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.

Make do and mend (05.01.2010)

In a world obsessed with the throwaway culture, London has a few examples of recycling parts of its demolished iconic buildings, not to save them for posterity, you understand, but to increase the developers’ profits.

An Inspired Idea

If you are going to demolish a Wren church you don’t wish to be perceived as a vandal, Oh No.! So how can one give Londoners a symbol of your altruism? Why you preserve the spire of course, but where to re-erect such an historic structure, representing Resurgam as Wren coined it, describing restoring London to its former glory after the Great Fire. And what better location can there be for the spire than a 1960’s housing estate in South-East London? Well that’s the fate of St. Antholin Church, first its spire was sold for £5, a bargain considering its Wren’s only stone spire and octagonal to boot, then for good measure the church was demolished 46 years later.

London Bridge in Hackney?

We have all enjoyed the anecdotal story of selling London Bridge for $2.5 million to the Americans so they could re-erect it at Lake Havasu City, Arizona, when they were under the impression it was Tower Bridge they were purchasing in order to plonk it in the middle of a desert. But what happened to London Bridge’s predecessor? Some of the stonework was incorporated in Adelaide House situated on the north side of the existing bridge, 49 Heathfield Road SW18 is built of the stuff, two stone alcoves grace Victoria Park in Hackney, while a third alcove is to be found in the courtyard of Guys Hospital.

Exporting Romford

When the old Mawney Arms public house was transformed from a traditional East London boozer into a Gastropub, the old interiors didn’t end up in a skip. Complete with the original pub sign it ended its travels in Thailand at a place called Koh Samui. So if you are passing while on holiday and fancy a curry and a pint, it’s available on Thursday during the darts contest.

Gherked off

The grade II listed Baltic Exchange when damaged by an IRA bomb was dismantled piece by peace at a cost of £4milllion. In its place proudly stands the Erotic Gherkin (sorry the Swiss Re: Tower), a testament to modernity. In June 2006 an Estonian businessman while trawling the web for reclaimed flooring came across an advert for the Baltic Exchange being stored in a barn in Kent. Buying it for £800,000 he has shipped it in 49 containers to Central Tallinn, Estonia. All he has to do now is find what part goes where in his jigsaw.

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.

New Year’s Resolutions (01.01.10)

A Happy New Year to anybody who stumbles across this blog, whether by accident or design.

In keeping with the tradition of making a New Year resolution only to break it within one week, I submit for your consideration a selection, which might if adopted, make travelling in London less odious. With more than a glancing nod at an excellent post by my erstwhile colleague The Cabbies Capital, I give you CabbieBlog’s New Year Resolutions:

THE GOOD: Cab drivers are in the main professional, courteous and, well nearly always right. Anyone who drives in London has had a cab stop for no apparent reason in front of him, and if we protest, the cabbie looks done from his eyrie at you in a smug and self righteous manner. Equally cabs are prone to make unexpected u-turns holding up the traffic while the driver completes his manoeuvre sometime without a word of thanks to anyone inconvenienced.

Most cab drivers try to be considerate, it makes no sense for us to damage our vehicles, by careless driving, and it’s our business for God’s sake. So my New Year Resolution will be to thank you profusely for letting me stop, start, pull away, reverse or u-turn near you.

THE BAD: 4×4 drivers. Never I repeat, never give the drivers of these contraptions any consideration. They now have halogen light to mesmerise you in their presence, just like a cobra with its prey. They approach you and expect you to wait for their next move; they now even have LED running lights and fog lights to warn the rest of us to get out of their way. If you only keep one resolution this year make it this one.

This is for all of you. Give way means pausing at the line in the road, not with your nose sticking out, its bloody frightening on a bike having a car block your passage (it doesn’t do much for that part of your anatomy either). And that line at traffic lights indicates where you stop BEHIND, not the green coloured tarmac section for bikes.

THE SAD: Pedestrians. Why of why do you migrate like lemmings near Oxford Street oblivious to the traffic and deep in conversation on your mobile phones. Why stand near a pedestrian crossing often on the zigzags blinking and wondering why the cars don’t stop for you. When you do have the inspired logic to use a pedestrian crossing, wait for the approaching vehicles to stop, don’t walk straight off the pavement expecting that bus to have the stopping power of an F1 car. And why oh why do you have to stand by a pedestrian crossing deep in conversation when you have no intention to cross the road? So just use the grey matter between your ears for once, it might just save your life.

THE MAD: Pizza couriers. These motorised push bikes have the road holding ability of a blancmange. Don’t ride as if you have a death wish, if the pizza is 30 seconds late arriving, tough.

Cyclists. These are some of the most competent of road users, but please, please don’t jump red lights, that boy racer in his dad’s BMW M3 hasn’t seen you, all he is interested in seeing is the green light. And one last comment, pedestrians have right of way on pedestrian crossings, the clue is in the title. I know it’s hard to have to stop once in a while, but your foot will have to touch the tarmac once or twice during your journey home.

THE UGLY: As ugly as the back of a bus, is never more true than when one of these 18m monsters pulls out as you are making a feeble attempt to pass it. Just because the Highway Code says we have to give way to you, doesn’t give you the absolute right to move out into traffic at a whim, just use your indicators. And one final comment, when you are ahead of the timetable don’t drive at 8 mph.

That’s it then, I know most of this will be ignored, but you know keep just one of these resolutions this year and moving around London might become enjoyable. Just don’t hold your breath for it to happen.

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.

Journey to the Mystic East (13.11.09)

“Olympic Route Network”, the phrase just conjures up a route for graceful athletics to compete on. The Greeks would have given the road from Marathon to Athens an appropriately romantic title.

As predicted by CabbieBlog priority lanes are proposed between the West End and Olympic Park.

The Olympic Committee has argued that the distance and time taken necessitates giving Olympic officials and organisers a dedicated priority lane on London’s already overcrowded roads.

So while anybody foolish enough to drive in London during the 2012 Olympics sits in a traffic jam, the Olympic Lane will be quieter than the London Mayor’s Cycle Fridays, which aimed at encouraging commuting by bike. Unfortunately some days only two bikers showed up at a cost of £68.80 each. Olympics officials wouldn’t get out of bed if a derisory amount like that was going to be wasted on them.

But the reason that the Olympic organisers are staying in the West End and not the myriad of decent hotels built in London’s Docklands is simple: Wives; their husbands idea of a perfect day might be to watch men throwing spears or hammers, but the wives want to shop. And while all the hotel chains have 5-star hotels near the Olympic Park there is no Harrods or Harvey Nichols.

While we are constantly being told that 2012 is going to be the greenest Olympics in history, its organisers intend to gridlock large parts of central London with stationery traffic pumping out high levels of fumes by taking away 50 per cent of the road capacity. And if you have the temerity to venture into these acres of empty tarmac you will get, courtesy of Transport for London a fine of £5,000.

All this to enable a favoured few to drive 16 miles every day back and forth to their hotels unimpeded.

As they say “it’s not the winning that counts, but the taking part”. Unless that is, you are trying to work in London to pay for their “taking part”.

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.

Lest We Forget (11.11.09)

This Remembrance Day go along to the corner of Clerkenwell Road and Hatton Garden. There you will find a blue plaque to Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February, 1840 – 24 November, 1916) an American born inventor who emigrated to England and adopted British citizenship. He was the inventor of the Maxim gun, the first portable, fully automatic machine gun.

Maxim was reported to have said: “In 1882 I was in Vienna, where I met an American whom I had known in the States. He said: ‘Hang your chemistry and electricity! If you want to make a pile of money, invent something that will enable these Europeans to cut each others’ throats with greater facility”.

As a child, Maxim had been knocked over by a rifle’s recoil, and this inspired him to use that recoil force to automatically operate a gun. Between 1883 and 1885 Maxim patented gas, recoil and blow-back methods of operation. After moving to England, he settled in West Norwood where he developed his design for an automatic weapon. He thoughtfully ran announcements in the local press warning that he would be experimenting with the gun in his garden and that neighbours should keep their windows open to avoid the danger of broken glass.

Maxim founded an armaments company to produce his machine gun which later merged with Nordenfeldt and the Vickers Corporation in 1896, becoming ‘Vickers, Son & Maxim’. Their updated design was the standard British machine gun for many years. Sales of the Maxim gun were bought and used extensively by both sides during World War I.

The Battle of the Somme fought from July to November 1916, was among the largest battles of the First World War. With more than 1.5 million casualties, it is also one of the bloodiest military operations recorded. The Allied forces attempted to break through the German lines along a 12-mile front north and south of the River Somme in northern France. The battle is best remembered for its first day, 1 July 1916, on which the British suffered 57,470 casualties, including 19,240 dead – the bloodiest day in the history of the British Army.

Maxim died four months after the start of the Battle of the Somme, profoundly deaf as his hearing had been damaged by years of exposure to the noise of experimenting with his gun.

If only he had stopped with his other weapon of mass destruction, history might have been different . . . the ubiquitous mouse trap.

As a curious footnote the building opposite the blue plaque was the Old Holborn tobacco factory, another purveyor of death.

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.

Say No to NoHo (03.11.09)

Say No to NoHo (03.11.09)My dream of immortality has been dashed, CabbieBlog’s birthplace has been demolished and the old Middlesex Hospital site is being redeveloped.

In a re-branding exercise unmatched since Datsun decided to pick Cherry as their new car’s name (either you were driving a small red fruit or making a statement on your virginity), they’re calling the development NoHo.

Situated a quarter of a mile north from Soho the title presumably comes from being “Not Soho”.

Soho derives its name from the cry given by hunters in the forest originally situated there when their quarry had been spotted. Similar to today’s cry of Tally Ho!

So NoHo must have the opposite connotation “no quarry spotted”, presumably for disappointed property hunters.

The Residents in the area are enraged at this blatant attempt to rename this area known as Fitzrovia.

The old hospital has now been demolished, except for a range of buildings on Nassau Street. Now the development is currently on hold after Candy and Candy, the interior developers, left the development, leaving the site in the hands of the Kaupthing Bank.

In its place a perimeter hoarding in black has been erected, giving both colour and texture to this otherwise featureless area, a marked improvement to the elegant Edwardian building that it replaces.

Walking past the site, I noticed recently a further twist to the areas’ gentrification, the name NoHo has been removed from the sleek black hoardings. But at least the black looks cool.