Have you ever been a tour guide?
Other questions.
Nope
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Thinking of doing it as my next job. Cash in hand obv
One of the greatest tragedies of the 21st Century was when the turned coach trip from mixed ages to Ibizian youth. Fuck that! It was the only decent reality programme out there.
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What would you show people?
Reckon I would be the worst tour guide in history, couldnāt even tell people the name of the road opposite my street.
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Iām going travelling next year so just wherever i am, reckon i could blag it.
India for example āThis is the cafe that invented a phaalā and then take a cut from the owner if anyone comes in.
Really doesnāt matter: they all pretty much make stuff up anyway.
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^ see above
oh Iām scared of lying too
Went on a craft beer tour in New York once and everyone on it knew more about beer than the lad doing it, he talked to us about the architecture and history of the east village as we walked about and left us to get on with the beer talk amongst ourselves.
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just tell them that then. REally doesnāt matter.
āOh, Iām scared of lying. Look! A house!ā
No ones really listening.
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That reminds me of The Divine David hosting a coach of foreign tourists in London on his long gone Channel Four show (which lasted one season) telling them that, āThis is the tree that Princess Margaret lives in.ā
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Iāve never been on a tour of anywhere, I bet itās pretty fun actually
only tours I go on are boat trips. Love a holiday boat trip along a canal/river etc
āThis building on your right with the eagle motif is where Greta Garbo stayed after recovering from diphtheria in 1928.ā
Is it though? Who cares. takes photo
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sometimes itās nice to have context for stuff.
Imagine going to Rome or something and having someone tell you about the Colosseum or whatever!
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done this: pretty sure I didnāt take any of it in because I was staring at all of the cats
you can get cats in the UK you know?
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Oh hi!
Yes, Iām a tour guide. Apart from the fact itās predominantly middle-aged white men who hate competition and get very nasty and territorial, not to mention steal your research, itās brilliant.
I do alternative tours. Hate that word, but thatās what they are. Tours of Pomona, a weird industrial wasteland, tours of Chapel Street in Salford looking at itās counterculture, tours of art hidden in public buildings and offices mostly dating from the 50s/60s, and then my regular route is tours of the Northern Quarter. The latter is a tough one because it doesnāt really feel like thereās much to say except look at all these bars but actually thereās loads, so I use street art to weave the story together but I talk about gentrification, city planning, public vs private space, capitalism, social housing, and how public art transformed an area from the 1970s onwards.
Plus I buy everyone doughnuts.
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Friend of mine used to work at one of those open air museums where they have reconstructions of old buildings. Used to make up blatantly untrue stuff like this e.g. āPrincess Anne was born in this very roomā when showing people around a Medieval farm cottage or whatever.