Publicity - The Travel Guidebook Gap

Andy Meddick The London Travel Podcast Guy
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Where rolling stones gather moss...  Guidebooks do a great job of telling you where to go, but not why those places matter. On this travel podcast we explore neighborhoods through everyday spaces, including pubs – revealing rhythms, stories, and hidden histories. Favoring observation over itinerary, we give you the tools to make best use of your travel time, and not return home having missed out. Where guidebooks end, and understanding begins. Travel the way it could be.

Episodes

  1. Bite Me - The Upper Crust & Underbelly of London Street Food

    10H AGO

    Bite Me - The Upper Crust & Underbelly of London Street Food

    We'd love to hear from you! It's all about London's great street food in this episode. We start with a famous Earl who named the humble sandwich. John Montagu, Fourth Earl of Sandwich, is remembered not for his long career at the Admiralty, nor for giving Hawaii its first English name, but for a piece of bread with meat inside it.  We follow that legacy into the broader story of London's street food - from Roman oyster shells in the mud of Londinium to the eel pie shops of the Victorian East End, the surprisingly global origins of fish and chips, and the foods that didn't survive long enough to be romanticized.  We visit the George & Vulture Pub, Cornhill, home of the Earl of Sandwich's Hellfire Club, The Red Lion, Barnes - the pub running the world's biggest sausage roll competition.  We trace the line from a jellied eel to the birth of British rock and roll, and ask why the oyster went from the food of the poor to the food of the privileged while the whelk just disappeared.  Plus the best street food markets in London, and where to find the city's finest fish and chips.

    42 min
  2. Ep 9 Trailer Bite Me - The Upper Crust & Underbelly of London Street Food

    SEASON 1, EPISODE 9 TRAILER

    Ep 9 Trailer Bite Me - The Upper Crust & Underbelly of London Street Food

    We'd love to hear from you! Bite Me – The Upper Crust & Underbelly of London Street Food April 1779. A man waits outside a London theatre with two loaded pistols. A lady he’s enamored with is about to leave the building. The problem is she’s the mistress of another, well known man. What happens next will scandalize the city. Who is this other well-known man?  You probably had at least one of these snacks named after him already this week.  This is Publicity – The Guidebook Gap. I’m Expat Andy, broadcasting from Miami in the sunshine state. My job is to be your insider guide to the London that doesn’t make it onto the highlight reel - the London that’s hidden in plain sight, if you know where to look… History, culture, pubs, and all. Our next Episode, Episode 9, is titled Bite Me – The Upper Crust & Underbelly of London Street Food.  It’s about London street food – the portable kind you eat with your hands, on the go.  It’s about John Montagu - the Fourth Earl of Sandwich. Hellfire Club member. First Lord of the Admiralty. The man who accidentally named Hawaii. The man who died broke. And the man whose defining contribution to human civilization may have been invented at a gambling table – or a desk - depending on which version of the story you prefer. It’s about the East End of London, and the eel. The only creature that could survive in the filthy Victorian Thames. And the food culture it produced that’s still - just barely alive today. It’s about Greggs. And Pret. And fish and chips. And why “as cheap as chips” no longer means anything. It’s about London’s famous food markets such as Borough Market. Their Cornish pasties, pork pies, sausage rolls, and scotch eggs. And it’s about a pub named after a food, that became famous for something else entirely. It launched the careers of the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart, and Eric Clapton in the process. London’s food. London’s myths. London’s pubs. Launching wherever you get your podcasts Monday March 23.

    3 min
  3. Body Snatchers & Marylebone Pubs

    MAR 9

    Body Snatchers & Marylebone Pubs

    We'd love to hear from you! We're off to Marylebone - using the neighborhood's dark origins as a launch pad for a story of spectacular reinvention.  Our walk begins at Marble Arch, where a barely-noticed pavement plaque marks the site of Tyburn Tree - London's primary gallows for nearly six hundred years and the execution ground for over 50,000 people.  From there, we traces how the area shed its grim "Tyburn" identity through a medieval rebranding around a church dedicated to St Mary, eventually becoming the elegant Georgian grid of Harley Street, Portland Place, and Baker Street laid out by the Portland and Portman estates in the 18th century.  Against that backdrop, Expat Andy guides listeners through a carefully chosen set of historic pubs - including the 1791 Barley Mow on Dorset Street, one of the last free houses in central London, with its rare surviving Victorian drinking booths - weaving in characters ranging from executed highwaymen and Catholic martyrs to Charles Babbage and the piano player Tony "Fingers" Pearson, who has been holding court at the Golden Eagle on Marylebone Lane since 1988.  Marylebone's pubs are the living memory of a neighborhood that reinvented itself so thoroughly it nearly erased its own history. Its pubs are the best place to find what was buried underneath.

    29 min
  4. Episode 8 Trailer - Body Snatchers & Marylebone Pubs

    SEASON 1, EPISODE 8 TRAILER

    Episode 8 Trailer - Body Snatchers & Marylebone Pubs

    We'd love to hear from you! Trailer for Episode 8 - Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Marylebone Style This is Marylebone. Its story - told through its pubs - is one of execution and resurrection, bodysnatching and high society, muddy fields and marble halls.  What?  You expected Sherlock Holmes, didn’t you? Well, your guidebook will cover the detective, we’re going to be detective, as today, we decode Marylebone, the Publicity way…  I’m Expat Andy, broadcasting from Miami in the Sunshine State. You’re listening to Publicity – The Travel Guidebook Gap.  Episode 8 drops March 9. Until then catch up on former episodes at publicitythepodcast.com

    3 min
  5. Covent Garden - Where London Veered off Script

    FEB 23

    Covent Garden - Where London Veered off Script

    We'd love to hear from you! In this episode, we rip the polished Instagram filter off Covent Garden and ask a far more interesting question than “Where’s the Apple Store?” We ask what scene this place is playing.  Beneath the street performers and opera crowds lies a district that has shape-shifted more times than London itself. From monastic vegetable patch to aristocratic social experiment, from chaotic fruit-and-veg battlefield to theatreland playground of actors, rogues, and bare-knuckle brawlers.  Designed as a pristine piazza for “Gentlemen and men of ability,” it veered way off script, and filled with market traders, taverns, gossip, vice, and spectacle. When you build a stage, London sends in a cast.  Through pub lore, architectural ambition, market mayhem, and near-demolition drama, we trace how Covent Garden became a pressure valve between power and performance - a place that was never what it was supposed to be, and is far more compelling because of it.  By the end, you won’t just see Covent Garden - you’ll decode it.

    34 min
  6. City of London - What the Pubs and M&S Reveal

    FEB 9

    City of London - What the Pubs and M&S Reveal

    We'd love to hear from you! What if the secret to understanding a London neighborhood and its pubs… were the grocery stores? In this episode of Publicity – The Guidebook Gap, Expat Andy takes us to the City of London - where historic pubs and modern finance meet. We reveal a travel planning superpower - The Publicity M&S Litmus Test. By learning to decode the type of Marks & Spencer nearby, we’ll know exactly what kind of neighborhood we're in - and what kind of pub experience to expect. This isn’t about lists, or lectures. It’s about reading the city, and going beyond your guidebook. We'll walk Fleet Street, duck into Leadenhall Market (pun intended), and sip stout in historic cellars. Most importantly, we’ll understand why certain pubs feel like neighborhood living rooms… and others... boardrooms with beer.

    35 min
  7. London’s Hidden River Pubs, Part 2 - To the Thames

    JAN 27

    London’s Hidden River Pubs, Part 2 - To the Thames

    We'd love to hear from you! Brutalist estates, haunted pubs, Roman temples, and a river you've never seen—Part 2 of our world exclusive Walbrook walk dives deep into the hidden heart of London.  Join Expat Andy as he traces the true, long-lost path of the Walbrook to its mouth on the Thames. Along the way: buried tributaries, literary ghosts, the city’s first coffee shop, and a riverside mystery that ends at a freight terminal. This isn’t just history—it’s a revelation beneath your feet.

    35 min
  8. London’s Hidden River Pubs, Part 1 - 600 Years Off Course

    JAN 27

    London’s Hidden River Pubs, Part 1 - 600 Years Off Course

    We'd love to hear from you! Beneath London’s bustling streets flows a river you’ve never seen—and until now, we’ve all been walking it wrong. In this world exclusive, Publicity uncovers the true path of the lost Walbrook River, hidden for over 600 years.  Join Expat Andy as he follows this buried waterway from Roman Londinium through plague pits, pubs, and surprising side streets. From Islington’s ghostly springs to Shakespeare’s stomping grounds, this is history with a pint in hand and a story around every corner.

    41 min
  9. The Pubs That Built Notting Hill

    JAN 7

    The Pubs That Built Notting Hill

    We'd love to hear from you! A guided walk through 275 years of urban failure, reinvention, and the long, slow gentrification of Notting Hill - told through the pubs that developers built first (usually before they went bankrupt).  From gravel pits and pig farms to punk gigs and overpriced pints, we trace how these buildings reveal the neighborhood’s real story.  Featuring forgotten racetracks, bad drainage, Joe Strummer, Tsarist Russia, and one wildly confident pub that stood alone on a muddy hillside.  Welcome to the pubs that built Notting Hill - and survive to tell the tale.

    34 min
  10. London’s Pub Map - Ice No Lemon

    JAN 4

    London’s Pub Map - Ice No Lemon

    We'd love to hear from you! Why did Bermondsey’s working-class pubs serve up pints to tanners reeking of dog poo. While Hampstead boasts literary haunts filled with poetry and spa visitors?  It’s not luck. It’s topography - for the answer is buried deep. From glacial gravel, to wandering water, to the winds of fortune, this episode takes you on a rollicking ride through the forces that shaped London’s pub map long before the first pint was pulled. From gravel terraces and Victorian fogs to posh mews pubs and riverside alehouses, we’re mapping the city through sediment. You’ll learn why there are more Tube lines north of the river (hint: mud), why Belgravia even exists (money and dirt - literally), and how pub names like The Flask or The Woolpack are basically geological signposts in disguise. This isn’t trivia. This is the secret decoder ring for understanding where pubs are, what they meant, and why your pint tastes different in Hampstead than it does in Bermondsey. Listen before you plan your next trip - because the ground beneath your feet might just tell you more than your guide book.

    35 min
  11. Chelsea – Missed the Miniskirt, Don’t Miss the Pubs

    JAN 3

    Chelsea – Missed the Miniskirt, Don’t Miss the Pubs

    We'd love to hear from you! Welcome to Publicity - London By Pub - the travel podcast that helps you actually experience London, not just tick off landmarks. In this debut episode, we crack open Chelsea - London’s posh-meets-punk neighborhood -where our host Andy (a British expat now based in Miami) retraces a trip that should’ve been epic… but ended in full-on travel regret.  With Expat Andy on board, we’ll get to revisit Chelsea but with a walking tour of five iconic pubs, each one a portal into the stories guidebooks don’t tell - from royal scandals to Rolling Stones auditions to a still-unsolved murder in the cellar. From bohemian past to posh present, Chelsea's pubs are more than just pretty pints - they're cultural cornerstones. From The Cross Keys to The World's End, each stop reveals a different side of Chelsea - art, royalty, punk, pottery, and that unsolved murder. You’ll also learn why British pubs are disappearing fast, and why visiting them now isn’t just fun - it’s urgent. This is trip planning meets storytelling. A podcast to listen to before you pack your bag.

    30 min
  12. Publicity -The Guidebook Gap Trailer

    SEASON 1 TRAILER

    Publicity -The Guidebook Gap Trailer

    We'd love to hear from you! Ever traveled only to realize you walked past everything that mattered? Hosted by British expat Andy from Miami alongside an American traveler and a London local, Publicity explores London's neighborhoods through their historic pubs - not as drinking destinations, but as silent witnesses to the culture, revolutions, and stories that shaped each area.  With a balanced perspective added by two co-hosts – an American traveler, and a London local, and through conversations with architects, historians, interior designers, publicans, and local travel guides, the show uses pubs as decoder rings to help you actually experience London's neighborhoods rather than just recognize them.  Whether you're planning your first trip or your fiftieth, Publicity helps you avoid coming home with a suitcase full of FOMO and regrets, ensuring you remember what you felt and contributed to these living, breathing communities.

    3 min

Trailers

About

Where rolling stones gather moss...  Guidebooks do a great job of telling you where to go, but not why those places matter. On this travel podcast we explore neighborhoods through everyday spaces, including pubs – revealing rhythms, stories, and hidden histories. Favoring observation over itinerary, we give you the tools to make best use of your travel time, and not return home having missed out. Where guidebooks end, and understanding begins. Travel the way it could be.

Information

  • Creator
    Andy Meddick The London Travel Podcast Guy
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    12
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Publicity - The Travel Guidebook Gap
  • Show Website
    Publicity - The Travel Guidebook Gap