The London Transport Museum has launced a new exhibition Goodbye Piccadilly – From Home Front to Western Front which will run from Friday 16 May 2014 to Sunday, 8 March 2015. A key theme in the exhibition is the acceleration of social change as a result of the outbreak of war.

London Blue Badge Tourist Guides are involved in a truly unique art installation to commemorate the start of the First World War.  More than 800,000 ceramic poppies – each representing a British and Colonial military death during the First World War – are being planted in the Tower of London’s dry moat.  When completed on Armistice Day on 11 November 2014, the art installation, titled ‘Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red’, will include 888,246 poppies.

Books about Town launched in July with benches shaped like open books popping up all over London. The BookBenches feature stories linked to London and are based on a range of iconic books from treasured children’s stories such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Peter Pan to classic adult titles including 1984 and The Day of the Triffids.

Archaeologists say that Amesbury where Stonehenge is located might date back to 8820 BC, making the town the longest continuously occupied settlement in Britain.

27 successful candidates from the 2012-2014 London Blue Badge Course, pictured below were presented with their badges by Yvonne Leach, the President of the Institute of Tourist Guiding, at a ceremony at the Founding Museum on 9 April.

On Thursday 20 March, 25 trainees attended the Association of Professional Tourist Guide (APTG) New Guides’ Reception organised by Sarah Speller.  23 Trainees had been on a “How many ways are there to do a the Guard Change?” walk with Owen Joseph in the afternoon.

Talking Statues is a project using playwrights, actors and mobile technology to put words into the mouths of several public statues around London and Manchester. The statues will begin to talk on 19 August and in order to hear them you need to swipe your smartphone over signs beneath the statues. Actors lending their voices to statues include Dominic West as Achilles in Hyde Park, Jeremy Paxman as John Wilkes in Fetter Lane and Patrick Stewart as the unknown soldier at Paddington Station.

Guide London speaks to Ruth Polling, who received the London Blue Badge Tourist Guide of the Year Award (Katrine Prince Memorial Prize) at the Blue Badge presentation ceremony at the Foundling Museum on 9 April.

It’s official! London has welcomed over 16 million international visitors in one year for the first time in history, making it one of the most popular holiday destinations in the world.