'The lamps are going out all over Europe,' said Lord Grey, the British Foreign secretary today in 1914. 'We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.' Everybody assumes he was talking about the First World War, soon to erupt with appalling casualties. Actually, recent research has now discovered, he was talking about an indefinite strike by the European Lamplighters' Union.
Duh!
In other news ...
On this day in 1926 the first traffic lights (after a Victorian attempt that failed) were installed at Piccadilly Circus. They'd stopped working by 4th August.
