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.

Soya Latte Heaven (09.03.12)

The late 1950s and early 60s saw the resurgence of the coffee-drinking trend which had all but died out. It reinvigorated the love of “the syrup of soot or essence of old shoes” as it was described in the 18th century. England’s first coffee house was established in Oxford in 1650 but it was only two years until a Greek servant named Pasqua Rosee began running a coffee house in St. Michael’s Alley, Cornhill, and soon there would be dozens of coffee houses in London.

In these coffee shops men would meet, discuss and conclude deals, it could be argued that these establishments sowed the seeds that would put London on course to become Europe’s leading commercial centre. By 1675 a thousand coffee houses were to be found in London and soon became the exclusive clubs of the influential. But by the 1700s England abandoned coffee as the East India Company pushed the domestic market into tea.

It was after the Second World War in 1945 that Gaggia altered the espresso machine to create a high-pressure extraction that produced a thick layer of crema that signalled the return of the coffee culture. It was soon to be christened cappuccino for its resemblance to the colour of robes worn by Capuchin monks.

Italians already had a large community around Saffron Hill nicknamed ”Little Italy” but they began to drift westwards, many wishing to make a life for themselves after being interned during the war. They set up cafes with distinctive Formica tables and Art Deco chrome Vitrolite exteriors. One of the last examples is E. Pellicci to be found on Bethnal Green Road. From the yellow and chrome Vitrolite exterior to the warm wooden interior this is an unbelievable Deco classic. Every part of this superb cafe should be held in the trust of the nation.

It wasn’t long before the boys from Seattle arrived offering their milky concoction far removed from a real Italian cappuccino. Their largest coffee cup at 916ml holds more liquid than a human stomach. So weak is this brew many of their customers have been asking for an extra shot and they have recently announced they intend to put coffee in their coffee.

But if a Dark Chocolate Cherry Mocha is your thing – enjoy.

Soho once a French district was to become the centre for Italian coffee culture. By 1953 coffee bars had sprung up. The first was The Moka espresso bar at 29 Frith Street opened by actress Gina Lollabrigida but soon many would follow with their distinctive trend of Formica and real coffee. Only a few doors down from where The Moka opened and just celebrating 60 years in Soho is the most famous coffee bar of all Bar Italia.

So here is the way Italians make their coffee:

If you ask for a “caffè” in a bar in Italy, you would be given an espresso. If you ask for a “latte” in an Italian coffee bar, you will be given a glass of milk.

“Capucco” (“Cappuccino”) is the breakfast drink – Italians can’t understand why you would have a drink containing milk with food later in the day; it doesn’t help your digestion. The perfect cappuccino is served in a cup no bigger than 6fl oz. A third would be coffee, a third steamed milk and a third silky-smooth foamed milk. You then drink the black coffee with the steamed and foamed milk. The water hitting the coffee should be between 90°C and 95°C, you should never use boiling water to produce coffee; using water at 100 °C would smash the flavours.

The shape of the cup is very important. If you have a square-shaped cup with a flat bottom and right angles, when the coffee hits, the crema (the nice golden brown foam on top of an espresso) is dispersed. What encourages the crema to rise to the top of the coffee is the cup shape. If it’s curved-based, often with a nodule at the bottom, it encourages the cream to creep up the sides and onto the top of the coffee, which is where it should be.

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.

Television’s Dickens (03.02.12)

It was last year when walking down a high street in Dorset I saw in the window of a charity shop Jack Rosenthal’s autobiography for the bargain price of £3. Having always liked his plays I could not wait to get home to start reading, but when I opened its first pages was surprised to find the text had been written in the format of a play.

The early disappointment quickly dissipated for reading the book Jack seemed to leap from each page with life’s anecdotes narrated with pathos and humility, with beautiful observations of the inherent caricature in human behaviour.

His death in 2004 led The Guardian to dub him “television’s Charles Dickens”, now next week on 7th February marks the bi-centenary of Dickens’s birth and you are going to hear an awful lot about Dickensian London, but nearly eight years after his death not much of our own master Twentieth Century wordsmith who also based many of his stories around London.

So in the interest of balance, I’ve selected a play that defined one of the iconic characters of the Capital from the dozens of scripts that he wrote. For London’s cabbies, he is best known for his 1979 play The Knowledge. It was the last one-off drama ever to be made by Euston Films, filmed around central London (watch out for a prime piece of “George Davis is innocent OK” graffiti), which features outside shots of the old Carriage Office in Penton Street along with some pretty run-down parts of London.

Known for his attention to detail and creating credible characters, good research played a large part in writing The Knowledge he spent many hours amongst the cabbie fraternity, and in so doing Jack was granted an honorary taxi driver’s license in the process.

The story charts the trials and tribulations of four men attempting to learn the knowledge to become a London cabbie. Chris played by Mick Ford is the youngest of the four, he is on the dole and has given up all hope of finding a job. Dippy and dopey he is encouraged to start the knowledge by his exasperated girlfriend Janet (“Look, I can’t help the word ‘job’ coming up in the conversation, it’s a word!”), eventually, he becomes so engrossed in learning the knowledge his girlfriend decides it’s either the knowledge or her in their relationship – she loses.

Gordon played by the late Michael Elphick is a cowboy builder and serial womaniser (“Ignorance is bliss. My wife is completely blissful about the whole thing.”), who leaves behind his irate wife (played by Jack Rosenthal’s wife Maureen Lipman) to spend half of his time learning London’s road routes and use it as an excuse to carry on an extra-marital affair. Jonathan Lynn plays Ted Margolis who comes from a Jewish cabbie dynasty and is the most confident of the quartet and is quickly pages ahead of his fellow Knowledge boys in memorizing the routes but makes the mistake of trying to ingratiate himself with Mr Burgess, nicknamed The Vampire played with delicious sadistic pleasure by Nigel Hawthorne (“I won’t take offence if anyone here decides to call me ‘Sir’”) and lastly the elderly Walters (David Ryall), is so much one of life’s losers he is nicknamed “Titanic” who views The Knowledge an escape from his uncommunicative wife. He attempts to learn all the runs on a bicycle and farcically wobbles all around London in an effort to do so – frequently falling from his bike.

At intervals they are called in to see Mr Burgess for an appearance, which involves the student attempting to describe verbally the runs whilst Burgess endeavours to put them off with a series of diversions often involving throwing water or putting Vick nasal inhalers up his nose. Gordon is kicked off the Knowledge for losing his temper while being tested by the Vampire. Ted Margolis of course passes with flying colours only to lose his licence the day he gets it after going to a pub with the rest of the boys to celebrate passing. Chris passes and then is admonished by a passenger when he gets the first route he learnt – Manor House to Gibson Square – for being cheeky and Titanic scrapes through and leaves his wife. He tells the boys she begged him to come back, when truly it can be heard her shouting,” Piss off and don’t come back”.

Jack Rosenthal’s prime interest lay in the way people interacted with each other, much like Charles Dickens, and in the relationship between individuals and institutions. In much of his work, he wrote about particular groups of working men, The Knowledge was about trainee taxi drivers, London’s Burning was about firemen, and Dustbinmen was about dustmen. In each, he deftly observed the conflict between the aspirations of the protagonists and what others demanded of them.

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.

Lost in translation (31.01.12)

London cabbies have the reputation that they have an opinion on everything; they will not go south of the River; and know just about anything to do with London, all of which we do little to dispel, but which are patently untrue.

This third urban myth that we are in fact just a mobile information desk to catch “The Lost” and reliably point them in the right direction must consume hours of our time every day.

Contemplating the meaning of life whilst waiting at traffic lights, the loss break into one’s hypnotic state, surprise and momentarily disorientated you. They ask with trepidation sometimes in a northern accent “Do you know the way to the Lyceum for the Lion King”?

You see it’s 7.21 in the evening, they are hopelessly lost and the show commences in nine minutes. Sure you can drive them, but it’s Covent Garden, gridlocked as usual, and you know with the one-way systems it’s far quicker to walk.

You are flummoxed, but you must never reveal this, you’re the world authority on everything London, right? But as you spend an entire lifetime driving, walking in the opposite direction to the road’s one-way system is – well just weird.

Don’t show your indecision, not a frown must pass your countenance, not even for a nanosecond. “Certainly Sir, it isn’t far from here, just a few minutes’ walk away”.

That has bought a few more seconds thought. Do you now send them across the Piazza, but what does the back of the Opera House look like? Would they know when to turn right? And are they going to even know when to turn into that famous square?

Your momentarily pause in answering has brought on near hysteria from the girlfriend, who has spent hours getting ready little realising that Londoners dress down nowadays to go to the theatre. They have spent nearly an hour walking around the area’s labyrinthine streets and to cap it all can hardly understand the cabbie with his cockney accent.

By now, and I swear TfL do this deliberately – the lights have changed and that nice private hire driver in his Mercedes is suggesting, by the use of his horn, that conversing with pedestrians just isn’t to his liking.

The best pedestrian route that was forming in your brain has disappeared from your consciousness, and to make matters worse at the end of the road, now empty of traffic due to your inability to move forward, is a fare.

“Look walk just down to the end of the street, turn left and you can’t miss it”. Yes very professional, but at least they start to move in the right direction. And come to think of it you haven’t told them that the start of the show is not to be missed with a sun rising over Africa’s savannah.

Now, where was that fare I saw?

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.

A different view (27.01.12)

It was in 1962 with the construction of the Post Office Tower that St. Paul’s Cathedral lost its claim to be London’s tallest building after dominating the City’s skyline for centuries. It then took nearly 20 years before the NatWest Tower laid claim to that crown, but it now seems a race to the top.

Socio-economists are those people who, if you didn’t know – or care, study the social mood of society and they have argued that ladies’ hemlines reflect the price of shares (when they rise so do shares and vice versa). The opposite could be paid of building developers, for in times of hardship they build ever higher.

The Empire State building in New York was started in 1930 in competition with 40 Wall Street and the Chrysler Building to become the world’s tallest building. The Empire State building won and was opened on 1st May 1931 just in time to coincide with the great depression, in fact, the building wouldn’t become profitable until 1950 by which time it was dubbed “The Empty State Building”.

Centre Point suffered a similar fate, when completed in 1966 it remained empty for years as its developer sought to find a sole tenant to take the entire 34 floors. For a recent development, it is hard to get more central in the City of London financial district than the Walbrook. This gleaming glass box designed by Norman Foster’s firm sits less than 660 feet from the Bank of England and almost two years after its completion the office building remains empty.

Just why do developers choose to build during times of economic woes? The Georgian landowners would employ their estate workers at times of hardship to build obelisks and follies for their landscaped gardens in a philanthropic gesture to prevent their staff from starving to death.

Not so the developers of the City. By choosing to construct the largest/tallest/ugliest or maddest in a recession they hope to economise on labour and material costs.

Now after 350 years St. Paul’s is surrounded by building sites each intending to make its mark on London’s landscape. Bishopsgate – has there ever been a time since the Romans when this road wasn’t dug up? – has two, the Heron Tower completed last year and the 64-storey Pinnacle which coincidentally at the time of writing has had its construction halted with only 7 floors built due to lack of funding. If the Pinnacle, or Helter Skelter as it has been dubbed, is ever finished it will be the tallest tower in the City of London and the second tallest in the European Union. There is the Walkie Talkie in Fenchurch Street, Leadenhall Street’s Cheesegrater and the big daddy of them all the Shard at London Bridge, now the tallest building in the European Union.

Will they improve London’s vista? That is not likely for quaint beauty is not their purpose. London is a world-class city and as such cannot be preserved in aspic with only tourism to fill its coffers – Europe has plenty of other heritage cities.

London lost its charm when it had to be rebuilt after the Blitz. The question that should be asked is will these monoliths make a profit? Many skyscrapers have a poor track record, let us hope that more companies will relocate to London and not take the BBC’s lead and move up north. Hopefully, if there are enough jobs in London to fill their floors with office workers some might have the need for a cab.

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.

A close shave (25.01.12)

For many years I’ve thought of Sweeny Todd as an urban myth, alongside Robin Hood and King Arthur, but a book by the late Peter Haining Sweeny Todd: The Real Story of The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has gone some way to dispelling that belief, although it must be said that many academics dispute his findings. He asserts that the 25th of January 2012 marks the 210th anniversary of Todd’s hanging for crimes which if true would make him Britain’s most prolific serial killer.

His abused early life would match the profile for the makings of a psychopath. Todd was born on 26th October 1756 in Brick Lane to a mother who for a living wound silk in Spitalfields and a drunken father employed as a silk weaver and who would regularly beat his son and wife. Spoilt by the mother who as he later related “would make quite a pet of me”, kissing him and calling him a pretty boy. As he grew up hating his life at home Todd would visit the nearby Tower of London where instruments of torture were displayed to discourage miscreants.

In the harsh winter of 1768 both his parents seem to have succumbed to gin, the cold or both and disappeared from the records and from Todd’s life.

Two years later at the age of 14 Todd entered Newgate Prison for an unrecorded crime and was to spend five years within its walls working with a man called Plummer the prison’s barber. As his assistant, Todd would soap the condemned men’s chins for shaving before they walked to the gallows. A tough life in Newgate for on one occasion he was left for dead after a beating for pilfering from a murderer.

On his release in 1775 semi-literate, Todd had acquired new skills which he intended to put to good use. He set himself up as a street corner barber and within five years had opened a barbers shop near Hyde Park corner.

Violence surrounded him, his shop was within walking distance of the gibbet at Tyburn which was to be the principal place of execution in London for the next three years until Tyburn’s gallows were decommissioned in 1783 when Newgate was used as London’s principal place of execution as Todd would later discover. He hated his parents and abused his wife he had in short all the makings of a modern-day serial killer.

In December 1784 an annual news chronicle reported a story: “A young gentleman, by chance coming into the barber’s shop to be shaved and dressed, and being in liquor, mentioned having seen a fine girl in Hamilton Street, from whom he had had certain favours the night before. The barber, concluding this to be his wife, and in the height of his frenzy, cut the young gentleman’s throat from ear to ear and absconded.” Todd would recount later after his arrest “My first ‘un was a young gent at Hyde Park Corner. Slit him from ear to ear, I did”.

He next appeared at 186 Fleet Street (now home to the Dundee Courier) in a dilapidated shop adjacent to St. Dunstan’s Church, just yards from Bell Yard, the two locations were connected by a series of tunnels beneath the church. Paying £125 for the lease he set himself up as a barber-surgeon, with a red and white striped pole representing the bandages and blood of his profession, and above the shop a yellow painted sign reading “Sweeny Todd, Barber”. In the windows were jars displaying rotten teeth showcasing his prowess at extraction.

London’s first newspaper the Daily Courant then located in Crane Court just a few yards up Fleet Street from Todd’s barber shop reported the murder on 14th April 1785 of a young gentleman who had been seen in conversation with a man dressed as a barber stating “The two men came to an argument, and of a sudden, the barber took from his clothing a razor and slit the throat of the young man, thereafter disappearing and was seen no more”.

Four other murders near his shop have been attributed to Todd, an apprentice who was carrying money for his master, a pawnbroker, a share dealer and a petty crook. Not wishing to be caught in the street committing foul deeds he had now devised a way of dispatching his victims within the confines of his shop. Probably inspired by a waxworks exhibition in Fleet Street which featured revolving machinery which made the waxworks kick out to frighten visitors, his chair was positioned on either side of a moveable square of floorboards. The only evidence of its use is of victim Thomas Shadwell, a watchman at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, in the form of an incomplete document written by the victim’s son.

He now needed a means of disposing of his victims and a young widow called Mrs Lovett who had a penchant for strong, violent men and owned a baker’s shop nearby fitted the bill. As with serial killers, he repeated his method; after murdering he would take clothing and valuables and then would strip the body and carry the body parts in a box through the tunnels beneath St. Dunstan’s Church where Mrs Lovett would use the remains as filling for her meat pies.

In a city, which by the standards of today we would find nauseating, the stench of rotting bodies in the area prompted the Daily Courant to report: “The dreadful charnel house sort of smell would make itself most painfully and disagreeably apparent”.

Enter Richard Blunt of the newly formed Bow Street Runners being suspicious of Todd told his men to watch the shop and on several occasions, he visited the barber himself and was shaved, but always had a companion.
It was when they entered the tunnels they found the evidence they needed of his crimes. His Blunt’s party entered a disused family vault to find the recent remains of human bodies and following a trail of footprints found themselves at the back of Lovett’s underground cookhouse. Later returning to Todd’s barber shop when he was out evidence of found including the valuables stolen from his victims before being turned into pies.

Lovett killed herself with poison before coming to trial, but in the Christmas of 1801 London witnessed “one of the trials of the age”. Todd was charged at the Old Bailey with a single murder that of Francis Thornhill, who had on his person before disappearing a string of pearls worth £16,000 intended for a young woman in London. He entered Todd’s shop to be shaved never to be seen again, Todd later pawned them for £1,000.

The Attorney General told the court that clothing from 160 people had been found in the shop, and a leg bone found in the church vaults belong to Thornhill. A surgeon, Sylvester Steers, who had treated Thornhill for a leg fracture, recognised the bone as his patient’s.

The jury took just 5 minutes to reach their guilty verdict. Sweeny Todd was not hanged at Tyburn but was taken from his cell in Newgate on the morning of 25th January 1802 and hanged in front of a crowd of thousands. He was 46 years old. After hanging for an hour his body was carried to the Royal College of Surgeons and ironically was butchered for the benefit of medical science.

The case of Britain’s most prolific killer inspired The Strong of Pearls, a serial published in a weekly magazine in 1846, it was dramatised by George Dibdin Pitt in 1842, in what is regarded as the first true-life drama, and it has been the basis for numerous books, plays and films, and inspired Stephen Sondheim for write a musical. The term Sweeny has in turn become cockney rhyming slang for the Metropolitan police’s Flying Squad which then became a long-running television drama The Sweeny 1975-82.