Portico

A fascinating collection of bizarre but true stories from nearly 200 years of railway history. Right from the very start, when George Stephenson's famous Rocket knocked over and killed a government minister at the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester line in 1830, the world's railways have given rise to plenty of intriguing stories. In this fascinating book, revised and updated with a new selection of t...

Extraordinary but true stories from over two hundred years of angling history. Fishing's Strangest Tales gathers together choice stories and bizarre fishing tales from all over the world. Consider the Oxford scientist who in 1910 discovered the marvellous life-giving properties of brandy to fish who had otherwise gasped their last. Or how about the nine-year-old boy fishing for trout who caught a large mus...

`The rewards you can reap from exploring this amazing planet are incalculable. Every year, more and more of us are discovering the joy, the excitement, the sheer sense of adventure in roaming the world.

In every walk of life, from relationships, to work, to politics, sport and the news, our everyday use of English harbours duplicities of meaning. We say 'I'm sorry' when we mean 'absolute nonsense', and write 'Yours faithfully' when we're thinking 'Sod you!' Jealousy, rage, love, affection - we're equally good at disguising them all. Leaves on the Line compiles this secret language - this 'double English' -...

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Yorkshire, or as it is sometimes beautifully referred to, God's Own County. Though this isn't the usual side of the county the tourists, travellers and residents see. This is the real Yorkshire, the strange and twisted nooks and crannies of the county's bizarre history - past, present and future. Following on from the bestselling Portico Strangest titles now comes...

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of London's Underground, or as it is affectionately referred to, the Tube. Though this isn't the usual side of the Tube the tourists, travellers and residents see. (Though, of course, they do see a great deal of strangeness in their daily commutes!). This is the real Underground, the strange and twisted nooks and crannies of what happens hundreds of metres below mill...

The Tour De France is one of the most revered, thrilling sporting events in the world, not to mention one of the most physically exhausting. Every year top cyclists from around the globe break speed records and push themselves harder and faster in pursuit of the legendary yellow jersey. Vive le Tour! is the ultimate guide to the competition's heroes, cheats, controversy, extreme terrain, triumphs and traged...

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Cornwall, or as it is sometimes obscurely referred to, Merry Jack. Though this isn't the usual side of the county the tourists, travellers and residents see. This is the real Cornwall, the strange and twisted nooks and crannies of the county's bizarre history - past, present and future. Following on from the bestselling Portico Strangest titles now comes a book de...

365 Reasons To Be Proud To Be Irish is a year-long scenic route of jolliness taking in the quirky events, inventions, traditions, people, places and characters that make Ireland a country worth celebrating every day of the year. Within this humorously illustrated and entertaining book you'll find a historical year's worth of the discoveries, delights and derring-do that make Ireland a place to love and cher...

* Whose head fell off London Bridge into his daughter's lap? * How do you make Big Ben gain two-fifths of a second? * Who sold Buckingham Palace to an American tourist? * Which London citizens are allowed to herd a flock of sheep over London Bridge? * Why did John Etherington's top hat get him arrested in Mayfair in 1797? * Which Londoner embalmed his wife and displayed her in a glass cabinet in his front r...

101 nifty tips, some more serious than others, for getting you through a January without booze. A book of 101 tips for people engaged in the increasingly popular Dry January movement, in which you give up alcohol for the whole of January. Tips range from the practical ('Put a lock on your drinks cabinet and give someone else the key') to the less practical ('Deliberately get infected with an illness requiri...

Richard Wilson’s (not the actor!) compilation of Things not to do before you die is a riposte to the constant need to obey orders on every facet of modern life. Books, television shows and websites are forever ordering us around - 100 things to do before you're 30; 50 albums you must own; this year's must-have handbag; change your life in two weeks. Why - is this an increasingly desperate search for happine...

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Dublin. Though this isn't the usual side of the city the tourists, travellers and residents see. This is the real Dublin, the strange and twisted nooks and crannies of the city's bizarre history - past, present and future. Following on from the bestselling Portico Strangest titles now comes a book devoted to one of Ireland's most beautiful, and popular, cities. Lo...

Chateau Monty sees top wine critic and author, Monty Waldin, put his money where his mouth is and pack it all in to make wine bio-dynamically in rural France.

Feet of the Chameleon - The Story of African Football is the prize-winning book by Ian Hawkey which traces the development of the world’s favourite sport through the tangled history and complex social and political life of the African continent.

Vive le Tour! by Nick Brownlee features amazing tales from the Tour de France, bringing you up to speed with the event’s always exciting and sometimes controversial past, present and future. The victories, triumphs, celebrations and scandals are all here, as is a look at the unparalleled feat of Lance Armstrong’s seven wins, as well as the London prologue of 2007.

* A rich, informative and entertaining compendium of weather facts, weather stories and weather-related fun and trivia! * The perfect beach-side companion - or if it's raining outside - the sofa! * From the author of Whatever Happened To Tanganyika? Weather. There's no escaping it. Good, bad, glorious or indifferent, it's always there, looking down on us. When two Englishmen meet it's the first thing they d...

Shit London and its follow-up companion Shit London 2 by Patrick Dalton, subtitled "snapshots and even more snapshots of a city on the edge", present photos of the capital as it is lived in: full of the humour its inhabitants add to everyday signs and notices, intended or accidental puns on signs reflecting London’s diverse population not always at ease with the peculiarities of the English language, questi...

Rude London is 130 of the funniest, rudest and real photographs of London caught with its proverbial pants down. From hilarious real street signs to real pub names to an assortment of weird, wonderful and rude shop names, as well as the unexpected comedy that lurks on on every street corner, our beloved capital city is up to its knees in wonderful muck. Rude London expresses our pathological human need ...

Geoff Tiballs’ wonderful collection The Olympics' Strangest Moments: Extraordinary But True Stories from the History of the Olympic Games (Portico, 2012) is a selection of the most unusual, jawdropping, and just plain bizarre moments in over a century of modern Olympics history.