tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post115903319802383571..comments2024-01-07T13:24:03.640+00:00Comments on Nothing Tra La La?: The invasion, part two0tralalahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06818587472660040921noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post-1159379208648430332006-09-27T18:46:00.000+01:002006-09-27T18:46:00.000+01:00Ugly though it is, the modern London Bridge wasn't...Ugly though it is, the modern London Bridge wasn't a "quick replacement" for one that had been bought. It was built because the old one was sinking. Subsidising construction by selling the shell of the scrapped bridge to America was a cunning bit of entrepeneurial flair on the part of the Bridge House Estates (and Ivan Luckin in particular - read an interview at http://tinyurl.com/mrn34).<BR/><BR/>As to the Monument, you really shouldn't just <I>look</I> at it : you can climb up it for a couple of quid. And you even get a nice certificate to prove that you've done it. Being crowded on a couple of sides by other buildings, the view isn't as spectacular as it might be, but it's worth the effort. (The inflammatory bakery seen in The Visitation wasn't actually in this square but in Pudding Lane, the supposed site being 202 feet from the Monument itself.)Paul Rhodeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04870347889607069551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post-1159095966794148542006-09-24T12:06:00.000+01:002006-09-24T12:06:00.000+01:00I have added links to the post, and also added ETA...I have added links to the post, and also added ETAs.<BR/><BR/>Yes, Liadnan, was thinking of the West Wing - on the basis that our to ur of the Guildhall last year (as part of Open House) only showed us those bits.<BR/><BR/>Yes, Nimbos, I meant Fleet. Don't know why I wrote Strand. Syphillis, probably.<BR/><BR/>Cheers for the stuff about Banks and bridges - I'd no idea.0tralalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06818587472660040921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post-1159055530075642272006-09-24T00:52:00.000+01:002006-09-24T00:52:00.000+01:00A couple of things - I'd heard that the origins of...A couple of things - I'd heard that the origins of the song "London Bridge is Falling Down" came from an attempt to stop the Danes getting to London in the 11th century - they burned it down. (Peter de Colechurch didn't build the original "old" London Bridge 'til the 13th century). There are probably several different origins for that old rhyme though.<BR/><BR/>I beleive Smithfield is on the bank of the river Fleet, the course of which runs under what is now Farringdon Street to come out under Blackfriars Bridge.Nimboshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09641328022362217877noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13336104.post-1159042780297587232006-09-23T21:19:00.000+01:002006-09-23T21:19:00.000+01:00Most of the Guildhall properly so-called was buil...Most of the Guildhall properly so-called was built around 1411 and is beautiful: the Great Hall is, along with Westminster Hall, one of the two finest surviving examples of medieval halls. Are you possibly talking about the 1974 West Wing and the surounding buildings (running into the Barbican), which are sometimes collectively and loosely described as the Guildhall?<BR/><BR/>Not sure I would describe the Bank of England as "the first bank (as we understand the term) in the world". Firstly it's a central bank, not an ordinary retail or merchant bank (it does trade, but as an arm of the state, and it only offers retail banking to its employees and a very few other people, a friend of a friend has a BoE bank account, which has some rather special and weird attributes): what most people think of when they think of the word "bank" is not really central banks; secondly so far as central banks are concerned I believe the banks of Amsterdam and Sweden were older; thirdly the original subscribers to the Bank of England did not have bank accounts, they provided the capital of the bank itself; fourthly there are one or two modern banks, in the merchant bank or retail banking sense, that descend from organisations offering similar services going back to the fourteenth century or earlier. The Banca Monte Dei Paschi De Siena, which continues to thrive and in fact has offices a stones throw from the BoE, and is certainly a modern merchant bank, springs to mind and I think there are one or two other Italian ones, and possibly a few originally Greek (in the sense of Greek people, not so much to do with the modern country) ones as well.Liadnanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00034530689776558675noreply@blogger.com