Blog

It is not every day you see smokers dressed like that

By: Mark Mason

London as a human zoo

Walking the walk

By: Mark Mason

When Londoners use their feet to beat a Tube strike

As the Tube strike looms, I've been reminded of my District Line walk. Its second day coincided with a strike by Underground workers, so I was far from the only one treading the pavements. In case it provides any inspiration for those of you lacing up tomorrow, here's the relevant section from the book ...

How Chas and Dave ended up on an Eminem track

By: Mark Mason

Gertcha lugs round this

Some sniffy reactions to Chas and Dave's appearance on the Today programme this morning, but I don't care (I don't care, I don't care if he comes round here …) The doyens of pub rock can do little wrong in my opinion. And if you don't trust that, maybe you'll trust the opinion of Eminem. He sampled their work for his first hit ‘My Name Is …'

Beautiful game, beautiful trivia

By: Mark Mason

The Football Association turns 150

150 years ago tomorrow, in a pub in Covent Garden, a group of men got together and founded the Football Association. So started a century and a half of arguments about such crucial issues as whether the one-handed throw-in should be outlawed (it finally was in 1882) and what the minimum height of a corner post should be (it's currently 1.5 metres). But the world's most popular sport also gives us some of the world's most compelling trivia. To celebrate the anniversary, here are 10 of my favourite footie facts:

No more Local Hero

By: Mark Mason

All change north of Inverness

*This post dates from September 2013. What I hadn't realised then was that the English people it mentions all have votes in the referendum.*

One year to go, as you may have noticed in The Media, until the independence referendum in Scotland. I'd hardly been north of Edinburgh before my Land's End to John O'Groats trip, so was amazed at something I encountered in the fishing villages past Inverness. It made me realise that, whatever certain politicians and commentators might say, the question isn't as simple as ‘England vs Scotland'. Here's the relevant bit from the book:

Who was J.D. Wetherspoon?

By: Mark Mason

The curious stories behind Britain's business names

Who was J.D. Wetherspoon, the founder of the pub chain? Or the Mr Dixon of electronics store fame? Or the Mr Bailey who invented the Irish whiskey liqeur? The answer is that none of them ever existed.

Boys wearing pink, the invention of the equals sign and why we all talk French

By: Mark Mason

46 bus rides into Britain's history

You always miss the stuff on your own doorstep. With dirt-cheap flights to far-off lands, we Brits have got used to exploring the rest of the world. But how much do we know about our own country? Not nearly as much as we should - in my case, at least. So I solved that by travelling from Land's End to John O'Groats in a deliberately slow fashion: by local bus. It took 46 journeys (Land's End to Penzance, Penzance to Truro, and so on) - and it taught me a hell of a lot along the way. Here are my 8 favourite discoveries about Britain:

A pilgrimage to Lord's

By: Mark Mason

Sporting history and trivia in NW8