About Me and this Blog

29/08/2022 donbrown 0

Welcome, thanks for discovering this blog and taking the time to find out more. It is a pretty random collection of posts of curiosities, museum […]

greenwich statue of dead cockatoo

The ‘dead parrot’ statue in Greenwich is not what you think

14/05/2026 donbrown 0

The enigmatic artwork of Greenwich that most people get wrong. It’s definitely not a dead parrot.

red coated royal guards marching

From today’s State Opening of Parliament

13/05/2026 donbrown 0

Red coated guardsmen! The Household Cavalry! King Charles in the Australian State Coach! All the (to be honest, completely pointless) pomp and ceremony of a […]

Stumbling Across the ‘Tudor Pull’

27/04/2026 donbrown 0

Now I don’t generally work on London Marathon day (“the noise! and the people!”), but this year found me doing a tour of an almost […]

Benjamin Franklin’s Clapham Common Experiment

27/04/2026 donbrown 0

Today anglers sit by Mount Pond on Clapham Common, fishing for the carp that patrol its waters. They’re joined by the occasional heron, and ducks […]

Joseph Turner’s Covent Garden Birthplace

26/04/2026 donbrown 0

I mean, if an evening holds the prospect of beer, cheese, a bit of history and a spot or two of art*, then it would […]

reformers tree mosaic hyde park

The Mystery of the Reformers’ Oak

17/04/2026 donbrown 0

At a confluence of footpaths in the NE corner of Hyde Park, not too far from Marble Arch, is a circular mosaic that marks the […]

national portrait gallery entrance

In Praise of the National Portrait Gallery

15/04/2026 donbrown 0

These last few weeks I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) prepping for a tour for a small group. […]

lloyd george statue parliament square

The Lloyd George Statue in Parliament Square

14/04/2026 donbrown 0

WHAT: David Lloyd George WHERE: Parliament Square (map) BY WHOM: Glynn Williams WHEN: 2007 Back when I was involved with the London Society we ran […]

Days Out: Chartwell – Churchill’s Country House

12/04/2026 donbrown 0

To Kent (again), close to the village of Westerham – birthplace of James Wolfe of Quebec – to visit Chartwell, the country of home of […]

raoul wallenberg monument london

Marylebone’s Memorial to a WW2 Hero

12/04/2026 donbrown 0

WHAT: The Wallenberg Monument WHERE: Great Cumberland Place (map) BY WHOM: Philip Jackson WHEN: 1997 Walk a couple of hundred metres north of the Marble […]