All posts by Gibson Square
Boris bridges
The Boris Garden Bridge is consigned to oblivion. This vanity project, known by luvvies as the garden bridge has already used £37.4 million of public money and by cancelling will cost a further £9 million. The bridge, which only served to obscure London’s best view and wasn’t even open to the public all year, should never have been considered. I know it’s heresy to say these days when we all should be cycling to work, but the £46 million could have been spent on a traffic bridge at Beckton thus reducing congestion at the Blackwall crossing. he new ECO cab has been unveiled with a £60,000 price tag. Assuming you write down the cost over 10 years (private hire come off the road at 10 years); spend £2,000 on insurance; £1,000 on maintenance; it cost you £10 per day on fuel and electricity to charge its batteries; and another £1,000 on one’s licence, plating the vehicle, medicals and sundry extras you arrive at £12,4000 per year. This is probably an underestimate, then, let’s be generous, you can earn £20 per hour for every hour that you are working, and that you work 5-day-a-week for 48 weeks a year you get a back of an envelope sum thus:£12,400÷48 weeks=£310 weekly overheads which equal 15.5 hours or 2 days’ work before you have earned a bean.
Still, we can look forward to the Boris Bridge MkII, over the Irish Sea or as it will become The Bridge Over Troubled Water
Protected: London Firsts Quiz
London in Quotations: Samuel Johnson
By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
Samuel Johnson (1740-1795), As quoted by James Boswell in The Life of Samuel Johnson
London Trivia: Peace in our time?
On 10 May 1940 after losing a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned at the same time that Germany was invading Holland, Belgium, and Luxembourg. Winston Churchill stepped in as Prime Minister to lead a coalition Government. Within six weeks German forces had conquered all three countries with France capitulating a few weeks later.
On 10 May 1553 Sir Hugh Willoughby and his fleet set sail from Ratcliff Stairs to discover the North-East Passage
German Nazi Rudolf Hess was the last prisoner to be incarcerated in the Tower of London, captured in Renfrewshire after parachuting out of a plane
Westminster Catholic Cathedral stands on the foundations of Tothill Fields Prison demolished in 1885, which was deemed as a ‘house of correction’ for the compulsory employment of able-bodied but indolent paupers
The roof’s shape of the famous red telephone box was influenced by Sir John Soane’s tomb in St Pancras Old Church
The first bomb to drop on London in World War I is commemorated by a plaque at 16 Alkham Road in Stoke Newington, there were no injuries
Carlyle Mansions, a smart Victorian apartment block in Chelsea, was once home to authors Ian Fleming, T. S. Eliot and Henry James
Radio and music hall comedian Tommy Handley once lived at 34 Craven Road, Paddington – Known for the saying: “It’s That Man Again”
1912 was a bad year for the Boat Race on this day when both boats sank, the subsequent re-row on the following Monday was won by Oxford by six lengths
The Tube tunnel between Knightsbridge and South Kensington negotiates a massive curve to avoid a 17th century plague pit
On 10 May 1922 Ivy Williams was called to the Bar, becoming England’s first female barrister. She would never practice in a London court
In 2010, Eurostat calculated that Inner London’s Gross Domestic Product per capita stood at 328 per cent of the EU’s 27 average
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.
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