On 17 February 1987 Tamils from Sri Lanka seeking asylum in Britain protested at Heathrow by removing their clothes as they were being deported, stripping off on the tarmac in freezing weather conditions. Amid a frenzied scuffle with security personnel, they were forcibly placed onto the awaiting aircraft which was bound for Dhaka. They were removed soon afterwards after their loud protests onboard drew complaints.

On 17 February 1932 the Twit Club at 18 Piccadilly advertised for new members: ‘wishing to partake in the delights of the Capital’

Bells are rung at Grays Inn and The Tower of London every evening to warn citizens to extinguish their fires. Ritual dates from Norman times

Brydges Place named after Catherine Brydges daughter of 3rd Baron Chandos at 15 inches at its narrowest point is London’s tightest alley

In an attempt to clean up London, an Act of 1829 means that you could be fined £200 if beat your carpets outside in the street before 8am

Frederick’s Place is an 18th century house where Disraeli once worked, now home to a pop up repertory season

In 1938 the first 1,000 miles of motorway was planned by surveyors using a crayon on a map given away with the saucy men’s magazine Tit-Bits

From the top of the London Eye you can see up to 40 kilometres in all directions (that’s as far as Windsor Castle on a clear day)

A race by ‘running footmen’ from Clerkenwell to St. Albans in 1618 was said to have won the Duke of Buckingham £3,000 in bets

Cabs have to be designed with adequate headroom enough for a gentleman passenger sporting a top hat should you get a job for Ascot

In 1812, the London and Westminster Gas Light and Coke Company became the world’s first gas company, chartered to light the City, Westminster and Southwark

The nursery rhyme Pop Goes the Weasel refers to the act of pawning one’s suit after spending all one’s cash in the pubs of Clerkenwell

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.

On 10 February 1840 despite her assertion that marriage was “a shocking alternative to living with one’s mother”, Queen Victoria Prince Albert in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace, they would go on to produce 9 chldren. Her mother was consigned to a remote apartment in Buckingham Palace, and Victoria often refused to see her, complaining that her mother’s close proximity promised “torment for many years”.

On 10 February 1971 Frank Zappa was banned from performing at the Albert Hall as a consequence of pf the lyrics in his New Rock Opera Two-Hundred Hotels

By law London cabbies don’t have to wear seat belts while working, but must be belted up while driving on their way home

London has four UNESCO World Heritage sites: The Tower of London, Maritime Greenwich, Westminster Palace and Kew’s Royal Botanical Gardens

In 1850 to deal with London’s sewage problem it was proposed building a system in spokes feeding raw effluent into shops to sell to farmers

Portobello Road takes its name from the 1739 sea battle where the English captured the Portobello naval base in Panama from the Spanish

An Italian dishwasher at the Savoy Hotel was so inspired by the quality of the guests he started the company bearing his name – Guccio Gucci

The Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley, built in 1910 and opened in 1912, is the oldest continuously working unaltered movie theatre in England

In 2012 London became the first city to host the modern Olympic Games three times, having previously done so in 1908 and in 1948

The recorded voice on the No. 17 bus announces it as ‘Her Majesty’s Prison, Pentonville’, as if to soften the blow for those visiting

London in the 1860s when its population was one third that of today’s, 80,000 prostitutes worked making the period “the heyday of the whore”

After King Charles II’s son Duke of Monmouth was executed for treason at The Tower his head was sewn back on so he could sit for a portrait

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.