Before Turner there was no fog in London.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
On 24 November 1991 Farrokh Bulsara better known as Freddie Mercury died at his home at 1 Logan Place. The Queen lead singer died from bronchial pneumonia from AIDS. Mercury was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 but kept his condition private until he released a public statement just a little over 24 hours before he passed away just 45 years old. The outer walls of his house have become a shrine to Mercury.
On 24 November 1434 a severe frost began continuing until 10 February. During the freeze the Thames froze over
On 24 November 1740 William Duell was hanged at Tyburn, bought to Surgeon’ Hall, he recovered before dissection and was transported for life
Having the world’s first failsafe system, raised 1,000 times a year taking 90 secs Tower Bridge has to give precedence to shipping over road
According to The Secret History of London Clubs from 1709, a Mr. Crumpton invited those in the final stage of syphilis, which destroys bone and tissue, to join the ‘No-Nose’d Club’ in the Dog Tavern
Ships surmounting lamposts on The Mall depict Nelson’s fleet who defeated the French and his statue faces towards his fleet in Portsmouth
On 24 November 1952 Agatha Christie’s story The Mousetrap reached the West End, it is still running and is now the world’s longest continual play
The Grade II listed chapel at Claybury Hospital, Woodford Green, a former asylum, has been converted into Virgin Active’s swimming pool
In June 1939 92,000 watched the greyhound racing Derby at White City, only football and cinema drew larger audiences during the 1930s
The Tube is the world’s oldest underground with 290 miles of track and 275 stations were each visited in 16 hours, 20 minutes and 27 seconds by Geoff Marshall and Anthony Smith in 2013
After the Wall Street Crash Buckingham Palace ordered five Daimler Double-Six limousines to help unemployment in the Midlands
The Constable of The Tower of London is entitled to 4p for an animal falling into the moat and all livestock which fall from London Bridge
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.
Harrods cast it aside in 1928; Selfridges followed 17 years later, but by then Gordon Selfridge was too busy having his way with twin showgirls The Dolly Sisters, then worry too much about what went over the door of his emporium. Currys have dispensed with its services and Starbucks, well they are American, never used one in the first place.
The apostrophe is going the same way as the double space after a full point, which was much loved by legal secretaries when using manual typewriters. If punctuation marks were endangered species, then the apostrophe would be an Amazonian rainforest frog, or a fish dependent on Great Barrier Coral Reef for survival. We would have David Attenborough talking earnestly to camera in hushed tones about the need to keep it safe for future generations.
Despised by graphic designers who have been paid a fortune to “conceptualise” and “brand” a product, this little tick just gets in the way of their oh-so-cool layouts when they use their ubiquitous MS Comic San’s. And so corporate logos, billboards and most advertising omit this little symbol of possession or contraction.
This humble floating tadpole once looked to be consigned to the history books, but one valiant group have continued to keep it alive, albeit mistakenly. The greengrocer’s apple’s and pear’s were for many years a reassuring sight on our high street. This kind of sign-writer did not want to be faulted for omitting an apostrophe, so they were willing to run down their stick of chalk whenever an “s” is found on the end of a word. And it is this reverence for punctuation, an anxiety, even in this misuse which has kept it alive.
The large supermarkets seem to have put pay to the humble high street greengrocer with his random tadpole placed before an “s”, and Sainsbury’s, not content with taking all the customers from high street grocers, has even taken on the mantle of using their own apostrophe, the only supermarket chain to retain its use.
If punctuation has a gender then the full point is undeniably male, while the rather contrary apostrophe can only be a lady. The little mark shows up when she feels like it and at other times will appear gracefully in the wrong place altogether.
The Apostrophe Protection Society, established to defend the punctuation mark’s place in the English language, is calling on users of the inappropriate apostrophe to mend their ways, well they would. The Society probably has among its members the Colonel Blimps of this world who reside in The Shires expressing righteous indignation whenever an offending tadpole is spotted.
With the demise of the greengrocer, one might have expected the apostrophe to disappear from our streets, only appearing in its correct place, firmly disciplined within articles in The Times. But no, a new group has taken up the baton, and if anything in London at least is more numerous than the late lamented greengrocer.
Road works. Hundreds of them, in every street there is an urgent need to dig a hole and leave it for posterity. And many holes need the familiar temporary yellow road sign that often states the obvious.
The writer of the many road signs might not have apples and pears to sprinkle with fairly punctuation dust, but they have a surfeit of roads, streets, parks, squares . . . and yes cab’s.
Tolerance is forced on people in London.
Graham Norton (b.1963)
On 17 November 1558 England’s first Queen, Mary I died. She is best known for her aggressive attempt to reverse the English Reformation. During her five-year reign, Mary had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions, in her pursuit of the restoration of Roman Catholicism in England and Ireland which led to her denunciation as ‘Bloody Mary’ by her Protestant opponents.
On 17 November 1750 at midnight Westminster Bridge opened to pedestrians and horses to the sound of drums, cannons and trumpets
In 1961 after crashing his Rolls-Royce in London Lord Derby successfully escaped prosecution claiming the long bonnet obstructed his view
The last thatched cottage in inner London survived in the Paddington area until 1890s when it was demolished for St. David’s Welsh Church
Captain Thomas Coram appalled by the number of abandoned babies set up the world’s first incorporated charity in 1739 the Foundling Hospital
The world’s oldest military corps is the Queen’s Bodyguard of the Yeomen of the Guard officially founded in 1485
The Cranbrook Estate, Bethnal Green was used as a location for Lew and Andy’s flat on TV show Little Britain
Peach Melba created at the Savoy for soprano Nellie Melba used her favourite ingredients to reduce the cold of ice cream on her vocal cords
Wembley London’s largest stadium’s roof covers 90,000 spectators during match days, at other times remain open giving sunlight for the turf
On 17 November 1876 Aldgate tube station opened, the station features in the Sherlock Holmes’ mystery The Adventure of Bruce-Partington Plans
Cabbies face a daily £1 fine should he take two consecutive days off ‘without just cause’ according to The London Hackney Carriages Act 1853
Fleet Street hack Woodrow Wyatt when asked by a French hotelier to spell his name replied Waterloo-Ypes-Agincourt-Trafalgar-Trafalgar
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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