A Conversation with Oscar Wilde

Station Squabble is a digital photograph taken by Sam Rowley that won the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award, described by the BBC as an "annual, internationally famous WPY competition", on 12 February 2020. Two mice, which had been foraging separately on a platform in the London Underground, are depicted fighting over a crumb that they had found simultaneously. To capture the shot, Rowley spent a week overnight in the Underground system, according to the BBC, receiving "many strange looks from commuters", Rowley said, as he had to lie on various station platforms with his camera. The "split-second face-off" received around 28,000 votes. The mice's squabble, Rowley later commented, was "over in seconds". The photograph was chosen from a shortlist of 25 out of 48,000 submitted images.The Director of the Natural History Museum, described the picture as showing "a fascinating glimpse into how wildlife functions in a human-dominated environment." Rowley is a researcher with the BBC's photography unit. The New Straits Times described it as depicting "Jerry vs Jerry", referencing the cartoon character Jerry Mouse from Tom and Jerry.

Inner London is the name for the group of London boroughs which form the interior part of Greater London and are surrounded by Outer London. With its origins in the bills of mortality, it became fixed as an area for statistics in 1847 and was used as an area of local government from 1855 to 1965 principally as the County of London or earlier as the Metropolitan Board of Works Area (metropolis). It now has two common definitions. The first is the statutory definition delineated in the London Government Act 1963, coming into force on 1 April 1965, comprising twelve Inner London boroughs and almost identical to the County of London that was abolished at the same time. The second is the current definition used by the Office for National Statistics comprising eleven of the statutory Inner London boroughs and two of the statutory Outer London boroughs, and the City of London.Inner London is smaller than Outer London both in terms of population and area, but the density of population is more than double that of Outer London. Inner London is officially the wealthiest area in Europe with the most expensive street in Europe: GDP per capita is more than €80,000 while the UK GDP per capita is around €27,000.

The Queen Eleanor Memorial Cross is a memorial to Eleanor of Castile erected in the forecourt of Charing Cross railway station, London, in 1864–1865. It is a fanciful reconstruction of the medieval Eleanor cross at Charing, one of twelve memorial crosses erected by Edward I of England in memory of his first wife. The Victorian monument was designed by Edward Middleton Barry, also the architect of the railway station, and includes multiple statues of Queen Eleanor by the sculptor Thomas Earp. It does not occupy the original site of the Charing Cross (destroyed in 1647), which is now occupied by Hubert Le Sueur's equestrian statue of Charles I. Barry based the memorial on the three surviving drawings of the Charing Cross, in the Bodleian Library, the British Museum and the collection of the Royal Society of Antiquaries. However, due to the fragmentary nature of this evidence, he also drew from a wider range of sources including the other surviving Eleanor crosses and Queen Eleanor's tomb at Westminster Abbey. In this search for precedents Barry was assisted by his fellow architect Arthur Ashpitel. The coats of arms of England, León, Castile and Ponthieu appear on the monument.

Hungerford Hall was a lecture theatre built beside Hungerford Market near Charing Cross in London in 1851. It was used for public entertainments, including demonstrations of magic, mesmerism and optical illusions. It burned down in 1854, badly damaging the adjoining Hungerford Market. Swiss-Italian entrepreneur Carlo Gatti constructed a music hall on the site, which opened in 1857. It was bought by the South Eastern Railway in 1862, and incorporated into Charing Cross railway station, which opened on 11 January 1864.

The European Academy of Optometry and Optics (EAOO) is a membership organization for the development of optometry and optics in Europe. It aims to help in advancing scientific knowledge and learning for optometrists, opticians, and vision scientists, within Europe.The EAOO organizes an annual conference, held at venues around Europe. For example: Dublin, Ireland in 2012 Warsaw, Poland in 2014 Berlin, Germany in 2016 Helsinki, Finland in 2021 Dublin, Ireland in 2022 Poznań, Poland in 2023

The College of Optometrists is the professional, scientific and examining body for optometry in the United Kingdom, working for the public benefit. Their headquarters is at 41-42 Craven Street, London WC2, of which no 41 is a Grade II listed building.

The Harp is a public house at 47 Chandos Place, Covent Garden, London, WC2N 4HS. It was The Welsh Harp until 1995, when it was taken over by an Irish woman Binnie Walsh, who subsequently bought the pub. The pub was subsequently sold to Fuller's in 2014. In 2008 it was selected as the Society for the Preservation of Beers from the Wood's London Pub of the Year. In early 2011, it became the first pub in London to receive the ultimate accolade of being "National Pub of the Year 2010" by the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).Since then it was voted as the local CAMRA branch's Pub of the Year in every even year (being not eligible to enter in the odd years, after such wins!). It is a long narrow public house with a steep flight of stairs leading to an upstairs room and the toilets.

The British Optical Association (BOA) was founded in February 1895 as the first professional body for ophthalmic opticians (optometrists) in the world. The British Optical Association Museum and Library was founded in 1901; it retains the BOA name but is now part of the College of Optometrists, located in Craven Street, Charing Cross, central London.

St Martin-in-the-Fields was a civil parish in the metropolitan area of London, England. It took its name from the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields and was within the Liberty of Westminster. It included within its boundaries the former extra-parochial areas of Buckingham Palace and St James's Palace.

St Martin-in-the-Fields is a Church of England parish church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. It is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours. There has been a church on the site since at least the medieval period. It was at that time located in the farmlands and fields beyond the London wall, when it was awarded to Westminster Abbey for oversight. It became a principal parish church west of the old City in the early modern period as Westminster's population grew. When its medieval and Jacobean structure was found to be near failure, the present building was constructed in an influential neoclassical design by James Gibbs in 1722–1726. The church is one of the visual anchors adding to the open-urban space around Trafalgar Square.

The High Commission of South Africa in London is the diplomatic mission from South Africa to the United Kingdom. It is located at South Africa House, a building on Trafalgar Square, London. As well as containing the offices of the High Commissioner, the building also hosts the South African consulate. It has been a Grade II* listed building since 1982.

Morley's Hotel was a building which occupied the entire eastern side of London's Trafalgar Square, until it was demolished in 1936 and replaced with South Africa House. It was next to St Martin-in-the-Fields Church. It was designed by the architect George Ledwell Taylor, and originally developed as apartments. It was built by Atkinson Morley in 1831, who in 1822 owned the British Hotel (also known as the British Coffee House) at 25 Cockspur Street, but had sold it to buy the Burlington Hotel at 19–20 Cork Street.Morley's Hotel opened in 1832. In 1850, in his Hand-Book of London, Peter Cunningham described it as "well-frequented, and is good of its kind".Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed there for some time in 1900, while he was writing The Hound of the Baskervilles, and the fictional Northumberland Hotel of that book may well have been based on Morley's. He wrote to his mother in 1900 that he was "somewhat sick" of Morley's and intended to try the Golden Cross Hotel.