> These rigid rules first appeared in the 1930s, when the surveyor of St Paul’s came up with a precise grid of heights around the cathedral to safeguard the pan

> These rigid rules first appeared in the 1930s, when the surveyor of St Paul’s came up with a precise grid of heights around the cathedral to safeguard the panorama from the South Bank. “We’ve been able to calculate where he took his views from, and most of them end up outside pubs,” says Rees. The more times change. But it is interesting how some minor vices can have more than their fair share of consequences.