From 24 October 2015 until 3 December 2015, the Crystal Sceptre given by Henry V to the City of London in grateful thanks for their help in loaning him money for the Battle of Agincourt will be on show at the Guildhall Art Gallery.

The 800th Lord Mayor’s Show in London will be held on Saturday 14 November 2015 and starts at 09.00 with a river pageant. The Lord Mayor will be travelling to the City in a flotilla of traditional Thames barges and small boats, including the famous QRB Gloriana. Tower Bridge opens in salute at 09.25 and the new Lord Mayor alights at HMS President ten minutes later.

The Victoria & Albert Museum will launch The Bejewelled Treasures: The Al Thani Collection exhibition on 21 November 2015.  Spectacular objects, drawn from a single private collection, will explore the broad themes of tradition and modernity in Indian jewellery. 

The Royal Academy of Arts is showcasing an exhibition on the work of Jean-Etienne Liotard who was an artist in great demand across Enlightenment Europe and beyond.

London’s tourism boom has continued during the second quarter of 2015, with the city welcoming a record 5.1 million international visitors between April and June this year, 6% more than the same period last year, according to the Office for National Statistics International Passenger Survey (IPS).

Promotions for the new James Bond film Spectre is near fever pitch, so thought we’d provide some fun facts and figures about the British Secret Serice agent created by writer Ian Fleming while living in sunny Jamaica!  

Tate Britain has launched an exhibition featuring Frank Auerbach (b 1931, Berlin), a British artist who has made some of the most vibrant, alive and inventive paintings of recent times. Often compared to Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud in terms of the revolutionary and powerful nature of his work, his depictions of people and the urban landscapes near his London studio show him to be one of the greatest painters alive today.

The Victoria & Albert Museum established in 1857 by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design and houses a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. This vast collection is stored and displayed in a number of buildings over 12 acres of land in the South Kensington area of London, with over a third of a mile in circumference. These objects along with a wide range of exhibitions make the Victoria & Albert Museum one of the more popular tourist attractions in London.  Below we highlight six upcoming exhibitions at the Victoria & Albert Museum.  

On Sunday, 30 August we gathered with tears in our eyes and hankies at the ready to wave off our friend, colleague and now officially super-hero, Brian Harlock, on the greatest adventure of his life – the 10th Clipper Round the World Race. Over the next 11 months he will sail as part of the crew (The Warriors as they are known) on board Mission Performance, one of twelve 23-metre yachts, on a route that covers 9 countries, stops at 14 ports, covers 6 continents, and involves 6 ocean crossings and 40,000 nautical miles. During this time they are likely to get through 561,600 tea bags and 10,200 loaves of bread (baked on board by the crew) and they will use over 1,000 wet wipes per week! Those of you who visited him on board before he sailed will understand the importance of the wet wipes!

The sixth and final series of the popular costume drama starts airing in the United Kingdom, at 9pm on 20 September.  It will be made up of eight episodes and a Christmas special to be broadcast on Christmas Day. The series will span the years 1925 to 1927, with the Crawley family and their servants facing an uncertain future.

Queen Elizabeth II is now the longest reigning monarch in British history, having broken Queen Victoria’s record on 9 September. To commemorate this, a special photographic Long To Reign Over Us exhibition is currently on show at Buckingham Palace (until 27 September 2015) and Windsor Castle (until 27 January 2016).  Each of the displays celebrates The Queen through a selection of photographs from 1952 to the present day. The images include official portraits and photographs of Her Majesty undertaking visits in the United Kingdom and across the Commonwealth, as well as those capturing informal family moments.

27 July held a nostalgic frisson for many Blue Badge Tourist Guides. Three years ago Danny Boyle’s diorama of all things British upped the ante for the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony.  Rio, on the other side of the equator, now has one year to go.