Quiz: Test whether or not you're a true Londoner

Earlier this week the BBC asked Zac Goldsmith a few simple questions about the city he hopes to run. As you may know, he didn’t do terribly well.

The Conservative mayoral candidate didn’t know that Holborn comes after Oxford Circus and Tottenham Court Road on the Central line. He didn’t know that QPR play at Loftus Road. He did manage to guess the identity of the Queen Vic’s first landlord — Dirty Den! — but by that point it’s fair to say he had lost the crowd.

Now, who knows what the reporter was trying to prove here. Perhaps that Goldsmith’s gilded upbringing had shielded him from the daily routines that circumscribe the lives of ordinary Londoners? Only Labour’s Sadiq Khan didn’t fare much better when he took the test. And we might ask whether 40-year-old soap storylines are really the best gauge of a politician’s character.

The episode does call into question what constitutes essential knowledge for the modern Londoner. We all develop our little specialisms. There are those of us who can recite the entire Piccadilly line off by heart (at least until it splits at Acton Town). There are others who can tell you where to find the best Ethiopian food or which gay saunas are open at such-and-such a time or which private members’ clubs admit women or who has the best cocaine.

This knowledge is hard-earned and dispensed with no little pride.

But what of the common knowledge — the mark of how in tune you are with the modern city?

Test yourself but no Googling.