When I buy my Kingsmill sliced from my local supermarket (£1) I wouldn’t trust it if there was no wrapper even if the shop was pristine. So why is it that on Borough High Street with its constant traffic jams of vehicles churning out diesel fumes while waiting to cross London Bridge one maker or should that be creator, of ‘artisan’ bread, displays his wares on a bench in the street?
All posts by Gibson Square
Protected: The man who cycled London
London in Quotations: Stephen Fry
The English language is like London: proudly barbaric yet deeply civilised, too, common yet royal, vulgar yet processional, sacred yet profane. Each sentence we produce, whether we know it or not, is a mongrel mouthful of Chaucerian, Shakespearean, Miltonic, Johnsonian, Dickensian and American.
Stephen Fry (b.1957), The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within
London Trivia: Jumbo binge
On 2 February 1255 the Royal Menagerie, housed at The Tower of London received a male African elephant. It had been a diplomatic gift from King Louis IX of France to Henry III. The only elephant in England was thought to have come from the Crusades in Palestine. The keepers appear to have been too enthusiastic plying the elephant with copious bottles of red wine, consequently, it died three years later, very happy.
On 2 February 1101 the king’s tax collector and embezzler, Bishop Ranulf Flambard, the Tower’s first prisoner, became its first escapee after getting his captors drunk
The Clink a small prison whose name entered the English language as slang term for gaol it was for those who ran amok in Bankside’s brothels
Strand was the first road in London to have a numbered address Charles II’s Secretary of State residence was No 1 near Northumberland Avenue
On 2 February 1852 the first public toilets opened at 95 Fleet Street. Selfridge’s was the first shop to have ladies’ toilets
The night before the 1911 census suffragette Emily Davison hid in a cupboard in the House of Commons so she could claim that was her address
Outstanding movie The Long Good Friday with Bob Hoskins features scenes filmed at Wapping and West India Quay
Simpson’s-in-the-Strand was known as the home of chess, its serving practise-wheeling food out under silver domes-originates avoiding disturbing a game of chess
Set up in1869 the Hurlingham Club originally hosted pigeon shooting before becoming a major venue for tennis
One early name proposed for the Victoria Line was the Viking line; the Central Line used to be nicknamed as the ‘Twopenny Tube’ for its flat fare
By 1883 Fleet Street’s newspapers produced 15 morning dailies, 9 evening papers and 383 weekly publications, of which 50 were local rags
The City of London has had city status for time immemorial – i.e. no historical information exists to show that it wasn’t a city at any point in known London history
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.
Ten things Londoners never do
As we start the season of ‘budget tourism’ here are some hints of how not to look like you’re a visitor to London. Well, apart from that old chestnut of what side to stand when travelling on an escalator.
Converse with a cabbie
If you decide to take a ride in a black cab, don’t ask the driver’s opinion of that precocious Swede Greta Thunberg. At £55,000 the electric cab is near twice the price its predecessor was a few years ago. In an attempt to make London the world’s greenest city, perfectly serviceable cabs are being ‘retired’ and replaced by luxury electric limousines.
Join the queue
That popular tourist hot-spot, the waxwork emporium on the Marylebone Road where thousands queue outside waiting for a chance to take a selfie with Michael Jackson or David Beckham, not with Rolf Harris who curiously is now absent. Those possessed with forward-planning have even stumped up extra to bypass the queue, little do they realise the highlight of the visit is mingling with others while standing in the most polluted place in London. This busy road has three-and-a-half times the EU limit for nitrogen dioxide, a toxic gas linked to asthma, lung infections and other respiratory problems, in fact, the Baker Street/Marylebone Road junction has no equal, it’s a chance to really take home a long-lasting London souvenir – emphysema.
We’re just are not interested
Don’t ask what the Royals are up to, where they live or ask if they have met. The newspapers talk of little else, as Harry and Meghan changed their domicile to the cooler climes of our colonial cousins, insisting we don’t mention them, or their Instagram posts.
Eat 1960 culinary delights
Described in the Guardian by David Mitchell as “rarer than the Siberian tiger, all that we have left of a proud heritage of serving shoe leather with béarnaise sauce to neon-addled out-of-towners”. Only tourists would be wooed by that red light district-esque glow, order a very OK ribeye and have the whole of Leicester Square ogle you through your floor-to-ceiling glass cage, followed by that perennial favourite, Black Forest gateau, go there to experience the last vestige of the British tradition of culinary incompetence.
Enjoy the authentic London climate
Queue up to get an upper seat on a tourist bus. Sit in the rain in your complimentary, and monogrammed, thin plastic cape, whilst advertising the bus operator, enjoying the bracing rain driven by the latest hurricane with a curious moniker.
Experience Magnificent Desolation
Buzz Aldrin’s description of the moon could be a metaphor for the Emirate Air Line, that Boris vanity project offering overpriced cable car trips from one deserted east London location to another wasteland. But tourists can use it to get away from the crowds.
Walk on the wrong side of the street
Look, Londoners never walk down the east end of Oxford Street. Most locals probably don’t know about the pop-up shops that proliferate this end of the street. Bootleg counterfeit perfume, Union Flag suitcases, Beatles condoms and Harry and Meghan mugs, or for the less discerning, Prince Andrew pizza cutters.
Take selfish selfies
Whatever do not try to have your picture taken beside the Queen’s Guards. They have a job and tradition to maintain. At the most inappropriate moment could start walking over you should you impede their progress. At Trafalgar Square, there are floating Yodas just waiting for the hapless tourist to be photographed for the price or their next beer.
Be taken for a ride
So you’ve been to see Mama Mia! Now you need to get back to your hotel. There are a plethora of choices: cab; bus; tube; walk; or a Boris bike. But there is one Londoners would never use – rickshaws. These Chinese takeaways have absolutely no regulatory checks, but I suppose these would be of little use when experiencing fission of fear being transported up a one-way street against the traffic flow.
Enunciate correctly
Cockneys might be famous for not having an ‘H’ in their vocabulary, but for everyone else its ‘CE’ that’s absent. All the words that contain it: Leicester Square, Gloucester Place, Worcester Park. Nope, those two letters don’t really exist.
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