Takin’ a tumble

For the last couple of months I’ve been flat out researching, writing and publishing several new audio tours. Combine that with everyday life and something has to give. For a short while at least it was the blog that suffered, but now I think I’m back on the horse. One good thing is that all…

Who had the Lamb Bhuna?

Fancy a curry? Today you’ll be spoilt for choice, takeaways and restaurants have proliferate on our high streets for many years, but how far back would you have to go before finding it almost impossible to get your favourite dish? The answer is probably a lot earlier than you might be thinking. The Hindoostane Coffee…

Sticking a bottle up a lion’s arse!

Possibly one of the weirdest titles for a blog post I’ve made up in a long time, but believe it or not there’s a lot of truth in it. Having just posted on the subject of time capsules in Time Encapsulation I was browsing through some other information and I came upon this rather bizarre…

Time Encapsulation

Perhaps it was the burial of the Blue Peter time capsule in 1971 that first fascinated me about this rather quirky way of linking the past with the present. The popular children’s TV program presenters buried various viewers items along with a Blue Peter Annual in the grounds of Broadcasting House. The subsequent loss of…

The Caravan Club

If you’ve just sat back in your sun lounger in your open toed sandals, long grey socks, tailored shorts and white vest to read your copy of the Daily Mail then I apologies as I’ve obviously mixed up my Caravan Club’s. No, I’m sure that members of that august club are unlikely to have much…

Winchester Geese

It’s 1392 and you are a young Galaunt. These were young men, usually of between sixteen and twenty five years old. They were portrayed as fashion conscious to the point of peacockery, wearing embroidered caps, short gowns and long toed shoes. These fashionable young men, the forerunners of the later “Dandy” got a bad press…

A penny in the cap

In my last post I took a look at a group of people that populated London’s streets in the mid 1800s called Patterers. This was the heyday of the street merchant or costermonger. Alongside these were the street entertainer. I have to come clean, I loath street entertainers of the type you see today in…

The Patterers; a breed apart

I’d heard about Patterers, I knew a bit about them, that is in terms of the job that they did, like a lot of their peers it seemed to be a job and a description only found on the streets of the capital, but I recently read an account of an interview with one such…

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…

What a pile of s**t !

To help clear London’s air and improve public health, the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) is expanding across all London boroughs from 29 August 2023. Generally speaking, low emission zones have been proven to make a considerable difference to the levels of pollutants and greenhouse gases in cities, in terms of both CO2 but also NOx (Nitrogen…