Strange facts about London

· Law reformer Jeremy Bentham left his entire estate to London’s University College in 1832 on condition that he be stuffed, dressed in his finest clothes and mounted in a chair from where he would continue to attend the annual meeting of the university’s board of governors. His figure is still brought out to preside over an annual debate.

· If you find a Cab-driver in London not carrying a bale of hay overboard, he is breaking the law.
All London taxis are "Hackney Carriages" registered and in the olden days this means "Horse-drawn". Regulations stated that no horses should go hungry and therefore insisted that all horse- drawn carriages that were registered as "Hackney Carriage" (mainly Taxis) should carry a bale of hay. That rule has still not been changed hence still applies. Fortunately it is not enforced.

· Who says you cannot drive on the right hand side of the road in London?
Well you can, but only in the Savoy Courtyard. It is a short street which leads to the Savoy hotel entrance.

· Her Majesty the Queen.
Even though being the sovereign of The UNITED KINGDOM, Her Majesty the Queen is not allowed to enter the City of London with seeking the permission of its Lord Mayor.

· City of London.
The actual City of London is only 1 square mile. All other major road such as Oxford Street, Piccadilly and Regent Street actually come under "The City of Westminster"

· The British eat twice as many baked beans per head as Americans do.

· William the Conqueror ordered that everyone should go to bed at eight o’clock.

· Some 80, 000 umbrellas are lost annually on the London Underground.

· Nothing officially happened in Britain between 3 and 14 September 1752. This was because the country was switching from the old Julian calendar to the Western or Gregorian calendar, a move initially instituted by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. Britain didn’t get round to changing until 1752 when those 11 days went unobserved.

· Because Britain lived by the Julian calendar, until 1752 New Year’s Day fell on 25 March.

· There are a dozen secret rivers flowing beneath London. One, the Effra travels under the Oval cricket ground.

· Berwick-upon-Tweed was officially at war with Russia for 110 years. As the border town frequently changed hands between England and Scotland over the centuries, it was usually referred to as a separate entity in all State documents. At the outbreak of the Crimean War, Britain declared war on Russia in the name of Britain, Ireland, Berwick-upon-Tweed andall British Dominions. But when the war ended two years later in 1856, the Paris Peace Treaty omitted Berwick. So Berwick was technically at war with Russia until 1966 when a Soviet official, made aware of the situation, visited the town to declare peace. The Mayor of Berwick said: “Please tell the Russian people that at last thy can sleep peacefully in their beds!”

· There are over 30, 000 John Smiths in Britain.

· Britain’s first holiday camp was Dodd’s Socialist Holiday Camp at Caister-on-Sea in Norfolk, which opened in 1906. Alcohol was strictly banned and any holidaymaker caught talking loudly after 11pm was thrown out. Accommodation was under canvas and anyone failing to keep his it her tent tidy was liable to a 6d fine for each offence.

· When the 999 service was introduced to Britain in 1937, the buzzer which alerted the switchboard operators to an emergency call was s loud that a number of girl operators fainted when they heard it. The noise level was eventually reduced by inserting a tennis ball in the mouth of the buzzer.

· When the water level is very low at Ladybower Reservoir in Derbyshire, a church spire appears above the surface. It is the only visible remains of the villages of Ashopton and Derwent, both of which were flooded when the reservoir was filled in 1943.

· Portugal is England’s oldest ally. The Anglo-Portuguese Treaty signed in 1373 is still in force.

· The town of Beverley, near Hull, was named after the number of beavers which once lived in the area.

· In 1945, a flock of starlings landed on the minute hand of Big Ben and put the time back by five minutes.

· Britain is he only country in the world which doesn’t have the country’s name in its postage stamps.

· Nowhere in Britain is more than 74½ miles from the sea.

· An old red telephone kiosk in Huddersfield was converted into a bar by a hotelier who promptly dubbed it the smallest public bar in Britain.

· THE ALBERT MEMORIAL IN HYDE PARK.

A huge Gothic edifice erected to the memory of Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, is decorated with sculptures which reveal an extraordinary but quite unintentional set of coincidences. There are 61 human figures (Albert died in 1861); there are 19 men (Albert was born in 1819); there are 42 women (Albert died at age 42); and there are 9 animals (Albert had 9 children).

· EAR FOR MUSIC

The statue of Handel in Westminster Abbey has someone else's ear. The sculptor, Louis Francois Roubillac, thought that Handel's ear, though without doubt musical, was rather ugly. So he used as a model the ear of a certain Miss Rich, which, though not at all musical, was sculpturally perfect.

· STAR-SPANGLED SPIRE

Christ Church, Lambeth, has a spire decorated with stars and stripes. Half the cost of the church was borne by Americans, and the tower commemorates President Lincoln's abolition of slavery.

· PIERPOINT'S REFUGE

London's first traffic island was put in St. James's Street in 1864 at the personal expense of a Colonel Pierpoint, who was afraid of being run over on his way to his Pall Mall club. When it was finished, he dashed across the road to admire his creation and was knocked down by a cab.