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30 April 2012

A penny for your thoughts

Generations of schoolboys have searched through their change in the vain hope of finding one and in August of last year on the internet auction site eBay a 1933 penny bearing the head of King George V surfaced. Experts have always worked on the assumption that only seven such coins were minted and, if genuine, this one would have been worth at least £80,000. Two versions to the coin were struck and it is thought that four had a slightly different image of the King in preparation to an updating of his likeness on all coins. These are particularly valuable.

The Royal Mint had no plans to make any pennies in 1933 because there were already plenty around, however, a small number were produced following requests for a commemorative coin and experts have always worked on the basis there were seven. Of these, three were placed by the King under the foundation stones of buildings, two were presented to the British Museum and two found their way to private collectors. In September 1970, during building work, one of the coins was stolen from the cornerstone of the Church of St Cross in Middleton, Leeds and rather than risk a further theft, the Bishop of Ripon ordered that another coin buried at St Mary's Church in Hawksworth should be unearthed and sold.

Today the Mint Museum, British Museum and the University of London each hold one of the coins, with three in private collections.

The clock keepers of Big Ben have used pre-decimal pennies stacked on the pendulum of the clock to act as weights to help regulate it since 1859, when the clock tower was completed and the first strikes of its 13.7 ton bell, nicknamed "Big Ben," were heard. Adding or taking away coins effects the pendulum's centre of mass and the rate at which it swings, adding just one penny causes the clock to gain two-fifths of a second in 24 hours.

There is a long and historic relationship between Big Ben and the UK's coins and few people realise the technical role that old pennies have played inside the clock. Now as part of Big Ben's 150th anniversary celebrations three of the 10 coins in use have now been replaced with a £5 crown - produced as part of the Royal Mint's collection to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics - which features Big Ben's clock face.

There is a possibility, although slim, that one of the 1933 coins has been used in this way. Now the clock keepers of the Palace of Westminster intend to keep hold of the old pennies in case they need to be returned to the pendulum at a future date.

So as you watch the opening ceremony of the Olympics the television broadcast will almost certainly feature Big Ben, a penny might, just might, be up there, the value of which could make your dreams come true.

27 April 2012

The London Grill: Kieran Meeke

We challenge our contributor to reply to ten devilishly probing questions about their London and we don't take "Sorry Gov" for an answer. Everyone sitting in the hot seat they will face the same questions ranging from their favourite way to spend a day out in the capital to their most hated building on London's skyline to find out what Londoners really think about their city. The questions might be the same but the answers vary wildly.

Originally from Northern Ireland, I've been to more than 100 countries, and lived in eight, but have now been in London for more than 15 years - my longest in one place. I was Features Editor of Metro for ten years and am now editor-in-chief of TRVL, voted best iPad magazine this year and the highest-rated on iTunes. Before Metro, I worked on the Camden New Journal and was a restaurant critic for the Daily Mirror. I started www.secret-london.co.uk about eight years ago and am alternately fascinated and frustrated by how much there is to discover in London.

What's your secret London tip?

Walk around the City on Sundays. You will have much of it to yourself and discover a world of new things. Be bold when you see something interesting - people are usually helpful if you are genuinely curious.

What's your secret London place?

Well, I have a website full of them. Let's say it's the Red Room off Park Lane, Henry VIII's former hunting lodge overlooking Hyde Park, but my really secret place stays secret.

What's your biggest gripe about London?

People who charge out of shop doorways and are surprised to find that other people are walking along the pavement. In a city of 7million people?

What's your favourite building?

Notre Dame de France, a hidden oasis of calm off Leicester Square, right next to the Prince Charles cinema. Some lovely artwork inside and you might be lucky enough to catch a West African wedding or an incense-rich Latin mass.

What's your most hated building?

Canary Wharf has no soul and its private army of security guards, while individually pleasant enough, can combine to make you feel very unwelcome.

What's the best view in London?

Coming back down the Thames from Greenwich to Westminster at night. I once drove a powerboat at 55knots from Tower Bridge to the Thames Barrier - that was magnificent.

What's your personal London landmark?

I am fascinated by postboxes, each one is different with royal cyphers dating back to Queen Victoria and each has a unique key, meaning older ones have deep grooves scored by decades of being opened by postmen with large bunches of keys. I'm afraid I bore my friends about them. Have you ever seen an Edward VIII one? I only know of two in London.

What's London's best film, book or documentary?

It's starting to date but I like Withnail and I, if only because I have a Swaziland connection with Richard E Grant, as does Matthew Paris.

What's your favourite bar, pub or restaurant?

It has to be Soho's Secret Tea Room, which is the room above the bar in Norman's Coach & Horses, used by Private Eye for its famous lunches. I love the retro feel, right down to the old gramophone and lament how bad coffee shops have replaced a proper afternoon tea. Not a bad pub, either.

How would you spend your ideal day off in London?

Breakfast in a proper East End café, then exploring and photographing a part of London I haven't yet discovered, with bangers & mash in a good pub for lunch. Then an evening of martinis from Antonio at the Egerton, followed by dinner at Richard Corrigan's.

25 April 2012

Divided by a common language

It's that time of year again when all the hotel chains offer cut price breaks to pull in the punters.

In the summer months communicating with London's visitors is simple: those tourists from the Middle East have learnt two or possibly three words of English; "Harrods", "Selfridges" and "ThankYou". Europeans on the other hand make a better fist of it: the Dutch have better English grammar than most cabbies I know (I was told once that they watched BBC TV from a young age); most other Europeans have English as their second language and feel the need to brush up their linguistic skills with any cabbie they can find. The ever resourceful Japanese take some headed notepaper from their hotel room and show it to the driver.

Thank goodness the American's have a sense of humour for although they speak American it is not easily understood by the English "Our hotel is in South-Waark" or "Li-Cest-Tur Square are common phrases. But after some good humoured banter on the correct pronunciation of tomato or potato we usually manage to arrive at their destination.

But for our bargain mini break visitors, well, it's frankly embarrassing; to paraphrase it is like two languages conjoined by a common country. If I can do my best at Estuary Speak and sprinkle "geezer", "wots up" and "fink" into my lexicon, those northern folks after watching Eastenders four times a week since the old King died, should at least understand me and I them.

But help is at hand from of all people The University of Leeds who are preparing a "Language and dialect atlas of Britain in the 21st Century". In an important use of their £460,000 research grant they intend to highlight regional variations of English.

Just how we have got to this stage in the development of the English language since we have been speaking it among ourselves since Saxon times, with just a slight interruption from the Normans, I don't know. For by now the BBC's received English should be the spoken norm for all of us.

But what I do know is that Wayne and Charlene will not be using the research paper to brush up their cockernee for their next visit to the Capital. And certainly can I be bovvered?

23 April 2012

The thin blue telephone line

There stands in Grosvenor Square an anachronism from the days when you would see Bobbies on the beat, an age without mobile phones, police walkie-talkies or when very few homes even had a landline telephone.

Despite the 24-hour armed police presence this blue police call box just north-east from the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square is available for public use. The door has not been sealed and behind it is a relatively modern telephone. Apparently, because of its sensitive location outside the US embassy, the post is still operational. It still has its original notice stating that advice and assistance is obtainable immediately should you so need it. English Heritage have regarded its importance in the fabric of our lives highly enough to give it Grade II listing.

First introduced into Britain in the 1920s these police boxes were used by constables to keep in touch with the police station, they served to decentralise the police force allowing the officer to stay out without the necessity of returning to base for orders.

In 1929 the larger well-known police box made famous thanks to the BBC's Doctor Who was introduced made of concrete at a cost of £43 each and by 1937 London had around 700 boxes installed. In true Tardis tradition there really was more to its inside than was apparent from the outside: phone, desk, chair, log book, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, electric heater and no doubt a kettle to make that well deserved cuppa. In an emergency they could be used as a prison for apprehending suspects and during World War II using a siren installed doubled up as an air raid warning system.

Very few police boxes have survived in London, apart from at Grosvenor Square they are located on the Victoria Embankment (opposite Middle Temple Lane), at the corner of Queen Victoria and Friday Street, on Walbrook (opposite Bucklersbury), in Guildhall Yard, outside St. Botolph Church in Aldgate, outside Liverpool Street Station, on Aldersgate Street near Little Britain, and on Piccadilly Circus at the junction with Piccadilly.

Most will only associate the police call box from the BBC's Doctor Who programmes. The original Tardis (an acronym for Time, And Relative Dimensions In Space) used in the pilot episode had been constructed in the late 1950s for the long running series Dixon of Dock Green, which ran from 1955 to 1976 and became the longest running police drama to appear on television.

The pilot for Doctor Who was filmed at in London at the BBC's Lime Grove Studios, but the box proved difficult to transport in the studio's lift. When the first series was commissioned new Tardis was constructed 8 inches shorter from wood painted with the addition of Artex to simulate concrete. The other modification was that the doors crucially opened inwards.

The word Tardis became an official word in the English language with an entry in the 2002 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

In 1996, a brand new police box appeared on Earl's Court Road, outside the tube station. In keeping with the Metropolitan Police's obsession with surveillance, it was fitted with a CCTV camera, allegedly to scare off prank callers. Unveiled as part of the Metropolitan Police's plans to reintroduce police boxes to the streets of London, plans to erect similar boxes throughout London have now been abandoned.

On the 1st July 1996 with the return of Doctor Who to the small screen the BBC filed an application to register the "Police Public Call Box" in relation to games, toys and playthings . . . the Metropolitan Police filed an opposition and the more cynical might construe that this new police box outside Earls Court as the Metropolitan Police asserting their right to the police box design.

All you need to know - and a lot more besides - about the Police Telephone Box can be found on Immanuel Burton and Jason Shron's excellent website Police Boxes.

20 April 2012

The London Grill: Jenny Jones

Jenny Jones is Green Party Mayoral candidate and has been a London Assembly Member since its inception in 2000. She grew up in Brighton, East Sussex, and has lived in Herefordshire, Lesotho in southern Africa, and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean, before moving to Camberwell, South London, in 1991. Before entering politics, Jones worked as an archaeologist, studying carbonised plant remains. Jenny has been named among London's 1,000 Most Influential Londoners every year since the award's inception. She has said that she fell in love with the capital during a visit to London Zoo at the age of five and has described London as the 'best city in the world'. She has a canal boat in the North of the City, loves the cinema that London offers, takes yoga classes and cycles everywhere.

What's your secret London tip?

Camberwell High Street. It has so many excellent café's and pubs at reasonable prices.

What's your secret London place?

My back garden, where I grow herbs, courgettes and tomatoes, but my neighbours can see in.

What's your biggest gripe about London?

Its air pollution. We are being threatened with an EU fine of £300m if we don't clean it up, not to mention what it's doing to our lungs, hearts and life expectancy.

What's your favourite building?

The BBC's Broadcasting House near Oxford Circus. It's a lovely blend of old and new.

What's your most hated building?

I might once have said the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, but I've grown fond of its ugliness. Otherwise, Buckingham Palace - so heavy and ugly.

What's the best view in London?

Into my garden while lying in bed. Or, from my office, looking east past Tower Bridge across to Canary Wharf and Blackheath. Or (am I allowed 3?) looking west while on Waterloo Bridge - quintessential London.

What's your personal London landmark?

City Hall - the out-of-place bauble that has contained so much of my political life.

What's London's best film, book or documentary?

Passport to Pimlico or the bit at Waterloo from the Bourne Ultimatum.

What's your favourite bar, pub or restaurant?

The Fox at Hanwell and JJ's Indian in Southampton Way, SE5

How would you spend your ideal day off in London?

Time on our canal boat on the Grand Union with family and friends.

18 April 2012

Grumpy! That's a laugh

London's taxi drivers have been identified as the country's grumpiest workers. A survey found that traffic jams, the rising cost of petrol and drunken passengers meant that cabbies rarely managed a chortle all day. In fact just 0.4 per cent of taxi drivers said they laughed regularly through their working day and those individuals of course have had their licenses revoked.

Live in a big city, and drive a black cab every day, you will soon see why we are morose. From grumpy fellow road users, fanciful detours, to passengers who seem to have left their brain at home that day, driving a cab through the congested heart of a major city can easily become the most irritating of occupations.

Another recent survey of cab users shows that people still judge London cabbies to be the best in the world albeit miserable, but rate Parisian chauffeurs, commonly excoriated for their rudeness, above their counterparts in Berlin, Sydney and Las Vegas. Just how bad must they be in Berlin?

Two years ago the Discovery Channel after spending eight months travelling across Britain seeking out the trickiest jobs reported a few years ago that London's black cab drivers have the most dangerous job in Britain. How exactly you classify driving a black cab as more dangerous than risking your life every day, chained to the deck of a North Sea trawler, working on a North Sea oil rig, being a lumberjack and having trees fall on your head or demolishing an asbestos filled building defeats me.

An Oxford University study said fishermen are 50 times more likely to die at work than any other profession. So based on these facts, how does deep sea fishing in raging seas slip into second place behind driving a comfortable vehicle while listening to Robert Elms on London Radio while saving to purchase your holiday home on Tuscany?

Well here's my theory. The report ranked each job on the likelihood of serious injury, skill level, working hours plus mental and physical stress. For black cab drivers, these occupational hazards come from the general public whose wrath has been incurred by delays caused by road works, drivers giving their unsolicited opinions of David Cameron.

So perhaps this survey has it right. So next time you use the services of a Black London Cabbie spare a thought of our occupational risks.

16 April 2012

David v Goliath

The English will always cheer an underdog - no matter if they are English, Scottish or even French - in the interests of fair play, another ideal the English hold in equally high esteem. The English have always loved the underdog: "Eddie the Eagle" Britain's first (and only) Olympic Ski jumper was ranked 55th in the world, at Calgary's winter Olympics in 1988 Eddie had all of England cheering for him.

We are a small nation who have taken on giants giving us a David and Goliath mentality. As a fellow "David" let me relate to you a story while trying hard to conceal a smirk.

The old Wickhams department store on Mile End Road, completed 1927, is a masterpiece of thwarted desire.

Although called the "Harrods of the East", its architectural model was Selfridges, its facade; a confident parade of giant iconic columns in imitation of the Oxford Street version. It even goes one better by having a tower in the centre: Gordon Selfridge planned one for his store but never achieved it. All would have been perfect had it not been for the Spiegelhalters, a family of jewellers who owned a building near the middle of the site.

They were descendants of the first Mr Spiegelhalter who had set up shop in Whitechapel in 1828 after coming to Britain from Germany. The business had moved to 81 Mile End Road in 1880.

The Spiegelhalters refused every inducement to sell up, causing an exceptional case of colonnadus interruptus, their little structure causing the march of columns to stop and start again. It also meant the tower was built slightly off-centre. The original idea for Selfridges - a completed colonnade plus a tower - was fated to be achieved in neither Oxford Street nor Mile End Road.

What we have instead is more interesting, a graphic demonstration how competing ambitions and sheer obstinacy shape a city. As it turned out the Spiegelhalters lasted longer. Wickhams closed in the Sixties.

Is there a lesson to be learnt here?

13 April 2012

The London Grill: Maurice McParland

Maurice is what's known in the cab trade as a butterboy, having recently passed The Knowledge gaining his badge and bill. He's a 49 year old Irish cabbie who loves Scrabble, fine dining and his Honda VFR800 motorcycle. For 22 years he has lived in London which to him is the finest city in the world, better even than New York which he lived in the 80's. Living with his partner Claire and her cat Stevie and another lovely Yorkshire lass Sophia, near Brixton. Maurice also author's a rather good website which in true Irish tradition tells tales of his experiences as a London cabbie.

What's your secret London tip?

"Off West-End" theatre is often very reasonably priced and of high
quality. Look in Time Out. Mondays and Tuesdays are sometimes even
less expensive. In particular I recommend The Almeida, The Lyric
Hammersmith and The Royal Court. The latter has eight 10p standing
tickets which go on sale one hour before each performance and on
occasions you can find an empty top priced seat to upgrade to!

What's your secret London place?

St John's Lodge Gardens is a discrete garden on the north side of
Inner Circle Regent's Park. There is just a small gate at the entrance
which many pass not noticing. There are rarely many in there and those
who are usually nod or smile at you in a knowing sort of way. There is
a large pond and a somewhat hidden circular part with a couple of
benches perfect for romantic picnic.

What's your biggest gripe about London?

There's a saying "what you focus on expands" so I rather leave the
griping to others, and focus on the wonderful things in London like
great restaurants, a vast selection of all sorts of entertainment
(music, comedy, dance etc), and of course our art galleries and museums
many of which are free of charge.

What's your favourite building?

My local cinema The Ritzy is not much to look at from the outside but
screen 1 is the well preserved original cinema from 100 years back or
so.

What's your most hated building?

I'm not crazy about The Barbican on Silk Street. 'Tis an ugly remote
building that's a schlep to get to from the West-End to see a show.

What's the best view of London?

As many know it has to be Waterloo Bridge where you can see way down
the river in both directions. What few know however is that heading
north on this bridge in the first gap just before The Hayward gallery
you can see Big Ben through The London Eye (i.e. framed by).

What's your personal London landmark?

It's Bar Italia in Frith Street a 24 hour cafe that been around for ever. I love to sit there on a sunny day with a great cappucino and watch the world go by. One sees all forms of life around Soho which is where real Londoners hang out, as opposed to Covent Garden which is a lot more touristy.

What's London's best film, book or documentary?

Mona Lisa from 1986 with Bob Hoskins and Cathy Tyson was an edgy drama/
thriller about an ex-con driving a high class call-girl around London.

What's your favourite bar, pub or restaurant?

I recently discovered The Dean Street Townhouse which in addition to
being a hotel has a beautiful restaurant and cafe area with very cool
modern art. And Zucca in Bermondsey Street for great Italian food at a
keen price.

How would you spend your ideal day off in London?

A stroll around the rose gardens in Regent's Park, followed by a
browse around Marylebone High Street (one of my favourite
neighbourhoods with a village feel). Possibly a movie at the bargain
Prince Charles cinema that shows mainly arthouse and foreign films,
then coffee in Foyle's bookshop Ray's Jazz Cafe and if I'd got some
money to spend a little flurry in Selfridges or Liberty would be a
bonus.

11 April 2012

Time Gentlemen, Please!

Pubs are quintessentially English as scones, cricket, Marmite or Stephen Fry. In Ireland or America most bars have mundane names, Murphy's or Clancy's, while English pubs have historic and often funny names; Cat and Fiddle, Hare and Hounds, The Red Lion, The Cricketers, The Battle of Trafalgar, The Rose and Crown, The Royal Oak (commemorating the time Charles II as a boy hid from Cromwellian troops after the Battle of Worcester), The Lamb and Flag and The King's Head.

These names are centuries old, from the time when most of their customers were unable to read and pictorial signs could be readily recognised and even now English pubs have beautifully painted signs above their doors.

Over the centuries, the English Public House has been a place to drink with friends; magistrates would hold court in pubs; people have been hanged in them.

In the eighteenth century the Tyburn Road what has become Oxford Street was the route prisoners would be taken to be hanged. At The Mason's Arms, a pub in Seymour Place its cellars still have the manacles on the walls, which show that prisoners enjoyed their last pint in very unusual conditions. As they left the pub and were loaded back onto the cart, prisoners would shout to customers "I'll buy you a pint on the way back!"

The "Ye Olde Man and Scythe" in Bolton, Lancashire is the third oldest pub in England, dating back to the 1200s. In 1651, the Earl of Derby had a last drink and meal inside the pub before being beheaded in the street right outside the pub for his part in the Bolton Massacre. His head supposedly missed the basket and rolled along the street. To this day, the wooden chair which he sat on during his last meal and the axe used to behead him and on display inside the pub. On the chair is an inscription which reads: "15th October 1651 In this chair James 7th Earl of Derby sat at the Man and Scythe Inn, Churchgate, Bolton immediately prior to his execution".

But, unfortunately, the Great British Pub is in danger of becoming a dying breed. Each week an average of 39 of the nation's 57,000 pubs have closed.

Most pubs have become restaurants or television rooms, after centuries in which they were the social focus of British life. "There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves as well as at a capital tavern," said Dr Johnson in the late 18th century. "At a tavern, there is general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; and the more noise you make, the more things you call for, the welcomer you are."

Urban pub numbers are declining even more steeply, because city-dwellers enjoy such a choice of restaurants and coffee shops.

In a survey 227 out of 936 North London pubs that have closed since 2002 shows that 84 have been turned into flats, while 143 have become businesses or voluntary projects.

One small group is trying to catalogue this decline, I fear their website's list will grow and grow.

9 April 2012

Rules of Engagement

You know that sinking feeling. You're at a party and the village bore sidles up and wants to discuss his collection of beer mats.

What do you do? Enter into an earnest conversation on the merits of square versus round or oblong, praise the durability to withstand liquid, and discuss their post-modernist designs.

As I see it your have three options:

Engage in an earnest and meaningful conversation, and listen to his discourse for three hours
Suggest sex and travel might at this juncture be appropriate in his case
Stare over his left shoulder at that cute girl across the room while trying to not let your eyes glaze over

Stuck inside your cab you regularly have the village bore, with the maxim "the customer's always right, even if he is a complete prat" ringing in your ears you have that same dilemma. Well a recent study might have the answer to my problem.

Social researchers have studied the interaction between hairdressers, dentists or cabbies with their clients. They call this "The rules of conversational engagements for everyday encounters", and interestingly it would appear that we cabbies have the upper hand in driving the conversation, even though you are employing us.

We have all sat in the dentist's chair while he conducts a conversation about your holiday while filling your mouth with implements, but it would seem that my customers also know their place (even if they don't realise it) when sitting in the back of my cab as much as in the dentist's chair.

It would appear that the driver starts the conversation choosing the subject, and, sorry about this, drives the conversation forward. You of course reply to my discourse not wishing to be confrontational or rude as you regard conversation with a stranger to be on a different level than, say, somebody you met in the pub or a casual acquaintance.

So the next time you are in the back, take this little bit of advice, and know your place; listen to your cabbie's sage advice on how to run the country or England's football squad.