Many will know that there is a Blue Plaque to Ho Chi Minh, the revolutionary communist leader of Vietnam, in London’s Haymarket.
It celebrates the time he spent in a luxury hotel – the Carlton – in the 1910s working as a waiter. Allegedly and even more obscurely he also worked at the Drayton Court Hotel in West Ealing (no plaque).
There is however a history of more subversive claims to fame in London too, if you know where to look.
Firstly Gavin Turk, one of the enfant terrible of thee YBA (Young British Artist) generation of the early 1990s created this tongue in cheek plaque for his graduation ceremony.
Ironically his fame is such that it now really could be a genuine Blue Plaque.
However the latest signs celebrating former residents in my local area of London SE15 are 100% fake, I am absolutely convinced they were never here.
The dictator of Libya in Goose Green, East Dulwich?
Prince Kropotkin the Russian Anarchist Leader in Peckham?
Unless someone can prove me wrong that is…
