City of London and London

[Jose Benitez]

Not sure why this would convince you to come to the "City" of London for a holiday? Not much to do once the offices close unless you get invited to a posh dinner with one of the Livery companies in one of the Guild Halls (of which there are a suprisingly large number of them in the City that managed to avoid being bombed during the War).

Although there are a 100 odd Livery Companies there are not a 100+ Livery Halls and for the most part many of the newer companies share a hall with one of the older ones.

The head of each of the Livery Companies is called the "Master" (so far as I am aware), and usually have been part of the Companies "court" before being promoted to the position of Master which is an office usually held for 1 year (although I suspect that many of the Companies have slightly different variations on the same theme).

Becoming a member of a Livery Company allows you to apply for the Fredom of the City of London which offers some fairly archaic rights relating to the City.

Best bit about being a member of a Livery Company is the great fun places you can get into for dinner since the vast majority of the Guild Halls are simply not open to the public - this rather pre-supposes that you consider it "fun" to eat posh dinners in unusual places I guess.....

There are some amusing sayings that relate to the Livery Companies not least of which is the one about people being at sixs and sevens (or disagreeing with one another). When the Livery Comnpanies line up to meet the Lord Mayor they line up in the order in which their charter was given to them - so in the order of their age. The oldest ones being at the front of the queue the newer ones at the back.

The sixes and sevens story runs to the effect that the companies in 6th and 7th place don't agree as to which one is the oldest and that once upon a time they had a dust up whilst actually waiting to meet the Lord Mayor. I think the issue has now been partially resolved by virtue of the fact that they take it in turns from year to year - personally I have always thought that the punch up would be much more entertaining but meh....