London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
A very good day to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s Tuesday, December 23rd, 2025.
And here it comes – your daily London fix.
“Age cannot wither her,
nor custom stale Her infinite variety.”
Enobarbus is talking about Cleopatra, in Antony and Cleopatra.
But he could have been talking about London.
It’s William Shakespeare, of course.
Just ten words, early on in the play.
And they’re as close as Shakespeare ever comes to summing up a human being in a phrase.
But it’s not one and done. Shakespeare keeps coming back. He’s like a sculptor circling a masterpiece.
Cleopatra, we’re told, is a lass unparalleled.
And a wonderful piece of work.
And a woman whom everything becomes.
And someone who makes hungry where most she satisfies.
But it’s those two words in that first great speech that stick.
The ones that do the real work. They say it all.
Infinite variety.
She can’t be exhausted.
Can’t be pinned down.
Can’t be dulled by repetition. Familiarity doesn’t flatten her.
It sharpens her.
Which is why the line fits London so uncannily well.
Infinite Variety:
London in Small Glasses
And you know something that’s what a stroll in London is.
Not a binge,
not a grand survey,
but a tasting.
Little sips.
Lingering notes.
And every so often, a small, exquisite surprise that stops you mid-step and changes the flavour of the day.
So to put it another way, a short walk in London is like a wine tasting.
You don’t gulp it down.
You sample it.
Initial impressions first –
the nose of it.
Traffic hiss.
Coffee.
Damp stone.
A bus sighing at the kerb.
Then the palate opens.
Streets, corners, textures.
And every so often,
a perfectly judged jolt of flavour that stops you in your tracks.
That’s where London’s famous blue plaques come in.
Those blue plaques are mini gifts. Unsolicited. Civilised.
Always agreeable.
They don’t shout.
They don’t demand reverence. They don’t assume you already know the name.
They just sit there,
quietly waiting to be noticed.
And then, out of the blue – so to speak – you notice one.
You weren’t looking for it.
You didn’t plan your day around it.
You certainly didn’t expect it.
But suddenly London has poured you a small glass of something extraordinary.
A life. A name. A story.
Just a sip, but enough to wake the palate.
They break things up,
blue plaques.
They interrupt the rhythm of walking. You stop. You read. You’re transported.
Another century.
Another world. Another life. Thirty seconds, maybe a minute, and then you’re back –
but the walk has changed.
That interruption is the point.
This is bite-sized education at its most charming.
No lecture.
No footnotes.
Just a sudden widening of the world.
A reminder that the street you’re on has been lived on, argued on, dreamed on.
That brilliance, oddity,
genius and obsession once passed through this very doorway.
And what’s so wonderful is that it happens all the time.
It’s not rare.
It’s not a special occasion.
It’s what goes with the territory. Just walking a few yards in London is a form of learning.
And pleasure.
And delight.
Like a great wine,
London keeps revealing unexpected notes.
A little acidity here.
A sudden richness there. Something floral you hadn’t clocked before.
Something that lingers after you’ve moved on.
Last night, for example,
London sprang a particular plaque on me.
Completely unplanned.
Entirely unexpected.
One moment I was walking.
Routinely. Making my way to a bus stop.
The next moment,
I was in the company of one of the greatest artists of her age.
I hadn’t invited her into my day. London did that for me.
I’ll come back to her tomorrow.
And I’ll top that up with some very special news. So watch this space.
But for today,
let’s just say this:
London’s blue plaques are part of her infinite variety.
They’re why age cannot wither her and why custom never stales her.
They’re proof that even the shortest walk can feel rich, layered,
and faintly intoxicating.
London’s blue plaques are her party trick.
Just when you think you’re merely stretching your legs,
she slips you a small glass of something vintage.
No warning.
No corkage.
One minute you’re walking,
the next you’re in the company of genius.
That’s London for you.
Infinite variety.
And always another taste.
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.