Karl Marx | Pills & Pillow-Talk

As most readers know, London will elect a new mayor on May 5. One of the candidates will end up sitting pretty in City Hall while the others could be heading for the political graveyard.

Which is all the excuse I need to show you a few cemeteries and tombstones.

First up is Grover Cleveland, best known as the only president of the USA to serve two non-consecutive terms.

Aaron Burr, the third vice-president of the USA, served alongside Thomas Jefferson. He shot dead his opponent Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Burr died a nearly forgotten man. He’s now in Princeton Cemetery while Hamilton is on ten-dollar bills.

Not about to be forgotten any time soon is Karl Marx, buried in Highgate Cemetery.

Among the other notables nearby is Saad Saadi Ali, the Iraqi Communist leader, left-leaning even in death.

I really like this memorial to Douglas Adams, also in Highgate Cemetery.

Anyone know this more obscure writer, buried in St Brelade, Jersey?

Here lies the Swiss novelist, racing driver and pioneer of the anti-vivisection movement, Hans Ruesch.

If you’re a Londoner, remember to vote on Thursday.

My mate Gus was out one day;

Someone asked ‘Do you know the quickest way

To Highgate Cemetery?’

‘You bet I do’ said Gus

As he pushed the poor fellow under a bus.”

There are lots of reasons for visiting Highgate Cemetery in North London. Here are just a few of them.

It’s a final resting place for many literary folk, among them Douglas Adams, Alan Sillitoe, George Eliot, Pat Kavanagh and William Foyle (who founded Foyle’s with his brother Gilbert).

Douglas Adams, with pencil tribute

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’s writer

Literary agent Pat Kavanagh

One half of W & G Foyle Ltd

Then there’s this avid reader.

Jim Horn 1976-2010

Poor Harry Thornton didn’t survive the flu pandemic.

Pianist Harry Thornton 1883-1918

I expect you know who Malcolm McLaren was, unlike the couple nearby who thought he had something to do with double buggies.

Malcolm McLaren 1946-2010

Pop artist Patrick Caulfield plays a visual joke on the headstone.

DEAD or alive? Probably dead if you look closely.

But Jeremy Beadle goes all serious with books.

Jeremy Beadle 1948-2008

There are war graves, mainly from World War One, and a 1930s monument to the London Fire Brigade. There’s also one very bad boy.

Mastermind of the Great Train Robbery 1963

Bruce Reynolds, the brains behind the Great Train Robbery

You were expecting the big man? Oh, all right. Here you go.

Funny how the communist gets the most lavish tomb, dwarfing those around him. Souls of lefties gather round, among them historian Eric Hobsbawm and Iraqi Communist leader Saad Saadi Ali, while a little further away lies Philip Gould, architect of New Labour.