Metapranking: Was famous historical hoax a hoax all along?
Great stuff this morning from Mike Paterson at the London Historians blog. It concerns the Berners St hoax of the early 19th century, which ran as follows:
A swell called Theodore Hook (playboy, writer, chum of the Prince Regent) made a bet with his friend Samuel Beazley (playwright, theatre architect, bon viveur) that he could make an ordinary address the most talked about house in London within a week. Hook then sent out thousands of letters requesting deliveries and visits from tradesmen and grandees alike to 54 Berners Street on a certain date. Chimney-sweeps were the first to arrive, so the story goes. They were followed by hundreds of visitors of all kinds including piano deliverymen, coal-men etc. The tale continues that the house was also visited by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Mayor of London and even minor royalty.
Ha ha jolly good jape etc etc. Except Mike is having none of it:
I suspect, frankly, that either they or friends of theirs made the whole thing up
A hoax hoax? Messrs Hook and Beazley, I salute you.
Unless of course Mike Paterson is himself pulling a hoax, in which case I give up.
10 Nov 2011
Watch Mayor Johnson bluster away the dangers of cycling
Jenny Jones yesterday challenged the Mayor on cycling deaths (now 14 for the year). His response is a classic of its type: arrogant, dismissive, but also, and his more partisan critics will never admit it, completely bulldozing the questioner out of the way.
But many cyclists are concerned about Blackfriars Bridge. For Boris to simply dismiss them all on the basis that he rides over it and feels fine just isn’t good enough. “I feel safe so it must be safe” is not a message that’s going to wash. Jenny Jones was right to raise this issue in detail yesterday, and she’ll be right to raise it again. There are lives at stake.
10 Nov 2011
London agenda for Thursday 10 November
1. Talk about London and its dead at Neocropolis [Le Cool]
2. Listen to Meredith Etherington-Smith discuss Salvador Dali [Run Riot]
3. View this amazing series of night photos from 70s punk to 80s New Romantics at Graham Smith: We Can Be Heroes [Flavorpill]
4. See the London premiere of works by artists including Joachim Koester, Uriel Orlow and Michael Stevenson at the Mirage of History [Don’t Panic]
5. Hear the Mayor, Boris Johnson, talk about his new book, ‘Johnson’s Life of London’ a tribute to the greatest Londoners at Waterstone’s [Ian Visits]
6. Drink at the Boot and Flogger [Tired of London]
London Agenda is Snipe’s daily compilation of what to do in London as suggested by everyone else. Send additions to listings@snipelondon.com
10 Nov 2011
Blue lobster saved from boily death by its own beauty
Here you will find a picture of an electric blue lobster which was being prepared for sale at Billingsgate fish market. Its colour saved its life. Perhaps the whole episode is meant as a parable for good race relations. Anyway, if I were a lobster, I would want to look like this.
Source: Natural History Musuem
09 Nov 2011
Any Other Day by Flow Machines
Get over the first ten seconds or so and the new single from Manchester’s Flow machines actually morphs into something quite sweet and wonderful, like a male-fronted St Etienne. Top marks for the verging on ridiculous, verging on genius Pet Shop Boys breakdown pastiche too. Look out for an album in January.
Flow Machines – Any Other Day by snipelondon
MP Free is Snipe’s daily dose of new music. Email your suggestions to tom.jenkins@snipelondon.com or look at the archive.
09 Nov 2011
How to date, by the police
Sutton police are trying to encourage people to take care and stay safe when going internet dating. We are fully supportive of their efforts, and urge you to take all reasonable precautions.
But this bit of advice…
Go with at least one friend and agree to stay together throughout the evening
…I really think you can safely ignore. Unless you’re a threesome-on-a-first-date kind of person. In which case, go for it.
Source: Met Police
09 Nov 2011
Student protesters' tribal chants make them look like silly student protesters
Chants so far include ‘Daaayvid Cameron! Fuck off back to Eton’…‘Build a bonfire, build a bonfire, put the Tories at the top…’, ‘Tory Tory Tory scum scum scum’ and ‘the only cuts we wanna see TORIES ON THE GUILLOTINE’
Lord knows I’m no Tory but come on now. You can sing what you like, but if you advertise your visceral tribalism through wholly partisan lyrics, don’t complain when people dismiss you as immature. Because you are.
The following couple of chants are at least constructive, although the second one suffers slightly from inferior scansion.
‘No ifs, no buts, no education cuts’ and ‘Take away E-M-A we say no way’
But regardless of that they make the people singing them sound reasonable and deserving of respect and attention. A few people do the image, and thus the cause, of the whole movement no favours by spouting infantile drivel like that quoted above.
Source: East London Lines, which is an excellent place to find out what’s happening today.
09 Nov 2011
09 Nov 2011
Those Tfl fare rises in handy chart form
Yesterday Londonist performed a valuable service and dug out the last decade’s worth of Tfl fares so we could see how much the bastards have raised them. To Londonist’s data, we can now add some context in the shape of this sexy graph, which plots the average annual increase in a peak time Oyster card journey from zones 1-4 against the average annual increase in weekly earnings.
What does it show? What we already knew, that in the last few years fare rises have outstripped earnings rises. Considerably. Result: low and medium earners spending more money on getting places, and having less money to spend on doing stuff and buying things.
Sources: Fare data from Tfl via Londonist.
Average weekly earnings from the ONS. I’ve used the regular pay index. I’m not a statistician, so if anyone can educate me as to a better measure to use I will be all ears.
09 Nov 2011
London agenda for Wednesday 9 November
1. Have an in-depth conversation with Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry in a cinema [Le Cool]
2. View the tragic, unloved world of the hardcore promoter at Balance [Run Riot]
3. Hear Braids at XOYO [Don’t Panic]
4. View Hidden Heroes: The Genius of Everyday Things [Time Out]
5. Go see some art at Your Garden is Looking a Mess Could You Please Tidy it Up [Flavorpill]
6. Finally! Make a hovercraft at home [Ian Visits]
7. Book tickets for the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition [Tired of London]
London Agenda is Snipe’s daily compilation of what to do in London as suggested by everyone else. Send additions to listings@snipelondon.com
09 Nov 2011
Snipe Highlights
Some popular articles from past years
- The five spookiest abandoned London hospitals
- Diary of the shy Londoner
- Summer Camp: Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days
- A unique collection of photos of Edwardian Londoners
- Only 16 commuters touch in to Emirates Air Line, figures reveal
- Number of people using Thames cable car plunges
- Nice Interactive timeline lets you follow Londoners' historic fight against racism
- The best church names in London, and where they come from
- London has chosen its mayor, but why can’t it choose its own media?
- Margaret Thatcher statue rejected by public
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