Train-riding pigeons: Is this a new kind of evolution? ibid.
The pelicans have been here since 1664. ibid.
At dusk wave after wave of parakeets can build to a roost of over 6,000 birds. ibid.
There are now three separate colonies of scorpion living in London. ibid.
There is a certain magical stretch of the Thames in London that was at the centre of an 18th century cultural movement that changed our British landscapes for ever. At the heart of it was a fascination with the ancient concept of arcadia, where man and nature lived in perfect pastoral harmony. A radical group of writers and artists completely overturned the idea of what comprised a beautiful landscape. Janina Ramirez & John Bailey, In Search of Arcadia, BBC 2017
Et in Arcadia Ego: Nicholas Poussin 1638. ibid.
Just very simple people like me who started off as a farm girl in Africa end up living in Mayfair. Modern Times: Welcome to Mayfair, resident, BBC 2015
Mayfair contains more intelligence and human ability, to say nothing of wealth and beauty, than the world has ever collected before in one space. ibid. Sydney Smith, 1771-1845
I do pinch myself when I remember I come from Essex … It is like a village. ibid. resident
You have two-thirds of the world’s luxury brands, and the other third are now battling over every shop that becomes available. ibid.
It is the space and the rent – that is the problem of our time. ibid. tailor
London: 15 million visitors a year. Scam City s2e8: London, National Geographic 2014
That perfume seller on Oxford Street … always claims he’s having a closing down sale … They’re not even the perfumes he was advertising. ibid.
One of its oldest problems: pickpockets. ibid.
Hoxton: phone snatching gangs have been targeting the area. ibid.
Soho’s sex clubs and bars have a history of fleecing tourists which goes back hundreds of years. ibid.
Clip joints: first signs – doormen built like tanks. ibid.
Suddenly I start to see these Chinese herbal shops in a new light. ibid.
Since the ’60s news from the City has mattered to more and more people. Between St Paul’s and Tower Bridge lies the City of London and its marketplaces. No-one makes anything here except money. For this is capitalism’s heart: one square mile of offices, typewriters and telephones. Inside Story: The Market, BBC 1976
Banks: there are over 250 of them in the City. ibid.
‘The largest foreign exchange market in the world.’ ibid.
At the heart of non-life insurance are men of substance called Lloyds of London. A Lloyds underwriter makes his living from betting you your disaster won’t happen. If it does, the underwriter who’s put his name to the risk must pay out down to the shirt on his back. ibid.
Every day the discount houses scour the banks for idle money. ibid.
The health of the market is monitored with a morbid precision. ibid.
‘It’s a battle zone.’ Inside Story: Fish Tales, trader, BBC 1999
Billingsgate in the heart of London’s East End is the country’s largest inland fish market. For over a thousand years it’s been home to generations of nocturnal fish devotees whose unique passion for selling fish still flourishes today. ibid.
Market life starts around midnight but selling can’t start until five. ibid.
To move fish around the market you have to be a specially licensed porter. There are 100 permanent porters and 20 casuals. Casuals turn up on the off-chance of a day’s work. ibid.
London is just smoke and trouble, Thomas. Peaky Blinders s2e1, Esme, BBC 2014
‘Once upon a time it [tower] was a symbol of hope, hope or a better life.’ Before Grenfell: A Hidden History, resident, BBC 2018
For some Grenfell Tower is more than just a ruin everyone’s seen on the news. Before the fire, you might have thought of Kensington as simply the wealthiest place in Britain … The gap between the richest residents and the poorest is wider here than anywhere else in the country. ibid.
Grenfell Tower stands in north Kensington, the poorest part of the borough, in an area called Notting Dale. ibid.
South Kensington was one of the last remaining strongholds of the aristocratic classes who still needed servants. ibid.
30,000 homes were bombed in Kensington by the Nazis. ibid.
By the 1980s the reputation of the Lancaster West estate and council estates everywhere was suffering. ibid.
More and more of the houses were restored to their Victorian glory. ibid.
London in the ’60s was a magical place. The old class barriers had been swept aside and if you wanted it bad enough, anything was possible. It was our time. By the mid-60s the Krays had become the criminal overlords of London. The great and the good flocked to their west-end clubs. They had become celebrities. Fall of the Krays 2016 starring Simon Cotton & Kevin Leslie & Josh Myers & James Hepburn & Dan Parr & George Webster & Alexa Morden & Adrian Bouchet & Martin Ross et al, director Zachary Adler
In the hidden world beneath London an army of 4,000 workers is attempting to build the biggest sewer in Britain’s history: seven metres wide and twenty miles long, the enormous tunnel will run directly beneath the River Thames. The five-billion-pound tunnel is urgently needed. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer I, BBC 2018
A project first mooted almost twenty years ago. ibid.
London’s excess sewage has to go somewhere so to stop it backing up into people’s homes – it’s released into the Thames. ibid.
London’s Victorian sewers are a labyrinth of more than 500 miles of interconnecting tunnels. Parts of the network have never been accurately surveyed. ibid.
If successful, the new super-sewer will capture this waste and transfer it to Europe’s largest treatment works east of the city. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer II
Jim must scan every inch of the 20-mile stretch of the Thames to complete the underwater map. ibid.
Every day over 30 tonnes of wet-wipes are flushed down London’s loos. ibid.
During tunnelling, engineers plan to excavate over 40,000 tonnes of earth every week. ibid.
The most important part of the machine is the cutter-head; it’s been built specifically based on the predictions of what the earth will be like sixty metres below the Thames. The Five Billion Pound Super Sewer III
Sixty metres below the assembly team’s feet deep underground in Battersea excavators have been battling through the tough ground. ibid.
In September 1940 death and destruction came to the streets of Britain on a scale never seen before or since. They called it The Blitz. In the space of little over eight months more than 450,000 bombs rained down on British soil. But in the midst of the chaos and confusion meticulous records were kept. Blitz: The Bombs that Changed Britain I, BBC 2018
A bomb falls on the east end of London on the very first night of The Blitz: 8 Martindale Road. This bomb changed lives. But it also exposed a social care system in crisis. What followed was a radical shift in attitudes towards the welfare of us all. And it began with one bomb. ibid.
Wave after wave of bombers began to hammer the London docks. ibid.
As many as one in ten bombs that fell during The Blitz were classified as UXBs. ibid.
A city in flames and a transport system in chaos. ibid.