Guests
Ep 1 Mark Mason
Mark Mason’s book Walk the Lines saw him walking the entire London Underground system, overground. He spends his time writing for the Spectator, leading guided London walks, and hosting team-building sessions based around magic tricks. Head to his homepage for details of his portfolio career (one friend called it ‘more port than folio’).
Ep 2 Matt Brown
Matt Brown has been a contributor, editor and now editor-at-large of Londonist for 20 years. His explorations of the capital have taken him into the sewers (five times), various catacombs and bunkers, abandoned Tube stations and *inside* London Bridge. He's had tea with the Lord Mayor and driven a double-decker bus. In short, he's London obsessed. His books include Everything You Know About London is Wrong and the award-winning Atlas of Imagined Places. He also writes the popular Londonist: Time Machine substack, which delves into London's history from peculiar angles.
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Ep 3 Katie Wignall
Katie Wignall is a London tour guide and history presenter. She's been running award-winning London walking tours since 2015 and qualified as a Blue Badge Tourist Guide in 2018. Her business, Look Up London is ranked one of the top 5 London tours out of thousands on Tripadvisor and each week she shares a blog about a slice of London's hidden history in her Wednesday morning newsletter on Substack.
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Ep 4 Laura Miller
Laura Miller is Clerk of the Chamberlain's Court at Guildhall, the first woman to assume the post since it was established in 1297. A major part of her role involves admitting people to the Freedom of the City of London in an ancient ceremony dating back to the 13th century. Laura is a member of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and imparts her considerable knowledge of the City as a Green Badge Guide and a City of London Guide.
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Ep 5 Henry Williams
Henry Williams began his Fleet Street career on the street's last surviving weekly, covering daily fluctuations in the short term bond market. Jealousy at covering the same material as bankers at a fraction of the cost led him into the private security and corporate investigations sectors, with periodic outings at the Evening Standard's Londoners Diary and other magazines to still his occasional literary yearnings.
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Ep 6 Michael Mainelli
Professor Michael Mainelli is a scientist and economist promoting social advance through better finance and technology. He is Chairman of Z/Yen Group, the City of London's leading think-tank and President of the London Chamber of Commerce & Industry. Michael was the 695th Lord Mayor of London 2023-2024 and Sheriff 2019-2021, is active in 17 livery companies, past Master of the World Traders and an Alderman of the City of London for Broad Street, with charity interests in the environment, education and care. Michael and his German wife are obsessive Londoners, amateurs in the true sense of the history, the geography and the psychogeography of this wonderful city, but especially the City of London.
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Ep 7 Clare Button
Clare Button is an archivist, writer, proof-reader and pub tour guide with Liquid History Tours. She has written for popular and academic audiences on subjects from folk song and dance to animal genetics (and promises there is a link between the two). She is also on a one woman mission to drink in every one of London's pubs - and yes, she has a spreadsheet
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Ep 8 David Styles
David Styles has been a London cabbie for over 25 years, was features editor at Radio Taxis and is author of CabbieBlog.com which relates the many entertaining stories and facts about London he picked up while driving around the streets of the capital and acquiring 'The Knowledge'.
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Ep 9 Giles Milton
Giles Milton is the million-copy, internationally bestselling author of thirteen works of narrative history. His books have been translated into twenty-five llanguages. Milton's most recent book is The Stalin Affair: The Impossible Alliance that Won the War. It was a BBC Radio 4 'Book of the Week'. Milton is the writer and narrator of Sony's acclaimed podcast series, Ministry of Secrets:
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