The Catseye
The Catseye, trademark of Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd, was invented by Percy Shaw, OBE (1890-1976) who was born in Yorkshire. He was prompted […]
Read MoreMonth: April 2019
Angel of the North
The ‘Angel of the North‘ is a monumental red-rust steel sculpture in Gateshead, adjacent to the A1. Prior to its installation in […]
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Lord Mayor’s Show
The Lord Mayor’s Show is the world’s oldest and longest street procession. It did not begin as a ‘show’; more a forfeit […]
Read MoreThe Lord Mayor’s Show is the world’s oldest and longest street procession. It did not begin as a ‘show’; more a forfeit for the City of London being permitted by King John in 1215 to have its own mayor. This was one of the “ancient liberties” included in Clause 13 of Magna Carta Libertatum.
The purpose of the procession is a public display of the Lord Mayor travelling to Westminster to swear allegiance to the monarch. En route there is a stop-off at St. Paul’s Cathedral to receive a blessing. It also takes in Mansion House, which is the official residence of the Lord Mayor for the single year of his/her appointment.
In the past, the journey was made by horseback and barge on the River Thames. For safety (and appearance), the Mayor has had a gold State Coach since 1757. Today, the procession is a mixture of traditional and modern and there are three miles of floats and thousands of participants. It begins at 9am on the Thames, then from 11am to 3.30pm takes to the streets, which are closed to normal traffic. It takes place on the second Saturday of November.
(Top image: Peter Beaven at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)
Justices of the Peace (Magistrates)
Justices of the Peace (JPs) are also known as Magistrates and they deal with the more minor criminal offences and with family […]
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Pulsars
Two British astronomers discovered the existence of pulsars with a radio telescope at Cambridge University in 1967. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, born […]
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Lord Ian Botham
A larger-than-life personality, Lord Ian Botham, OBE, nicknamed ‘Beefy’, is an English cricketing hero who continued to be in the public eye […]
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Spiritualism
The Spiritualists’ National Union, founded in 1853, is the organising body for the spiritualist churches or societies in the UK, serving up […]
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Keep Britain Tidy
The ‘Keep Britain Tidy‘ campaign first came to the public’s notice in the 1970s, owing to the use of celebrities in television […]
Read MoreThe ‘Keep Britain Tidy‘ campaign first came to the public’s notice in the 1970s, owing to the use of celebrities in television adverts and posters, as well as the creation of the ‘Tidyman’ logo, still in use today. The campaign is registered as a charity and has been very successful in raising awareness of litter in public places. The logo appears on bins and signs.
There are associated charities around the UK, namely Keep Wales Tidy, Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful and Keep Scotland Beautiful, which do very similar work. Cigarette butts and dog poo are two main focuses. Blue Flag awards for beaches and Green Flag awards for parks are two of the initiatives and are highly coveted by their recipients in this time of concern for the environment.
In both 1977 and 2016 there was a campaign called ‘Clean for the Queen’ but these were less productive than the annual ‘Great British Spring Clean’ events taking place in recent years, in which volunteers go litter-picking in their local areas.
(Top image: David Lally at geograph.org.uk / CC BY-SA 2.0)
Ada Lovelace and her Day
Ada Lovelace (1815-52) was the daughter of Romantic poet, Lord Byron, who left their home when she was five weeks old and […]
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National Insurance numbers
Adult British subjects must have a National Insurance (NI) number as it is very difficult to live outside of the system of […]
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Cockney rhyming slang
A Cockney used to be defined as someone ‘born within the sound of Bow Bells’ in the City of London, but this […]
Read MoreA Cockney used to be defined as someone ‘born within the sound of Bow Bells’ in the City of London, but this is no longer a residential area so it is now a general term for someone born in the East End of London. At the end of the Industrial Revolution in the 1840s the City was crowded with office blocks, warehouses, marketplaces and traders. Inevitably, communities formed and found ways to delineate themselves. Out of this came Cockney rhyming slang ~ a code designed to avoid saying the actual words you mean ~ particularly useful for in-jokes, fooling outsiders (including policemen) and tribal bonding.
Words chosen to be coded were mainly body parts, money, clothes, states of being and rude words. There were two main types of code. Both involve having a phrase which rhymes with the target word, e.g. Barnet fair -> hair. The first method would then drop all but the first word of the phrase ~ so, Barnet means hair. The second method simply keeps the whole phrase, e.g. trouble and strife -> wife. Some of these codes have entered the main language and are well-known around the country, e.g. “Let’s have a butcher’s” means “Let’s have a look” (butcher’s hook).
(Top image: Cory Doctorow at Flickr.com / CC BY-SA 2.0)