“There is nothing in London that is not curious”

London calling.

London Walks connecting.

This… is London.

This is London Walks.

Streets ahead.

Story time. History time.

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And a very good afternoon to you, London Walkers. Wherever you are. It’s Tuesday, December 31st, 2024. Yes, New Year’s Eve.

Ok, having gone AWOL for a couple of weeks London Calling – the London Walks podcast – is back. And I think for re-entry, a miscellany is called for. A miscellany inspired by a five-word pronouncement from Charles Dickens. For the record, Charles Dickens is where I’ve been for the last couple of weeks. Refreshing, revisiting the Christmas Day Charles Dickens’ London Walk.

One of the finds I made lit the fuse for this podcast.

Said find was a letter that Charles Dickens wrote to one Jonathan Jones on March 22nd, 1851. Footnotes to history don’t come much more footnotey than Jonathan Jones. We think he was an aspiring novelist. He lived in Brunswick Square. Anyway, as it happens he wrote to the great novelist. And lucky fellow, he got a short reply. In the course of which, The Inimitable, as Dickens was sometimes known, penned perhaps his most lapidary sentence about his great subject and his great obsession: London. Dickens wrote, “There is nothing in London that is not curious.”

And, yes, that observation is my inspiration, my jumping-off point for this podcast.

And no question about it, what follows is a miscellany.

Let’s begin with a couple of jaw-dropping facts about London.

1. London has more millionaires than any other city in the world. There are nearly a million London millionaires. 970,000 to be exact. Let that sink in. One in nine Londoners is a millionaire. You’re on the Tube. There are 18 fellow passengers in the Tube carriage you’re in. Statistically, two of them are millionaires. Another way of looking at it, London has more millionaires than Athens has residents. There are more millionaires living in London than there are people living in Copenhagen. Austin, Texas is the 11th largest city in the United States. If all the London millionaires upped stakes and moved to a brand new, previously unoccupied American city – a sort of Levittown for London Millionaires – a city that would have to be called “London Millionaires” – well, were that to happen, Austin, Texas would suddenly be the 12th largest city in the United States.

Or if all the London millionaires were to move to France – lucky France – anyway, were all 970,000 of them to move to France and set up shop, so to speak, in a brand new, London Millionaires only city, called, yes, “London Millionaires”… well, you guessed it, “London Millionaires, France” would be the second largest city in France.

And 2. just for fun, let’s hit a different but related note. I spent a couple of very agreeable hours this morning conferring with Margarita, our magnificent Russian guide. And please don’t get the wrong end of the stick. Margarita’s English is better than yours and mine. Anyway, spent a very pleasant couple of hours banging heads with Margarita about her new walk, London & the Nutcracker – the Ballet that Changed Christmas. And we also talked about other new Margarita walks that are gestating. And let me say in passing that nobody attracts rave reviews the way Margarita does. By way of a taster, this one in two days ago from Charles. He went on Margarita’s Chasing the Ghost of Communist Past – the Russian Revolution in London walk. Charles was succinct. He said, “The best walk l’ve been on with London Walks. Margarita brings along photos, prints, etc. to explain the people and places. She’s knowledgeable, engaging, and has a great sense of humour.”

And on Christmas Eve Katia had gone on the new walk, London & the Nutcracker. Katia’s verdict: “Margarita’s walks are always filled with magic, interesting facts and positive energy. Her Nutcracker London Walk travels across time and continents and her warm personal approach makes everyone feel special and involved. Great for all ages, group sizes, if you are coming alone, with family or friends. Thank you so much for this very special Christmas edition!”

There you have, in two reviews, why Margarita has carte blanche here at London Walks. Anything she wants to create and put in the programme, gets a VIP pass. She flies first class with us. And you, her walkers, fly first class with her.

Anyway, putting the phone down after my natter with my favourite Russian Londoner, I suddenly wanted to know, I wonder how many compatriots Margarita has here in London? How many Russians live in London? Yet another litmus test of our claim – surely accurate – that this is the most cosmopolitan western city in the world. To wheel out the relevant statistic, 41 percent of Londoners are born abroad. Including the two Londoners – this American chap and that Russian chappette – who were conferring this morning.

Well, that’s one statistic. The more tightly focussed one in this instance is that there are about 70,000 Russians – Margarita being one of them – living in London. And how many is 70,000 Russians? Well, the Russian community in London, were they a city in their native Russia, they’d be the 230th largest city in the largest country – by land mass – in the world. And if Margarita’s anything to go by, Russia’s loss is our gain.

Ok, I came in here thinking there’d be a third strand to this miscellany. What I fancy doing is an occasional series on decisions or developments that dramatically changed London. Said series would be something of a mosaic. One tessera per podcast. Lay ‘em down piece by piece and see what takes shape. My betting is our London – like a new planet – will swim into our ken. So anyway, the last saddlebag that I was going to fit today’s podcast out with was a piece on the naming of London’s streets. But I think that can wait. It’s a big enough subject – a sufficiently important subject – that methinks it should strut and fret its own hour upon the stage. Not play second fiddle to London millionaires and Russian Londoners.

Nothing else to add except the pro forma but nonetheless genuinely meant, Happy New Year one and all.

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 £20 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 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.