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Category: Peter Ackroyd

  • Why are poor and homeless people in London important?

    In the final paragraph of his London: The Biography (2001), Peter Ackroyd answers:  [W]hen it is asked how London can be a triumphant city when it has so many poor, and so many homeless, it can only be suggested that…

  • Boswell and ‘sexual favours’

    In a chapter about London’s sexy life (Chapter 41 “You sexy thing”), Peter Ackroyd relates some of Boswell’s sexual encounters.  Boswell’s diary of street life in 1762 provides an account of sexual favours currently on offer. On the evening of…

  • What is London’s colour?

    Peter Ackroyd in London: The Biography (2001) answers (see below). What is Hong Kong’s colour, I wonder? Red is London’s colour. The cabs of the early nineteenth century were red. The pillar boxes are red. The telephone boxes were, until…