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Index
Cover
Title
Contents
Introduction
Myths for visitors
London is a city forever shrouded in fog
It’s always raining in London
The River Thames is filthy
The River Thames is the cleanest major river in Europe
London is a crime-ridden city where you’re likely to get mugged by an Artful Dodger type
All Londoners speak like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, filling their phrases with cockney rhyming slang
The measure of the city
London is the greatest city on Earth
The M25 is an orbital motorway that encircles London
London is the capital of the United Kingdom
You have to have a London postcode to live in London
London ends, and the North begins, at the Watford Gap
The centre of London is at Charing Cross
A true cockney must be born within the sound of Bow bells
The City of London is a square mile
Historical bloopers
Boudicca is buried beneath Platform 10 at King’s Cross
The arms of the City of London contain the sword of William Walworth
The Great Fire of London was the greatest of all London’s fires
The Great Fire of London wiped out the Great Plague
When the ravens leave the Tower of London, the kingdom shall fall
In ancient times, the Tower of London was regularly used to execute traitors
It was impossible to break out of the Tower of London’s prison cells
Shakespeare’s Globe is an accurate recreation of the original Globe
Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe not to bomb Senate House, because he wanted to use it for a headquarters following an invasion of Britain
Before the 1950s, London was very white and very English
Landmark lies
The tower popularly called ‘Big Ben’ should actually be called ‘St Stephen’s Tower’ – Big Ben is the bell!
It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament
The statue on top of the Old Bailey is blindfolded to indicate that justice is blind
A model of Napoleon’s nose can be found under one of the portals of Admiralty Arch. Soldiers tweak it for luck every time they pass through
If the Union flag is flying on Buckingham Palace, it means that the monarch is at home
Old London Bridge was sold to a gullible American who thought he was buying Tower Bridge
The Shard is the tallest building in Europe
Counterfeit buildings
A statue of Eros stands in Piccadilly Circus
Green Park contains no flowers, on the order of Queen Catherine of Braganza
The prime meridian passes through the Royal Observatory, Greenwich
The BT Tower has no stairs, and is the only building in Britain that may evacuate using lifts in an emergency
Famous Londoners
Dick Whittington was a lowly farmer’s boy who became Lord Mayor of London three times, with help from his cat
Guy Fawkes was executed for masterminding the Gunpowder Plot
Dick Turpin was a dashing highwayman who rode from London to York in one day
Sweeney Todd was the demon barber of Fleet Street
Jack the Ripper stalked the fog-veiled streets of Whitechapel dressed in top hat and cloak
Boris Johnson is the Lord Mayor of London
Subterranean London
Buckingham Palace has its own private Tube station
The basement of the Viaduct Tavern on Newgate Street contains old cells from Newgate Prison
Scientific analysis of London Underground carriage seats found traces of vomit, semen and human faeces
Always remember to touch in and touch out
London language
Elephant and Castle is named after La Infanta de Castilla
We need to protect London’s traditional place names, like Fitzrovia
Are you pronouncing it wrongly?
Spelling and punctuation
That’s not my name
The phrase ‘on the wagon’ has its origins in London executions
The phrase ‘at sixes and sevens’ was invented by London livery companies in a dispute over precedence
Nylon was discovered by teams working in New York and London, hence it was called NYLon
A miscellany of misnomers and false etymologies
Popular culture
Sherlock Holmes was fond of saying ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’
The ‘swinging sixties’ were a time of free love, hedonism and high fashion for Londoners
Jimi Hendrix released a pair of parakeets from his Carnaby Street flat in the 1960s: now there are thousands of them
Aphex Twin lives in the strange glass and metal structure on the Elephant and Castle roundabout
Bob Holness played the saxophone solo on ‘Baker Street’
Mama Cass choked to death on a ham sandwich in London
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards founded the Rolling Stones after randomly meeting on Dartford station
Plaques that got it wrong
Wrong bomb
Other mistaken locations
Motor mayhem
Dickensian duncery
Official typos
Deliberate typos
Bankside oddness
The apologetic plaque
And now for something completely different ...
Tourist-trap trivia
You’re never more than six feet away from a rat
Savoy Court is the only place in London where you must drive on the right
A little-known Roman bathhouse can be found near the Strand
An old street lamp on Carting Lane is powered entirely by the fumes from sewers
Black cab drivers must carry a bale of hay everywhere they go
London’s equestrian statues conform to a hidden code
There are no roads in the City of London
Ely Place is technically in Cambridgeshire and you can’t be arrested there
The motif on Westminster’s lamp posts is a memorial to Coco Chanel
Trafalgar Square contains the world’s smallest police station
Marble Arch contains London’s smallest police station
Jeremy Bentham, the founder of University College London, still presides over council meetings, despite having died in 1832
London tour guides are full of rubbish
Let’s start a new wave of false facts
Bibliography
Index
Copyright
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