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Matthew Kilburn
Matthew Kilburn
Thu, Jun 06, 2013 1:05am

It’s an intriguing case of transferred identity, this one. The hot air balloon the picture refers to took off from Finsbury Fields, much further south and now Finsbury Square. Finsbury Park was a creation of the now superseded Metropolitan Borough of Finsbury and applied to an area which until the creation of the borough had never been thought of as Finsbury… but now it’s the green space everyone identifies with Finsbury, while the old fields just north of the city have long since been built upon. London’s history perpetually shifts on ghostly tectonic plates of memory.

bronxbee
bronxbee
Thu, Jun 06, 2013 3:42pm

i find it hilarious that “It is balloon” has entered the lexicon and most people probably don’t know it’s origin. but it’s still funny!

teenygozer
teenygozer
reply to  bronxbee
Sat, Jun 08, 2013 1:47am

Would that be F-Troop, 1966, “Bye, Bye, Balloon” (guest starring Harvey Korman)? The commercial they ran for years when the show was in reruns in the 70s had Chief Wild Eagle yelling, “It is balloon!”, so that phrase is now carved on the psyche of everyone approx. my age, but I cannot imagine why someone much younger would know it.