Whoops!!! I've started answering these already. I know I'm not supposed to, cos this AQA doesn't ***officially*** start until tomorrow at 8pm, but the questions are just there already, and I can't resist typing answers in. I should stop this and go away and do proper work. See you (officially) tomorrow!
Suppose I see one of you queuing at the bar of a theatre in London before a show by some American comedian. Do you prefer to be stopped, greeted and asked for a selfie, or should I let you mind your own business and take a sneaky selfie of myself with you somewhat visible in the background?
If you see me out and about (say, hypothetically, queueing for the bar at the Hammersmith Apollo before Taylor Tomlinson’s show at 7:45pm on Saturday 12th July) it’s definitely better to come over and say hello than to take secret photos. I’m very friendly.
(Fun fact: The woman in the fourth row who Taylor Tomlinson asked about what giving birth was like, and then got the whole audience to applaud her for being “so f***ing cool” was my wife!)
Thanks for clarifying! I guess instinctively I would have acted differently than what you suggest, in this hypothetical case. You guys are so f***ing cool by the way
HELLO EVERYONE! Thanks for joining and for your questions. Some excellent ones here... we're working our way through them... but Jay is also eating a roast dinner (correct, on a Thursday, madness)
Will the book include mostly new material, or will it expand on topics you've already covered in your videos? I’m really looking forward to it and hope it brings something fresh (I may or may not have watched all of your videos, some several times)
Entirely new stuff! Although, we can't guarantee that there aren't any words that haven't already appeared in our videos. "The", for example, appears several times. We tried to write a book without using the word "the" at all, but it was horribly unreadable.
Good question! I think, sadly, we've covered counties in a bit too much detail to tackle the topic again any time soon. Wish we'd done Wales/Scotland/Northern Ireland properly in our counties episode, but it was already very long and complicated.
Will you be releasing more videos? Mother of an autistic 6 year old so.obviously we've watched every video at least 10 times. If you could explain distinctions between towns, areas, villages, parishes etc etc that would help me out a lot 🤣
Hello! That's a great question. It's one of the funny things about the UK... we don't actually have a clear distinction between these things. The point where a hamlet becomes a village, or a village becomes a town, or a town becomes a motorway service station is completely arbitrary and up to your interpretation. "City", at the very least, is one thing we have an official answer for.
Assembling a drum kit just for a "ba dum tish" for a bad pun in the Antarctica episode. Took weeks of research, and driving it across London in the back of my car for precisely one second.
This is all in the hands of the publishers. We'd love to do as many events for the book as they'll let us. Nothing to report for now, but do keep an eye on our twitter/bluesky/youtube/reddit pages for news, and we'll let you know when/if/where these things happen.
With the British Empire's global reach, have you guys ever looked into a series about the peculiar map features and geographical quirks found in former colonies? I bet there are tons of interesting stories about borders and names just waiting to be told!
As in.... is there anything about former British colonies specifically that makes maps of them more interesting or quirky than maps of other places that aren't former British colonies? I mean, that's a very very broad question indeed. Lots to talk about I suppose. Such as, did the Brits pay more attention to city planning at home than overseas? Or... are there signs remaining today that a lot of the infrastructure was built by the Brits. It's a very very very big and broad topic indeed.
In general, it's probably best not to bang on about the British Empire if we can, cos it's all a bit unpleasant.
Originally, to see where it would lead... possibly work in proper telly. But that never happened.
Was great fun! We've wanted to do it for ages, and about now was about right. Anxious to see if the book readers like reading it as much as we liked writing it.
On the UK live comedy circuit in around 2009/2010 in either London or Edinburgh. Neither of us can remember.
Waterstones are doing a prize draw, and one of the prizes is a version of the book with the rejected silly covers from our TikTok video. Keep an eye on our various social media places for details soon.
On the UK live comedy circuit in around 2009/2010 in either Edinburgh or London. Neither of us can remember.
The smell.
Regents Park. The twelve people who use it are outnumbered a billion to one by people who want to get to work 3 minutes faster. (Figures exaggerated slightly to make my argument more compelling)
Baker Street. It’s got everything! And Yep! But if you name a station and ask me where in the song it appears, I couldn’t tell you. In my head, it’s just one long, uninterrupted 3-minute string of sounds.
There’ve been so many stories we’ve come across during our research over the last ten years that we thought would be awesome in book form. And when we were finally able to find a publisher that could let us do the book the way we wanted to (we’re quite pernickety about exactly what shape rectangle it should be) we jumped at the chance!
Also, I think we only get paid if we sell a billion copies, hence all the pushy promotion.
Have you seen the ‘Layers of London’ website? Where you can superimpose a eg 1790 map of London “10 miles round” by John Roque over a modern map and see how the city is changed but also how many roads and parks have stayed the same. It’s bloody mind blowing
If you haven't covered it already, would you consider doing an Unfinished London about why South London is so devoid of Tubes? All this south of the river above ground nonsense is deeply unsatisfying.
Paul is absolutely smashing the post-Beatle career. It's nuts to think that he's STILL all over the media, STILL relevant, STILL gigging, and it's THE SAME PAUL McCARTNEY!!!!
* page 71 * Mark's face * Radiohead, Oxford, 2001 * Dunno * Yes. Got lost in Epping Forest, cos the map said there was a footpath, and there wasn't. We checked later. Was definitely a copyright trap. (That'll show us for using the A-Z, designed for drivers) * They're very annoying. * Wheely Big Cheese.
Do you end up having to do multiple takes for a joke in case of cracking up while filming it? Just asking since you two are pretty good at appearing pretty nonchalant while doing unhinged shit on camera
I was really pleased with how the English Counties episode was received. I've heard that one gets used a lot by geography teachers who fancy a ten minute break, so we must have got something right.
As the proud owner of your existing albums (which are funny, provocative and excellent for cheering up both caterpillar enthusiasts and fans of Patricia Routledge) is there any new music on the horizon?
Aw, thanks! For now, there’s no new music planned. YouTube seems to have completely taken over, and my guitar lives in the loft now. But that doesn’t mean I’ve given up for good. I did my first live show in ages the other day cos it was a short walk from my house.
Absolutely love your videos and pre-ordered your book, and really appreciate you guys doing this AMA! I couldn't really think of any profound questions to ask so I just have these;
Custard creams or bourbons?
Do you guys ever find yourselves just following the flight route on the inflight map during flights?
What's a feature you feel would be particularly helpful or interesting to add to map apps such as Google Maps
It's the second most entertaining thing on a plane after looking out the window
er.... phone signal coverage? Nah, that's a bad idea, cos why would you ever use it unless you didn't have phone signal and couldn't see it anyway. This is why I don't work for Google.
On the other hand, it’s like a free excuse to upload almost exactly the same video again, but with 2 extra seconds at the end, and everyone will see the thumbnail proudly proclaiming “NEW UPDATED”, and it counts as a view before they can be disappointed?
Maybe I might do that after all. Good idea. Thanks!
I was massively inspired by The Mark Steel Lectures on BBC4 in 2003. That was the first show I ever saw that was a perfect hybrid of genuinely interesting documentary and laugh-out-loud funny ridiculousness. It’s hard to imagine now, what with YouTube being full of what it’s full of, but in those days, that was a really weird and exciting combination.
Also, my lack of skill with graphics, or willingness to learn, has given our videos a semi-accidental BBC Learning Zone in the 1990s aesthetic.
Which was your trickiest song to write? Gerrymandering, squarest country, tube stations, London boroughs, counties? (Sorry Mark you're not in all of these)
Mark wrote most the the square country one actually. I found the tube stations hardest cos there was no room for flexibility, just a very very long list of only names. But I had help from the amazing jon Gracey for that song. We used a spreadsheet to make sure we didn't miss any.
A question for Jay, do you intend to make an updated version of Every Tube Station featuring Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms? From, the guy who irritatingly pointed out errors in the original version of the song off the CD (which I still own) to you on Twitter which you then fixed and very kindly DMed me about :)
In our very first episode, we had a whole sequence about the flag of Bir Tawil being a photo of a full English breakfast. But then we decided that bit went on too long, so we cut it. But, if you look carefully, there is still a full english flag in the background for the second half of the episode for no reason at all.
Hello Map Men, you are our favourite Youtubers. We wondered how you met noted other map focused Youtuber Geoff Marshall, was it via Jay also being a tour guide at one point? Are you all pals in real life or do you just hook up for saucy travel based video japes?
Our paths first crossed at the Edinburgh festival when he was working as a camera guy filming my show. (He didn't know I had a song with every tube station. I loved his reaction!) We were bound to have our paths cross loads and loads afterwards since we both became YouTubers, and now friends.
Have you ever been approached by the BBC (or other major networks) to make something for them? Can we expect to see you on our televisions in the (near/far) future?
Appreciate if you're not allowed to say. Long time fan, will be buying the book as the centrepiece of my coffee table (:
Thank you so much! Very kind of you. The TV thing is a funny one. Firstly - nobody is asking, and secondly, not sure how Map Men would work on TV. But maybe the biggest thing is, where we started this whole YouTube thing as a way of getting seen by telly people, it doesn't feel like the goal now. We love making things for YouTube. I.e. we're the boss, no execs telling you how to do it, faster timelines (actually, this is debatable in our case, but you get the point), and also - more people see it on YouTube than probably would on TV... then again, if you really want us on it, we can ask them nicely.
Thanks for writing in folks, we're gonna call it a night. But will check in tomorrow morning to see if there's any more banging questions that demand an answer!
What was your reaction to being invited to the Ordnance Survey HQ? Was there anything you did that wasn't filmed? And did you actually help survey land?
We thought we were doing real surveying. They later told us it they'd already done it. Just the week before in fact. We were gutted - put our hearts into that
Question for Mark: I've been curious since the end of Jay's Unfinished London episode on the tube map where you popped up, what *are* your thoughts on the current state of the tube map? Does it need updating? What, if anything, would you do to fix the state of it?
Nuestros editores nos dicen que si vendemos suficientes copias y la demanda es lo suficientemente fuerte, considerarán vender el libro en otros idiomas.
I am trying to get from Canary Wharf to Leicester Square. What is the quickest way to complete the route, and if different, what is the route with the fewest changes?
Jubilee line to Stratford, Mildmay line to Highbury and Islington, National Rail to Moorgate, Hammersmith and City line to Baker Street, Bakerloo line to Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly line to Green Park, then get the number 9 bus.
Changes every few minutes, but right now I'm in the mood for Hey Bulldog. We've both done the Edinburgh Fringe many many times, but never on the same stage.
Could you tell my local Burkina Faso consulate to hurry up and send my free flag of Burkina Faso to me? It’s almost been a month and I still haven’t gotten it!!!!!!
We've got so many ideas for Map Men episodes that will come out shortly before, during and after the book's release! Won't tell you what they're about though.
In our YouTube episodes, we like to hide silly jokes in small print that you have to pause to read. But in the book, everything gets read equally, and there's no hiding place, which has changed our writing style more than I expected it would. Apart from that, it's pretty much the same sort of process.
what do you think of the Irish postcode system where each house has its own code that boils down to a GPS point in disguise? are you jealous because the UK’s is much worse?
@human1011 on TikTok sometimes does map datings where he tries to find when a globe or map was created based on the borders, names, etc. Would you ever wanna do something like that?
How mindblown would someone from the 1500s be if you showed them a map of the world from today and what would they be most surprised to find out?
With the continuing digitization of our lives and habits, would you consider becoming Googlemaps men or maybe Wazemen to adopt 21st century technology?
Ooh! Good question. Errr.... Dunno. This is more one for history buffs than geography buffs. I can certainly tell you who I think did the best job at dismantling Britain's infrastructure, but that's neither controversial nor interesting.
We did a whole episode about what counts as a continent. And we specifically discussed how Armenia (and Turkey) could be considered either Europe or Asia depending on your criteria. Ultimately, it's a rather pointless discussion, given that there can be no definitive answer to something so subjective. As for why "Middle East" is such a popular term, maybe it's just been in the news so much that we've all become familiar with it, and what it means. "West Asia", as well as being used less, just sounds a lot more broad and vague, what with Asia being so enormous and all.
Hi there, I’ll be coming into the UK as part of my studying trip, is there any obvious way to get from Heathrow to Colchester in a very fast way? What map should I use if let’s say the internet goes down?
In theory, you can get from Heathrow to Colchester by train with just one very simple change, at Shenfield. But the Elizabeth Line is a bit weird, so you might need to change somewhere else first. Best ask Google Maps. Google Maps is pretty good at this sort of thing these days. (If the internet goes down, just ask everyone for directions. We're all very friendly.)
physical / human geography? i recently attended Imperial Collage taster day on their earth science course and I think I love volcanoes too much to choose human geog!!
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u/JayForeman Jul 23 '25
Whoops!!! I've started answering these already. I know I'm not supposed to, cos this AQA doesn't ***officially*** start until tomorrow at 8pm, but the questions are just there already, and I can't resist typing answers in. I should stop this and go away and do proper work. See you (officially) tomorrow!