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.

Stopping dead cats flying (01.11.11)

You are sitting in your deckchair enjoying the sun when from next door a ball is kicked into your garden. Annoying? Just think of what it must have been like for George Augustus Henry Cavendish, 1st Earl of Burlington – Lord George Cavendish to his friends – to have oyster shells (the takeaway food of the day) landing on his head, along with apple cores, empty bottles and the occasional dead cat, thrown over his garden wall from the adjacent alleyway.

The garden wall was the western boundary of his palatial London home which for modesty’s sake was only called Burlington House, which now is the home of the Royal Academy.

After much thought on how to resolve the detritus conundrum, he came upon the brilliant idea to turn this alley into a shopping mall, making it one of the world’s earliest. Completed in 1819 these tiny shops remained virtually unchanged until an upper story was added in 1906 creating a series of rooms which prompted one wag to remark “they were let to the better sort of courtesan” These ladies would use these small rooms as their places of work and when they saw guards coming they’d whistle to warn their pickpocket friends down below of the imminent danger. This has led to the beadles (the private police of the arcade) imposing the no whistling rule which remains to this day, sometimes with embarrassing consequences.

In the early 1980s, a beadle warned a whistler asking him to refrain, the offender turned round to reveal Paul McCartney who was giving an impromptu performance from his repertoire. To cover the beadle’s embarrassment McCartney was given a whistling exemption for life. He now admits to doing his Christmas shopping each year and while in the arcade gives a furtive little whistle.

Only one other alteration has been done to this Regency masterpiece, the beautiful triple-arch entrance was destroyed in 1931 for no discernable reason, but much of its Grade II-listed interior remains as the day it was first built by Lord Burlington nearly 200 years ago.

Until now, the new owners have spent £104 million on the purchase and intend to carry out a £2.5 million makeover, including a new floor and lighting and incorporating art installations by Angel of the North creator Antony Gormley.

Existing shop tenants fear that the refurbishment will destroy the character and quaintness of the arcade by enlarging the units to accommodate such downmarket brands as handbag maker Lulu Guinness and cobbler Jimmy Choo.

What next? Soon the beadles will drop their ban on running and carrying an open umbrella and perish the thought – allow the builders laying the new flooring to whistle – which in all probability their song of choice will be Yesterday . . all my troubles were so far away.

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.

Staying Erect (25.10.11)

Samuel Johnson’s friend James Boswell had an interesting experience on Westminster Bridge. He recalled: “I picked up a strong jolly young damsel and taking her under the arm I conducted her to Westminster Bridge, and there in amour complete did I engage up in this noble edifice. The whim of doing it there with the Thames rolling below us amused me much.”

Boswell might not have had trouble staying erect but for Big Ben it seems a case of erectile dysfunction. I have looked at it through one eye, aligned it with a lamppost, I’ve even tried viewing it upside down, but try as I might I just cannot see the list, but according to a report by London Underground, Big Ben is leaning to such an extent that the tilt can now be clocked with the naked eye. The 316 ft. tower on the north side of the Houses of Parliament correctly is called St. Stephen’s Tower but is known colloquially as Big Ben – the name given to the great bell that it houses, the clock is the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world and surmounts the tower which is founded on a 49 ft. square 9.8 ft. thick concrete raft sunk to a depth of 13 ft. below ground level.

You would have thought with foundations like that the tower would be stable but it is sinking unevenly into the ground, causing it to lean toward the northwest, and as a consequence, the movement has resulted in the formation of cracks in the walls and ceilings of parts of the House of Commons.

The engineers claim that if you stand on Parliament Square and look east, toward the river, you can see that the tower is not vertical. As with so many things, it’s the MPs that are to blame, the construction of their underground car park in the early 70s started it and an extension of the London Underground Jubilee Line didn’t help matters either. But what has accelerated the movement to 0.9mm per year was the digging of the deepest hole in Britain during the construction of the new Parliament Square tube station and the construction above it of Portcullis House, again building work for the benefit of our MPs.

If the tower continues its slide towards the river in about 4,000 years it will compete with the Leaning Tower of Pisa which lurches 12ft from the vertical. By then anyone who should feel the desire to follow James Boswell’s example of amorous exploits upon Westminster Bridge would be well advised to find an alternative hunting ground.