In many ways, London is like a great big pinata, and everyone who lives here is like an excited, blindfolded child with a heart full of hope and a big flailing stick. Aim that stick right and London will split at the seams like a ruptured spleen, showering you with the most extraordinary places to visit, places like you won’t find anywhere else in the world. Get it wrong and the chances are you’ll lose your footing and end up in a frustrated, eyeless heap.
Paul Carr (b.1979), London by London
On 18 May 1921, the erection of a commercial airship mooring-mast started at Croydon Airport. When completed the R33 would be anchored on it for experimental purposes. British rigid airships were built for the Royal Naval Air Service during the First World War.
On 18 May 1955 the country’s first Wimpy Bar opened in London, hailed as the birth of fast food conveniently forgetting about fish and chips
In 1678 the body of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was found on Greenberry Hill later three were hanged for the murder their names Green, Berry, Hill
The stainless steel box in the middle of a traffic island in Elephant & Castle commemorates local scientist Michael Faraday
Britain’s first fatal car crash took place on Grove Hill, Harrow. Today a plaque on the spot warns drivers to take heed
Thatcher used to stand on a chair in her Commons room to check the top of the door. ‘It’s the way you know if a room’s really been cleaned.’
Douglas Adams based characters of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe on Islington where he lived, Hotblack Desiato was an estate agent
The Apollo 11 crew’s first alcoholic drink back on Earth was the Moonwalk, invented by Joe Gilmore of London’s Savoy hotel
The highest temperature recorded at the London Marathon 21.7C degrees on 22 April 2007: coldest 13 years previously in 1994 at 7.6C degrees
Demonstrating a new crossing in Camden aimed at reducing pedestrian road deaths Transport Minister Hore-Belisha was nearly knocked down
Many of the streets in the city were named after the particular trade which practiced there, for example Threadneedle Street was the tailor’s district
When John Noakes climbed Nelson’s Column (removing pigeon poo) for TV’s Blue Peter a sound engineer didn’t record the stunt, Noakes had to reclimb all over again
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.
On a recent trip to Dorset, I was obliged to the local authority for erecting a sign which informed me that the adjacent beach was subject to flooding, it’s always good to know what hazards lay ahead.
In London, we have to blame King Henry I for the plethora of superfluous signage littering our streets imparting useless information. The good king deemed that a street could not be named as such unless it was paved and was wide enough for sixteen knights to ride abreast, while a lane had only to be the width of a beer barrel rolled by two men.
This Royal Declaration must have started a growth industry in signage that has continued to this day and is now cluttering every road in London.
“Humps for 263 metres”, “New Road Layout Ahead”, “Signal Priorities Changed”. Am I really going to check the distance I’ve travelled to ensure that I won’t encounter another street-calming obstacle, or that I’m so bright my memory can clearly remember the timings of every traffic signal in London?
We now employ somebody to type drivel into a gizmo that controls the M25 overhead gantries, they give us such gems as: “Road Ahead Clear” with the approximate time it will take you to reach a destination you have no intention of reaching.
Only last week while driving along the A12 the Olympic Delivery Authority shared – via a matrix board at the side of the road – the priceless information that trials were taking place within the Olympic Park.
Frequently we’re told, just in case there was any doubt, that “Sign Under Test” rather implying that the upper sixth is taking its finals and we should be quiet lest we disturb the examination.
Each time I pass a sign announcing “Concrete Curing” I have visions of a group of men in high-viz jackets performing a laying on of hands to make the road better.
Once I naïvely thought that they had been put up for the benefit of the public, but of course, they are for the benefit of the erectors of the signs. So obsessed are they with our liability culture they put up these signs so why asked they can reply “well, you were warned”.
London is like a cold dark dream sometimes.
Jean Rhys (1890-1979), Wide Sargasso Sea
On 11 May 1812 Prime Minister Spencer Perceval, entered the lobby of the House of Commons and was shot dead by a merchant, John Bellingham. John Bellingham was hanged at Newgate on 18 May, two days after Perceval’s funeral.
On 11 May 1937 London’s busmen went on strike they wanted an enquiry on the dangers of the new buses which travelled at 30mph instead of the sedate 12mph they were used to
When Julian Assange was holed up at the Ecuadorian Embassy those visiting included Pamela Anderson, Lady Gaga, Eric Cantona and Nigel Farage
On Knight’s Road in Docklands, the world’s largest tin of syrup is affixed to Tate & Lyle’s factory producing the world’s oldest branded product
The finest dentures of 19th-century London contained real human teeth, some gleaned from casualties of the Battle of Waterloo
The Wiener Library, Russell Square contains 1 million items relating to the Holocaust, it is the world’s oldest library of related material
Now charmingly inaccurate, the life-sized models of dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park, constructed in the 1850s were the first in the world
The basement at 27 Endell Street was once the animal depot for West End theatres once 2 bulls escaped liberating a menagerie on Soho streets
Mitcham Cricket Club has played on the world’s oldest cricket pitch since 1685, and today is still an active cricket club
Amersham is the second most westerly tube station, the highest at 147 metres above sea level and the second furthest Underground station from central London
Burrell & Co on Blasker Walk in Docklands once manufactured dyes, red smoke from the chimneys would tint the local pigeons rose-pink
Wartime song A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square was almost certainly a robin, the only town bird known to sing at night
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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