Did anybody else know that there are in fact two Lord Mayors of London? I didn't either – until last night that is.
A couple of weeks ago, I received an email through our orchestra mailing list about a string quartet gig at Helsinki City Hall organised by the British Council. Their guest of honour was to be 'Lontoon kaupungin pormestari'. The opportunity to meet the great Ken Livingstone, I thought to myself in excitement. With this in mind I duly signed up for the gig and started thinking about what to wear.
As the morning of the concert dawned, I was in a bit of a tizz, having selected a lovely red tie in honour of Mr Livingstone's visit, and constantly reminding myself that at no point must I implore him to stand for leadership of the Labour Party... We arrivde at City Hall and set up for our performance, and my eyes immediately started roving across the tables and the seating arrangement to see where Ken would be sitting. To my dismay, I saw a card at Table A which read "The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of the City of London John Stuttard". This can't be right, I thought. There's only one mayor of London, and his name is Ken.
To my great chagrin, it turns out that there really are two lord mayors. Ken is the Lord Mayor of London, while Stuttard is the Lord Mayor of the City of London (all of one square mile). So after all that build-up, my encounter with one of the great names of British socialism was sadly not to be... Perhaps another opportunity will present itself. Who knows?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
This is to inform you that your blog has been selected to receive a "Thinking Blog Award" to honor your commitment to making your readers think about things. If you wish to dispute this charge, please contact Sean Tibbitts at Alone and Unobserved. (Awards cannot be refunded.)
Otherwise, go to The Thinking Blog to learn what you must do next.
congrats on the award, i think...
for just a moment, when i first read this post, i was alarmed, thinking you were talking about george galloway. duh. fortunately i'm fairly self-correcting.
Post a Comment