My London Library: No 1 – Private Eye On London

I own a lot of books about London, so I thought I’d share them with you in no particular order.

• Title Private Eye On London by Christopher Booker, Willie Rushton and Richard Ingrams (1962, Weidenfeld and Nicolson).
• Cost £4.
• Bought from The Cartoon Museum, Bloomsbury.
• Genre Humour.

One of – if not the – first special annual produced by the Private Eye team followed the adventures of Gnittie, a ‘little man’ with a ‘vague longing to be rich and famous’, who heads to London to fulfill his dreams.

There he discovers that ‘nobody who is rich and powerful and famous lives South of Old Father Thames’, visits Whitehall, Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace, discovers the prisons are full of ‘parking offenders and demonstrators’ and tries unsuccessfully to take a No 11 bus to Fleet Street.

Best bit The Estate Agent.

Verdict Even in London, most things never change.