On a rare break from the rain today, when trying to find a square of grass to eat my lunch on, I stumbled upon ‘Soho Stories’ in Soho Square.
I took the earphones and audio guide style unit so that I could listen to people telling their stories. I heard tales from the old days of Groucho Club by Bernie Katz, dating anecdotes from Boris Johnson’s sister and a man reading a story from his iPad, about his true love that got struck down by lightning (I kid you not!).
The event, which is running daily between 1 and 2 pm for the rest of the week, is to launch and promote a new phone app ‘Soho stories‘, a GPS-based phone app celebrating 60 years of Bohemian Soho. As you wander around Soho with the app, it uses GPS to pinpoint your location, then whispers relevant hedonistic histories in your ear. Surprisingly it’s produced by the National Trust who are embracing the risque topics for tourism. I’m sure it will cause a bit of a stir with their more traditional members.
This is one of the reasons I love London so much, you never know what you are going to end up doing when you venture out.
As a bonus, I also spotted two BT ArtBoxes.
I’m not that chubby, it’s the mirrors, honest ;)
I see myself wandering around soho listening to the app in the near future :)
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It’s when I read something like this that I realise just how exciting it is to be part of this lovely city! And YES the BT boxes are AMAZING :)
They are aren’t they, I’m busy snapping photos as I see them!
What an interesting discovery, thanks for sharing. I can see my son would have secretly wished one of those phone boxes was the tardis! :)
haha, my nephew too :)
This looked interesting when I first saw it on Instagram.
Thank you for sharing. What an inspiring surprise on your break. Will look out for it.
I must see these BT ArtBoxes before they disappear x
It was brilliant, wrote the blog post there and then, which was fun and a first for me :) You must keep your eye out for some BT ArtBoxes x
Kelly I love this, I’m surprised the BF hasn’t got in on the act seeing as he thinks he owns Soho.
Love the phoneboxes, I’ve collected a few now.
I walked through Soho Square on Saturday and there was a man playing one of the street pianos, it was lovely. Then I saw a few more on the Southbank by Tate Modern. Makes me so happy to be in London. Xx
There’s a street piano right outside work and I’ve heard some amazing pianists on it. Even though I hate the longcommute every day, I still love coming in at the weekend, it’s a totally different place when you’re not rushing around.xx