I wonder what happened to the 'East Ender' - I always enjoyed reading his breakdown of the Where Was I puzzles, after I had solved them myself, of course. His blogs just suddenly stopped, with no indication that he had any health problems. He did occasionally post Russian phrases and he was into trading gold, so I often wonder if he came to an untimely end as a result:
https://theeastenderschronicles.blogspot.com/
I've often wondered that myself, etch. I'd always solve the puzzle first then look at his blog as there were often places referred to that I couldn't work out, even though I'd found the necessary two answers.
When Chris Fautley was the setter the description of his travels was much longer, so a lot more places to identify - I still miss them, especially the 'magic' journeys of the puzzles around Christmas.