On 3 December 1976 London witnessed proof that pigs really can fly when Algie, a inflatable pig, broke free from his moorings near Battersea Power Station. Algie was being photographed for a forthcoming Pink Floyd Animals album cover. Curiously being near the flight path the Civil Aviation Authority issued a warning that a flying pig had been set loose, the ensuring publicity didn’t do any harm either for Pink Floyd.

On 3 December 1976 an estimated 3 million people applied for the 11,000 available tickets for Abba’s Albert Hall concerts

During the Jack the Ripper investigation the police paid £100 for two tracker bloodhounds but they got lost and needed the police to find them

Bevis Marks Synagogue in the City of London, is the only European synagogue which has held regular services continuously for over 300 years

In 1829 with London running out of space to bury its dead architect Thomas Wilson proposed a 94 storey pyramid on Primrose Hill to house 5 million corpses

The last execution to take place at the Tower of London was that of German spy Josef Jacobs, shot by firing squad in 1942

In 1747 William Hogarth painted ‘The Stage Coach’ at the former Angel Inn, 1 Islington High Street, rebuilt and now occupied by Co-op Bank

Soho is named after a medeival hunting cry (‘So-Ho’). No unlike Tally-Ho today. Until the late seventeeth century the area was open fields

Charlton means ‘homestead belonging to the churls’. Churls were the lowest rank of freeman during medieval times

In 1878 over 640 died when the crowded pleasure boat Princess Alice collided with the Bywell Castle in the River Thames

John Spilsbury invented the world’s first jigsaw puzzle at his print shop in Russell Court (near Street), Drury Lane, Covent Garden in 1766

Bow Street police light changed from blue to white as colour upset Queen Victoria when visiting Royal Opera House, Albert had died in Blue Room, Windsor

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 26 November 1983 Britain’s most successful robbery took place at Heathrow. £26 million sterling in gold, diamonds and cash was stolen from the Brink’s Matt security warehouse. The investigation lasted nearly 10 years and a large percentage of the gold bars were never recovered and few convicted. Several murders have been linked to the case, plus links established to the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary over 30 years later in April 2015.

On 26 November 1964 The Stones described in court as not a long-haired idiots but highly intelligent university men Mick was still fined £10

In 1736 gravedigger Thomas Jenkins received 100 lashes for selling dead bodies from St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney High Street

Underneath the MI6 building is the overflow pipe for the River Effra, it’s just big enough to launch a mini-submarine from the orifice

Nell Gywnn, orange seller and mistress to Charles II was born in the Coal Yard, now Stukeley Street off Drury Lane in 1650

After his victory over England Hitler had a plan to dismantle Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square and display it in Berlin

Only one house where Charles Dickens lived still stands 48 Doughty Street from 1837 to 1839 here he wrote Oliver Twist and The Pickwick Papers

The upper span of Tower Bridge was originally a walkway but it was closed in 1910 as it had become a haunt of prostitutes

One of the Scotland fans who invaded the pitch at Wembley in 1977 was Rod Stewart. In the commotion someone nicked his Cartier watch

In 1910 the London and North Western Railway offered its business passengers the on-board services of Miss Tarrant. (Typist)

In 2013 one ton of dust was removed from the attics at Kensington Palace, the first time since 1719 they had been cleaned

In the 1950s three members of the Attkins family were Highgate’s fishmonger, butcher and dentist – known as Fishkins, Porkins and Toothkins

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 19 November 1994 defying the odds of 1-in-14-million seven lucky lottery winners won Britain’s first national lottery aired live from a London studio. 35 million tickets were purchased and the winning numbers as drawn were 30, 3, 5, 44, 14 and 22. The bonus ball was 10. A lottery took place in 1566 for a jackpot of £5,000 according to a letter from Queen Elizabeth I, giving instructions for collecting money, commanding that persons of ‘good trust’ be entrusted with the prizes.

At the Royal Albert Hall on 19 November 1987 a rare 1931 Bugatti Royal was sold for £5.5 million at the time a semi-detached house cost £50,000

For some crimes the guilty were locked in the pillory then had their ears nailed to the frame, upon release were forced to leave them behind

King Street, St James’s is named after Charles II, King Street, Covent Garden is named after Charles I and Kingsway after Edward VII

The American talk show host Jerry Springer was born at Highgate during the Second World War: his mother had taken shelter in the station from an air raid

Trafalgar Square was to have been called ‘King William the Fourth’s Square’; however, George Ledwell Taylor suggested Trafalgar Square

It was at 9A Denmark Street (Tin Pan Alley), then La Gioconda, where David Jones (Bowie) and his first backing band – Lower Third – met

The Sanderson Hotel, Berners Street was a showroom for Sandersons wallpaper, the listed sign meant the hotel could have no other name

The oldest (and possibly most bizarre) medal winner was John Copley who won Silver in the London 1948 Olympics for an etching he was 73 at the time, drawing was in the Olympics until 1948

Charles Pearson, MP and Solicitor to the City of London, is credited with successfully campaigning for the introduction of the Underground. He died in 1862 shortly before the first train ran

During the war, some stations (now mostly disused) were converted into government offices: a station called Down Street was used for meetings of the Railway Executive Committee

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

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 12 November 1984 Chancellor Nigel Lawson in his autumn statement to Parliament declared the £1 note – popularly known as a ‘quid’ – would be phased out and replaced by coins which were introduced the previous April and which have weighed down trousers ever since. Ironically, £1 notes were greeted with public outrage when they were first put into widespread use as an emergency measure to replace gold sovereigns during World War I.

The 12 November 1974 was a red letter day for anglers for in the River Thames a salmon was caught the first since the 1840s

In his novel Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe described Newgate Prison as “that horrible place”, he should know he was imprisoned there in 1703

The circumference at the Gherkin’s widest point is 178 metres, which is only two metres less than its height of 180 metres

In 1926 suicide pits installed due to passengers throwing themselves in front of trains only Jubilee line has glass screens to deter jumpers

In Parliament in 1981 a private member’s bill (Control of Space Invaders (& other Electronic Games) Bill) tried to ban Space Invaders

The wedding in the movie Four Weddings and a Funeral was filmed at the Augustinian priory church of St. Bartholomew the Great

The first HMV store at 363 Oxford Street was opened by composer Edward Elgar in 1921. HMV stands for ‘His Master’s Voice’

Boxing legend Sir Henry Cooper trained in the gym above the Thomas a Becket pub previously at 320 Old Kent Road, Walworth

The Underground’s longest journey without change is on the Central line from West Ruislip to Epping – a total of 34.1 miles

Prostitutes around Southwark worked in the many brothels or ‘stews’ licensed by the Bishop of Winchester and were known as the Bishop’s Geese

Wildlife observed on the Tube network includes woodpeckers, deer, sparrowhawk, bats, grass snakes, great crested newts, slow worms

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 5 November 1739 the house of a master weaver on Spital Square was attacked by journeymen. The owner of the workshop had allegedly tried to get silk binding done for free as part of the price for a weaving job. Troops were called out from the Tower of London. The Riot Act was read out to the assembled crowd. At the end several solders were hurt by protesters throwing tiles and bricks from the tops of the houses.

On 5 November 1947 London Zoo’s most famous resident Guy the Gorilla arrived at the zoo on Guy Fawkes Day hence being named Guy

Until 1859 it was illegal to celebrate the arrest of Guido Fawkes on 5 November by burning a guy, and presumably asking passers-by “penny for the guy, mister?”

In 1831 London became the first city in the world to have 1 million inhabitants only overtaken in size by Tokyo 126 years later

When Guy Fawkes was executed hanging broke his neck preventing the drawing and quartering (removing his intestines, arms and legs) while alive

When entering The Houses of Parliament its Members are still banned from wearing a suit of armour under an Act made by Edward II in 1313

Lions of Trafalgar Square were sculpted from life artist Landseer used dead lions from London Zoo until neighbours complained of the smell

The London Eye can carry 800 people each rotation comparable to 11 double decker buses receives on average more visitors per year than the Taj Mahal and the Great Pyramid of Giza

After Percy Lambert was killed racing at Brooklands in 1913 he was buried at Brompton Cemetery in a coffin designed to match his racing car

Wealthy oil baron Nubar Gulbenkian had a luxurious taxi conversion. He told friends “Apparently it can turn on a sixpence, whatever that is”

St. Paul’s Cathedral at 365ft high and over 40 years to construct. It took so long to complete its builders had the reputation of being lazy

The only qualification needed to join Edmund Kean’s Wolf Club at the Coal Hole, Strand was your wife had forbidden you to sing in the bath

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.