Anthony Smart

Source unknown, but very useful to throw at a lamppost lover.

At Sloane Square Underground Station, a massive, boxy iron pipe runs directly above the tracks and platforms, carrying the River Westbourne. This unusual engineering solution was implemented during the station's construction in 1868 because the river's natural path intersected.

Who else misses stores like C&A British Home stores Woolworths Debenhams These shops were what made the UK great.

The Day One Man Shut Down a London Street With Letters. On November 27, 1810, a 22-year-old writer named Theodore Hook made a bet with a friend: he could turn any house in London into the most talked-about address in the city. He chose 54 Berners Street, home to a well-off widow named Mrs. Tottenham, seemingly at random. Then he spent six weeks writing somewhere between one thousand and four thousand letters. Every letter invited a different tradesperson or dignitary to visit Mrs. Tottenham's house on the same day. At 5 a.m., chimney sweeps began knocking on her door. Then came dozens of coal wagons. Then a parade of bakers carrying elaborate wedding cakes. Then bootmakers, dentists, miniature painters, undertakers, auctioneers, doctors, grocers, all insisting they'd been summoned. Deliveries of pianos, organs, and carts of beer clogged the street. By afternoon, the chaos had escalated. The Governor of the Bank of England showed up. So did the chairman of the East India Company, the Duke of Gloucester, and the Lord Mayor of London, each believing they'd received an urgent personal invitation. Police had to block both ends of Berners Street, but people kept arriving, including a wave of domestic servants at 5 p.m., all there for a job interview that didn't exist. Hook watched the entire thing unfold from a rented room across the street. Police offered a reward for the prankster's identity, but Hook was never caught. He never even admitted to it, the truth only emerged long after his death. Two hundred years before the internet, one man essentially DDoS'd a street using nothing but stamps and audacity.

Make your choice.

How sad. I liked Ask Jeeves, but after many years, it closed down yesterday. Always thought of it as the Mr Benn of search engines.