The exhilarating story of how London came to be one of the most exciting and influential places on earth—from the city’s colorful, witty, and well-known mayor. Once a swampland that the Romans could hardly be bothered to conquer, over the centuries London became an incomparably vibrant metropolis that has produced a steady stream of ingenious, original, and outsized figures who have shaped the world we know. Boris Johnson, the internationally beloved mayor of London, is the best possible guide to these colorful characters and the history in which they played such lively roles. Erudite and entertaining, he narrates the story of London as a kind of relay race. Beginning with the days when “a bunch of pushy Italian immigrants” created Londinium, he passes the torch on down through the famous and the infamous, the brilliant and the bizarre—from Hadrian to Samuel Johnson to Winston Churchill to the Rolling Stones—illuminating with unforgettable clarity the era each inhabited. He also pauses to shine a light on innovations that have contributed to the city’s incomparable vibrancy, from the King James Bible to the flush toilet. As wildly entertaining as it is informative, this is an irresistible account of the city and people that in large part shaped the world we know.

From the age of five, when he helped his deaf father negotiate advertising contracts, Richard Desmond has always had an eye for business. In The Real Deal he offers a no-holds-barred account of an extraordinary career that has taken him from cloakroom attendant at a north London club to billionaire media owner. En route he tells of his early life as a rock and roll drummer, his first steps in the world of magazine publishing as a purveyor of leisure and top-shelf titles, and finally, after decades of paying his dues building smaller brands, his arrival in the big league with the launch of OK! magazine and the acquisition of Express Newspapers, his purchase and sale of Channel 5, and his £80 million investment in the Health Lottery, combining business innovation with help for good causes. Along the way, he imparts many of the secrets of his astounding success, as well as giving his forthright opinion (and he always has one) on such diverse subjects as politicians, religion, and the similarities between being a rock and roll drummer and running a business – as well as his views on a cast of characters ranging from Alan Sugar to Victoria Beckham and from Simon Cowell to Jennifer Aniston. Often controversial, frequently revelatory, always entertaining, The Real Deal is the brilliantly frank account of a life spent at the sharp end.

"Over the years of the developing judicial review of ministerial and governmental decisions, Louis Blom-Cooper was a leading advocate who grew up with the advent of a distinctive brand of public law. His range of public activities, both inside and out of the courtroom, saw him dubbed by his colleagues as a polymath practitioner. They included chairmanship of plural public inquiries in child abuse and mental health, media contributions and innovation in penal reform. This book is a collection of his essays, prefaced by a self-examination of his unorthodox philosophy towards the law in action. It covers a variety of socio-legal topics that express his ambition to inform the public on the workings of the legal system. This involves a discussion of the history of Britain's unwritten and, in the author's view, insufficiently interpreted constitution. It reflects a commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and portrays its international origins. It also opines on crime and punishment in the functioning of the courts and elsewhere, and the political shift from the penal optimism of the 1970s to the reactionary punitiveness of the post-1990s. The essays conclude with a miscellany of affairs, reflecting on professional practices and the author's judicial heroes Lord Reid and Lord Bingham."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Takes a thematic and interdisciplinary approach to show that late Elizabethan literary, political, and polemical texts cannot be understood without reference to the succession, and how the issue affected court politics, religious disputes, constitutional innovation, and international relations

Drawn largely from unpublished manuscripts, this compilation illustrates Norbert Elias' theory that the emergence of the professional naval officer in Great Britain was related both to the necessities of naval warfare and to the structure of society on land. Specifically, the innovation of the rank of midshipman meant that the British were able to mitigate the impact of social barriers between officers and ratings and gradually merge the two hierarchies.