About

A Drinker’s History of London is a trawl through a city that floats on a river of drink. It is a tour of lost pubs on vanished streets, an A to Z to a state of mind, a call to memory in a city whose business is forgetting.

It’s London seen through the etched glass of a pub window, history in bar measures. It’s an invitation to join the dead for a party.

And, with the urgent loquacity of a drunk at closing time, I reserve the right to lob in a few personal anecdotes: half-remembered jokes, tall stories of dubious provenance or merely tales of lurid, after-hours befuddlement. Because this is my history too.

The Drinker.

The Absinthe Drinker, William Orpen, circa 1899.