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On Thursday 25th September, my book Why is Downing Street Painted Black? and 364 other fun London facts was officially published by Harper Collins, with a small gathering that evening at Stanford's Travel, an amazing bookshop specialising in maps, travel guides and travel writing that has been knocking around the Covent Garden area since 1853. When I turned up, they'd sorted out a nice window display featuring some of the book's illustrations, done by Ollie Mann.  It was a lovely evening, made all the more enjoyable by the behind the scenes work of Stanford's staff, so a big thanks to them. As well as friends, family and a few repeat walkers, I was delighted that a couple of people who feature in the book were able to attend including Mr. James Cook from the shirt makers Turnbull & Asser and Ben Wilson 'the Chewing Gum Man' who I had embroiled to help with the treasure hunt we executed in August.  It's been a novel (non-fiction) experience actually seeing my book on display in bookshops around London, particularly after spending the best part of 20 years writing fiction and non fiction books and screenplays to no avail.  From Monday to Sunday the following week, each day I placed a copy of my book somewhere in London for people to find, posting a clue or two on Instagram Stories and a note attached to the book which read 'Take Me, I'm Yours'. Four of the seven people who found a book wrote to tell me, and the first one on the Monday, told me it was also his birthday. Double Whammy.    Oh yes ...I left them at places that feature in the book. Later in the week I did a walk with a woman called Sam who won the 'Ben Wilson Chewing Gum Treasure Hunt' back in August. She's called Sam, is a mudlark and found all five of Ben's chewing gum art just a couple of days after he finished them. The paint had hardly dried. Sam's prize (aside from a copy of the book) was to do a walk with her and her friends / family around her favourite one of Ben's pieces of chewing gum art done for the book. Turns out her friends were also mudlarks, and we did a bit of a wander around the Fleet Street area before ending in a pub in Blackfriars. Here's Sam with her book.  I forgot to say, on the Monday, I did a talk, my first ever talk (with a screen, projector and everything) above a pub called The Devereux, organised in part by Grace who came on one of my walks a few years ago. I talked about fun facts that are in the book that surround the pub, so Temple, Fleet Street, Middle Temple, Inner Temple ...that kind of thing. I completely forgot to take any photos, but someone in the audience took this. It's the only record.  On Saturday 4th October, 20 or so people very kindly turned up to an event I did with the Brick Lane Bookshop in east London. I did a walk around the Brick Lane and Spitalfields area that began and ended at the shop. Also, if you're on the look out for a signed copy of Why is Downing Street Painted Black? I signed quite a number whilst I was there.   I've also recently featured on a couple of podcasts. The first (The Conversation: Coffee Break) was with crime writer Nadine Matheson who writes a cracking series featuring a detective called Anjelica Henley set in around modern day Deptford and south east London. You can listen online (wherever you get your podcasts), or watch here. The second was with former professional rugby player Ross Neal who had a slightly different angle. His podcast Human Alchemy concentrates on interviewing people from elite sport, leadership, the military and hardcore outdoor adventurers. I was obviously a slight departure, but Ross has been on a couple of my walks and was interested to hear about my route to tour guiding and social media as well as the way I run my tours. You can listen to Ross's chat with me HERE or watch it on You Tube. Many thanks to everyone that pre-ordered Why is Downing Street Painted Black? and everyone that has bought it since its publication. Really appreciated it and if you find it enjoyable, please feel free to pop a review somewhere (Amazon, Goodreads, Waterstones, Google Books etc).
For those living in the States, I believe it'll be published there in December. Oh yes ...on the evening of Tuesday 4th November, I'll be giving a talk entitled 'Many Facts You Probably Don't Know About London' with 'Pints of Knowledge' which organise lectures in pubs. See you there?
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 My book, Why is Downing Street Painted Black? And 364 other fun London facts is published on Thursday (25th Sept 2025) by Mudlark, an imprint of Harper Collins, so thought I’d take the opportunity to introduce its illustrator, the talented Ollie Mann and find out how he got in to illustration, who he admires in the world of illustration and what he’s got coming up next …amongst other things. Did you always want to be an illustrator? I’ve always loved drawing, but it was just under a decade ago that I began to think seriously about making it my career. I was hesitant to make my hobby a full-time job (an unstable one at that), but the autonomy of freelance work really appealed to me, so I took the plunge. What was your route to becoming an illustrator? I posted a lot of my work on social media, primarily Instagram. An old friend from university who worked in publishing saw my posts and asked me to illustrate a book she was editing, which led to my first professional book job. From then onwards I grew my portfolio through word of mouth and sending-out emails to editors and art directors. Are there any illustrators or artists you particularly admire? There are loads – old and new! I recently went to the Edward Burra exhibition at Tate Britain which was really inspiring. I love the way he drew figures – kind of grotesque, imbued with lots of physical energy, but also very funny. I love how he crams so much detail onto a canvas and captures very busy human moments. Contemporary illustrators I follow and am big fans of include Aysha Tengiz, Sam Prentice-Jones, Robbie Cathro – there’s always a lot of playfulness and colour in their work. I also really enjoy John Broadley’s work and how to evokes history in his rich vintage style. In terms of providing illustrations for Why is Downing Street Painted Black? Were there any particular challenges for you? I think my biggest challenge was also my biggest pleasure: my attempts to emulate the sense of humour of the words in my illustrations. There were some images that just had to be very representative of the particular landmark so as not to cause confusion, but I relished the instances where I could tweak or play with what was being described to add a bit of humour – for example, turning Big Ben into a giant HP sauce bottle!  Illustration by Ollie Mann. Had you already known any of the fun London facts you illustrated? I’m ashamed to say there aren’t many I already knew, although that made it more fun for me to read the book because I did a lot of learning! The ones that stick out to me are the man, Michael Fagan, who broke into the Queen’s bedroom at 7am and that the name of ‘Soho’ came from a 16th century hunting cry.  Illustration by Ollie Mann. Were there any that particularly surprised you or jumped out? A lot surprised me! The ones that stick-out are those that almost seem to ridiculous to be true, like the grave site of the clown Grimaldi being designed to be danced on, or Foyle’s layering their roof with copies of ‘Mein Kampf’ during World War II to discourage the Luftwaffe from bombing them. Would you say you have a particular style or are you quite fluid in your approach to projects? I think my style can be a bit fluid to fit the project, but I have a consistent point of view – one that is playful and irreverent. I think most of my work falls in a ‘cartooning’ space because I love to draw people with exaggerated expressions and gestures. Do you have a favourite illustration from Why is Downing Street Painted Black? I think my favourite might be Nelson having dinner at the top of his column. I like how it tells the story of the fact and it was just fun to draw!  Illustration by Ollie Mann. You work as a ‘live scribe’ …could you tell us a bit more about that? As well as illustrating books I illustrate live events. This means that as a talk, presentation or meeting of some kind if happening I am capturing what is happening in realtime, either on a white board or on my ipad. What advice would you give to someone wanting to become an illustrator? I would say that it’s important to have a clear point of view, your drawings don’t have to all look the same, but it’s helpful to identify the direction you want to go in as an illustrator. I would also say keep sharing your work, even if it’s not polished. Some people – especially prospective clients – enjoy seeing the ‘sketchbook’ just as much as the finished piece. Aside from book illustrations, where else might we see your work? I do illustration for events or venues every now and then, but I mostly illustrate for books. What upcoming projects do you have? I’ve just illustrated ‘Unbelievable Football: The Most Amazing World Cup Stories You Never Knew’, which is a book for young people packed with fun true football stories and is part of the official World Book Day lineup. A great read for budding football fans!  Illustration by Ollie Mann. Why is Downing Street Painted Black? And 364 other fun London facts is available to pre-order now and will be available in bookshops on Thursday 25th Sept. Many thanks to Ollie for the interview and of course, his wonderful illustrations.  In the run up to my book ‘Why is Downing Street Painted Black (and 364 other fun London facts) being published on the 25th September, Waterstones, the book shop behemoth who also actually feature in the book (you’ll have to buy it to find out why) have launched a prize draw. If you preorder my book HERE you’ll automatically be entered into a prize draw meaning you’ll be in the running to win two tickets to ‘The Ultimate London Experience’ which involves a whirl on the London Eye (also features in the book), a visit to Madame Tussauds (the one in London obviously) the SEA LIFE London Aquarium, DreamWorks Tours Shrek’s Adventure, The London Dungeon, a hop on / hop off bus tour around London, a one way river cruise along the Thames …and a few more things. You don’t have to do them all at the same time, but if you’d like the chance to win, you can preorder ‘Why is Downing Street Painted Black’ HERE. There are various terms and conditions but the main one is that you need to be 18 or over to enter and the competition closes at 11:59pm on the 31st August 2025.    In January 2023 I set myself the challenge of posting a Fun London Fact on social media for each day of the year. I began the year with something like 400 followers on Instagram and ended the year with 170,000. It’s not about follower numbers obviously, but the point is that when I started, it was as much for my own benefit as anything else (having pretty much lost all of my business due to Covid). I hadn’t anticipated the videos becoming as popular as they did. Over the last couple of years, when I meet people on my London walking tours aside from saying to each other ‘He’s got the same voice!’, I have often been asked ‘Why don’t you put all these in to a book?’ or ‘When’s the book coming out?’. Some people assumed I already had one. Well, I can finally reveal, there is a book coming out this year in September (2025) entitled ‘Why is Downing Street Painted Black (and 364 other Fun London Facts)’. It’s a pretty catchy title and will be published by Mudlark, an Imprint of Harper Collins packed full of not only Fun London Facts (quite a few are new ones) but wonderfully illustrated by Ollie Mann. It would seem that ‘pre-ordering’ is a super important part of the publishing process, as it gives book retailers an idea of whether or not they should even stock a particular book themselves. Therefore, if you would like to pre-order it, then my first suggestion would be to go to your local bookshop and ask them. If you don’t have a book shop near you, then … YOU CAN PRE-ORDER IT HERE! Also, I’d like to thank my agent Charlie Viney who steered me through the first part of the process and Imogen Gordon Clark, my editor at Harper Collins who has very ably helped me through the writing and editing process.
I hope you enjoy reading it and with a bit of luck, it might spark your enthusiasm and fascination with this weird and wonderful city.  Last week was the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London of 1666, a cataclysmic event in London’s history in which the medieval City of London, captured by the top notch Czech drawer and etcher, Wenceslaus Hollar in his ‘Panorama of London’ just 19 years earlier … was lost. Just under 14,000 homes were burned to the ground, along with 87 churches, including the gothic monster that was Old St Paul’s cathedral. The occasion has been marked by a number of events, including a ceremonial burning of a wooden model replica of the old City on the Thames, the centre piece of a ‘London’s Burning’ weekend created by the creative company Artichoke. The Museum of London have a ‘Fire Fire’ exhibition which will be open until April 2017. A plethora of other exhibitions, talks, concerts and walks are happening throughout the City over the coming months, all of which are listed on the Visit London #GreatFire350 website. When I first started learning stuff about London (in my early days of being a tour guide), there was something about the Great Fire that caught my imagination more than any other period or event. One of the things I very quickly discovered, learning about history, is that we never seem to actually learn anything. History certainly does seem to repeat itself, and the more I read about the Great Fire, the more connections I saw with the present day, many of which are (unfortunately, in my view) glossed over. Perhaps this is why we fail to learn. One of the main aspects of the fire that intrigued me, was not the immense destruction caused, but the reaction of Londoners, which manifested itself in xenophobic attacks; that omnipresent need to blame foreigners, those that ‘don’t belong’. Although today, kids are taught that the fire was an accident, their 17th century ancestors, had a very different view. As far as they were concerned, the Great Fire was a terrorist attack. I have read horrendous accounts of foreigners being bludgeoned to death in the street or hung up on make shift gallows and murdered, whilst the fire was raging. The first thing that the King, Charles II did upon entering the City to take control, was to arrest and imprison foreigners, to save them from the angry mobs. The Monument, which has stood since the 1670s, close to where the fire started on Pudding Lane, commemorating The Great Fire, is adorned with Latin inscriptions around the base. On the north side, the inscription detailing the aftermath and rebuilding of the City had a line removed in 1830, a line, which in itself was incendiary. In English it read “But Popish frenzy which wrought such horrors is not yet quenched” … or the nutter Catholics did this and we still haven’t sorted them out. Londoners in 1666 had good reason to suspect foul play, in fact, they’d be waiting for a revenge attack after an admiral in the English Navy called Robert Holmes, had just, a few weeks earlier, committed an absolutely unnecessary atrocity on Dutch soil, known as ‘Holmes’s Bonfire’, an act which Londoners had just been celebrating.  The Monument plaque detailing the rebuilding of the City after the Great Fire of 1666. The Great Fire occurred also in a fascinating period of English history, just six years after the restoration of the ‘Merrie Monarch’ (after twelve years of being a Republic), one year after the Great Plague, whilst we were embroiled in war with the Dutch and were, as a country, financially crippled. All of this was well documented obviously by our very own diarist, philanderer and cheese burier, Samuel Pepys. A book entitled ‘1666: Plague, War & Hellfire’ by a young historian called Rebecca Rideal has just been published, examining this whole period of London’s tumultuous history. Had this book existed 8 years ago, I’m sure I would have found it an incredibly useful source of research, as it was about that time that I began writing a novel set in the days leading up to and during The Great Fire of London.
The novel, ‘Sixteen Sixty-Six’ begins a few days before the fire breaks out, plunging a number of characters in to the midst of it. I began initially to try and write the idea as a film script, but very quickly realised that it wasn’t enough; I didn’t just want to write dialogue with brief descriptions like “He rows across the river”, “They walk down the street”. I wanted to know what the City smelt like, how it sounded, how it looked, what they wore, what they ate, what it tasted like and much more. Once I made the decision to turn my idea in to a novel, I realised I was creating a world of pain, and about 5 years later I finished it (that was two years ago). The same xenophobic concerns and prejudices that permeated society in 1666 are very much still swirling around today, as illustrated by the recent EU Referendum ‘Brexit’ vote in June, and its aftermath and the rhetoric of Donald Trump in the States. The Great Fire of 1666 also opened the flood gates for violence and crime, after the thin veneer of law and order had been broken. I had actually already started writing Sixteen Sixty-Six in 2011 when the ‘London Riots’ broke out in various hot spots around the capital. At the time I was living very close to one of the affected areas in Hackney and realised that the behaviour I was seeing was exactly the same way Londoners behaved during those few days in September 1666. It was quite illuminating. This aspect of the Great Fire is just one piece in a much larger puzzle that forms ‘Sixteen Sixty-Six’, but certainly something I explore. I have added a page to the website called 'Writing' where you can find a synopsis of Sixteen Sixty-Six. Maybe it’s rubbish, perhaps I’ve wasted 7 years of my life. Who knows … but if you think it is something you might like to read, have a Kindle or some kind of e-reading device then it is available to download through Amazon. There seems to be an infinite number of books about London, which is only fitting for a city that is a bottomless pit of intrigue, history and possibilities. On my regular wanders around the city I have realised that I often talk about books that I have read and equally regularly, people make a note of the title or the author to look up when they get home. Sometimes people ask me for recommendations of books they should read, and as I have an ever burgeoning shelf of London based books, it suddenly occurred to me today, that I would write about them, whenever the mood takes me. I have decided to start with the most recent book I have read, and you never know, if the fad persists, then they will probably end up cataloged to the right of this page, under the title 'London Books'. These are not intended to be reviews, but merely bringing books that I have enjoyed to the attention of others. So, the first book I shall mention is called 'NECROPOLIS - London and its dead' by Catharine Arnold. It is the first book by Catharine Arnold that I have read, but with other books relating to London and its crime and punishment, its vices and its mad, it'd be a safe bet to say that she is very probably drawn to the darker side of London's history ... of which there is a great deal.  'Necropolis - London and its dead' by Catharine Arnold As is illustrated each time a significant building project is undertaken, like the current Walbrook Discovery Programme in the City of London, the capital is built on layer upon layer of history going back 2000 years or more. 'NECROPOLIS - London and its dead' works in much the same way, but as the title suggests, concentrates solely on how the inhabitants of London have dealt with death and their dead. If you imagine the book as an archeological site, we start from the bottom with pagan burials, the Romans and plague epidemics and work our way up, through to the out of town Victorian cemeteries, body snatchers and what could almost be described as a fashion for mourning with Queen Victoria, who the author describes as 'the presiding genius of mourning' leading the way quite emphatically. This period, with the rise of the undertaker and etiquette surrounding funerals as a business is probably the most fleshed out section (no pun intended), and it's perhaps not surprising seeing that in her introduction, the author says that the idea for the book began by a plan to write solely about Highgate Cemetery. We continue burrowing upwards, contemplating the impact of the First World War and the annihilation of an entire generation of young men, not to mention the subsequent outbreak of Spanish Flu (of which I knew nothing) which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. The Second World War obviously plays a significant role in the book and as we near the surface, we gather momentum, ending with the outpouring of grief that resulted in the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. One of the things you realise by reading the book is how even death (much like the deceased own lives), has been segregated and governed over the years, either by faith or social class, wealth and poverty. Like a full stop to end the whole journey, Catherine Arnold uses the London bombings of 2005 as a way of illustrating how present day London is a multi-cultural city, reflected in the deaths of the fifty-two known victims who belonged to all manner of faiths, and as she says as a final note ... 'there are many different ways to say goodbye'.
I have given a very brief and somewhat unsatisfactory encapsulation of this book, but in a nutshell ... if you have no interest in London and its dead, then I don't imagine you'll read this book. If however, you like wandering through London's cemeteries, or have even a mild fascination in London and its hidden plague pits or the numerous diseases that Londoners have had to contend with over the centuries, or read stories in newspapers about guys doing building work and finding hundreds of bodies and it sparks your intrigue, then you might like it. I did a walk the other day, just after I'd finished reading 'NECROPOLIS - London and its dead'. One of the people who came, had been on a walk with me two weeks earlier (before I started reading the book). Funnily enough, she mentioned that her second walk with me was somewhat darker and more macabre in terms of what I talked about. Funny that. Also, by some weird coincidence, just after I'd finished reading the chapter about Victorian undertakers, a man from Thailand contacted me because he was researching an ancestor who had run an undertakers in Hoxton Square in the 1850's and was wondering if I could tell him what was on the site of the building now. He seemed to have done quite a bit of research, so I suggested he might like to read Catharine Arnold's book. One last thing whilst I'm on the subject ... here's a thing I wrote ages ago about what happens if you go through the secret door in St Bride's crypt. |
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