History
25 articles
Most Recent
Short-Arseing Around the Picasso
Whatever happened to the coolest café in London?
15 January 2026
Choo-Choo-Cha-Boogie
Steam through history, as we take a ride on the very first locomotive engine.
5 January 2026
Mind Invaders
Kidnapping. Boxing. Three-sided football. The art terrorists attack! A thoughtful dérive around the skewed contours of the London Psychogeographical Association.
23 June 2025
The Spy and the Postman
The biggest ever Soviet defector met the publican of The Merry Harriers – only for the pair to learn that they may have a contact in common: the writer’s quiet uncle.
19 June 2025
Borstal Boys
A personal history of the borstal in Britain: a century of incarcerated children.
28 April 2025
Loving the Nineties
Who were the gatekeepers who made the country swing again? Travel back to 1992, and meet the DJs, producers and journalists who made Britpop a global juggernaut.
13 December 2024
A Hackney Story
In the early 2000s, Clapton was the scene of a spate of public shootings, often conducted in broad daylight. The area earned the tabloid sobriquet ‘Murder Mile’. But who was behind the violence?
18 November 2024
Life of Reilly
In the heart of Drogheda lives an Irish man on a peculiar crusade. We meet Tom Reilly, a historian hellbent on clearing the name of Oliver Cromwell.
9 August 2024Most Popular
A Hackney Story
In the early 2000s, Clapton was the scene of a spate of public shootings, often conducted in broad daylight. The area earned the tabloid sobriquet ‘Murder Mile’. But who was behind the violence?
18 November 2024Borstal Boys
A personal history of the borstal in Britain: a century of incarcerated children.
28 April 2025Short-Arseing Around the Picasso
Whatever happened to the coolest café in London?
15 January 2026
A Granny’s Guide to London
Inside the lost handbooks of the capital, a new London emerges.
24 April 2023