The Joy of Six 1590

Jonathan Wilson explains why we're stuck with a Premier League in the clutches of the global mega-rich: "Clubs represent their communities and for fans support becomes an aspect of identity, a link to family and place and past, a role that has only become more significant as the influence of traditional institutions – the church, the workplace, the social club – has faded. Yet fans in England have almost never owned their clubs, which in part underlies the present crisis."

"While investors get richer, the dysfunctional market inflicts a huge cost on children in care. Young people removed from their families are scattered across the country to homes that don't even meet the most basic standards set by Ofsted. Increasingly, children are sent to homes that are not registered with Ofsted. These homes are not subject to regulatory scrutiny or external oversight. Vulnerable children are put at great risk of further harm." Martin Barrow on the government's failure to make good its pledge to end profiteering in children’s social care.

"In the debates that surrounded the bill that would go on to become the Representation of the People Act 1918, an amendment was tabled to introduce proportional representation, which was narrowly defeated." Jennifer Davey surveys the long history of debates about how MPs should be elected.

Dan Falk says eugenics is rearing its ugly head again in today’s crucible of politics and culture: "Much like its original incarnation from the late 19th century through the aftermath of World War II, its current rise is tangled up in politics, ideology, and an insidious desire to divide rather than unite people. And, as in the old days, on the unfounded notion that biology is the be-all and end-all of a person's character and worth."

"It could be the strip of dirt by some train tracks or a gravel-filled schoolyard or sometimes even guerrilla gardening on abandoned lots – a kind of living patchwork with the potential to transform an entire neighbourhood." Anna Rogers celebrates the giant power of tiny parks.

Discontinued Notes walks through a townscape of canals, flyovers and ruin porn beneath Spaghetti Junction.

A ghost sign near Parliament Hill Fields

I've just got back from London after a walk and boozy meal with Liberator friends.

On the walk, I spotted this ghost sign near Parliament Hill Fields.

Exploring the history of old Tottenham with John Rogers

John Rogers takes us on a tour through the history of Tottenham in North London, partly in search of St Loy’s Well.

The walk's blurb on YouTube says:

Starting at Bruce Castle one of the two largest Tudor houses in Greater London making Tottenham an important centre of London history. Our Tottenham history walk then takes in All Hallows Church, Lordship Lane Rec and talk about Tottenham resident Luke Howard and his classification of clouds. We then visit Luke Howard's home in Bruce Grove. 

Walking down the ancient High Road Tottenham we talk about the various royal associations as we arrive at Tottenham High Cross which has stood on this site since at least the 12th century. From here we go to Page Green and discover where Seven Sisters gets its name.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

Right to Roam plans mass trespass in Andy Burnham's Makerfield

The Right to Roam campaign is panning a mass trespass in the prime minister's Makerfield constituency to publicise its call for a public right to access the countryside on our doorsteps and roam responsibly over England’s land and water. 

The trespass will take place on Sunday 13 December. Its location will be revealed nearer the date. You can sign up for more information on Eventbrite.

Right to Roam says:

There’s a right to roam over just 1 per cent of the constituency. Despite big swathes of Makerfield being Green Belt land, local residents are shut out of the countryside that’s on their doorstep. 

Working with locals and the North West Right to Roam local group, we want to draw attention to this unfairness and to highlight Andy Burnham's golden opportunity to introduce a Right to Roam Bill in the next King’s Speech.

The campaign is holding two public events before the trespass that members of the public are welcome to join.

An evening event in neighbouring Wigan on Thursday 27 August, 7pm, at The Old Courts. Organised with the Right to Roam North West local group, and joined by Nadia and Guy from the national campaign, it will see discussion about increasing land access, who owns the North West and what access reform could look like. 

On Saturday 12th September, Right to Roam will have a stall at the annual Wigan Diggers Festival that celebrates the life and legacy of Gerrard Winstanley, the 17th-century land reformer who argued that "the Earth is a Common Treasury for All". Winstanley was born in the parish of Wigan, which includes much of present-day Makerfield.

The hidden history of Euston, a lost canal and Cumberland Market

John Rogers takes us on a walk through a quarter of Camden that surprises even him.

His blurb on YouTube says:

From the Euston Station redevelopment, the site of the Euston Arch and the Bree Louise pub we go looking for a reservoir of the New River. In this area, North Gower Street, we have Speedy's Cafe and the filing location used in the TV show Sherlock for 221b Baker Street. 

From here we go to Cumberland Market, once London's last hay and straw market and look for the location of the Canal basin that served the market right until the 1930s. 

This fascinating Hidden London History walk then follows the route of the Cumberland Arm of the Regent's Canal to the point where it joined the main course of the canal.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

The concept of the 'school run' dates from the 1990s

Adam Webster, full-time father and part-time Associate Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, argues that the government must rethink how Britain conceives work, care and family life. 

As he says in an 'expert comment' issued by the University of Oxford's media people, we have built a world where parents are expected to be simultaneously working and present for family. 

It's all good stuff, but I was struck by this sentence:

In the 1950s, 80 per cent of mothers in the UK stayed at home and the school run was part of their domestic routine.

My instinct was that the concept of the school run is more recent than that, and Google Ngram above suggests I'm right. It's use suddenly took off in the late 1990s.

And we didn't have much of a school run avant la lettre. In the 1950s, people tended to live nearer their children's school then fewer of them owned cars. Whether because of this lower level of traffic or because there was less fear of 'strangers', they were more relaxed about letting young children out on their own. So a school child would soon walk to school with friends or older brothers and sisters rather than their mother.

I can certainly recall that in the Sixties you would have died from embarrassment if you had been met from school once you had reached the age of nine.

You can't turn the clock back, but every change has positive and negative consequences.

Cromford Moor Mine and the legend of the Black Rocks

Assailed by hay fever, flying insects and stinging nettles, Gareth Icke is our guide for a walk in the hills above the Derwent Valley in Derbyshire/

With that setting, disused lead mines, white spoil heaps and unlikely-sounding local folklore, this video ticks a lot of Liberal England boxes.

For more like it, subscribe to The Walk on YouTube.

An esoteric walk around Aleister Crowley's London

Lord Bonkers had no time for him, but Aleister Crowley has been crossing my path of late. So here's an esoteric walk across his London with John Rogers and Marco Visconti:

This walking tour weaves a web of mystery and magick through a portion of central London forever haunted by the man known as The Great Beast. Starting at Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment we head up to Charing Cross, St Martin's Lane to Watkins Bookshop in Cecil Court which has been on the site for over 120 years. We then follow the magic thread to Henrietta Street in Covent Garden and from here drift across the Piazza to Freemasons' Hall - one of the most mysterious and beguiling locations in London. 

Our 'Crowley Crawl' takes us up Kingsway to Museum Street in Bloomsbury and the brilliant Atlantis Bookshop which "was established in 1922 by magicians, for magicians. It is the birth-place of modern witchcraft, with Gerald Gardner holding regular coven meetings in the basement of the Shop." It was also a favourite bookshop of Aleister Crowley. The final leg of our walk of mystery and magic takes us down Oxford Street, Kingley Street to Regent Street, ending at 93 Jermyn Street where Crowley lived for a period of time.

And not the reference to Frieda Harris.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

Following the course of the River Leen through Nottingham

Our History Underfoot – like and subscribe, my children, like and subscribe – follows the course of the River Leen through Nottingham. Just as in John Rogers' London river walks, we are taken to parts of the city we wouldn't normally see.

Except that I have been to some of these places. To prove it, here are my photographs of the railway bridge – I was surprised at how low it was, but didn't guess the reason – and the start of the Tinker's Leen beside the Nottingham Canal.

Lib Dem Rutland plans cycle-path from Oakham to Rutland Water

Rutland County Council is consulting residents on plans for a new cycling route connecting Oakham town centre with Rutland Water..

The council, which is run by a minority Liberal Democrat administration, says the scheme would improve accessibility for residents and visitors, support tourism and local businesses, and reduce reliance on cars.

Oliver Hemsley, the council's portfolio holder for environment and transport, told BBC News:

Rutland Water is one of the county's most valued destinations for both residents and visitors, and these proposals are about making it easier and safer for people to travel there by bike or on foot.

There's more information on the council's website. 

Lord Bonkers has asked me to point out that the chances of being devoured by the Rutland Water Monster while visiting have been greatly exaggerated by an irresponsible media.

John Rogers wanders the City of London’s passages and alleyways

I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons the "London isn't safe" propaganda has gained such a hold is that the city has changed so much in recent decades. I hardly recognise the skyline from the days when I worked there in the 1980s.

But maybe London has always been like that. Go back another 40 years from when I knew it well and you would find a very different cityscape of bombsites and ruins.

Still, a lot of "the old London" remains. In fact, I was surprised how much of it John Rogers found on this walk.

Here's his YouTube blurb.

Join me on a fascinating London walk through the City of London's narrow alleyways, passages and lanes, where many secrets of its past are revealed. 

We explore the rich London history, discovering historical plaques that mark sites like the Worshipful Company of Masons and Jonathan's Coffee House, a pivotal location for early stock market activity. 

This journey into hidden London offers unique facts about the city's enduring legacy from Roman London through Tudor London to the modern day.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway.

Jago Hazzard on the St Ives Bay Line

He sounds like a minor character from Poldark, so it's appropriate that we find Jago Hazzard away from his London stamping ground and in Cornwall. He's our guide to what it seems we must now call the storied history of the St Ives Bay Line - surprisingly storied, in fact.

I stayed in St Ives when I was walking the coastal path many years ago. This was before the Tate opened in the town, but even then it was it was absolutely heaving.Yet the next morning I walked a mile out of town towards Zennor and had the clifftops to myself.

But then no one ever built a St Ives, Zennor and Lands End light railway.

Shropshire ley line quest: Bronze Age stones to Medieval fortress

Don't believe in ley lines? I'd like to, but I don't either. So let's just enjoy this as Shropshire hill porn.

This is freely adapted from the blurb on YouTube:

On the final part of the quest, we trek six rugged miles from the ancient Mitchell’s Fold stone circle across windswept hills to the mysterious ruins of Simon’s Castle, perched just east of Churchstoke.

Along the way, we follow the straight-line path of a 14-mile ley line that links Caus Castle near Westbury and Simon’s Castle. Expect stunning Shropshire scenery, hidden historical gems, medieval fortress vibes, and plenty of on-the-ground exploration as we close out this multi-part adventure.

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The Joy of Six 1488

"It’s what happens when the NHS has run out of room. It means intimate conversations about cancer, stroke, or dementia in earshot of strangers. It means delays to assessment and treatment, including pain relief, become more likely – dignity stripped away through lack of capacity." Danny Chambers says corridor care will continue for another three years – and that’s not good enough.

Nick Bowes reckons political fragmentation could lead to the most interesting London election results since the 32 boroughs were formed.

"When e-cigarettes first appeared around 2010, they were hailed as a breakthrough: nicotine delivery without the toxic tar and combustion byproducts of traditional cigarettes. Public health bodies cautiously endorsed them as a tool for adult smokers to quit, often citing early claims that vaping was 95 per cent less harmful than smoking. More than a decade later, with millions now vaping regularly, the picture is less clear." Vikram Niranjan reports on warning signs that vaping may not be as benign as we thought.

Black female footballers are praised for their strength, white female footballers are praised for their intelligence. Paul Ian Campbell and Allison Thompson discuss the findings of their research.

Jude Rogers chooses her 10 best folk albums of 2025.

Ray Newman follows in the footsteps of Henry VII, who made a pilgrimage to the holy well of St Anne  near Bristol in 1486: "If you want to stick to something like Henry’s route, you have to push past rows of signs and columns cones, squeeze between temporary fences, evade robotic security sentinels that shout at you if you linger too long, and leap muddy puddles in a road surface turned into no-man’s-land by the constant passing of concrete mixers."

John Rogers explores Acton Town, Turnham Green and Chiswick House Park

Time for another London walk with John Rogers:

A walk from Acton Town Tube Station down Bollo Lane looking at the changes taking place there, then across Turnham Green where I talk about the Civil War battle that took place there in 1642. The video ends at the beautiful Chiswick House Park.

This walking tour explores West London history, urban change, and hidden landscapes, moving through Acton, Bollo Lane, Turnham Green, and Chiswick. Along the way it touches on London regeneration, psychogeography, Civil War history, grand houses, and the last industrial London.

Most signs of the Acton Town to South Acton branch disappeared long ago. Diamond Geezer has an article about it.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway.

The glorious story of Shacklewell and De Beauvoir Town

Another walk with John Rogers:

This East London walk takes is into the surprising hidden corners of the London Borough of Hackney. Our urban stroll explores the historic areas of Shacklewell and De Beauvoir Town, both with rich and fascinating histories. Starting on Mare Street we follow Amhurst Road to Shacklewell Lane and the site of Shacklewell House which had been an important country house from at least the 16th century. 

We then take a look at the Somerford Grove Estate designed by Frederick Gibberd in the late 1940s and winner of a prize at the Festival of Britain of 1951. Crossing Kingsland Road we then wander the streets of one of London's most beguiling hidden neighbourhoods, De Beauvoir Town. Developed in the 1830s this Victorian area was saved from demolition in the 1960s and remains one of London's true hidden gems.

It didn't make this YouTube blurb, but towards the end we also see the home of the Hackney Mole Man, who was made famous by Iain Sinclair.

John Rogers has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway.

The Joy of Six 1464

"Events are moving so quickly that it’s worth stopping to assess where we are. The U.S. government is currently building massive detention facilities, already detaining tens of thousands of people there and elsewhere, with incompetent and deeply racist secret police sweeping undocumented all kinds of people – immigrants, those with their paperwork in order, and US citizens alike – off the street." Andrea Pitzer says the correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards.

Tanya Park argues that banning social media for children misses the point: "If we’re serious about protecting children online, we need to regulate the companies, not ban the children. That means enforcing existing law, strengthening platform obligations, eliminating addictive design, and empowering young people with the knowledge and tools to navigate digital spaces safely."

James Meek visited Greenland last year as Trump was starting to make noises about annexing it.

"The Peggy who emerges from these formative years is part Girl Guide, part witch: a Gothic dreamer with a work ethic; Madame Sosostris meets the persona Atwood calls ‘Ms Fixit’. She marries a fellow Victorianist because it makes practical sense but yearns for something else. She makes her own clothes but also fancy-dress costumes and puppets." Sophie Oliver reviews Margaret Atwood's Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts."

Lolly Willowes is a work of modernism not in the sense of formal innovation but in its statement that after the first world war the old order was no longer tenable. The novel is a rejection of Victorian pieties as subversive as Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians." Henry Wessells on Sylvia Townsend Warner's novel.

Johnny Campbell goes for a New Year walk in Edale and thinks of those who fought to give us access to this landscape.

An Observer podcast series on The Real Salt Path

If you were hooked by Chloe Hadjimatheou's reporting of the questionable veracity of The Salt Path, you may be interested to know that the Observer has now produced a series of podcasts telling the story of this exposé, The Walkers: The real Salt Path.

I walked The Salt Path myself – we called it the South Coastal Path in those days – from Minehead to Weymouth, over four summer holidays, in the Eighties and Nineties. 

Don't tell Jennie, but I left out the stretch through Torbay (my guidebook said it was allowed) because it was so built up.

Hunting ley lines in Shropshire: Castle Ring to Mitchell’s Fold

You know how none of us believe in ley lines? Here's the fourth part of Third Rate Content's quest following one line they have found in Shropshire.

Their YouTube blurb says:

Join Third Rate content on an epic adventure from Castle Ring to Mitchell’s Fold in the Shropshire Hills! In this episode, we hike through stunning landscapes, exploring ancient hillforts and uncovering hidden prehistoric mysteries. 

Stumble with us as we discover an unmarked stone ring (approx. 100 sq ft, semi-submerged stones) not shown on OS maps, possibly a Bronze Age ring cairn or ritual site near the Castle Ring. The journey ends at the iconic Mitchell’s Fold stone circle, steeped in history and legend.

A chance chat at the car park revealed another uncharted site—could it be another secret waiting to be found? We’ll share tips on navigating this rugged terrain and hints for spotting these elusive treasures. Buckle up and I’ll see you out there. 

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Following the River Westbourne from Kilburn to Chelsea

It's time for another walk with John Rogers, and it's one of the kind I enjoy the most: a walk that follows one of London's lost rivers.

John describes it in his YouTube blurb as a:

walking tour of London’s lost river Westbourne from Kilburn to Chelsea via Maida Vale, Paddington, Bayswater, Knightsbridge, and Belgravia. The Westbourne is one of London’s most celebrated lost rivers and wasn’t fully buried until the mid-1800s. Consequently its course is very well documented and is famously carried over Sloane Square tube station in a pipe that can be seen from the platform.

John has a Patreon account to support his videos and he blogs at The Lost Byway.