Viator Viator Travel Blog

London is brimming with life, from the pounding underground nightclubs (catering for every music taste known to mankind) to the chic boudoirs bustling with sparkling Russians in Bond Street. Tourists and natives alike are spoilt for choice on how to spend their days, but rest assured the majority will cost you an arm and a leg.

Go to the loo in a public train station and you will be charged before your zip has even started its descent, sip a glass of water in a restaurant and you will be forced to take out a mortgage to cover the unwanted bubbles; even asking for directions sometimes costs you 20p.For the discerning cheapskate with a desire to spend the day without signing a cheque for a bottle of coke, there are many hidden activities which won’t cost you a penny.

Always look on the bright side of life

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“I have always been among those, who believed that the greatest freedom of speech is the greatest safety, because if a man is a fool, the best thing to dois to encourage him to advertise the fact by speaking.”

–Woodrow Wilson

For those who truly love humour — and are enraptured by the abnormal, captivated by intelligent discussion and would go out of their way to impress their girlfriend without even opening their wallet — I advise heading down to the ancient relic to democracy and free speech. That would be Speakers’ Corner based at the Marble Arch end of Hyde Park.

After a heavy Saturday night, both for your mind and your finances, there is no better way to prepare yourself both mentally and monetarily for the new week, than watching the numerous speakers and the crowds they lure. Why pay through the nose to see one of London’s world renowned theatre shows, when you can walk on stage and partake of the farce for free.

There is some contention as to when and why Speakers’ Corner came into being. Some believe it was post the 1855 Sunday Trading Bill riots, where an act of Parliament was passed to allow the space to be given over for public speaking. Others, however, date it much further back to 1108, when a notorious gallows was erected, where the tradition of granting a condemned man the right to utter his last word prior to hanging became the custom. Either the former or the latter this cornerstone of egalitarianism has over the centuries enticed historical icons such as Lenin, Marx and Orwell to modern day characters such as Ramzi Mohamed (one of the London bombers of 7/7).

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“The right to be heard does not automatically include
the right to be taken seriously”
–Hubert Humphrey

An older lady dressed conservatively in a red top stands upon her portable step ladder and denounces the openly smirking crowd on their evil nature in having forsaken God in favor of their greedy search for knowledge. “Which God?” an onlooker screams back.

A preacher admonishes his dwindling flock

It’s a declaration she either doesn’t hear, or chooses not to acknowledge, as she launches into a boy from the watching horde, flanked by his father asks the lady how he can be evil, when he has never done anything wrong and still knows very little. She looks down at the smiling blond boy, then turns knowingly to his father whom she promptly threatens to punch for raising such an intelligent child. The crowd breaks into uproarious laughter and the discussion recommences.

Further down a tall, commanding, articulate, black American Muslim in bright white robes is busy arguing the merits of Islam and its persecution by Christianity and Judaism. A small bearded man from the on looking crowd chirps up that he himself is Jewish, assuring that the debate quickly turns into a circular farce with slanderous accusations flying to and fro like proverbial eggs in a school dining hall. The crowd grows as those from nearby speakers sift across to join the discussion, all the while presided over and kept in order by the Islamic speaker. Things turn heated and tempers increase as the decorous atmosphere could turn, but it never does. As the debate comes to a close, smiles break out and hands are shaken like boxers stepping out the ring, exhausted but elated.

Opposite stands a man, straight and erect unmoving like a soldier, eyes straight forward and arms to the side, further away from the masses and the flaring arguments, dressed in a pair of simple white chinos, a beige anorak and a fisherman’s cap looking lonely and forlorn. A large placard hangs by a string round his neck. ‘It’s going to get worse’ it boldly declares, a highly sobering thought for a Sunday afternoon, possibly a dejected a member of the Bush or Brown cabinet.

Standing ground against the argumentative crowd

A loud shout erupts from a crowd down the way, followed by whistles and claps. A muscular young man with dark shades and braids has won over the mob with his analysis of the Iraq war.

“How can the instigator of a war, deemed illegal by the UN, the international police force, then realistically become the imposers of peace and expect the defeated to become pacified!”

More claps erupt. A devil’s advocate, surely in cahoots with the eloquent speaker argues, “but Saddam had weapons aimed at the west and was killing his own people, it was a justified war.”

He smiles knowingly at the speaker who grins shaking his head, “you know I’m just your Huckleberry Tyrone, that’s all I am”. Tyrone, the speaker looks around to the endeared crowd, ‘have you heard of Kazakhstan? They hold the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. Burma? Ruled by a government who kills innocent monks. I don’t see any green berets marching down their streets!”

Again the crowd erupts.

There is much to do in London but little is free and a visit to Speakers’ Corner has you walking away feeling both enlightened as to the peculiarities of our fellow man and mentally elated. The greatest gift of travel is to meet people and learn about the lives of others, yet it is seldom that we are granted access into their minds. Speakers’ corner is a rarity and allows instant discussion to happen between complete strangers, some of whom you would rather never meet again.

–Christoph Courth

Planning a trip? Browse Viator’s London tours & things to do in London. If you need a place to stay, check out Hotels in London on Planetware.com.