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London

From the Quicksilver Metaweb.

This is an intermediate page for the city of London.

Stephensonia

“ ... [Lawrence] Waterhouse found a worm-eaten copy of the Encyclopedia Qwghlmiana in a bookshop near the British Museum a week ago and has been carrying it around in his attache case since then, imbibing a page or two at a time, like doses of strong medicine. The overriding Themes of the Encyclopedia are three, and they dominate its every paragraph as totally as the Three Sgrhs dominate the landscape of Outer Qwghlm. Two of these themes are wool and guano, though the Qwghlmians have other names for them, in their ancient, sui generis tongue. In fact, the same linguistic hyperspecialization occurs here that supposedly does with the Eskimos and snow or Arabs and sand, and the Encyclopedia Qwghlmiana never uses the English words "wool" and "guano" except to slander the inferior versions of these products that are exported by places like Scotland in a perfidious effort to confuse the naïve buyers who apparently dominate the world's commodity markets. Waterhouse had to read the encyclopedia almost cover-to-cover and use all his cryptanalytic skills to figure out, by inference, what these products actually were. ...”

Authored entries

Community entry:London

London's Growth into a Cosmopolitan City in the Baroque Period

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Jacobean London circa 1604 CE London is one of the world's great cities. It was arguably the most important city in the world during the Baroque period, when English sea power was rising, and, the Royal Society was one of the most pre-eminent places to exchange knowledge in Europe.

With Catholic Europe subjecting its best scientist to the Inquisition, it was Protestant countries that needed 'on the edge' advances as soon as possible. Among the Society's first actions involved trying to improve England's military might focusing on naval cannon. England as a naval power will allow for growth of new disciplines. This leads to places such as the Royal Greenwich Observatory; Flamsteed House (1675-76), the original part of the Observatory, was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and was the first purpose-built scientific research facility in Britain. Seems Newton tried to erase Robert Hooke's work here as well -- many of the Wren buildings were done to Hooke's plans.

We have to look at the Great Fire of London in 1666, which in the Quicksilver universe saw Charles II kill Drake Waterhouse with barrels of gunpowder before the eyes of Daniel. The Great Fire of London was a major fire that swept through the City of London from September 2 -5, 1666, and resulted more or less in its destruction. The fire had the beneficial effect of killing many of the rats which were responsible for the spread of the Great Plague. The fire had a marked and varied impact on English society. See Charles II, Christopher Wren, and Samuel Pepys.

The obvious difference in London was its expansion inside and outside the city. The city was growing at a tremendous speed. Literature and art show us this. Artists such as Wenceslaus Hollar[1], Richard Newcourt and William Faithorne, detailed information on the directions in which London was extending through the mid-seventeenth century. They had the Thames as the major highway between London and Westminster in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Post Great Fire London of the Quicksilver Universe (see the Comstock House)

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In the 17th and 18th centuries, during the period now referred to as the Little Ice Age, the Thames often froze over in the winter. This led to the first "Frost Fair" in 1607, complete with a tent city set up on the river itself and offering a number of odd amusements, including ice bowling.[2]

It remained the centre of English-speaking culture until at least the mid 20th century, whereafter some would claim it became one of many great cities of that culture, with only New York City more important as the newest unofficial International World Capital housing the headquarters of the United Nations.

However, today, London is the centre of much the world's insurance and brokerage businesses, and has a much more international financial character than does New York, which may also be in decline after events of 9-11, 2001 and various accounting scandals.

Contrariwise, the 21st century might well be centered on cities that have the Pacific Ocean in their backyard, and speak Chinese as much as they do English. Perhaps London will be the future Library Depository of the England language in the future.