Abstracted from The Good Time Guide to London(1951)
The statue of George IV in Trafalgar Square shows the king, without boots or spurs, riding a horse without saddle or stirrups.
True. Incidentally, Sir Francis Chantrey’s bronze of 1829 was originally made for Marble Arch.
On the floor of the entrance hall of the National Gallery is a mosaic of Great Garbo.
True .The Bloomsbury set mosaic artist Boris Anrep was commissioned to provide a number of art works for the Gallery based on specific themes and featuring a number of contemporary figures. On the half-way landing the actress Great Garbo appears as Melpomeme in ‘ The Awakening of the Muses ‘.
On October 23rd, 1843, a few days before the statue of Nelson was erected, 14 persons ate a rump steak dinner on the top of Nelson’s column
True .Doubtless Punch ( founded 1841) would have had something witty to say about this matter. Continue reading
hilarious and sometimes shocking anthology, Critics’ Gaffes (1983), come from critics who supposedly know what they’re talking about. Others are the judgements of those who haven’t a clue. Perhaps Geoffrey Grigson nailed it when he described the romantic novelist and radio presenter Melvyn Bragg as ‘a media mediocrity who couldn’t tell good literature from old gym shoes.’ Mind you, like the stopped clock which tells the right time twice a day, a few of the following verdicts have the ring of truth.
