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Monthly Archives: March 2011

London Olympic “fair priced” hotels aren’t always fair

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Posted by trev on March 25, 2011 – 9:34 am
Filed under Accommodation

A number of hotel chains joined the “fair pricing” scheme for the London Olympics, but many feel they are the ones being taken advantage of.

In an effort to prevent hotel prices sky-rocketting during the London Olympics, the London Organising Committee and VisitBritain created a fair pricing scheme. The idea was that if hotel prices were stable then many more visitors would want to visit the games.

As part of this package, a number of hotel chains sold rooms to the Olympic organisers at fair prices which were then due to be sold on through the official hotel supplier – Thomas Cook.

The trouble is, Thomas Cook don’t seem to have gotten the idea and according to chains including Hilton, Thistle, Guoman and Starwood, the travel agent is in some cases selling rooms for more than 4x what they were sold to the London Olympic Committee for.

One example in the London Evening Standard quotes a package with a face value of £1,740 is being priced at £6,499 for three nights at the Hyatt Regency Churchill.

A crisis meeting between London Organising Committee and the British Hospitality Association has been called to try to avert legal action.

10 of Britain’s best time-lapses

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Posted by admin on March 25, 2011 – 8:58 am
Filed under Attractions, Miscellaneous, Transport

We’ve scoured YouTube to bring you some of the best time-lapse images from around Britain that you’ll find on the Web, all in one blog post. Sit back… relax… and enjoy them one by one. There are some real gems here.

Cumbria in a hurry

A series of time-lapses that include Tarn Hows near Hawkshead, Grasmere and Windermere.

The port of Dover

Annually, the port of Dover sees 16 million travellers, 700,000 lorries and 1.6 million cars and motorcycles, making it Europe’s busiest port. This footage is shot between midnight and 1am on a moonlit night.

Ferry from Mull to Iona, Scotland

This time-lapse video condenses 30 minutes into just over a minute as a Calmac ferry docks and then sets sail from Fionnphort to return to the Isle of Iona. Quite a contrast to Dover!

The London Eye in two minutes

A beautifully timed revolution of the London Eye that co-incides with sunset over the capital.

Dawn at Stonehenge

This is a very short time-lapse of a winter’s dawn at Stonehenge, but a beautiful one nonetheless.

Life on campus at the University of Dundee

Miscellaneous pieces of footage showing student life at the University of Dundee, ranked top in Scotland in The Times Higher Education Student Experience Survey 2011.

The tilting Newcastle Gateshead Millennium Bridge

The tilting of the Newcastle Gateshead Millennium Bridge was captured with this series of 330 photographs shot over a 20 minute period.

Driving around Jersey

OK, before some pedant tells us “Jersey isn’t in Britain”… we know, but we thought we’d make an exception. This video takes you on an Autumn drive and gives an overview of the island and sections of its beautiful coastline.

Blue skies over Wastwater

The photographer picked a good day for this one. Beautiful blue skies with some scattered clouds reflected in the water of one of England’s most dramatic lakes, Wastwater.

Slow down, London!

In stark contrast to the first video in our selection, Slow Down London was actually a project back in 2009 that was designed to use time-lapse imagery to get Londoners to slow down a little and appreciate their surroundings. It highlights some of the more relaxed opportunities available in the city.

Useful links:
UK hotels
UK B&Bs
UK self-catering
UK campsites
UK tourist attractions

Bournemouth Air Festival 2011

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Posted by admin on March 24, 2011 – 5:17 pm
Filed under Events

Bournemouth Air Festival 2011… by the sea and completely free – no tickets, no cost… it’s a free event! From 18th to 21st August 2011 the Bournemouth Air Festival takes to the skies again – the biggest free festival of its kind in the country. With an award-wining beach viewing and fantastic cliff side views, be amazed by international display teams and world-famous aircraft. Along the festival site, there’s 1.5 miles of county show stands, stalls, on the ground action and military villages. Truly a festival in every sense of the word, there’s also a programme of great ‘Night Air’ evening entertainment – fireworks, evening air displays, HM Royal Marines Band performances, street entertainers and live music. See the website for more information or enjoy some of last year’s footage here:

Useful links:
Hotels in Bournemouth
B&Bs in Bournemouth
Self-catering in Bournemouth
Tourist attractions in Bournemouth

Rare chance to visit a nuclear fusion reactor at Didcot

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Posted by trev on March 24, 2011 – 2:35 pm
Filed under Events

Nuclear fusion reactors could one day replace the rather unpredictable nuclear fission power stations like Sellafield, and this is a rare chance to see it in action.

“Nuclear” usually conjours up images of Chernobyl and more recently the Japanese nuclear power stations after the 2011 earthquake, but nuclear fusion is the safe non-toxic cousin of what we currently use to generate electricity.

Nuclear fusion reactors have only very recently been made to work at any scale, but Britain has some of the leading research into this field which has the ability to transform the energy supply and do away with coal, oil, gas and nuclear fission reactors.

One of the most advanced centres is just outside Didcot in Oxfordshire, and a few times a year they give the public a chance to tour the facility and even watch nuclear fusion taking place. You can see a reactor in use in the picture above – the glow is the very very hot plasma.

The next tour is Wednesday 14th September starting around 7pm but places are limited so early booking is essential. Tours are free and can be booked via 01235 466375 or email lisa.jones@ccfe.ac.uk

If you want an idea what the tour consists of, see this post on nuclear fusion by Ian Visits who was lucky enough to take part in one of the previous tours.

For anyone wondering if we could have one of these reactors in the airing cupboard – in theory yes, but the several million degree C temperature required to create fusion might be a little hard on your clothes. However this is exactly the same trick which the sun uses to keep burning.

Links in Oxfordshire:
Really big impressive image of nuclear fusion reactor
Things to see around Didcot
Hotels in Didcot

London Olympics – only 50% of seats for the public

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Posted by trev on March 24, 2011 – 1:23 pm
Filed under Events

Getting a ticket to popular events at the London Olympics was never going to be easy, but it turns out there are less seats than claimed.

Events such as the opening ceremony and 100 meters which is expected to star Usain Bolt were predicted to be heavily in demand, but as little as 50% of the seats available in the stadium are likely to be available to the public.

This is because of the large numbers given to corporate sponsors for popular events and has led to questions about the public being seriously misled when figures of 75% of seats for the public were being quoted prior to tickets going on sale.

It turns out, the 75% was an average which included less popular events where for example 85% or even 90% of seats would be in the ballot.

With these numbers of seats, the lucky ones who get the prime seats will indeed be very lucky.

Original report in the London Evening Standard

Country cottages in the middle of London

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Posted by trev on March 24, 2011 – 12:07 pm
Filed under Miscellaneous

Every now and then you come across some little historic gem in London and this is one of the best with small cottages backdropped by the Tate Modern.

The small cottages look rather out of place in front of the giant glass and steel structure of the Tate Modern, but the almshouses are they’re known were there well before anyone even thought of building more than 2 stories high.

Originally built with money from wealthy fishmonger, Charles Hopton, the houses were to house 26 poor men of Southwark in London. Each man would receive housing, a chaldron of coals and a payment of not less than £6 a year. Apparently a chaldron is roughly a horse and cart’s worth.

Today the houses are still available for men who’ve worked in Southwark for more than 3 years, although they are allowed to bring their wives.

Thanks to Ian Visits Blog for the details on the Almshouses.

More Southwark Links:
Southwark visitor attractions
Hotels in Southwark, London

Fun side of Olympic organising with Twenty Twelve

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Posted by trev on March 24, 2011 – 10:35 am
Filed under Events

Organising something as big as the London Olympics always has its hitches, but hopefully not quite as many as BBC4’s comedy Twenty Twelve.

The comedy follows the “Olympic Deliverance Committee” who seem to be in charge of pretty much everything and of course all the disasters which the team try really hard to sweep under the carpet…not always successfully.

In Episode 2, there’s even a cameo from Lord Coe, head of the real organising committee who no doubt recognises a few of the scenarios but to his credit generally seems to perform the “swan on the surface while padding furiously under the water” trick.

If you want to know what might happen behind the scenes while organising something this massive, pop over to BBC iPlayer now.

Don’t be put off by this being BBC4 – we suspect the bosses must have been out in a meeting on the golf course when this gem snuck through their straight-laced requirements.

Quick trailer from episode 2:

Roll up, get your Olympic tickets here…maybe

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Posted by trev on March 24, 2011 – 9:10 am
Filed under Miscellaneous

The London Olympic tickets web site has suffered a very embarrassing glitch after it started rejecting some VISA cards for tickets.

The problem seems to be due to the expiry dates on the cards which if it comes before the 31st July 2011, means the web site will reject it as an invalid card.

VISA blamed the web site for providing “false information”, but exactly what is wrong is unclear. Ticketmaster who are running the web site say it could take 2 weeks to fix the glitch. Not exactly good for a web site which is meant to be the 3rd biggest shopping cart in the world after Ebay and Amazon.com!

Luckily, as the requests are just an application to enter into a draw for tickets effectively no one will lose out, but coming after the Olympic clock failure some might be wondering if we should go back to doing things the old fashioned way with paper tickets and a ticket punch…?

An opportunity to visit one of Europe’s largest whisky festivals

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Posted by admin on March 24, 2011 – 12:23 am
Filed under Eating & Drinking, Events

Whisky fans around the world have been putting their money where their favourite dram is and snapping up tickets for the Spirit of Speyside Whisky Festival in their thousands.

Whisky enthusiasts from nearly 100 countries worldwide have already checked out the festival website, with 20 different nationalities taking advantage of the online booking system to ensure they have a ticket. Topping the ticket sales for this year’s festival, which runs from 28th April – 2nd May 2011, are whisky fanatics from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands.

More than 40 of over 200 events, which cater for whisky lovers as well as their friends and family, have already sold out. Specialist whisky events and tours have proved the most popular, particularly visits to distilleries not normally open to the public such as Mortlach, Auchroisk, Dailuaine, Glendronach. Also sold out are tours around the Seven Stills of Dufftown and the Five Stills of Elgin, as well as some of the unique train tours to Strathisla Distillery and several of the whisky and food pairing events.

The five day ‘dramfest’, now in its twelfth year, is one of Europe’s largest whisky festivals. It annually attracts around 26,000 visits to events generating around £750,000 for the local economy, with tourists arriving from both home and abroad.

This year’s programme also features a selection of new events. Whisky lovers can become a Benromach Warehouseman for the day, take part in Food and Whisky Tours, try their hand at whisky themed craft taster sessions and choose from a selection of traditional musical events and ceilidhs.

5 reasons why the budget is good for domestic UK tourism

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Posted by admin on March 23, 2011 – 5:28 pm
Filed under Events, Miscellaneous

Chancellor George Osborne has been delivering his budget today.  And it’s not been as severe as many might have feared.  Here’s a handful of reasons why it might be good for tourism in the UK:

1. Motoring costs should fall

1p per litre cut in fuel duty might not sound like much but it’s more than was expected and this, coupled with the cancellation in a fuel duty escalator proposed by the last government, should help alleviate the fears of some wary motorists. The inflation rise in fuel duty planned for next month is also been deferred until next year.

2. Investment in the rail network

Regional railways in England are to receive support to the tune of £200m. It’s probably modest in the scale of things but better than nothing at a time when almost everything else is facing cuts.

3. No more tax on alcohol

Pubs have had it hard of late.  Whilst many might continue to struggle, at least there might be some respite in there being no additional changes to alcohol duty rates – something the restaurants will no doubt welcome, also.

4. Air Passenger Duty

Although put on hold, the Air Passenger Duty rise has only been delayed for the time being, rather than scrapped. The UK’s APD remains 8.5 times higher than the European average making overseas a less attractive proposition. UK residents are bound to look more at the UK as a viable alternative to an overseas holiday.

5. Consumer confidence

Consumer confidence should not be too badly shaken by any of the measures proposed in the budget. This should mean that any holiday plans are less likely to be affected.