The Loughton Lopper, an illiterate labourer arrested for cutting firewood, is the reason Epping Forest still exists - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Samir Machado de Machado, Salman Shaheen, Keri Beevis, Ken Bruen and Jason Starr in the Morning Star's crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Author of Memoirs of a Spacewoman, proofreader of Lord of the Rings, co-author as a kid of Reduplication in Mice - and honestly, that's just scratching the surface of Naomi Mitchison's astonishingly full life, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The short, dramatic life of Freeborn John - including the time he prayed to the Lord during a trial and the scaffolding collapsed - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

When demobbed soldiers smashed every window in Downing Street - plus the man on the white horse, the red flag and the weaponised umbrella, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The Blasphemy Machine - how to sell banned books without getting nicked in the 1820s, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Jo Cunningham, Mick Herron, Harriet Fox, Chris Hammer in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Chalking the walls with "bluemould" - the pre-digital way of getting people ready for the Battle of Bexley Square, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Trotskyist plotter, Knight Bachelor, Commander of the British Empire, inmate of Wormwood Scrubs, world-famous composer: the several lives of Sir Michael Tippett, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The Cotswolds tobacco riots of 1652, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The revolutionary who tried to assassinate Oliver Cromwell - and again ... and again ... If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing incompetently and repeatedly: in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Don Carpenter, Jo Jakeman, Martin Edwards, Harry Whitehead, in the Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

In 1979 a British woman made news worldwide when she was elected to an important political office. No, not Maggie Thatcher - this was a Communist schoolteacher called Annie, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The jurors said Not Guilty, so the judge sent them to jail - no food, no water, no chamber pots. The origins of the "perverse verdict," one of our most important liberties, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

In 1918 bus conductors got a 5 shilling war bonus. "Conductorettes" didn't. The resulting equal pay strike left London with an atmosphere "suggesting a deserted village." This week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

"Honest Tom" Wharton, a founder of the Treason Club, author of a viral 17th century song lyric, crucial figure in the evolution of the British constitution, but mostly famous for urinating in a church - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Yasuhiko Nishizawa, Jo Piazza, Philip Gwynne Jones, MW Craven, in the latest Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Meet the General Union of Clickers and Rough-stuff Cutters, The Cardroom Amalgamation - and many other long-vanished trades unions, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The 82-year-old accountant arrested as a terrorist for shouting "nonsense!" at a politician - remembering Walter Wolfgang, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Starving, freezing to death - but they still wouldn't sign "The Document." London's great building trades lockout of 1859, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The "Rape of the Mace," a punch-up in the House of Commons, and the Labour rebel who became a Blackshirt - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Hatpins and fire hoses - among the weapons used by the "girl workers" of #ReadingBerks in the great biscuit strike of 1916. This week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Stuart MacBride, Ben Aaronovitch, Ashley Flowers with Alex Kiester, Megan Abbott, in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Rebecca and her daughters - all men, of course, following a fine British tradition of cross-dressing - and the war against the turnpikes, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Woodbine Willie - the patriotic padre who bought 800,000 cigarettes for the troops in WW1, then spent the rest of his life as a pacifist preacher - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Learie Constantine was one of the best-loved cricketers in the country and the London hotel that barred him for being black soon found they'd picked a fight with the wrong man - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

An aristo animal rights activist and a suffragette-turned-fascist - the unlikely founders of Britain's first female police force, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of A.A. Dhand, Robert Holtom, Chris Pavone, in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

Can you prove you're not a prostitute? If not, you're nabbed: the Contagious Diseases Act 1864 and the long, strange fight for its repeal, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Hiding in cupboards, hiding in haystacks, picnicking on Wimbledon Common - how to avoid the 1911 census, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Christa Faust, L.M. Chilton, James Alistair Henry, C.L. Pattison, in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

The link between The Good Food Guide, the general strike, dialectical materialism, the great British crime novel, Babycham and The Clangers - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Dad and grandad were Tory MPs; he was Eton, Oxford and the Bright Young Things - then he and his butler both turned communist: Baron Faringdon in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Legendary eccentric, minor Romantic poet - and steadfast rebel for democracy: George Dyer, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Amy Jordan, Jorn Lier Horst, Chris Hammer, Cory Doctorow, in this month's Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

When a legendary spaceman's world tour gave the Macmillan government conniptions - in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

My other new short story is in the current issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, www.elleryqueenmysterymagazine.com/current-issue/. Years ago I had an idea for an amateur sleuth character - an actor who specialises in playing dead bodies; finally found a story for him.

Imprisoned in Holloway, jailed in the Tower of London, then an OBE and the front cover of the Radio Times. Just your average life, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

My latest short story is in the March/April 2025 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, available in print or digitally from www.alfredhitchcockmysterymagazine.com/ This one is about some kidnappers who get kidnapped while kidnapping kidnappers. Or something. My usual nonsense, basically.

From being more miserable at boarding school than he was in a German prison camp to inventing a giant ship made of ice: the strange and marvellous life of Geoffrey Pyke, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Brass Crosby, son of Hercules, London mayor jailed for standing up for freedom in 1771, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...?

A posh bloke stuck his tongue out - and the riot began. The stoning of the Carlton Club, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Reviews of Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane, Louise Penny, Karin Nordin, Peter Lovesey in the Morning Star crime fiction column: morningstaronline.co.uk/article/crim...

A socialist hymn book and a secular Ten Commandments - the strange story of the Socialist Sunday Schools, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

The principled, the shy, the angry - and the weird: people who turned down the honours list, in this week's Rebel Britannia rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Demanding-with-menaces, mass drunkenness, gambling, home invasions & plenty of bullying; ah! Ye Olde English Christmas, in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

"As to how I became a serial killer -- well, that's another story, and one which, frankly, I am not sure reflects on me all that well." My latest short story appears in the current (Jan/Feb 2025) issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine: www.elleryqueenmysterymagazine.com/current-issue/

Sixty days of rioting - over theatre prices. This week's Rebel Britannia, free as always: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...

Madam Thring's hypnotic eyes, and the occupation of Acton swimming baths - in this week's Rebel Britannia: rebelbrit.substack.com/p/rebel-brit...