London's early law enforcers remembered

On this day in 1788 Robert Peel was born. Peel would become Prime Minister and for fans/students of nineteenth century British history, he is perhaps best known for repealing the Corn Laws in 1846.

Seventeen years before he made his mark on policing by establishing the Metropolitan Police in the British capital. Policemen were affectionately dubbed 'Peelers' and 'Bobbies' as a mark of respect to the Force's founder.

Prior to the creation of the 'Met' paid officers known as the Bow Street runners patrolled the parish of Bow Street. The Bow Street runners were set up around about 1750 by John Fielding. The success of the policing instigated in the area owed much to the dedication and tenacity of John and his older half-brother Henry.

Henry earned his living as a writer. Indeed, Sir Walter Scott went as far to call him 'the father of the English novel'. His best known novels are Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones, and Amelia.

John was blinded in his late teens. In spite of this handicap, he was appointed a magistrate. Initially, the Bow Street Runners wore plain clothes, but John - who was knighted in 1761 - instigated a switch to a formal uniform consisting of a blue coat and trousers and boots. He earned the nickname of the 'Blind Beak' on account of his ability to identify an estimated 3,000 criminals by their voices alone.

Visitors to London can hear more about the Fielding brothers with the Museums, Galleries & Performing Arts audio tour guide. Like the other four Walk Talk Tour London walking tours it is downloadable in MP3 format and available in English, French, German and Spanish.

The walking tour begins outside the National Gallery and concludes outside the British Museum. The tour consists of stops (or commentary points) like tracks on a iTunes album. To hear an audio sample from the tour please click here.

Buy One Walk Talk Tour and get the second free by entering the following code in the shopping basket page: BI123.

The bronze sculpture situated here is the Young Dancer by Enzo Plazzotta (pictured top). The Bow Street Runners were based in the building on the corner of Broad Court and Bow Street.

Memories of Urbis

On Wednesday last week, I headed along to Urbis to have a look round the museum of city life's final exhibition: 'Urbis has left the building: six years of the best exhibitions in pop culture'.

I found the most profound part of the exhibition was the comments wall, which was composed of post stick notes where members of the public had written about their feelings for the place. I found myself walking slowly back and forth alongside the wall. Many contributors spoke of their loss, disappointment and anger at the fact that Urbis would be closing.

The other thing that struck me was the internal wall which had a list of the names of all the individuals who had been involved in Urbis. It felt a bit like a war memorial, only the age and rank of the individuals concerned were not listed, too. If the writing on the wall was the roll of honour, the post stick notes formed the pages of a book of remembrance.

The closing exhibition is divided into five sections: International artists, Design, fashion and architecture, Manchester's creative community, Music culture and Family shows.

One of my favourite exhibitions staged at Urbis was entitled Manchester 24 which falls under the 'creative community' title. The exhibition was made up of forty contributors who each filmed a day in their life. Contributors included the late Tony Wilson, a taxi driver and an airline pilot. It was interesting hearing about the Hidden Manchester exhibition which I had not seen first time around.

The exhibition has something for everyone. 'Urbis has left the building: six years of the best exhibitions in pop culture' is open until February 27. The National Football Museum is due to open in the building in 2011.

Discover the best of Manchester at your own pace with the Manchester: Then & Now audio tour guide. The 2.4 mile (3.8 km)tour is composed of commentary points (like tracks on an iTunes album) and begins outside the Town Hall and concludes in Cathedral Gardens. Download and away you go.

Will Smarter mean better Value?

The planning for the 2012 Olympic Games is well under way. Laurence Bresh, VisitBritain's marketing director, was quoted yesterday as saying that: "Our global approach, together with the integration of the 2012 Games, will bring a new dimension to VisitBritain’s marketing strategy, as we work to outsmart rather than outspend our competitors." Wise words with a General Election scheduled for May and the British economy the last of any developed nation to officially emerge from recession.

Media campaigns on various platforms will be based on five core themes: dynamic, classic, luxury, generation Y, gay and lesbian.

VisitBritain will continue to utilise social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to try and persuade people to come to Britain.

Broadly speaking there are four definitions of value (and a fifth, the plural values) -
1. Importance or usefulness.
2. Monetary/financial worth.
3. Satisfaction, e.g. value for money.
4. Maths particular number represented by a figure or symbol.
5. Guiding ideals/moral principles - values.

I am not a social media expert, but it strikes me that many big organisations could get more out of Twitter, say, if the person responsible for tweeting the organisation's message actually said who they are. It would only take a single tweet. E.g. 'Hi it's Phil here going to be tweeting for you until..." A big organisation could even make a virtue of the fact that a certain person with a specialist interest area would be tweeting at a particular time of week.

People buy from people. We sell audio tour guides of five UK cities, including London. Our London tours are available in French, German and Spanish. I blog here and tweet (@WalkTalkTours).

Unlike a conventional guide, listeners to a Walk Talk Tour can take as long or as little as they wish to enjoy the sights. Typically, a Walk Talk Tour will set you back far less than a guided bus tour or many themed walks.

The announcement that London had won the race to host the 2012 Olympics was celebrated in Trafalgar Square (above).

East Coast journey times set to fall

The current Transport Minister, Lord Adonis, plans to introduce a service which will link London and Edinburgh by rail in less than four hours. Unfortunately, the proposed 'Flying Scotsman' service will not be 'on-line' (sorry about the pun) until 2012. In another initiative, journey times between the English and Scottish capitals are to be reduced to 4 hours and 20 minutes by May 2010.

The Yorkshire Evening Post reports in a piece today that the number of trains from London to York will increase from 32 to 37, Monday to Friday. The newspaper notes that the average journey time from York to London will be brought down by almost ten minutes to 1 hour and 51 minutes.

It is well worth making the journey to York at anytime of year. The city is approximately halfway between London and Edinburgh. York is perhaps best known for its magnificent Minster (pictured above). The city has plenty to offer in terms of shopping and has some underrated museums, as well as better known establishments like the Jorvik Viking Centre which celebrates its 25th birthday in April this year. The Jorvik Viking Centre is closed until January 31, 2010.

Laudable though the aim to reduce train journeys time is, one of the biggest factors in taking a train journey of any distance in the UK, for many people, is the cost. Seeing the sights when you arrive can seem extortionate, too.

Explore the city with the Best of York audio tour guide, which costs just £4.50 and is yours to keep. Like the other Walk Talk Tours it is composed of commentary points (like tracks on an iTunes album or a CD). Simply download and away you go.

And if railways are your passion, York is the place for you as the city is home to the National Railway Museum. The Museum is home of the original Flying Scotsman. Please note that the National Railway Museum is not a commentary point on the Walk Talk Tour of York.

The picture (above) shows the Queen's Gallery, which is located at the foot of the Royal Mile opposite the new Scottish Parliament in front of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen's official residence in Scotland. Visitors to Edinburgh can hear about these places with the Royal Mile & More, Edinburgh walking tour.

Buy One Walk Talk Tour and get the second free by entering the following promotional code in the shopping basket page: BI123.

Visitors to York can also hire on a MP3 player preloaded with the Walk Talk Tour of the city and neck phones from the De Grey Rooms Tourist Information Centre. (Please note that the Tourist Information Centre is scheduled to move in May).

Chocs Away?

Another great British manufacturer looks set to pass out of British ownership, after the board of Cadbury plc accepted a takeover bid from Kraft earlier today. The takeover of the Birmingham based confectionery company by Kraft will create the world's largest confectionery entity. We live in an ever increasing global age, where the competency of the board of directors in ensuring the jobs of the workforce should matter more than the ethnicity, race or nationality of the directors themselves.

The historic city of York has a long association with the confectionery industry. Two names stand out in that history: Rowntree and Terry's. Sadly, Terry's factory in the city closed in 2005 with the loss of over 300 jobs (after Kraft, its new owners opted to stop production in the city) but Rowntree continues to mass produce chocolate in York, though the company was acquired by Nestle in 1988.

There are a number of similarities between the Cadbury and Rowntree families. Both began their businesses in the nineteenth century and both families were concerned about the welfare of their workers and invested heavily in amenities for them. Henry Isaac Rowntree was a committed Quaker as were Richard and George Cadbury, who instigated the building of the Bourneville model village for Cadbury's workers in Birmingham. The Rowntree family also built a model community at New Earswick, outside York. No pubs have ever been built in Bournville or New Earswick.

Visitors to York can hear more about the Rowntree family's association with the city with the Best of York walking tour. The tour is downloadable in MP3 format and comes with a free map for listeners to print out.

York is a great place to go on a short break. The city has plenty of Old World charm and history a plenty, which listeners to the Walk Talk Tour of York have the flexibility to enjoy at their own pace. To hear an audio sample from the tour please click here.

The modern office block pictured above stands on the site of the Rowntree brothers' first sweet/candy making factory.

Buy one audio tour guide and get a second free by entering BI123 into the shopping basket page. Select your tour(s) download and away you go!

Manchester and Edinburgh head to head

The director of the Manchester International Festival, Alex Poots, has spoken of his desire for next year's celebration of the Arts in the city to challenge established festivals in cities like Vienna and Edinburgh.

The Edinburgh International Festival is arguably the 'daddy' of Arts Festivals having been first held way back in 1947; the Manchester International Festival was first held back in 2007.

So how do Edinburgh and Manchester compare?

Transport (trams) - Manchester has a fully functioning tram network which is the envy of residents of the Scottish capital. The building of a new tram system in Edinburgh has been mired in controversy, on account of the escalating costs and delay in opening the system. The official Edinburgh Trams website states that the trams "will be operational in 2012".

Sport - Manchester is home to two giants of football, City and United. The city hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2002 and was voted the World City of Sport 2008 in the SportBusiness Sports Event Management Awards. Edinburgh has two SPL teams - Heart of Midlothian and Hibernian - and the city hosted the Commonwealth Games in 1986. Arguably the city's biggest annual sporting crowd puller is provided by the oval ball and Rugby Union; Scotland's home games in the Six Nations Championship are played at Murrayfield. This season Scotland face France on February 7 and England on March 13 in Edinburgh.

Influence - Edinburgh is home to the Scottish Parliament, Holyrood, and the Scottish Executive. The Palace of Holyroodhouse, the official residence of the Royal Family in Scotland, is located at the foot of the Royal Mile. Manchester may not have its own parliament or royal palace, but the city has plenty of clout as the impending relocation of large sections of the BBC to Media City, to Salford Quays.

Population Size - According to a 2004 estimate Edinburgh had a population of approximately 450,000 (453,670 for you anoraks). In the same year, the city of Manchester was estimated to have a population of 437,000. Greater Manchester was reckoned to have over 2.5 million inhabitants (2,539,000 people to be precise).

Discover the best of Manchester and Edinburgh on your own terms, and in your own time, with a Walk Talk Tour audio tour guide. There are two tours of the Scottish capital and one of Manchester. Every Walk Talk Tour is composed of commentary points - like tracks on an iTunes album or a CD - and both come with a free downloadable map.

Buy one tour and get a second free by entering BI123 into the shopping basket page.

The picture top shows two street entertainers on the Royal Mile last year. The building in the background is St Giles Cathedral. The image (bottom) shows Manchester's museum of city living, Urbis. The Manchester: Then & Now walkign tour concludes in Cathedral Gardens, to the rear of the museum.

Beefeaters accused of making a mint

The Tower of London is one of the English capital's most famous and visited landmarks. The Tower's Yeoman Warders are arguably as famous as the Tower itself.

The Yeoman Warders originate from 1485 and are responsible for keeping the Crown Jewels under lock and key. It is said that the Warders were allowed to eat as much beef as they wanted from the royal table and thus gained the nickname, Beefeaters. To become a Beefeater today you must have had 22 years of continuous, distinguished, service in the Armed Forces.

Unfortunately, the Beefeaters have made some headline for the wrong reasons after allegations of impropriety surfaced. Chief among the alleged misdemeanours is the allegation that some Yeoman Guards were charging £50 a head for nocturnal tours of the Crown Jewels at the Tower.

Other alleged impropriety included suggestions that a Beefeater had grown cannabis (for his personal use) in a garage at the historic Tower, while another allegedly let out his on site accommodation to tourists.

In 2006, the new governor at the Tower, MajorGeneral Keith Cima, ordered an investigation on learning of some of the allegations, including the nocturnal tours.

A spokesman for the Tower was quoted in The Sunday Times on January 10, 2010, as saying that: "The investigation concluded that weaknesses in the operation of the Tower club and poor administration could have left members open to allegations of impropriety.

However, allegations of individuals making personal gain could not be substantiated by hard evidence."

The Tower of London is well worth a visit. Tourists can discover more about the Tower's history - without having to pay the admission fee to enter the site - with the City and the Tower or the City & South Bank Circular walking tours of London. There are five Walk Talk Tour London audio tour guides in all.

Each tour is downloadable in MP3 format and costs just £5.95. All the Walk Talk Tours of London are available in English, French, German and Spanish.

Customers can buy one Walk Talk Tour and get a second free by entering the code BI123 in the shopping basket page.

You can follow Walk Talk Tours on Twitter at @WalkTalkTours.

Part of the Royal Mint was located at the Tower until the nineteenth century.