We've watched a LOT of old videos about London. This is among the very best.
Do you know where to find London's only green phone box, a drapers shop that refuses to decimalise, or the major crossroads that was cursed by Sir John Oldcastle? You will after watching this utterly mesmerising film from 1975, newly uploaded by BBC Archive to YouTube.
Bernard Falk is our genial guide, host of a cavalcade of oddities around the capital. He imposes no over-arching narrative or thesis... but simply revels in a quick-fire selection of curiosities. It is magnificent.
Interspersed between novelty street furniture and eccentric pubs are the people. Falk interviews some truly remarkable characters, such as the paralysed barrister who tours London in a vintage ambulance, the teenager who'd been to see Jesus Christ Superstar 187 times, and the man and wife who go everywhere with a parrot and snake.
And then there's Arthur Super, Mayor of Hackney. As Mayor, Super had to attend numerous engagements on a Saturday. But as a Jew, he declined to take transport on the Sabbath. And so it became a common sight around Hackney to see the mayoral limo transporting the chains of office, with Super and his wife marching slowly behind.
Falk himself turns out to be something of a character, running through a number of costume changes (including a bee-keeper's outfit and the pub snake), a continuity-spoiling broken finger, and some hilarious deliveries. Watch the section that begins at 20:06 and you'll think "My god, he's the 1970's answer to Jay Foreman".
Sadly, Falk died in 1990 aged just 47. I don't know much about his wider legacy, but this film alone deserves to be up there with other classics like The London That Nobody Knows and John Betjeman's Metroland. Spellbinding.
