I have never built up a network of relationships with private tour operators who offer what I call posh jobs: work with people who stay in smart hotels in Mayfair and have personal tours with private chauffeurs, ones which end […]
Diary of a Tourist Guide:
London
THE ENGLISH IDIOT
So who is the most recognisable Englishman around the world? Prince Charles or his sons William and Harry? David Beckham maybe? James Bond perhaps – although no-one knows what he actually looks like as he was portrayed most famously by a Scotsman (Sean Connery) and, more recently, by an Irishman (Pearce Brosnan) and a Welshman (Timothy Dalton) as well […]
EMERGENCY!
“Stop the coach! Dial 911 – he’s stopped breathing!” This is what all tourist guides and tour managers dread hearing. “He” was one of the passengers on a sixteen day tour who had caught a particularly virulent bug that was going around the group. No matter how clean you keep the […]
DICK TURPIN – AKA JOHN PALMER
The British love a romantic outlaw – at least until they are the victims of one – and they lap up legends about his exploits. Robin Hood is probably the most famous example because he robbed the rich and – supposedly – gave to the poor and a […]
THE PIANO MAN
This post is sent from the Scottish Highlands, where I am from the last time this year but concerns an usual memorial I saw in the outskirts of London recently. EL Recently I stopped off in Perivale Park, just off the A40 near the Hoover Building, which I wrote […]
THE GOVERNOR’S GARDEN
Although it dates back to time of William the Conqueror who arrived – uninvited – in 1066, most of Windsor Castle as we know it is the creation of George the Fourth. He ascended to the throne on the eventual death of his father in 1820 and reigned […]
HAT TRICK
Tempers can get a bit frayed in the heat. The tour guide should always keep cool but lots of long days and people complaining about this and that do not help. Here is a typical day, hour by hour: 6:00: The alarm goes off and I stumble […]
NORMAL SERVICE RESUMES
At least I do not need to change one of my stock lines when I instruct people that there are only three dates they need to remember in the history of London: 1066, when William the Conqueror came’ 1666, the […]
THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM
I have been a tourist guide for nearly forty years now but had never, until last Monday, seen the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. It has taken place every night for over 600 years – so there […]
WHO CRACKED THE CODE?
The Rosetta Stone is really a very boring object and yet it is arguably the most important one in the British Museum. It is a piece of granite forty five inches tall proclaiming an edict by King Ptolemy the Fifth in 196 BC and discovered […]