London’s like one of the flash women at Frisco – fine to look at, cruel as the snow.
Joseph Hatton (1837-1907), Cruel London
London Trivia: First doctor
On 25 July 1865 Dr James Barry, former Inspector General of Hospitals, died, it was affirmed that Dr Barry was a woman. If this was the case, then technically Barry was not only the youngest, but the first woman to graduate in medicine.
On 25 July 1914 W. G. Grace battled for the last time for Eltham Cricket Club, he was the first English captain to surrender the urn when England lost in 1891/2
Shoddy axeman Jack Ketch who bungled the execution of the Duke of Monmouth lives on today as the hangman in the Punch and Judy puppet shows
The Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea is the most densely populated area in the UK-13,200 people per sq. kilometre (London average 5,000)
When Polly, resident parrot of Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, died in 1926 her obituary appeared in numerous Fleet Street papers
The British Legion introduced the first artificial poppies in 1921 raising £106k. The Poppy Factory has been at Richmond for almost 90 years
Billy Elliot rehearses dance moves at a youth centre not in the north-east but at Hanwell Community Centre, Hanwell
Kew Gardens is unique on the Underground being the only station with its own pub The Railway which has a door that leads out onto platform 1
West Ham home ground once formed part of Anne Boleyn’s grand manor house known as Green Street House, which was demolished in 1890
Edgware Road is London’s oldest road 2,000 years ago it was a grassy track, the Romans incorporated it into their major road, Watling Street
The Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill, built the world’s first programmable computer known as Colossus Mk 1 the size of a small room
The Fairlop Oak one of England’s most famous trees was blown down in 1820, it was used to carve the pulpit in St. Pancras Church, Euston
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.
Protected: Amy Winehouse
All About You Podcast
According to Diamond Geezer, blogging is endangered and outdated, because what’s the point of reading something when you could be listening to it instead?
Taking his advice I’ve made a podcast (well, strictly speaking, I just talked about myself, Sheila actually made the recording); All About You: Everyone has a story.
So instead of reading about a London cabbie and any eclectic capital centric subject that’s taken his fancy, how much better to simply sit back, press play and let my words wash all over you in handy audible chunks.
No longer will you need to find your reading glasses or pinch your smartphone screen so that the text appears in a legible size before you can read about The Knowledge. Instead, just press play and absorb my journey as a cabbie without expending any effort whatsoever.
Listen on your morning commute assuming you still have one, use it as your jogging soundtrack, mull it over during your afternoon tea break or use it as an aid to drift off to sleep. You can rewind should you want to further absorb my dulcet tones, or fast forward past any points you’ve already heard spoken by every London cabbie.
Although it may not be so great for you, because you have to invest half an hour of your day to listen to everything I have to say about London. At least with text you can read the first bit and skim down to get the general gist, or decide you don’t want to read any of the rest and go off and do something more productive. You’ll spend far less time reading something I wrote than I spent writing it, whereas with a podcast the time penalty is identical. Normally I spend hours writing text, cropping photos, checking references and adding links, but absolutely none of that is necessary to create an audio file. Instead, I simply talk for half an hour and Sheila edited and embed the file, which was brilliant.
I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast as much as I’ve enjoyed making it. What I particularly liked was that the podcast only took half an hour to make, well it would have if my laptop hadn’t sounded like a train, necessitating a second recording using my iPhone.
And if that’s not enough of me, the inner workings of my brain (but not my brain’s size) are discussed in detail on the Every Little Thing Podcast.
London in Quotations: William I Stow
So large is the Extent of London, Westminster and Southwark, with their Suburbs and Liberties, that no Coachman nor Porter knows every Place in them.
William I Stow (1696 – 1731), Remarks on London, 1722
CabbieBlog 