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.

On 3 February 1814 two youths died in the Thames. A frost fair had been taking place, when a piece of ice broke away and floated free just upstream of Westminster Bridge. One boy slipped titing the mini-iceberg tipping them both into the icy water. The frost fair of 1814 began on 1 February and lasted four days, during that time an elephant was led across the river below Blackfriars Bridge. It would be the last frost fair seen on the frozen Thames.

On 3 February 1975 despite having little knowledge of law, Prince Charles was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn and became a Master of the Bench

St Martin Le Grand maintained right of sanctuary as late as 1697 and became a Mecca for counterfeit jewellers breaking the law with impunity

Merchant Tailors Hall still stands where it’s been since 1347 what is now Threadneedle St. though much rebuilt after The Great Fire and the Blitz

The first person to be buried in Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey in 1400 was Geoffrey Chaucer; Laurence Olivier was the last

William Wallace, commemorated in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, was the first to suffer the ignominious fate of being hanged, drawn and quartered

Novelist William Thackeray wrote Vanity Fair, Pendennis and Henry Esmond whilst living at 16 Young Street, Kensington

On two occasions in 1813 and 1814 Jane Austen stayed with her brother in his apartment above his bank at 10 Henrietta Street

Polo imported in 1870 by cavalry officers serving in India was first played in Britain on Hounslow Heath and then Richmond Park

The Underground helped over 200,000 children escape to the countryside during the Second World War; The largest number of people killed by a single wartime bomb was 68 at Balham Station

By tradition, all the waiters at Pratt’s Club are called George (whatever their real name). When they got a waitress she was called Georgina

When tunnelling Crossrail at Tottenham Court Road an underground vault revealed 8,000 unused Cross & Blackwell ceramic jars for pickles and jams

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 27 January 1854 a proposal to re-site the Law Courts from Westminster to a new building on the Strand was greeted with opprobrium claiming it to be a waste of public money and be liken to the Tower of Babel . . A Nero’s Palace . . . A labyrinth of Crete. The first brick was laid on 30 April 1874, 20 years later, at the junction of Bell Yard and Carey Street; the complete buildings were opened by Her Majesty on 4 December 1882.

On 27 January 1796 Gentleman’s Magazine reported that Lady Caroline Campbell ‘displayed in Hyde Park the other day a feather four feet higher than her bonnet’.

In 1517 ‘Evil May Day’ saw riots against traders from Flanders, Italy and France led by John Lincoln he and other ringleaders were later hanged

The City of London’s smallest church St. Ethelburga-the-Virgin in Bishopsgate dates from at least the 13th century measures 56ft by 30ft

Dr Johnson (or dictionary fame) was known to drink up to 25 cups of tea in one sitting, despite his prodigious consumption he lived until 74 his final words were “I who am about to die”

For years Chelsea Bridge, originally named Victoria Bridge, was only lit on those nights when the Queen was sleeping London

Derelict Beckton gas works provided locations for Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (he refused to leave Britain) and Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun

In preparation for the 1980 Christmas Office Party Nilson brought in a huge cooking pot it was later used to boil his victims’ heads

Only since the 1700s has Chelsea been known as that, before it was Chelsey, Chelceth & Chelchith. Doomsday Book lists Cercehede & Chelched

The greatest elevation above the ground level is on the Northern line at Dollis Brook viaduct over Dollis road, Mill Hill: it rises a total of 60ft

Howard House, 14 Fournier Street, Spitalfields is where the silk for Queen Victoria’s coronation gown was woven

The 1950’s ‘Teddy Boys’ (originally ‘Cosh Boys’) were first seen in London, mainly Elephant & Castle, and became Britain’s first youth cult

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 20 January 1989 Sir Ranulph Fiennes decided to test his equipment by paddling a floating sledge on the River Thames by Westminster Bridge, to ensure his equipment was suitable before setting off on his third attempt to claim the unconquered Polar record of reaching the North Pole trekking 425 nautical miles without dogs, motorised transport or air transport supply. With Mike Stroud he achieved his goal.

On 20 January 1802 Joseph Wall, former governor of an African colony, appeared in court charged with murdering a subordinate. He had him tied to a gun carriage and given 800 lashes, from which he died.

In 1868 Michael Barrett became the last to be publicly hanged outside Newgate for attempting to free Richard Burke by blowing up the prison

The Dove Pub Upper Mall, Hammersmith, where Charles II and Nell Gwynne dined, at 4ft 2in by 7ft 10in has the smallest bar room in the world

Fragrance Madeleine was trialled at Piccadilly station in 2001 to make the Tube more pleasant. Stopped after days people said they felt ill

Edward VI punished Westminster Abbey (St Peter’s) by diverting their funding to St Paul’s hence the phrase ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul’

The 1951 film The Magic Box starring Robert Donat was the first moving picture on celluloid in a London Park (Hyde Park)

Before its current venue in Frith Street, Ronnie Scott’s jazz club was beneath a Chinese fan-tan gambling den at 39 Gerrard Street

Arsenal’s Paul Merson cashed his first football pay cheque at Barclays Bank Finsbury Park then blew it all at William Hill’s across the road

Transport for London Byelaw 10(2) No person shall enter through any train door until any person leaving by that door has passed through it

Men who searched through Victorian sewers for valuables that had been lost down drains were known as Toshers ‘What a load of old tosh!’

Between 17-25 January 1963 the temperature at Kew failed to rise above freezing that winter is regarded equal to the infamous winter of 1740

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.