London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
A very good evening to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s November 4th, 2025.
And here it comes, your daily London fix.
“Events, dear boy, events.”
I wonder how many of you recognise that quote. Who said it? And what’s it mean?
For those of you who don’t know it, it was former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan. Many moons ago. A lifetime, really. Macmillan was Prime Minister from the late 1950s to the early 1960s. And what he meant by “events, dear boy, events” was that unexpected events – stuff that comes out of left field – often have the greatest impact on a statesman’s career, regardless of their careful planning.
And, yes, the “events, dear boy, events” phenomenon is also applicable to this modest little podcast. The plan for today’s podcast was another piece on St Mary le Bow. As soon as I finished yesterday’s piece I realised there’s a lot more to be said about St Mary le Bow. And I figured, ok, I’ll have another run at it today. And maybe even do a third one tomorrow, Wednesday.
But, yes, events, dear boy, events.
Cheney, he dead.
Hands up anybody who recognises that one. It’s a literary allusion isn’t it. The most famous line from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. “Mistah Kurtz – he dead.” It’s said by the manager’s boy. It’s Conrad’s way of announcing the death of Kurtz. Kurtz’s last words are pretty famous in their own right. On his death bed he takes stock of his own actions, of the evils of colonialism, and the savage potential within humanity itself. The four words – “the horror, the horror” – are Kurtz’s crushing final judgement on his own life and the enterprise he’s been involved in. Inner emptiness and cultural decay – that’s what those four words register. You could say those terrible four words are Kurtz’s death sentence – because they’re his send off. He says them and then he dies. A couple of minutes later the manager’s boy looks in, sees the corpse, and writes a life off in that basic, crude, sub-grammatical announcement of irreducible hard fact: Mistah Kurtz, he dead. It in effect underlines Kurtz’s empty, meaningless existence. This was a man who had high ideals when he went to Africa but was utterly corrupted by greed and power. Drives that hollowed out the core of his life, left nothing there but a spiritual void.
Anyway, for what it’s worth – and this is what a grounding in English literature does to you, where it leaves you – for what it’s worth that was the phrase, Cheney, he dead – the split second I heard about the former Vice President’s death.
And you know, it’s just been one of those days. Everything in alignment. Started yesterday. I did a private London in Poetry Walk for a lovely couple from the Isle of Man. When we got to Westminster Abbey we did four poems about the Abbey. And for good measure a scene from Shakespeare. It was fun. The three of acted the scene.
Anyway, one of the poems, we looked at was Francis. Beaumont’s On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey.
And I’m going to give that poem another airing out here, on London Calling. Going to give it another airing out because – well, because of events, dear boy, events.
One of those events is of course Dick Cheney’s death earlier today. But also because of the death, announced a few hours ago, of Britain’s man. Gopichand Hinduja was said to be worth more than £35 billion pounds.
And I suppose the Black Maria card was the death – also announced today – of Prince William’s college pal, Ben Duncan. He fell seven floors from the rooftop bar of London’s fashionable Trafalgar St James’ hotel in Trafalgar. The Black Maria because Duncan, a renowned socialite in the words of one of London’s tabloids, was only 45 years old. The other two were in their mid-80s.
Anyway, that conjunction, it was always going to bring to mind Francis Beaumont’s poem. I’m going to read it now. But I refuse to end this podcast on that note.
So standby at poem’s end. We’re going to go upbeat for a minute or two to set the seal on this podcast.
Here’s the poem.
[Francis Beaumont’s poem On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey follows]
Right, now let’s pull up out of the dive. Earlier today I did a private Legal London Walk for a University of the Third Age North London Group. We were in Lincoln’s Inn. And I mentioned in passing that their beautiful gardens are a no go area for seagulls and pigeons. They’re a no go area because several times a year Lincoln’s Inn hires in God’s Assassin to patrol the gardens and see off the seagulls and pigeons. God’s Assassin is a Harris Hawk named Breeze. He’s called God’s Assassin because Westminster Abbey also avails itself of his services. Anyway, I told the group about Breeze and then right on cue there he was, with his handler. Perfect timing. We got some great photographs. His handler put him through his paces. It was one of those London moments. This place, it just never fails to surprise you. Ten minutes before we’d seen something I’d never seen before – a red carpet leading up the stairs to the Lincoln’s Inn Library. And it looked great. It was pretty impressive. And I thought, well, that’s ok, that’s something in the way of a special treat for this walk. But the red carpet was just a warm-up act. Ten minutes later, there’s Breeze doing his thing. A really wonderful walk on an ordinary day made extra special with that red carpet and Breeze the Harris Hawk. London. It just can’t stop pulling rabbits out of the hat.
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from www.walks.com.
Home of London Walks, London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £25 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do to attract and keep the best guides in London – you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating: the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative – is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, Stewart Purvis, the former Editor (and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And Lisa Honan, who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Jack the Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians, university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)… well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar and the familiar new.
And on that agreeable note… come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.
And that’s by way of saying, Good walking and Good Londoning one and all. See ya next time.