When we were kids at kindergarten in the UK, there were many traditional songs that we learnt. ‘London's Burning’ and ‘Ring-a Ring -a Rosie’ were the popular ones; great tunes, a bit of a dance routine and then you’d have free milk at recess (before Thatcher took the milk from the children, bless). Little did we know at the time that these songs were based on horrendous historical events. In 1665, the Black Death swept through the over-crowded streets of London, killing thousands through a slow, painful death. ‘Atishoo, atishoo we all fall down’ we merrily sang, before scampering, gently, into the corner, wary of our calcium-starved brittle bones, unaware of the excruciating deaths of thousands of Londoners we so heartily sang about.

No wonder we turned out like we did.

Well, Mediaeval London was a pretty desperate place to be and the suffering didn’t stop there.. Overcrowding, relentless poverty, increasing homelessness, inadequate social housing (we’re talking about 1665, right??) and just as the bodies were piling high (hang on in there, they’ll be comedy stuff soon), in 1666, The Great Fire of London occurred.

You know when you’re out and about and the nagging doubt pops into your head…’did I leave the oven on?’, and that’s it, the paranoia kicks in and you have to either phone home or go home, to avert a catastrophe. Well, spare a thought for poor old baker, Thomas Farriner. On September 2nd 1666, that’s exactly what he did. He was at the cinema at the time, watching a film, probably with Adam Sandler in (he’s in every film ever made….they’re comedies, apparently), and, as he was nodding off, he had that same oven-based paranoid thought. He phoned home, but no-one answered. So he had the choice. Carry on watching the Adam Sandler film, probably about a goofy, irresponsible, unfunny loser who gets a girl way out of his league, or go home and check the oven. One of life's easier decisions. Well Thomas HAD left the oven on. Even worse, he was a bread baker, so it was a pretty big oven. D’ough. And all the houses back then were made of wood. And all the houses were built on top of one another. And just when Thomas couldn’t think his day could get any worse, it was a terribly windy night that night (this sounds like a movie plot…...Adam??).

Well in London, at the time, they had a pretty progressive fire policy. You pulled down all the buildings around it to stop it spreading. Costly, but effective. Not so effective if it’s your house they’re pulling down, but you didn’t have a choice. Well Thomas’s neighbours weren’t too keen to have their house pulled down and they blamed Adam Sandler (he’s getting a bad rap, but have you seen Little Nicky??). The Mayor of London, Sir Thomas Bloodworth, was called, but he was a bit wet apparently. Not wet enough to put out the fire, and he panicked and ran away. His parting words, and it is an oft-quoted remark, were ‘ A woman could piss it away’, and if you think that’s a bit far-fetched, you haven’t seen my missus after a night on the Pinot Grigio Like a racehorse.

Because of Thomas’s inaction, over the next few days the fire spread, and, despite there only being a handful of deaths, 15% of all London housing was lost, at an estimated cost of $2.2 billion. Because of all the homelessness caused, King Charles II decreed that ‘all Cities and Towns whatsoever shall without any contradiction receive the said distressed persons and permit them the free exercise of their manual trades’. However, the townsfolk of those cities weren’t so pleased to welcome people fleeing hardships. ‘Build that wall, build that wall’, they screamed, maniacally. They armed themselves, but shot each other because they were stupid. No-one missed them.

London was rebuilt, actually using the same footprint that the fire left behind, so the layout is very similar. But nowadays, there are stricter regulations regarding buildings and materials, so there’s very little chance of another fire like we saw in 1666 happening again. Unless you live in a Tory-led borough council where building regulations are bypassed through backhanders to corrupt officials. In which case you better pray that Adam Sandler doesn’t make any more films.