Of Merchants & Men – A Freewheeling Flaneuring Podcast With TimeLine London

My dear friend Dr Geoff Browell and his team, Tam McDonald, Christopher Winn, and Mark Mason, had the courage to ask me to hold forth on an eclectic and personal view of London’s history. Here is the resulting 53 minutes of sauntering sagacity, peripatetic pomposity, or perhaps freewheeling flaneuring.

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Pepys Day 2025: London’s Most Delightfully Diary-Obsessed Celebration Returns

[An edited version of this article appeared as “Pepys Day: Raise A Toast To London’s Best Diarist” in City AM on 2 September 2025]

Friday, 5 September 2025, marks the second annual Pepys Day in London.  If you missed last year’s inaugural celebration, you’ll want to grab your quill and parchment (or smartphone) to register immediately. Samuel Pepys and his diaries of the Great Fire are to London as James Joyce and Bloomsday are to Dublin.

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Mayor’s Progress – End of Term Report Card

We concluded our bi-monthly series of Mayor’s Progress reports with our final report card. Though any Lord Mayor wishes she or he could claim credit for creating jobs (all those dinners, speeches, promotional activity, videos, overseas visits, etc.), in fact, during this year as Lord Mayor, from November 2023 to November 2024, jobs in the City of London increased from 615,000 to 678,000 – yes, in just one year, an increase of over 10%!

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