A rose between the beer vats

“Khalil took the sound as a request, and soon his mouth was on hers, hot and vibrant, firm and needing. Strong, despite that terrible wound he carried.“ A bit racy for first thing on a Monday morning you might be thinking, especially as I haven’t had my cornflakes yet! Well, I’ll tell you, I had…

That’s one in the eye

This short story fits loosely in with the idiom theme that I’ve been perusing recently. The term is used to mean a disappointment or setback for someone or something. At the moment I’m researching a new tour, this time based in the Temple. The Temple is an area of Barristers chambers situated between the Strand…

Terrorism 17th century style

In the last post, Hide and Seek in Moorgate, I relayed the story of the run up to the English Civil War and how five members of Parliament escaped the clutches of Charles I. One of these five was John Pym at the time the leader of the opposition in the Commons and staunch Puritan.…

Political Assassination in Belgravia

Field Marshal Sir Henry Hughes Wilson was one of the most senior British Army staff officers of the First World War and was briefly an Irish unionist politician. Wilson served as Commandant of the Staff College, Camberley, and then as Director of Military Operations at the War Office. He played a large part in drawing up plans to deploy the British Expeditionary Force to France…

Argyll Robertson Pupils

It’s a chilly mid morning in November 1883 and you have just sat down at the table to enjoy a morning coffee in your flat at number ten Greek Street, Soho. The table is next to the first floor window and looks out onto the busy street. Engrossed in the periodical you’re reading you are…

Taken At The Flood

The Dominion Theatre stands on Tottenham Court Road. Construction of the theatre began in March 1928 with a design by W and TR Milburn with a budget of £460,000. The theatre hosted the premier of Charlie Chaplin’s slapstick comedy “City Lights” in 1931, with the star in attendance. There is a rather sad and macabre…

‘ello Darlin’ show us…..

Good manners prohibit me from finishing the title, but what I’m striving for is the full repertoire of inuendo and verbal abuse that some men find acceptable behaviour to openly shout at a passing female, yes you know who you are, scaffolders. Having never had it happen to me (!) I can only imagine that…

“We are not amused”

The phrase is often attributed to Queen Victoria and has passed into common usage to note perceived strait-laced stuffiness, bolstering the perception that Victoria was a dour woman living a melancholy life after the death of her husband Prince Albert. However, during an interview in 1976, Victoria’s granddaughter, Alice, Countess of Athlone, said that Victoria…

The quack will see you now

Medieval medicine and it’s practitioners get a rather bad press, Quackery neatly wrapping the whole issue into an understandable term. History, it is said is always written by the victors and the same can be applied to the history of medicine. Looking back to Tudor and Elizabethan times there was a small thriving elite of…

Clerkenwell

Today’s Clerkenwell is popular with creative firms and dotted with smart apartment blocks in converted warehouses. It has many good restaurants and a great street food market held in Exmouth Market. Clerkenwell is quite a large area, running from Pentonville in the north to Smithfield Market in the south. So for this piece, I’m going…