[lbo-talk] name games

James Heartfield Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk
Tue Mar 30 10:53:48 PDT 2010


Yes, well, how much Londoners miss 'Gropecunt Lane' is open to question ... I can't imagine that the London Feminist Network would route their Reclaim the Street march that way.

There are a great many Maiden Roads and Lanes that are not really named for Maidens but bowdlerisations of Midden, or Shit-heap.

When my daughters do the Fire of London for school project I always tell them that the road it started in 'Pudding Lane' is not named for any culinary pudding, but the pudding of turds that were pushed together there to float down the Thames.

In Tottenham there was a discussion about renaming Black Boy Lane in the 1980s, but I think it has survived... though for better or worse you decide...

Near me there is Despard Road, and a pub just off it on the Archway Road is called the Charlotte Despard after the great Irish socialist and suffragette. There is also a Quelch House (after the Socialist Harry Quelch).



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