Friday, December 15, 2006

Amusing Trivia Brought To You Live By Satellite, Cribbed From The History Channel (Thursdays, 8pm)

Did you know that in Burlington Arcade it's illegal to whistle or carry parcels?

Carrying a parcels is apparently ungentlemanly (I knew it all along - all through my parcel-carrying days. I said over and over, 'I just don't feel like a gentleman. If only I could put down this a-cursed parcel.') and whistling was outlawed because in the eighteenth century the pickpockets whistled to each other as part of their signalling system. Nowadays they use semaphore.

Now, here's the moderately interesting part - who do you think is the only man in Britain officially allowed to whistle in Burlington Arcade?

A member of the Royal Family? The Duke of Westminster? A Beefeater? Nope.

The only man in Britain officially allowed to whistle in Burlington Arcade is...

Sir Paul McCartney.

And that makes perfect sense.

So now I have a new ambition - to become so respected by the nation that I am allowed to whistle in Burlington Arcade.

Now would somebody please take this parcel off my hands?

1 comment:

Flaky said...

There are some odd laws about! The funniest thing is...when they made the exception for Paul, why didnt they scrap the law?