“an act of physical intimacy involving the use of celery”
Read More“When you were tugging on their udders were you talking to your cows in that fruity accent?”
Read More“90 percent of the cenotaph is invisible, like grief”
Read More“we’re going to go to Paris very briefly”
Read More“this really was the heart of ancient Rome”
Read More“his suit is the colour of the London sky, hiding in plain sight”
Read More“this is what it looked like at the beginning of the 19th century”
Read More“Houston, we have lift-off”
Read More“if you’ve got a taste for London quirky and quixotic…”
Read More“from the top of the wheel you could gaze out and see Windsor Castle, 20 miles away, upside-down”
Read More“I’ve been inside Abbey Road studios on several occasions”
Read More“it’s not only my badge that’s turning blue”
Read More“make sure you turn that girl into cash”
Read More“he changed his name on the top deck of a red London bus as it went by Bart’s hospital”
Read More“Henry VIII had so many homes people have lost count”
Read More“this is Tudor, fabulously Tudor, 1595…and underneath it, this is 1240”
Read More“the Romans were the first to do a hard line in slightly tacky souvenirs”
Read More“Let’s start with the oldest man-made object – it’s 1.8 million years old”
Read More“It becomes a place of entertainment, theatre, prostitution, boxing – basically Las Vegas”
Read MoreThe sounds of nature on Hampstead Heath
Read More“Eric Clapton wet himself in fear”
Read More“Dad came to me and said ‘I’ve got the chance of buying the Cavern, what do you think?’…they just exploded onto the stage, their energy was absolutely palpable”
Read More“there are reports of their paintwork blistering from the heat of the fires”
Read More“they thought Roman mortar was so strong because it was made of bull’s blood…in fact it was crushed tile”
Read More“a song for Lockdown, Ladies and Gents – Keep right on to the end of the road”
Read More“it’s thrilling to see the sun rise over that particular stone”
Read More“I was a pretty unsuccessful actor – everybody knew that except me.”
Read More“joyful yea-saying” – it’s like con brio gone supernova”
Read More“London houses are like baseball cards”
Read More“very brave of you to drive in such an enormous country”
Read More“London Walks defies economic gravity – they’re aggressively non-commercial”
Read More“I’ve been face to face with God’s assassin”
Read More“she had the heart of her husband mummified and wore it round her neck”
Read More“Britannia-like strong matriarchal figures appear all over the place”
Read More“it was the only part of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation ceremony that was not televised – because of its sacred nature”
Read More“tidings of comfort and joy”
Read More“this huge difference-maker of a man”
Read More“I’ve chosen several key Christmases to focus on”
Read More“the sun, blood-red on the eastern marshes behind dark masts and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on fire”
Read More“I can remember, I can remember the months of November and December”
Read More“it changed the experience of theatre-going”
Read More“we’re just about to put them in the oven”
Read More“It is remorselessly beautiful, it looks exactly as it did in the 1870s”
Read More“I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes on the second morning after Christmas”
Read More“I could not see any sign of this strange, midnight wanderer”
Read More“the water temperature was just 5 degrees…I was in for about eight minutes”
Read More“she had over 500 love affairs”
Read More“you’ll notice that the lights are all hanging vertically from the tree – that’s because that’s the Norwegian tradition”
Read More“we see Margaret Thatcher as a victim of snobbery and being outclassed”
Read More“the Christmas lights in Bow Lane, shining like a good deed in a naughty world”
Read More“when you look at the real royal family you might be a little disillusioned”
Read More“we may be looking up at modern buildings but we’re walking along a street plan that hasn’t changed very much at all in 2,000 years”
Read More“So, this preposterous, vulgar, outlandish, outrageous, bombastic prince sets about rebuilding the centre of London in his image”
Read More“I was looking for something different…I’ve learnt lots of things that I didn’t know before”
Read More“make sure you turn the girl into money”
Read MoreDavid Cameron wearing a condom over his head
Read More“It’s like being a detective – but there are traces”
Read MoreA tiny chalice of light in green – an English oasis.
Read More“you’ll pick up enough odd facts to astonish everyone around the dinner table”
Read More“but at the end of the story it’s revealed as a castle in the air…it’s impossible to read that story without a lump coming into the throat…”
Read More“you get a huge amount of extra material on your screen that you don’t get on the walking tour”
Read More“what London was like in this crucial period of its history”
Read More“that sequence in ‘the tea ceremony’ was a class indicator”
Read More“tonight Simon and Christopher will take us to a slightly less reputable establishment”
Read More“he apologised to his courtiers for taking so long to die”
Read More“it was a degrading moment…it was called being ‘left on the stones'”
Read More“up close and perfect photos in a secret location”
Read More“But now I only hear its melancholy long withdrawing roar…”
Read More“how does it law it over the land…surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation”
Read More“the tours are virtual but the friendships we’ve formed are real”
Read MoreSweepings from butchers’ stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drowned puppies, stinking sprats, all drenched in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip tops, come tumbling down the flood.
“what a fantastic site the castle had and what a rubbish site the cathedral had”
Read More“you can put a child on one of these lily pads and they will not fall in”
Read MoreDon’t know where, don’t know when, But I know we’ll meet again Some sunny day…in London.
Read More“you’ll hear deeply personal things”
Read More“Here we can get lost in a magical world of under the sea”
Read More“Street names such as Stinking Lane, Bladder Street and Pissing Alley give a clue to the conditions underfoot”
Read More“conscription for women had begun in 1941”
Read More“mentally, the change is marked too”
Read More“the king walked with the coffin of the dead soldier to Westminster Abbey…four bodies had been disinterred from the Western Front and one of them was chosen at random”
Read More“And spring itself, when she woke at dawn, would scarcely know that we had gone”
Read More“this is the hub of legal activity in England”
Read More“the river was full of big silver stars”
Read More“Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, from time to time history does rhyme”
Read More“I also remember one time getting into an awful lot of trouble…”
Read More“I was selling coffee and waffles…I make my own chocolates…it may be the healthiest drink on the planet”
Read More“he sits in seat D4…he’s been seen dozens and dozens of times…”
Read More“the ancient world didn’t like its corpses. It feared them, was repelled by them. We’re different.”
Read More“six or seven putrefying corpses rose up to the surface”
Read More“men should have been possessed as well because it’s one of those things that makes women seem helpless”
Read More“What’s your favourite thing about Halloween?” “Scaring my sister”
Read More“a severed head resting in the lap of a woman sitting in the stalls”
Read More“past residents include the man who ended up in prison for calling the Prince Regent ‘a fat Adonis of fifty'”
Read More“Night strangles the traveling lamp….we die three times”
Read More“there are bad times just around the corner…speak clearly and don’t bump into the furniture”
Read More“It’s not possible for the public to go inside but we are going to go inside because I am a solicitor so I can take you in there”
Read More‘his wonderful louche, laid back, bohemian look”
Read More“I’m not a trained barrister, my knowledge of the law stems from my being allegedly on the wrong side of it. Repeatedly.”
Read More“What kind of accent do you call that?” “It’s the accent of the capital of the British Empire.”
Read More“Britain’s first DJ also happens to be the father of Mary of London Walks, who’s here tonight”
Read More“that’s your sauce”
Read More“It’s this building that provides the setting for Act I of Oscar’s greatest play – The Importance of Being Ernest – to my mind the greatest comedy in the English language”
Read MoreIslington characters were involved in the Russian Revolution, Indian Independence and the Spanish Civil War…
Read More“especially lust, plenty of it”
Read MoreYou can’t walk those streets without thinking ‘this is what it must be like for a beetle to go for a walk up on the counter of an ice cream parlour.”
Read More“One of the advantages of a virtual tour is that we can go further afield”
Read More“out of hundreds of London mews there are only three where you can…”
Read More“it’s like mountain flowers in the spring”
Read More“there’s a lovely little narrow winding alleyway and that’s where we’re going to go next”
Read More“we work all day every day and at the end of the day – at the end of every day – we’re £450 poorer than we were when we woke up”
Read More“I’d like you to know Mr. Guide that my husband is a cavalry officer and he’s at the back of the group there”
Read More“how do you ensure you’re not getting something nearly worthless for a £400 opportunity costs bill?”
Read More“all the elements that made it a goer for English sensibilities: snobbery, money, eccentricity, bitchiness, the foreign factor…”
Read More“it’s like a miniature Globe Theatre inside…we get that feeling of a bygone age”
Read More“a rumour that this piano had been looted by the British Army from Saddam Hussein’s palace”
Read More“on more than one occasion television crews joined the walkers in their search for ghosts”
Read More“they have the only royal charter awarded by Richard III”
Read More“in many places the ground was too hot to walk on for several days”
Read More“it was a frisson moment – a shiver up the spine moment – for Sir Christopher Wren and that small gathering standing on those smouldering ruins”
Read More“Noma has been crowned ‘the best restaurant in the world’ four times. Macdonalds will never be crowned ‘the best restaurant in the world'”
Read More“possessor of the least inhibited tongue in Europe”
Read More“he wore six overcoats and two pairs of trousers”
Read More“two paintings by the king of colour”
Read More“Light licks its fingertips and turns a page of earth”
Read More“ran my first London Marathon in 1998”
Read More“The word that crystallises that phrase ‘bring some order to that chaos of sensory impressions’ is meaning”
Read More“the real mystery is how the killer was able to wield his knife with such speed and efficiency…those strange, upside-down V shapes under her eyes”
Read More“even when it’s busy it’s peaceful”
Read More“the BBC sent a chauffeur-driven car along to pick me up from home in Sittingbourne, Kent, 50 miles from London”
Read More“made me giggle, which is always a good sign”
Read More“this is where east meets west”
Read More“he composed 11 James Bond soundtracks”
Read More“A fearful man with a great iron on his leg”
Read More“That riding school is still there”
Read More“I could just see a piece of my studio wall standing: otherwise rubble where I wrote so many books.”
Read More“The sky shook London like a rug”
Read More“London can take it”
Read MoreAnd the guided divides the lit-up ones from the benighted”
Read More“The Good Loo Tours had introduced punters to the source of the sewage, logically we should show them where it went.”
Read MoreThe Cutty Sark and the anchor for the Titanic and… well,
Read More“It begins to feel that these two things are not working together. The column has just been rammed into the square.”
Read More“as though today’s world didn’t exist”
Read More“the epitome of remaining elegant and refined while causing chaos”
Read More“those two moments were like hearing the worst possible news in the doctor’s consulting room”
Read More“the monster was out of its cage”
Read More“‘pish, a woman could piss it out’…it was, of course, the greatest understatement in London’s history, the biggest London misjudgement ever”
Read More“It was a street plan that might have been designed to aid and abet a catastrophic conflagration.”
Read More“she was gap-toothed, she was bawdy, she was a tremendous character. She was cremated on a beach in Bali.”
Read More“the attendant kept goldfish in the glass-fronted cisterns that would, when the chain was pulled to flush the loo, slowly sink to the bottom of the cistern before rising again as the water flowed in to refill the cistern”
Read More“when you’re dealing with the House of Hanover you’re dealing with a gene pool that only has a shallow end”
Read More“the chapel dates back to 1428”
Read MoreArt criticism that “bears all the hallmarks of Helena Jones’ genius” (promise you, you’ll recognise that statement. And concur with it.).
Read MoreDickens knew the area well…mecca for foodies…the memories remain, captured in architecture and street names
Read More“It’s true, I have a rare privilege – I have the right to drive sheep across London Bridge”
Read More“Beatrix Potter got some of the names for her characters from the gravestones there”
Read More“no words can express the secret agony of my soul”
Read More“Britain’s slaves were not in Britain”
Read More“his opinion of parliament was that the building should be emptied of politicians and filled with manure”
Read More“in Hampstead’s rush-dark pond where a lone swan sings without a sound”
Read More“I fondly recall the women scrubbing their front steps till they almost shone. And on a Saturday afternoon you would see the same women dragging their kids along to the local bathhouse for the weekly bath – no doubt scrubbed till they shone.”
Read More“The streets were deserted, the pubs pleased to see you, the smell of rum and spices filled the air from the warehouses that were still being used and the area was full of history…”
Read More“First stop, Papua New Guinea, where I got a job as a plantation manager – at age 20 – and ‘lik lik doctor’ (basic paramedic, fixer of machete slashes, snake bites and ulcerated sores).”
Read More“the head cats are at it, the jive is on, they’re in a groove”
Read More“when Mark Antony drank horse piss”
Read More“the name Kensington, it may well be the best, the most appropriate London placename of them all”
Read More“Hampstead is London’s skybox… from there they could see forever”
Read More“those little visuals can help us to unlock the history and the way an area has developed”
Read More“dogs, cocks, pianofortes and insipid men”
Read MoreWhy are fish and chips no longer wrapped in newspaper sheets? They discovered that the ink was carcinogenic.
Read More“the English influences on his work were extratordinary”
Read More“the London Walks guide who sounds like – when he wants to – legendary American sports announcer Howard Cosell”
Read More“I’ve been to 1200 tapas restaurants so you don’t have to”
Read More“London Walks is haemorrhaging red ink”
Read More“It’s in this little alleyway here where Bob Dylan accidentally invented the pop music video”
Read More“any subject on any part of London, almost certainly London Walks will have it covered”
Read More“here the past has long been a valuable commodity, especially the sordid past, the scandalous past, an incriminating shameful past”
Read More“strange that men with such strong stomachs for genocide would get so upset at cartoons”
Read More“St. Paul’s is my favourite…I’ll try not to gush too much”
Read More“Essentially it’s a 2,000-year-old souvenir”
Read More“over 40 people drowned at Balham station”
Read More“All the assembled men got the full Sharon Stone experience”
Read More“they can explore London right from their own bedroom…from wherever they are”
Read More“I first came to London to pursue my career as a performer”
Read More“in a painting by Hogarth every detail matters”
Read More“the square is to London what canals are to Venice”
Read More“1,800 tons of stone hanging above your head”
Read More“five centuries in the palm of your hand”
Read More“not expecting religion in architecture like this”
Read More“a lot of people ask me will I become a guide but I’ve got a really bad sense of direction and I keep getting lost”
Read More“they felt the need to slaughter the giants”
Read More“the mentality, the genus loci of Westminster is insular”
Read More“the most important piece of furniture in any household was the great bed – it was like the car parked in the driveway”
Read More“All drilling machines, like ships, are female”
Read More“the police called it Fagin’s Nursery” “Dickens knew the area well and it featured in his novels” “It’s changed a lot, mostly for the better” “ship building and ship breaking – the Temeraire and the Mayfloweer” “many would say they wouldn’t visit the area alone” “a mecca for foodies” Isobel introduces us to Bermondsey […]
Read More“there is a legend that one night during a butchers’ convention 26 butchers and their wives slept in this bed”
Read More“here we have William handing the red cap of liberty to Europe…here we have the man who invented the first television aerial [joke, needless to say]”
Read More“it took eight hits of the axe to get his head off, to put it bluntly”
Read More“Always drink upstream from the herd…we had to slip the surly bonds of the coach…fastly superior”
Read More“Simon took an American megastar on a tour and she liked it so much she asked for a second helping – booked Simon for the next day”
Read MoreYou go on a virtual tour of Kensington – the wealthiest borough in London (indeed the wealthiest district in the country) – you best strap yourself in because “Sights & Secrets of Virtual Kensington” takes you through the looking glass: to the Cotswolds and the Egypt of the pharaohs and San Francisco and Docklands and […]
Read More“you’ll see a Victorian mortuary and Brigitte Bardot and a bear being skinned and 1930s workmen on a girder 80 storeys up and a Civet Cat and the prettiest girl in London and World War II bomb damage and Hugh Hefner’s shoes and the four great biblical rivers and Ascot hats…and that’s just for starters”
Read More“What caused this musical coitus interruptus?”
Read More“on our little street of 60 houses, 15 men lost their lives in the Great War”
Read More“the Beatles had managed to make my hometown the centre of the world”
Read Morethe beautiful neo-classic villa is a masterpiece…with the star attraction being the library
Read More“Keith was fed up with the banality of typical London tourist fare”
Read More“the village is small, idiosyncratic and charming”
Read More“matter from decomposing bodies leaked into drinking wells and springs”
Read More“we’re going to take a little detour to Udaipur – in western India”
Read More“Hampstead’s great advantage as a spa town… in the end proved to be its great disadvantage”
Read More“darkness visible”
Read MoreOne of the great things about these Virtual Tours is that we can do a lot more than we can when we’re standing on the street…we can use maps and videos and things like that…
Read More“it’s the deepest station in the system – world-class marathon runners train by running up those 320 stairs ten to twelve times a session”
Read More“it’s so unexpected”
Read More“we can hear the influence of Calypsos on so many quintessentially London acts”
Read More“11 one-legged men on one team, 11 one-armed men on the other team”
Read More“you
Read More“The Mississippi drains a continent. Small beer really. The Thames drains time itself.”
Read More“the patter and the chatter of the market migrated into the neighbourhood at large”
Read More“his name was Albert Edward Christian George Patrick Andrew David”
Read More“London is in bloom…”
Read More“32 carriages, one for each of London’s 32 boroughs”
Read More“They took all of us to the moon…I was never quite as cool as Armstrong was”
Read More“a woman in central London being executed by a firing squad”
Read More“dog Jack thought the nurses were sheep and tried to round them up”
Read More“she was buried in a £5,000 Zandra Rhodes dress stolen from Harrods”
Read More“the sound of the explosion could be heard clearly in London”
Read More“prime ministers have mistresses left, right and centre”
Read More“he exited a shop with three pairs of women’s red knickers that he hadn’t paid for”
Read More“let’s walk back in time”
Read More“the strangest, bizarrest bit of London”
Read More“very strange to see ourselves repeating history”
Read More“taking people to little known places people they may not come across on their own”
Read More“halfway up the abbey, disaster – scooped as much of William as possible back into the coffin”
Read More“where there is a daring deed to be done in any part of the world an Englishman should leap to the front to accomplish it”
Read More“today it’s a sleepy little place…your first sight is the tower of the Norman churches”
Read More“the Iron Lady, may she rust in peace”
Read More“Order. Raising a point of order on a point of order that is not a point of order is not a point of order. Sit down”
Read More“syphilis was thought to be a remedy…syphilis-ridden prostitutes did a roaring trade”
Read More“50 ways not to write the letter A…in the murky depths of the Thames…a great culinary step forward”
Read More“Mary Anning’s specimens changed our view of the history of life…”
Read More“Welcome to my world… let’s imagine that you’ve come to visit me here and you’ve asked me to show you round”
Read More“they still wear hairshirts to this day”
Read More“C a wealth of detail”
Read More“merriment and debauchery…they were having a good time”
Read More“you can’t set foot without treading on a prince”
Read More“it was a difficult kiss”
Read More“we are still subject to our ancestors, viruses that go back billions of years”
Read More“don’t you hear the Death Hound baying at your heels?”
Read More“one of London’s secret doors..old fashioned covered arcades twinkle on every corner…for dessert we swing by the official Royal Chocolatier (and we don’t just look, we taste)”
Read More“you were taking your life in your hands…the trendiest shopping street in the world…we’re going nightclubbing…going inside to look at a couple of Banksys”
Read More“Go right back. Look at the history. Work out where we are. And why we are where we are today…”
Read MoreWhen horses ran London – left us an amazing legacy – plenty still to see if you know where – and how – to look
Read More“Do you like auctions?… The hammer finally came down in my favour…You can almost hear the crowds shouting and the laughter and shrieks of the children and smell the smoke coming from the cannons that have been fired”
Read More“Black Death pits set under well-groomed gardens where people have their lunch, blissfully unaware of the horrors that lie at their feet…”
Read More“Words, Harry, are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic”
Read More“one of London’s secret doors..old fashioned covered arcades twinkle on every corner…for dessert we swing by the official Royal Chocolatier (and we don’t just look, we taste)”
Read More“an execution, a dead body snatched, a perfectly good brain smashed into a jar and swapped for a damaged one”
Read More“a lovely, unforgettable moment was the time in the British Museum when a guy went down on his knees and asked his girlfriend to marry him”
Read More“it’s okay dear, it’s been circumcised”
Read More“Ships from all over the world, old sugar mill now a famous pub, Oliver Twist and stars”
Read MoreUp close with the rarest of the rare (quiz question: Shakespeare’s First Folio, the Kennedy assassination, Harry Potter – what are the connections?
Read More“Cash flow runs deep, but spirit deeper…”
Read More“she has listened to the voices on city breezes borne”
Read MoreRichard III’s play was about to open… it was the technical rehearsal…
Read MoreWelcome to the sunlit streets of Wodehouse’s London
Read More“He sounds like Paul McCartney…”
Read MoreWalking with Wordsworth and “The Voice” (Lance). And into the bargain, a thrilling – and deeply satisfying – piece of literary detective work…
Read More“back and forth she crossed, scattering ashes on the Abbey Road crosswalk”
Read MoreSolved! Finally. The heist of the famous painting. The great art whodunnit.
Read MoreDavid gets in on the act– comes crashing in – on Kensington. This is his first podcast – shocking in places – but you’ll learn some good stuff.
Read More“Love sonnets read by Ruth, she of the divine voice – re-sunshines your life”
Read MoreA culinary and historical feast, this will have you skipping like the high hills. To say nothing of salivating and gorging. And queuing up for Ann’s Foodies’ London walks when they’re back.
Read MoreLet’s hear it for privileged access. Taking us in just before it opens – it’s like going backstage just before the curtain rises – “the world’s greatest guide” shows us round, upstairs and downstairs, London’s oldest, classiest, most storied restaurant.
Read More“I could listen to this beautiful woman all day”
Read MoreAccomplished actor and London Walks guide Oliver Beamish delivers a perfectly judged, professionally rendered performance of the greatest poem every written about London, Wordsworth’s sonnet “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802”
Read MoreBuried treasure – award-winning guide who bursts into song – “you’re going to look up and be absolutely astonished” – “Betsy with her immense size breasts”
Read MoreOne in 150 million million million – Shaughan’s Little Venice walk
Read Moreswans, mooring rings, a horse escape route, red livery, “the British Open’s” house and her sex life… Some tapas from Part 2 of actor Shaughan Seymour’s Little Venice podcast
Read MoreSerenaded, sex aplenty, serried ranks of celebrities, secrets, sophisticated, Shaughan Seymour…
Read MoreA guiding tour de force. It’s accomplished actor Oliver Beamish opening his Jack the Ripper walk. A 38-second introduction that doubles as a mini-master class in how it – guiding – should be done.
Read MoreWestminster Abbey, a tortoise that entertained patients, polar exploration… just three of many threads woven together brilliantly in this “London” tapestry
Read More“a glorious roll-call of British eccentrics: the Wits, the Windbags and Wayward Wigs battling it out over Wives, Writs, Wills, Widows and Wrecks”
Read MoreShaughan Seymour – actor and London Walks guide nonpareil – squires you through central London’s most extraordinary and improbable enclave. “Shaughan is a joy. You could travel through a desert with him and he’d make sand sound interesting.”
Read MoreAward-winning – some award, she won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award – guide Fiona does a weekly tour for London Walks that explores the Tube. Called The Lure of the Underground, it explores the Tube above and below ground. Drawn from Fiona’s tour of the Underground, this fascinating Podcast “takes us […]
Read MoreRichard, who sailed a tiny boat across the Pacific, always has interesting things to say. Plus he’s a great guy. Enjoy!
Read MoreExploring secret London – up creeping lanes, round out-of-the-way corners, past veiled islands of green – Shaughan’s at his inimitable best. Part 2/2
Read MoreExploring secret London – up creeping lanes, round out-of-the-way corners, past veiled islands of green – Shaughan’s at his inimitable best. Part 1/2
Read More