any other venue in the world

During the First World War some London buses were modified to transport carrier pigeons and 900 were used to transport troops

Supermodel Kate Moss has been on the London Eye 25 times – the record for a United Kingdom celebrity, no one has asked her. Why?

On steps by the National Gallery are the Imperial measures of length set into granite paving check out length of perch, pole, chain or yard

CabbieBlog-cab.gifTrivial 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.