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.

Oranges and Lemons (22.10.2010)

Standing in the shadow of the East London Mosque in a modest Grand II listed premises on Whitechapel Road is Britain’s oldest manufacturer. As the mosque calls out for worshippers to attend their daily prayers this small factory continues to produce the bells used to call Christians to their place of worship, just as it has done since 1583.

The Church Bell Foundry to give it its formal name was established even earlier in 1570, although a firm link predates even this to 1420 when a Richard Chamberlain was known as a “bell-founder of Aldgate”.

When most heavy industry has left London this remarkable factory is still a family-owned and run company. Having produced some of the world’s great bells including Big Ben, America’s Liberty Bell and bells for what was at the time Russia’s new capital St. Petersburg and even today over 80 per cent of production is making church bells and associated accessories.

The premises date from 1670, just four years after the Great Fire of London, although this eastern end of the City was untouched by the conflagration. It is built on the site of an inn called the Artichoke whose cellars survive and are still used by the foundry today.

The building’s entrance is through a replica bell frame of the company most famous bell, needing 10.5 tons of molten copper mixed with 3 tons of tin “Big Ben” is still the largest bell ever made in London.

Originally the order for the 16-ton bell was given to another bell foundry; Warners of Cripplegate at their Norton factory near Stockton-on-Tees who cast the new bell in August 1856. It was transported by rail and sea to London, and on arrival at the Port of London, it was placed on a carriage and pulled across Westminster Bridge by 16 white horses. The bell was hung in New Palace Yard and it was tested each day until 17th October 1857 when a 4 foot crack appeared, but no-one would accept the blame. Theories included the composition of the bell’s metal or its dimensions. Warners blamed Edmund Denison, an abrasive lawyer who had designed the clock’s mechanism for insisting on increasing the hammer’s weight from 355kg to 660kg. Warners asked too high a price to break up and recast the bell so George Mears at the Whitechapel Foundry was appointed.

The bell was melted down and recast successfully by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry on 10th April 1858, and when finished it took 16 horses the best part of a day to haul the gigantic bell from Whitechapel to Parliament Square.

There are two theories about the origins of the name “Big Ben”: Around the time the clock was due to be completed, the prize fighter and publican Ben Caunt went 60 rounds with the best bare-knuckle boxer in the country, Nat Langham. The bout was declared a draw but it made both men national heroes. Ben Caunt was a huge man and one story has it that the great bell was named after him. The other story attributes the name to Benjamin Hall, the chief commissioner of works, who was addressing the House on the subject of a name for the new bell tower when, to great laughter, someone shouted “Call it Big Ben!”, but no record is to be found in Hansard of this remark.

When the time came to install the bell although this bell was 2.5 tonnes lighter than the first, its dimensions meant it was too large to fit up the Clock Tower’s shaft vertically so Big Ben was turned on its side and winched up. It took 30 hours to winch the bell to the belfry in October 1858. The four quarter bells, which chime on the quarter hour, were already in place.

Big Ben rang out on 11 July 1859 but its success was short-lived. In September 1859, the new bell also cracked and Big Ben was silent for four years. During this time, the hour was struck on the fourth quarter bell.

In 1863, a solution was found to Big Ben’s silence by Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal. Big Ben was turned by a quarter turn so the hammer struck a different spot; the hammer was replaced by a lighter version; and a small square was cut into the bell to prevent the crack from spreading.

The total cost of making the clock and bells and installing them in the Clock Tower reached £22,000.

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.

Demographic analysis (15.10.2010)

This month London’s first French language terrestrial radio station starts broadcasting to the capital’s 400,000 native French speakers as a reminder of their own culture, but why are so many French institutions based around South Kensington?

It’s a subject that has perplexed me for years, if not decades and here I feel I might need some help.

London is often said to be a conglomeration of villages each with its own identity, but also within our City – as with its villages – are islands of immigrant settlements each with their own economic, social and cultural identities.

But here’s the question I would like answered: What attracts ethnic, religious or cultural groups to live in particular areas?

For instance why have the Chinese moved into Chinatown; why are a few streets at the north of Stamford Hill the home to Europe’s largest Hasidic and Adeni Jewish communities. The Greeks frequent Green Lanes and why would you find Little Lebanon, with its large Arabic population along the southern stretch of Edgware Road.

When I first started working in London my company was located in Clerkenwell known then as Little Italy, there was to be found an Italian delicatessen, restaurants serving pasta and pizza, an Italian church, it even had (and still does) an Italian driving school, presumably to teach you Italian driving skills.

Earls Court is known as Kangaroo Court due to the large number of antipodeans students in digs there.

The Irish once populated Kilburn while the Whitechapel Road supports an almost exclusive population of Muslims.

For while I can understand later arrivals setting up home near people of their own ethnic mix for language, security or cultural reasons but what makes the first settlers adopt a particular area?

For the large Afro-Caribbean community in Brixton David Long in his book The London Underground suggests:

During the war a series of deep level air raid shelters were built designed in such a fashion they could eventually be linked up to form a super underground railway, but lack of money after the war meant this scheme was abandoned. So in 1948 the Clapham Common Deep Level Shelter became briefly home to several hundred Commonwealth citizens who arrived on the SS Empire Windrush, laying the foundations for nearby Brixton’s Afro-Caribbean community.

So why have different divergent communities decided at random to live in different areas of London, any theories are to be welcomed?

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.

Slow boat from china (12.10.2010)

If ever evidence was needed to support the claim that London’s streets were paved with gold the place to find it would be Exhibition Road. This 3/4mile long road is undergoing a transition that in the words of Nick Paget-Brown, Kensington and Chelsea’s Cabinet Member for Transport will transform it into “the most beautiful road in London”.

Unable to source enough granite locally the Tory council has obtained enough stone to match the colour required from China and by using a slow boat from China the council claim the “carbon footprint” is much reduced. An alternative supplier in the north of England would presumably have parachuted in the granite sets by a gas guzzling Tornado jet.

The total project is estimated to cost £29 million which equates to £22,000 per yard; truly London’s streets are paved with gold.

When completed both drivers and pedestrians will share the same space in what is termed a “transition zone”. The most recognisable characteristic of shared space is the absence of street clutter, such as conventional traffic signals, barriers, signs and road markings. This according to the council encourages motorists to slow down, engage with their surroundings and make eye contact with pedestrians – resulting in a higher quality and more usable street area, with enhanced road safety.

When writing last year I described Kensington and Chelsea’s attitude to both pedestrians and vehicles sharing this road as:

“For most of us who use London’s roads encounter inappropriate speeding, overtaking on the nearside, rude and careless drivers, and a complete disregard of pedestrians and cyclists.”

But it would appear that The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s roads department don’t populate the world that I live in (or most accurately the world that I drive in).

Their world is akin to Camberwick Green when everybody is aware of other road users, greeting them with a cheery riposte, and continuing on their journey unimpeded. They help little old ladies cross the road and slow down for children.”

The Royal National Institute for the Blind have been objecting to the plan since its inception even resorting to 150 blind and partially sighted people campaigning outside the London Assembly. The western side of Exhibition Road is used by 19 million pedestrians a year visiting the many attractions in the area, surely there is still time to ban vehicles for most of the day and let everybody enjoy the space of “the most beautiful road in London”.

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.

Blowing my own trumpet (05.10.2010)

The next time you get in a London taxi, ignore the driver’s valuable contribution to solving Britain’s debt crisis and try to sit back and relax, because hotel.com in their annual survey on the world’s taxis suggests you are in very safe hands, comprehensively beating its rivals, taking top spot for a third year in a row.

In the poll of 1,900 travellers around the world, London gained 56 per cent of the vote, compared to its nearest rival New York’s 28 per cent in categories including friendliness, cleanliness, driving standards and knowledge of the area.

You won’t be surprised to learn that London’s taxis were also voted the most expensive, though of course financial advice from your driver doesn’t come cheap, but surprisingly considering how quiet the trade is at the moment, London failed to win on availability, where New York, which has occupied a consistent second place over the past three years, polled highest.

For all business travellers the concerns of taking taxis in an unknown city will be familiar. Will you be taken on a tortuous route either through incompetence or malicious intent? Will the fare suddenly shoot up as the meter mysteriously ceases to function? Will your driver’s command of English suddenly fail him when it comes to pay him? Or has your driver got a “cousin” who will give you a good deal for getting you to the airport?

This high poll rating for London is all the more surprising, in a city on the cusp of hosting the Olympics and now making a bid for football’s world cup, when the powers-that-be seem determined to model its transport infrastructure on Mumbai.

The commuter train network system is expensive and overcrowded to such an extent that if it was cattle and not people being crammed into the carriages, the animal rights brigade would be demanding to close it down; the tube system, which hasn’t been upgraded since the old king died and has large sections of its network closed at weekends and which shuts down every night just as people want to make their way home from an evening out; the much heralded and heavily subsidised bus network is slow, cumbersome and runs thousands of empty buses that no one needs for most of the day, just look at Oxford Street, then almost unbelievably at night, when the tube is shut and travel options limited, the profitable bus companies run a ludicrously reduced service to a select few places; the minicab trade, despite being licensed, is manned by a transient workforce, who often resort to illegal and dubious practices to survive in a trade that has no self respect.

To complete the authentic Mumbai ambience the bell ringing and banshee like cries from the army of rickshaw riders, complete the descent of the image and reputation of this once great City into that of third-world status.

I would argue that now the only section of this capital’s transport infrastructure that is professional, reliable and genuinely world class is the Licensed London Cabbies. This worldwide recognition would be an achievement for a cab service anywhere in the World but to obtain it in a City as chaotic as this one, has to be seen as nothing short of miraculous.

We achieved this award despite operating across a road network that is near collapse, as the profit hungry privatised utilities close large parts of it on a daily basis, and as a disjointed network of local authorities implement ludicrous traffic schemes on an ad hoc basis in an attempt to force people off the roads, while running a gauntlet of parking and traffic cameras that constantly hinder and fine us just for doing our job and finally we did it despite having to operate under a licensing regime that is ruthless and draconian where we are concerned, whilst being hopelessly lenient and liberal with our competitors.

But if you are still not convinced on the standard attained by London’s cabbies try Bangkok which rose to fifth place overall, where the dubious pleasure of sitting in a tuk tuk is left to the reader’s discretion or nerve, enter into conversation with drivers in Paris or New York who generously share the distinction of being the world’s rudest cabbies.

And when you’re next enjoying a white-knuckle ride through the streets of Rome, it is perhaps best to avoid considering that the city’s taxi drivers were awarded the lowest quality-of-driving ranking. Instead, recall the opinion of Antonio Martino, an Italian politician—and thank your good luck that you’re not 140 miles south:

“In Milan, traffic lights are instructions. In Rome, they are suggestions. In Naples, they are Christmas decorations.”

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.

Fat Flying Rats (28.09.2010)

Using my ATM has of late been a hazardous experience, not from any street crime, but a far more dangerous assailant coming from the sky. Our local bank has erected a rather splendid sign above its frontage which has proved a perfect perch for pigeons, dozens of them. While ex-mayor Ken Livingstone’s most positive contribution to London has been to reduce the pigeons of Trafalgar Square from 4,000 to a mere 120, they have unfortunately like other vagrants just moved elsewhere.

He first banned the sale of pigeon feed in 2001 resulting in a family business that had traded for decades having to shut shop. Next at a cost of £60,000 a year he introduced a pair of Harris hawks, with their handler, the expense has almost certainly been covered by the reduction in the cost of cleaning up pigeon droppings from the surrounding areas.

Unfortunately, the rest of London is still plagued by these feral creatures that carry (sorry about this!) histoplasmosis, cryptococosis and psittacosis, so it would seem the pigeons above my ATM could previously have been a tourist “attraction” from Trafalgar Square.

On my garden on the bird, table are regularly two ring-necked doves, slim beautiful creatures, even if they are a little stupid and the contrast between our doves and London feral pigeons could be not starker.

Now with our fast-food litter lout culture it has given us pigeons so fat that they can hardly fly out of the way of my cab, with many of them having trouble taking off as they are missing a toe or foot after standing in the piles of their own corrosive droppings. These urban birds are even more stupid than their rural cousins, after centuries of evolution, not one of them have realised that by placing their foot even if it is now a stub, on a piece of bread, they wouldn’t have to throw it over their heads, tearing a piece off in the process.

The numbers of our wild friends, along with foxed and rats needs to be reduced, reports recently have included, dive bombing seagulls, foxes biting children in their beds and if it is to be believed rats 30 inches long.

Sparrow hawks regularly kill pigeons in my garden while the other birds are clever enough to get out of the hawks way it’s only the pigeons that get caught, they could be used to keep the numbers in London down, feeding them something to reduce their sex drive might deprive Londoner’s the opportunity of the amusing spectacle of the males courting rituals, but could have the desired effect.

Writing in the Evening Standard Sebastian Shakespeare suggests a course of action which might prove rather startling to tourists, as the bird’s fall of their perch (or their hands) and I quote:

A more pragmatic way might be to hand out poisoned bird feed to tourists and actively encourage them to feed the pigeons. This would kill two birds with one stone, so to speak: the tourists would still get their photo opportunities and it would be a very cost-effective way of keeping the pigeon population down.

If you still have the need for more about pigeons, I would direct you to Pigeon Blog probably the largest site you find on everything that’s amusing about our fat flying friends.