About

I am a writer and podcaster, at least insofar as I write stuff and record podcasts, not in the sense that anyone pays me to do those things.

The blog started from a jumble of unmoored ideas I’d had about how I could do something creative. I love travel and maps, and was enjoying developing a travel writing style, but am also a big music and history buff, and as much as I enjoy books and the written word, I’m also an audiophile who loves radio and podcasts. This Mr.John thing is my attempt to bring all that mishmash of stuff together under one roof.

Most of the posts are about my adventures and travels, finding ways to connect these with my love of music and history – but let’s not get too excited, I have a day job and meager funds, so it is what it is.

If I ever get to retire, I hope to spend my time travelling around in search of great live music and then I’ll be able to fill this blog with that sort of thing, but for the moment, my definition of “adventure” is mainly me going outside more.

So buckle up and get ready for some lengthy blogposts and podcasts!

I write under the name JT Harrison to separate this from my work persona. I am originally from Leeds in the north of England, and now live just outside Madrid in Spain.

If you want to know more, there’s a misleadingly-named FAQ page here, and you can Contact me here.

I also have a Bluesky account, so please give me a follow!

I don’t make this stuff up

Travel writing has a reputation for being as much fiction as fact, with uneventful journeys spiced up with made-up events. This isn’t YouTube, so I can’t just fill a few minutes with whatever might be outside the train window, or film mundane encounters like an airport check-in. The written word requires proper stuff to happen or there’s nothing much to say … so you can see why the temptation to invent or embroider is sometimes too much for our poor travel writer to resist, but please be assured that everything I write is true, it really happened, or at least it’s my version of what I think happened. Or at least my memory of my version of what I think happened.

Copyright

No part of this blog may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the author, except in cases of brief quotations embodied in reviews and other uses permitted by copyright law.

For permission requests, please contact via the Contact Page.

Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author!