London - facts and figures

London is a big place, so there are lots of facts about it. That's a fact.
Here are five things about London, but there's a red herring, as one of them is made up. Can you guess which one?

1. London was named after Jack London, who starred in 'Dances with Wolves'.

2. London has more downward staircases than any other European city.

3. Oxford Street originally led to Oxford, which until the 17th Century was situated on the Hammersmith & City Line near Shepherd's Bush. During the Civil War it was moved north by Charles the First using a system of levers and log rollers, and it became the Royalist capital in the centre of the country (near Swindon).

4. Archaeological evidence suggests that humans evolved in London 400,000 years ago, and then moved to Africa because the weather was more clement.

5. In is possible to buy a comfortable flat in Zone 2 for less than the fee charged by a Covent Garden Rickshaw to go 300 metres.

Did you guess?

Here are some other facts about London, courtesy of George Boole*:

1) London is named after the transition metal Londinium (atomic number 74), whose name is derived from the Greek Londis, meaning "small merchant's abode, around which groups of youths are congregated"

2) Hitler's Luftwaffe famously avoided bombing South London during the second world war, the führer stating "Nicht worztsen sie bist" - "it's not worth it"

3) Londoner's anthem "Knees up Mother Brown" was written in 1992 by the famous cockney Damon Albarn

4) London's celebrated "homeless" people have their origins in a 1984 recruitment campaign, headed by the famous anti-paedophile campaigner Esther Rantzen, designed to recruit people to distribute the popular magazine "The Big Issue"

5) The legendary McDonald's chain of burger restaurants grew from the ideas of one Malcolm McDonald, of the scottish McDonald clan, who in London in 1884 first had the idea of placing a dog turd between two pieces of bread.

*(I have been unable to ascertain whether this is the actual nineteenth century mathematician or simply a nom de plume of some anonymous blogger)