Soho, W1D and W1F, nine minutes across at a slow walk

W1D runs from Soho Square down past the Georgian fronts on Dean Street to the bottom of Frith Street, where Ronnie Scott's has been running since 1959 and the second set still starts late. W1F covers Berwick Street market, Broadwick Street and the pump on the corner that John Snow used to work out how cholera spread, which is a strange thing to walk past on the way to dinner.

The distance between the two furthest points in the district is under ten minutes at a slow pace. Nobody takes a taxi inside Soho. The only journey worth timing is the one that gets a companion here in the first place.

Tottenham Court Road is three minutes from the eastern edge on the Central, Northern and Elizabeth lines, and since the Elizabeth line opened it has been the fastest arrival from almost anywhere. Leicester Square is four minutes from the bottom of the district on the Northern and Piccadilly. Oxford Circus is six minutes from the top on the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria.

Cars are the slow option here. The streets are one way, half of them are pedestrianised after eleven in the evening, and a taxi from Oxford Circus to Dean Street can take longer than the walk. A companion arriving in Soho comes to the nearest station and walks in, which is why arrivals in this district are among the most reliable on the whole clock.

W1D 3DH sits up a dead end off Dean Street with a ten foot Botero cat in the lobby and a screening room downstairs. W1D 7DT has its own courtyard, a bowling alley in the basement and a roof terrace with beehives on it. W1D 3SE is a pair of Georgian houses with narrow stairs and small rooms in the best sense.

W1D 3JA keeps four hundred year old floors that creak on purpose and no lift at all. W1F 8HT is the newest of them, loud in its decoration and very quiet in its corridors. A sixth is four minutes south at WC2H 7DX in Leicester Square, sunk six floors into the ground. All six are simply doors the desk sends companions to. No agreement exists with any of them and none is wanted.

Soho runs late, so the shape of a booking here is different. Ninety minutes at £400 works for a counter dinner and a walk. Three hours at £700 takes in dinner and a music room afterwards without either being rushed. The ten hour night at £1,800 is the honest choice if you intend to still be out at one, because the alternative is watching a clock you booked yourself.

The desk is staffed at every hour and answers in ten to fifteen minutes whenever you write. That said, a Friday in W1D is the busiest slot on this site, so an afternoon message holds the widest choice of company.

Seven, a drink standing up somewhere with no seats, because that is how half the district operates. Twenty past eight, a counter with eight stools where the food arrives in the order it is ready rather than in courses. Ten, a basement with a piano in it and a cover charge nobody argues about. Half past eleven, the streets are still full and the decision about whether the evening is over belongs entirely to you.

None of that needs booking in advance except the counter. Companions who work this postcode know which places take walk ins at nine and which do not.

Jasmin lives inside Soho and walks it at speed, which makes her the quickest same evening arrival on the whole list. Molly takes a counter seat over a dining room every time and holds a conversation across three courses without a gap in it. Tiffany is the one to book if the plan involves a second set and a back table.

From just outside, Lucy comes down from Fitzrovia in six minutes and treats a pub and a private dining room as the same evening. Karolina walks over from the Piazza in eight. Luna crosses Regent Street from Mayfair, and Bianka is twenty minutes in from Knightsbridge and good at making an hour disappear. Anyone else on On The Books reaches W1D and W1F on the same figures.

North across Oxford Street the streets widen into Fitzrovia and the walk takes six minutes from Soho Square. West over Regent Street is Mayfair, a different tempo entirely and four minutes away. South down Wardour Street the avenue of Piccadilly closes the district off. East across Charing Cross Road the Piazza begins at Covent Garden. Carnaby, Chinatown and Leicester Square all sit on the edges of this square, and the postcode as a whole is mapped at W1.