"Christmas at Covent Garden"To start the new year, some completely unnecessary facts about London... but there interesting anyway...(is that slightly contradictory?)
1. More than 300 languages are spoken in this lovely town
2. The first traffic lights in the world were installed near House of Commons in 1868
3. More than one third of Greater London are parks, woods, gardens or other nice green areas (it is in fact the greenest urban agglomeration on planet earth with more than 1 million inhabitants...)
4. The City of London is actually rather small: 2.6 km2 and 9200 residents (but over 360'000 "city workers". Myself, I'm a resident of the Borough of Southwark (Mayor: Bob Skelly, Population: 269'200 (31st largest "city" of the UK) of which 53% white British and 13.3% black African. I belong to the 9% other white...)
5. The shortest postal address is "1 London". It's the former residence of the Duke of Wellington.
6. Brixton Market was the first market in the UK with electricity. You find the market on (surprise, surprise) Electric Avenue.
7. Notting Hill Carnival is the second largest carnival in the world (after Rio of course).
8. A fragrance called "Madeleine" was introduced at St James Park, Euston and Piccadilly tube station in an effort to make the tube smell better on 23rd March 2001. It was taken out of action on 24th March 2001 as it was making people feel sick...
9. The peak hour for tube suicides is 11am. (No idea why...)
And for today's lyrics:
And have you seen the old man
Outside the seaman's mission
His memory is fading,
With those medal ribbons he wears
And in our winter city,
the rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero
And a world that doesn't care
Streets of London - Ralph McTell
