The Household Cavalry regiment, the soldiers who stand guard on horseback in Whitehall are made up of two main groups: the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals. Today they make up just one regiment but each has its own identity, traditions, colonels and uniform. The Blues and Royals and the Life Guard can be seen in Whitehall between 11am and 4pm every day and many visitors to London like to have their photograph taken next to the mounted soldiers. Be careful, however. As the signs nearby say, horses can both bite and kick.

London’s five billion pound Super Sewer is now fully connected and promises a cleaner, healthier River Thames. The 150-year-old sewer network has struggled to cope with the twin challenges of an increase in the population it serves in the capital (from four million people when it was built to over nine million today) together with climate change. With rainfall overwhelming the system, it sometimes discharges into the Thames. With the Super Sewer fully connected, 95% of those spills are stopped.

Born in 1778 in Zakynthos (Zante in Venetian), a Greek island that was then a Venetian possession, Ugo Foscolo was the son of an Italian father and a Greek mother. Following his father’s death, the family moved to Venice, where he learned Italian and completed his studies at the University of Padua. He joined intellectual circles and admired Napoleon, even siding with his army.