Greenwich

Just back from a power walk, from Canary Wharf to Greenwich and back. I saw what is left of the Cutty Sark, the world's only surviving extreme clipper (a fast commercial sailing ship)...unfortunately in May this year it was set on fire by arsonists. It was already closed at the time for renovations which were due to take until 2009 to complete. I'm not sure what's happening now, but I assume they will attempt to restore it. I also went up to the Royal Observatory to see the home of the Prime Meridian of the world. A little history for you:

Greenwich Observatory was set up by King Charles II in 1675 to study means of fixing longitude, and became the acknowledged world authority on the subject. An International Meridian Conference was convened at Washington in 1884 and the delegates recommended to their respective governments that Greenwich should be adopted as the prime meridian. The decision was by no means unanimous. A Canadian delegate, Sanford Fleming, produced figures showing that 72% of the world's shipping used Greenwich as prime meridian, with the remaining 28% divided among ten different meridians. The French, for political reasons, said that they would only accept Greenwich as the prime meridian if Great Britain adopted the metric system. Over the following years the various governments adopted Greenwich officially as prime meridian, with only France going its own way. A bill was passed eventually in 1911 but stayed on the statute books until 1978 when France adopted Universal Time.