At least we’re still tipping cabbies. A survey by payment app Lopay analysed 57,816 fares paid to more than 2,000 taxi and private hire drivers in London found that the average taxi tip is a relatively healthy 10 per cent (or £3.10). However, the study also found that while ‘passengers are most likely to leave a tip in the evening, between 7pm and midnight’ the worst hours for tipping were ‘recorded between midnight and 5am’. Not sure we can put that down to ‘cultural and political frustrations’, or just drunkenness.
Johnson’s London Dictionary: Carlton Club
CARLTON CLUB (n.) Tory talking shop that doth once exclusively male enclosure until Lady Thatcher, as ex-Premier was required to enter its portal.
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
Be my Valentine
As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, London has seven streets romantically named Valentine. Valentine Avenue, Bexley; Valentine Road, Harrow; Valentines Way, Romford; Valentine Place and Valentine Row, Southwark; and then there is Valentine Road, Homerton.
But it’s Valentines Road, Ilford and its environs which can lay claim to having the most ‘Valentines’. Ilford has a Victorian estate near the High Road, and true to those proud Victorians, has streets named after Prime Ministers and outposts of empire: Balfour, Albert, Wellesley, Melbourne, Brisbane, and adjacent to all these empire-building monikers is Valentine Road and Valentine Park on its north-western side.
Even the local telephone number once had VALentine. Now it’s just another of London’s lost telephone exchanges, that once served the Ilford North area around Valentine’s Park from a building on its west side. Sadly it is now the more prosaic, and less romantic, anonymous 020 8554.
Valentines Park is huge at 130 acres, as you would expect with Victorian planning. It is what remains of a country house called Valentines, and its surrounding estate, which helps explain the ornamental lake and walled garden at the northern end, there is also a boating lake, a bandstand and two economically independent cafes.
Incredibly Valentines mansion still stands, and the restored 17th-century house reopened to the public predictably on Valentine’s Day in 2009. It has a small museum, artists are in residence at their studios and musical events are staged. Oh! The second series of the Great British Bake Off was filmed on its lawns.
Featured image: Valentines House Courtesy of Friends of Valentines Mansion (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 UK)
London in Quotations: Heinrich Heine
London crushes the imagination and tears the heart asunder.
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)
London Trivia: Miscarriage of justice
On 12 February 1682 Thomas Thynne predecessor of the current incumbent at Longleat House and the Marquesses of Bath was shot dead in his coach on Pall Mall where now stands the Institute of Directors. Capt. Vratz, Lt. Stern and a pole called Boroski had been hired by Count Königsmarck who fancied Thynne’s wife. The killers were executed, but not so the Swedish count, Königsmark however was acquitted of the charge of being an accessory.
On 12 February 1554 Lady Jane Grey who claimed England’s throne for nine days was beheaded at the Tower after being charged with treason
Composer Ivor Novello spent time in Wormwood Scrubs Prison after being jailed for altering documents relating to his Rolls Royce car
Shoreditch probably takes its name from the ditch of Scorre or Sceorf as it was knowns as Scoredich in 1148
From a first floor room at St Mary’s Hospital on Praed Street, Paddington, Sir Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin
Sir Thomas More, executed by Henry VIII in 1535, was born in Milk Street. There is a statute on the Chelsea Embankment marking the place of the last home
Music hall great Marie Lloyd was born in Plumber Street, Shoreditch in 1870, she was showcased by her father at the Eagle Tavern in Hoxton and in 1884 making her professional début as Bella Delmere
Before Nelson’s statute was hoisted aloft in 1843 fourteen men dined on the platform at the top of the world’s tallest Corinthian column
In London 9 distinct football codes are played: Harrow, Eton (2), Association, Rugby Union and League, Gaelic, Gridiron and Australian rules
The London Hackney Carriages Act 1843 forbids a cabbie whose ‘For Hire’ light is on to seek trade whilst the vehicle is moving – fine £200
William Perkin, inventor of the first synthetic dye – mauve, lived at St David’s Lane Shadwell and was christened at St Paul’s Church Shadwell
On 12 February 1852 at 51 Bedford Street, Strand, plumber George Jennings opened London’s first female public toilets
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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