Monday Miscellanea

This Week In London’s History

Monday – 17th September 1961: Police arrest 1,314 demonstrators at a CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) protest in Trafalgar Square. Bertrand Russell is amongst those arrested.

Tuesday – 18th September 1970: Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix is found dead in his basement flat in Notting Hill, west London. A subsequent inquest records an open verdict on his death, noting that he drank wine and took nine sleeping pills the previous night, and indicating that he may have misjudged the pills’ potency. Wednesday – 19th September 1997: Six people die as a high-speed Intercity 125 train collides with a freight train in Southall, north London. An inquiry would find that the driver missed two warning signals, and that the train’s two safety systems that could have averted the accident were inoperative. Thursday – 20th September 2000: An anti-tank missile is fired at the MI6 headquarters at Vauxhall Cross, causing minor damage to the eighth floor. The Real IRA is later blamed for the attack. Friday – 21st September 1969: More than 200 policemen storm a mansion in Piccadilly, Central London, evicting a large number of squatters.

Random London Fact Of The Week

The area of central London known as Blackfriars is named after the Dominican Friars, who established a priory in the area in the 13th century. When outside the priory, the friars’ order required them to wear a long, black, hooded cloak (or ‘cappa’) – which led to them being named the ‘Black Friars’.

London’s Weather This Week

Once again, the forecasters seem to think that the current weather will continue. That’s reasonably good news if they’re correct, but experience tells us to be prepared for it to be rainier or colder than expected, just in case.

Image taken from Dunechaser’s fantastic Flickr photostream under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence.