Jon was voted the ‘14th Most Influential Person in the West Midlands’ in 2008. Subsequently he has not been placed. He's been a football referee, venetian blind maker, cellar man, and a losing Labour council candidate: “No, no chance.

A complete no-hoper” said a spoilt ballot. Jon wrote and directed the first ever piece of drama performed on Twitter when he persuaded a cast including MPs and journalists to give over their timelines to perform Twitpanto. But all that is behind him.

As well as founding the famous blog Birmingham: It's Not Shit, he's also organised psychogeographic trips around Birmingham's Outer Circle, measured the emotional wellbeing of the city and started Talk Like a Brummie Day. He currently edits Paradise Circus: A Birmingham Miscellany.

In 2014 he published 101 Things Birmingham Gave the World, with a foreword written by Stewart Lee. Pier Review, is about visiting every seaside pier in England and Wales and has been described as "On the Road meets On the Buses".