In hope of inspiration, we conjure the ghosts of Fleet Street past

If I were given just one crack at a time machine, I'd be ripped with indecision. Would I head for the Florence of Lorenzo di Medici and watch the birth of the Renaissance? Or would it be to the streets of Marcus Aurelius' Rome to experience that empire at its zenith? Or would my heart take me to Fleet Street in the early 18th century to witness the birth of modern journalism and the fellowship of literary and artistic giants?

Fleet Street has cast a steady spell over me since I was a high school student, first discovering Addison & Steele, Dr. Johnson, Boswell, the Kit Kat Club and all the other fascinating people that made Georgian London throb with literary excitement. Thereafter followed 200 years at the heart of the journalistic and literary trades. The ghosts of the world's finest writers, conversationalists and wits haunt this street. And, most specifically, its pubs. Which is perhaps why I've always preferred the options here, away from the legacy of banking and the braying market traders that occupy the watering holes closer to my own office.

So what better option for a Christmas gathering of PR hacks than Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, where we could drink in atmosphere, not spend too much and perhaps get inspired by the talents of the former patrons? Such were my thoughts as we raised our glasses under the penetrating eyes of Dr. Johnson's portrait.

The Cheese is probably the most famous of the many fine pubs along Fleet Street, and the one with the grandest literary heritage. Although it is, to be honest, a bit of a dive. As all bars with journalistic heritage should be. This was the first pub I headed to in the UK when I was old enough to add such establishments to my sightseeing list. It was the spiritual brother to the journalistic mecca of my college days, Chicago's Billy Goat Tavern ... just several hundred years older and with heaps more fame.

Dr. Johnson lived around the corner and is said to have come here often. Legend has him knocking back a pint while debating definitions for his famous dictionary, Boswell at his side taking notes for his equally famous biography. Oliver Goldsmith, Mark Twain, Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens were all supposed to have been regulars, too. It is, quite simply, a place of literary legend.

It's also a fine place to meet up with friends for a pint ... even those who don't have a journalistic education to inspire them. Unlike no other pub in London, the Cheese is a dark labyrinth of small, connected rooms with no natural light. It is dark and gloomy, but magnificently so, with wooden panelling and guttering candles suggesting that the rougher days of Georgian London aren't actually that far away. The sub-division into small rooms means it never gets too loud; if you're lucky enough to find a seat then it always seems cozy.

The basement offers another range of rooms, these reputed to have been the vaulted cellars of a 13th century Carmelite monastery. I shudder to think what the poor nuns would think of the antics and conversations that happen here today and punters shift pint after pint from bar to their chosen dark corners. I prefer to contemplate my literary heroes who, I hope, would be inspired to join and contribute to our conversations if their shades happened by.

Of course, the people we really should be remembering are the unnamed hacks, jobbers and ghost writers of centuries past. I doubt the press releases, white papers, web articles and other marketing ephemera we crank out will ever be considered literature, or rise us to the ranks of the famous. The unnamed are the ones who are our spiritual brothers. Until such time as any of us win the lottery, quit the rat race and retire to write something spectacular. But in the mean time ... we can give thanks that we are employed marketers and not starving artists, and we can hope that the ghosts of Fleet Street inspire our efforts. No matter how humble.