The UK's National Trust has released a free smartphone audio tour of London's Soho that apparently focuses on the neighborhood's bohemian, vice, and criminal roots that sprouted with the emergence of the jazz scene in the late 1940s. It's part of the National Trust's efforts to seem, er, hip. From The Telegraph (CC-licensed photo by -AX-):
Listeners, who will be restricted to those aged over 17, will be able to listen to drunken tales from the Groucho Club while another details how gangster "Mad" Frankie Fraser operated his protection rackets.
Other more colorful stories include those of Francis Bacon, the homosexual artist, being whipped and a former vice-squad officer pointing out a phone box that was a front for a crack den.
Ivo Dawnay, the London director of the Trust who is married to Rachel Johnson, the sister of mayor of London Boris Johnson, defended the new initiative.
"British rock-and-roll, feminism and gay liberation were all born in Soho, and this new technology allows us to deliver those stories in a vivid way," he said.
"National Trust launches new tourist guide to Soho's red light district" (The Telegraph)
Soho Stories app (National Trust)
