BANK JUNCTION (n.) Thoroughfare devoid of Hansom cabs, doth encouraging the disabled to explore the City in search of transport.
Dr. Johnson’s London Dictionary for publick consumption in the twenty-first century avail yourself on Twitter @JohnsonsLondon
We challenge our contributors to reply to ten devilishly probing questions about their London and we don’t take “Sorry Gov” for an answer. Everyone sitting in the hot seat they will face the same questions ranging from their favourite way to spend a day out in the capital to their most hated building on London’s skyline to find out what Londoners think about their city. The questions are the same but the answers vary wildly.
My name is Marie-Louise, and I am a London Black Cab driver. I have been a cabbie for just over four years and I absolutely LOVE my job, making passengers smile and giving them a great lasting impression of me! I’m not the usual type of cab driver that you would expect when you hail me down. You will be met with a welcoming smile and big positive, vivacious energy, my flamboyant personality is as much versatile as my dress sense. I enjoy travelling, learning new things, as I don’t know it all and laughing as it’s good for the soul, try it!
My secret London tip is to get lost! You’ll find out so many new things or may end up in a bar or two!
My secret London place wouldn’t be a secret now as you’re going to know! But as I’m one to share it would be Peckham Levels something about being in familiar territory.
London’s cycle lanes the length of a car space but are not being used! Take Euston underpass for one, get rid of the lane and revert it to its original two lanes and get London moving again – well eastbound anyway.
My favourite building or one of them is the Shard! Been there a few times and the view of London/surrounding areas is amazing even better at night.
Most hated building in London? I don’t have one! I reckon if you give them a good clean then they would look nicer, well to look at anyway.
The best view in London as told by a passenger would be in Highgate (Southwood Lane), you can see the Dartford Crossing without wincing, but the view is amazing.
My personal landmark is the buildings in Canary Wharf, just something about staring at it from Greenwich or from the Emirates Air Cable gives me at ease love my city vibes.
London’s best film for me personally is Rocks (2020), it gives a true reflection of London where I grew up and have come to know.
Balthazar in Covent Garden.
I would usually spend my day off by going to the gym and getting a workout done as it helps me start my day off right and then go catch a film as I like to keep on top of the latest films. I then go to my favourite place in London which is Southbank, taking a long stroll down the Embankment, watching everyone around me go by and take in the incredible London sights, grab a coffee and not think about work or being in my cab!! There’s so much to appreciate around us and some parts you can’t get to in a cab.
London is a dizzying delight, full of pomp and pedigree, a place where high culture and cutting-edge trends feed off one another.
Suzane Rowan Kelleher, Donald Olson and Darwin Porter, Frommer’s Europe by Rail
On 5 June 1929 Margaret Bondfield, women’s campaigner and MP, became the first woman to be a minister, under Ramsay Macdonald, as Minister for Labour, and the first woman to become a Privy Councillor
On 5 June 1963 John Profumo resigned as Secretary for War after admitting he had lied over his affair with Christine Keeler
Bow Street was the only police station to have white lights outside instead of the traditional blue – they were ordered by Queen Victoria
The golden flames on top of St. Paul’s lean in the direction the wind was blowing on the night of the Great Fire
In 1637 playwright Ben Jonson was buried upright in Westminster Abbey as he couldn’t afford to pay for a larger space
London’s epic Parliament Square peace protestor (no one else can permanently stay there) Brian Haw, born 1949 stood there since 2 June 2001 until his death in 2011
Harry Potter’s magic luggage trolley sticks out of a wall between platforms 8/9 not 9/10 because J. K.Rowling was thinking of Euston
Until recently Londoners consumed a prodigious amount of champagne, by volume they equalled the entire amount exported by France to America
In the 18th century at the Cat & Mutton, Broadway Market hosted the Soapy Pig Swinging Contest, drovers lathered a pig’s tail and hurled it
The colourful benches on the Southeastern High Speed platform in St Pancras are the five chopped-up Olympic rings once hanging there in 2012
Isaac Newton lived at 87 Jermyn Street, St. James when he worked at the Royal Mint where he was tasked with prosecuting counterfeiters
On 5 June 1939 an assassin attempted to shoot the Duchess of Kent she didn’t realise what was happening and went to see Wuthering Heights
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.
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.
Pubs are quintessentially English as scones, cricket, Marmite or Stephen Fry. In Ireland or America most bars have mundane names, Murphy’s or Clancy’s, while English pubs have historic and often funny names; Cat and Fiddle, Hare and Hounds, The Red Lion, The Cricketers, The Battle of Trafalgar, The Rose and Crown, The Royal Oak (commemorating the time Charles II as a boy hid from Cromwellian troops after the Battle of Worcester), The Lamb and Flag and The King’s Head.
These names are centuries old, from the time when most of their customers were unable to read and pictorial signs could be readily recognised and even now English pubs have beautifully painted signs above their doors.
Over the centuries, the English Public House has been a place to drink with friends; magistrates would hold court in pubs; people have been hanged in them.
In the eighteenth century the Tyburn Road what has become Oxford Street was the route prisoners would be taken to be hanged. At The Mason’s Arms, a pub in Seymour Place its cellars still have the manacles on the walls, which show that prisoners enjoyed their last pint in very unusual conditions. As they left the pub and were loaded back onto the cart, prisoners would shout to customers “I’ll buy you a pint on the way back!”
The “Ye Olde Man and Scythe” in Bolton, Lancashire is the third oldest pub in England, dating back to the 1200s. In 1651, the Earl of Derby had a last drink and meal inside the pub before being beheaded in the street right outside the pub for his part in the Bolton Massacre. His head supposedly missed the basket and rolled along the street. To this day, the wooden chair which he sat on during his last meal and the axe used to behead him and on display inside the pub. On the chair is an inscription which reads: “15th October 1651 In this chair James 7th Earl of Derby sat at the Man and Scythe Inn, Churchgate, Bolton immediately prior to his execution”.
But, unfortunately, the Great British Pub is in danger of becoming a dying breed. Each week in the past six months, an average of 39 of the nation’s 57,000 pubs have closed.
Most pubs have become restaurants or television rooms, after centuries in which they were the social focus of British life. “There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves as well as at a capital tavern,” Dr Johnson in the late 18th century. “At a tavern, there is general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; and the more noise you make, the more things you call for, the welcomer you are.”
Urban pub numbers are declining even more steeply because the city- dwellers enjoy such a choice of restaurants and coffee shops.
A survey of 227 out of 936 North London pubs that have closed since 2002 shows that 84 have been turned into flats, while 143 have become businesses or voluntary projects.
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