Hello Blogworld,

Things are ticking over here. I managed to get tix for Moira Buffini's new play 'Handbagged' at the Vaudeville, and am going with two dear ladies I'm privileged to call friends, Kath Pykett and Denise Kent.

Sadly though, I didn't manage to get tix to see Kate Bush, the woman I've loved since I was thirteen.

Maybe she won't leave it another thirty years until her next live appearances.

Thankfully I've managed to get my proposal in on time for a paper at the Literary London Society's annual conference in Bloomsbury this summer. It was good to focus on something academic, even if for a little while. My mind has been fixed so firmly on tours and guiding that it's good to be able to do something else. I will make time definitely this week to concentrate on getting my second collection of stories up to scratch and ready to (self-)publish. The paper is on Peter Ackroyd's presentation of London as a perpetual City, transcending time. That old thing.

Preparations for the Walkie Talkie adult education course are coming along well. Julian Walker, who has an ideal surname for a tour guide, gave us the test run of his tour in Bromley and Bow, and he's got together a fascinating collection of sites, from past and present. I enjoyed it hugely. He finished it at Bow bus garage: the sun was shining, and as I said to him, a bus garage in the sunshine always makes me think of days out into the country and down to the seaside, so it ended on the highest note.

Gandhi at Kingsley Hall in 1931 -

one of the stops on Julian's tour

Viv Schrager-Powell and I met up on Monday to chat about resuming work on our suite of tours examining the business City. So far we've got a tour looking at organised finance. now we're working on trade. Viv did the St Paul's guiding course, which meant we suspended work for a while, but now it's getting back into the swing. After our chat, I rushed home to get a couple of things done before rushing back to visit Haberdashers' Hall with Viv and some of the current students on the City course, and a couple of qualified guides, including the redoubtable David Thompson, whose architecture tours and lectures I found so helpful on the course last year.

The original grant of arms for the Haberdashers -

featuring their original arms

St Katharine is there with her wheel - the Haberdashers met originally in a chapel dedicated to her in St Paul's.

Well, I've got the Decent Homes inspection tomorrow - we're having new bathrooms and kitchens - so I need to get the flat straightened out, so I'd better sign off now.

Mind how you go.

Love,

Dave Charnowalks