Companions in their late twenties, matched to the evening you have planned

Start with a calm voice. Liana is gentle and unhurried, a reader of French novels who keeps the noise low. Patricia is soft-spoken and happiest by the river in Wapping with her paints. Thea is friendly and plain-speaking, and makes small talk feel like an old habit between friends.

Karolina and Samanta are the most composed at a formal dinner, one precise and dry, the other steady and unusually well informed about grand hotels. Vanessa learns a new word every day and chats easily with anyone from a conference floor, which makes her good company at a table of people who have only just met. The corporate event itinerary explains how to brief them before the doors open.

Nora plans the whole evening around your arrival time at London City Airport, down to the bottle waiting on ice. Laura is often free the same afternoon and suits a traveller who wants to see the city from above, by cable car over the Thames at sunset.

Tina follows live bands and fashion, and turns every song into a conversation. Michelle starts at the museum on West India Quay and ends at a quay bar with a story for each drink. Milena decides fast, dines on the water at Wood Wharf and still wants the long walk afterwards.

Danielle chooses a late film in Stratford and debates it over supper. Cindy prefers daylight, dinghies on Millwall Dock and a roll of film to develop later. Rosa takes you to a working farm on the Isle of Dogs, llamas and all, then on to a riverside pub for a long supper.

Sunday on the Wharf is quiet, and two of these companions make good use of it. Rosa works Sunday to Thursday, and her ideal is an afternoon beginning that drifts into supper. Cindy prefers daylight anyway, and a Sunday lunchtime on the quay is her ideal window. Laura, often free from midday, is a third option when the weather is good enough for the cable car.

A stage of life changes the conversation, never the conditions. Rates start at £250 for the first hour and climb to £1,800 for ten hours overnight, all listed on the rates page. For the band before this one, see early twenties; for the band after, thirties and beyond. Most of the fourteen also stand on a figure floor, whether curvaceous or slim and slender.