Frith Street, Soho, 26 January 1926: On this day ninety years ago in this unassuming building at 22 Frith Street, London, television was first demonstrated to the world. I made a special journey there today to record the scene on the anniversary.
Scots engineer John Logie Baird developed his “televisor” and transmitted the first television pictures ever seen. The indistinct image of his assistant’s head struggled to overcome the distance between one room and the next. He went on to first demonstrate publicly a colour television system and, later, to develop the first purely electronic colour television picture tube.
Within a year of the first television demonstration in Soho, Logie Baird transmitted a long-distance television picture over 438 miles via a telephone line between London and Glasgow. This was followed by a transatlantic transmission in 1928.
In an atmosphere of rapid development, BBC transmitters were used to broadcast television programmes between 1929 and 1932. In 1936, on November 3, the BBC launched the world’s first public television service, initially restricted to London.
The premises at 22 Frith Street have been home to London’s first Italian espresso bar, Bar Italia, since 1949. It is now a well-known meeting spot for Italians in the capital, especially when local football is being televised. Without Logie Baird’s one-time presence in the upstairs rooms perhaps the fans would still have been listening to the match on the radio.
BBC 1936: World’s first television service launched
Yes Mike, but as with so much that relates to the BBC, they dumped Baird before his system had a chance and adopted the EMI-Marconi system which was fully electronic as opposed to Baird’s analogue scanning system. I knew a chap called Gerry Wells who had spent most of his life surrounded by such equipment at his lifelong home in Rosendale Road Dulwich, sadly he died last year and I am not sure whether his museum is still active, but if you want to see piles of the old radio and television equipment that is/was the place. He has one of the very first Marconi receivers, formerly owned by John Paul Getty II, who sponsored Gerry and his museum. That set produces a reverse image, which the viewers watch by looking into a mirror on the lid of the set.
The last time that I went into "Bar Italia", I still had my M8 and I was there to taste their coffee (ugh) and take a couple of pictures of their Gaggia lever coffee machine… I had just purchased my own Londinium lever machine and I was interested to visit all the coffee shops that were still using them.
If you like good coffee there is nothing better than a spring lever espresso machine… Bar Italia has the machine, but forgot to use decent coffee.
Ah… Eccentrics, the world does not have enough of them…
Stephen,
Of course you are right about the BBC. I didn’t want to spoil a good story by delving into two much detail, especially relating to the strange alternate transmission schedules which left most viewers out in the cold every other week if they didn’t have two televisions. As for coffee machines, I know naught and I am impressed by your undoubted competence (what’s a Londinium lever when all its chairs are at home?)
About three years ago I decided that I would like an espresso machine and so I went a-researching… forums etc., pointed out my newness and asked for advice.
Amongst the plethora of suggestions, a couple of correspondents mentioned this new (old) machine that was slowly making its way to market at the hands of a coffee roaster called Reiss from New Zealand.
So I contacted him one Sunday morning and he spent about two hours talking about his idea… I was sold and I bought a unique model from the very first batch of what is now probably the best selling lever coffee machine…. in the world (I speak Clarkson) 🙂
This will explain the concept a bit Mike: http://londiniumespresso.com/lever-machines/gallery.html
The major point is that when the Italians invented the espresso machine, they all had a lever, you see them in use in all sorts of different media, including a Fellini film that begat a "double pull" concept that became known as "The Fellini move". The zenith of lever machines was the "spring lever" which employs a spring to exert a gently declining amount of hydraulic pressure on the coffee puck… This for many reasons trumps almost any other device used for espresso, i.e. manual lever or pump machine etc..
Over the last three years I have spent a fair bit of time with the owner of Londinium, we jointly developed a decent water filtration system and we often lunched at a tiny little pizza place that sells genuine Napoli pizza, to discuss coffee…
…Napoli being the place where lever machines are the only machine you will see in the thousands of coffee shops there… nowhere else in Italy… fifteen miles down the road in Sorrento, you won’t find one.
Last year, possibly following an off the cuff comment from me, he returned to Aukland which is where he hails. The comment was something along the lines of… "what are you doing in London when you don’t have to be?" About six months later he told me that he had decided to go home.
But this is the interesting thing, his total business is run by just him with a MacBook and an iPhone, every other part of the manufacturing and fulfilment process is handled by the only British espresso machine manufacturer, which is in Birmingham. When I was talking to him about this, he referenced a book called "Rework" which offers a modern paradigm for doing business internet style.
Wow! I think you should become our coffee machine guru. The blog seems to be moving in all sorts of interesting directions and I am sure readers would love to hear (and see) your coffee experiences. I’ll send you a stamped addressed envelope.
Did you look at the video Mike?
What do you want me to put inside the sae…? A cup of coffee will leak!
Yes, fascinating video. Seriously, if you want to write an article I will publish it. Lots of nice photos, mind.