The weekend that was…Harrogate 2016 – Theakston’s Crime Festival

Well, that was the weekend that was! I finally #poppedmyharrogatecherry! What a weekend – I have been buzzing since the countdown before it and you know what I reckon I’m going to be buzzing until it happens all over again in 2017! I cannot wait!

Packed my essentials on the Thursday night…

It’s hard to describe exactly how awesome the weekend was, it was everything and more that I imagined it would be and I was like the kid in the candy shop drooling over all those authors just hanging out there! My eyes were out on stalks half the time and I had to keep picking my jaw up off the floor every 2 minutes! Of course a couple of things happened over the weekend that made it even more special but I will come to those in a minute!

After a hyper drive (thanks to Angela for driving and Katie for making us laugh all the way) from Glasgow we arrived in Harrogate – it was hot hot hot and it was straight to The Old Swan to let the fun begin!

Well I just got into the hotel and grabbed ourselves a wee “tipple” when I heard the dulcet London tones of a certain Mrs Fenton – “Oi Bairden” and I knew that I had been spotted! While all the admin team from #TBConFB were sadly not all able to attend, those who were there were a glam bunch! Tracy is taking “Glesga Patter” lessons for next year as I can’t afford to bring a translator with me #innittracy!

Much of day one was spent in awe and in a state of disbelief that I was actually there! So many authors, TBCers and Bloggers! I was so excited but so overwhelmed that I think my nerves got the better of my and I bricked it too many times to just go up and approach people and say hi! (I will know better next time round!) But I did get to meet the awesome S Williams, author of Tuesday Falling #bringbacktuesday and the talented Caroline Mitchell, author of the Jennifer Knight series – Steven Williams is so bloody cool and Caroline is adorable – loved them both – sorry if I was a gibbering idiot guys!

Queens of Tartan Noir, Lin Anderson and Val McDermid were both at the festival and while I did speak to Lin in the passing I was just to overwhelmed to ask for a picture…could really kick myself! So when Val was signing some books I made myself go and speak to her and gibbered nonsense about popping my Harrogate cherry and getting my picture with her! Luckily she took it all in her stride and was absolutely lovely!

But the best was yet to come! You may have heard that I’m a HUGE fan of the bloody fantastic Steven Dunne and I was convinced all day that he was hiding from the #SAS in town so it was an OMFG moment when he came up to my while I was just standing looking about and said hi! I think my brain went into meltdown, I have no recollection of what I said and just hope that I wasn’t too embarrassing – I was a quivering wreck – but Sir Steven you totally made my weekend! Hopefully I’m forgiven for that awkward book signing moment though #stillblushing Having met Steven I can tell you he is a complete gentleman and a sweetheart and even better looking in person 🙂

Graham Smith, author of Snatched from Home also came over to chat, what a lovely guy he is, I’m so damn chuffed to be included in his forthcoming blog tour! Seriously he was so supportive of all the bloggers and the aspiring authors – a genuinely nice guy – it was a pleasure to meet him!

We only attended 2 events when we were there, The Dead Good Awards and The Late Night Quiz, but to be honest the best part of the event was just hanging around outside and soaking up the atmosphere!

Of course it wouldn’t have been the same if there hadn’t been an EEEEEEEEEEEEK OMFG moment and that came when I finally came face to face with my #Twinnie! aka Noelle of #Crimebookjunkie. Seriously separated at birth #partnersincrime – you could only tell us apart because of our accents! I am so delighted to have finally met her – she #rocks!

Chatted to some of the other brilliant bloggers that have been so supportive of me over the last few months, Sarah, Joanne, Shell, Angela, Claire and so many more, I can’t wait to meet you all again and get to know you all better!

One of my funniest moments was when #Twinnie and Alex agreed to join me in wrapping ourselves up in my crime scene tape and doing some #corpsing 🙂 So funny! #Harrogate watch out for next year’s event…

All in all it was the best weekend ever, so many happy memories and so good to be in the company of those who completely get my #weirdness! Roll on Harrogate 2017 – loved every minute of it! Next year I resolve to overcome my shyness and just grab every moment!

Top tips for the event:

Don’t buy rover passes – just go and get the panel tickets you want on the day – I didn’t buy a rover pass but everyone who did said that they didn’t get the value out of it.

The best of the event takes place in the grounds of the event, mingling with other readers, authors and bloggers – go, soak up the atmosphere and enjoy!

Take a camera for pictures as your phone battery is so going to die with all the photo ops!

Take a selfie stick for those group photo opportunities!

Just go and speak to folk, everyone is so friendly and approachable – there are lots of new friendships just waiting to be made!

Pack lightly – you will NOT need all the clothes you take – I promise you!

Enjoy every damn moment of it and get the dates for the next year and get your time off work booked!

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Published by chapterinmylife

Hi my name is Sharon and I have an obsession - it's reading! My preferred genre is crime/thriller/police procedural with a penchant for Tartan Noir.
This is my blog for my book reviews and I would love to connect with other like minded readers and authors. I'm happy to feature interviews on my blog, review ARCs (kindle and hard copies)
All views are honest and my own
If you wish to contact me then please email me:
chapterinmylifesb@gmail.com
View all posts by chapterinmylife

Hi Lin, I seen you both – was slightly starstruck! I am definitely at Bloody Scotland – think I’m volunteering again as well as going as a participant! I can’t wait – and yes this time I will ask you for picture x


FAQ: How Do You Choose Where To Travel?

04 Aug 2016

In terms of dilemmas, choosing your travel destination has to be one of the most exciting ones to have.

You’ve got time off, you’ve got some dollars in the bank, you’re ready to go – but you just don’t know where to go. The planet is large and somehow you’d like to see it all, but for now, you have to make a choice. Here are 5 points to consider in when planning your trip.

1. Is it safe?

What countries are safe/unsafe for travellers?

This should always be a question at the top of your list. Websites like http://smartraveller.gov.au/ are a great place to check what’s going in a country as they are constantly updated. If your travel insurance doesn’t cover it, there’s probably a reason for it.

2. What’s your budget?

The biggest game changer in where you end up is the money you have available to spend.

Consider flight distance: Longer or more flights, means higher fares.

Consider your preferred style of travel: are you happy to share dorm rooms? Do you prefer privacy and meeting locals in a Bed&Breakfast environment? Or do you like the convenience of a concierge at a hotel?

Consider some countries are way cheaper to travel in than others. Asian countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, India have cheap accommodation, transport & food –even the internal flights are very cost efficient. In comparison, places like the UK or France are relatively expensive. For example, a three-star hotel in India’s capital of Mumbai costs US$85 and up. A 3 star in London, UK starts at US$150.

Go somewhere you can afford! Having Champagne taste buds and a beer budget can be a real dampener of spirits. Don’t go to Paris, spend everything you have on accommodation and flights and then not afford entrance into the Louvre. Paris isn’t going anywhere – do it when you can do it well.

3. How much time do you have?

Have you got a week? Do you have six months? Do you want to immerse yourself in the place or do you just want to tick places off your bucket list?

Consider the time it takes to travel between the places you want to see. Do you need to fly or are there buses? How long are the journeys?

If you have a shorter time, pick a spot with a short travel time to maximise your time on the ground exploring.

Consider that you might not want to do a 8 hour trek after being on a 24 overnight bus ride. Build in rest days – we all need them.

Just because you made it to Bangkok, doesn’t mean you know Thailand. Like any place, truly getting to know a place, its food, culture and landscapes takes time.

If you have limited time, pick a few things you really want to see and do them well, rather than just ticking places off a long list. You’ll be richer for it.

4. What climate do you prefer?

Consider that it may rain a lot during a monsoon or some places are affected by hurricane season.

Consider that the northern and southern hemisphere climates are opposite.

Consider summer heat waves. Coming to Australia to experience the surf in summer is awesome. Also, consider that it can hit over 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in January/February and whether you’re prepared/can handle that.

5. What do you want from your holiday?

Do you want an action packed holiday filled with thrills and adrenalin inducing adventures or do you just want to swing in a hammock whilst drinking piña coladas?

Do you want to give back and do volunteer work?

Do you want to encounter and immerse yourself in an unfamiliar culture?

Are you a foodie that wants to taste lots of new flavours?

Are you into nature and landscapes or prefer big cities and civilisation?

Do you want to move around a lot or prefer staying in one spot?

If these questions don’t help narrow your field at least a little bit, there’s always the option of playing ‘spin the globe’. Wherever your finger lands, is where you’ll go! Otherwise talk to your friends or work colleagues, buy a travel magazine or find inspiration from some of these travel blogs. There’s much to be explored. Happy planning and bon voyage!


Description:One of New York City’s most romantic hotels, located in a quiet street on the Upper East Side. Within walking distance from the Central Park, Madison Avenue and the Museum Mile. Kosher food - room service for the hotel from Avi and David's bagels at... [more]

London neighbourhoods Our family of four is traveling to London in July. We would like to look for an air bnb in a secular neighbourhood within an hour's walk to an Orthodox synagogue. Can you suggest some neighbourhoods for us to try?

how to ship belongings What does Customs allow or what items do they tax heavily. I have electronics, laptop, tablet, printers, I need as a writer, and also want some household items for an apt. with me. Want to give out blankets, soup, and bread to poor and shut-in Holocaust survivors too. Have Israeli friends, but don't want to bother them before I visit them. No idea who to contact for apt. search and for Customs requirements.

CUSTOM MADE INDIVIDUAL TOURS DESIGNED TO ELEVATE,EDUCATE AND ENTERTAIN. HIDDEN GEMS,SECRET NOOKS, DAILY LIFE,MIXED WITH ANCIENT RELICS AND TRADITIONS OF A COUNTRY WITH AN UNBELIEVABLY RICH JEWISH BACKGROUND THAT GOES BACK TO TWO MILLENNIA.

We kindly invite You to "Olecki" hotel in Oswiecim/Auschwitz. It is located at the road Bielsko-Biala – Katowice - Krakow, in the direct vicinity of the Auschwitz Memorial and State Museum, only 200m away from its entrance and just 3km away from Concentration Camp Birkenau. The hotel offers You 75 places in 1, 2, 3-person rooms as well as
the apartments equipped in telephone, flat screen TV, a mini bar and an Internet connection.
All rooms have they own bathroom with shower and toilet.


Sussex Heights

Sussex Heights is a residential tower block in the centre of Brighton, part of the English city of Brighton and Hove.  Built between 1966 and 1968 on the site of a historic church, it rises to — as of March 2013 Sussex Heights is the 48th tallest building in the UK.  Until 2005 it was the tallest residential tower in the UK outside London. Richard Seifert's design has been criticised for its overbearing scale and contrast with neighbouring Regency architecture, but it is acknowledged as an "imposing and prestigious" luxury apartment block with good facilities. Peregrine falcons have been resident at the top of the tower for several years, and have successfully bred.
Until 2015, it was the tallest structure in Brighton, however it has now been exceeded by the i360 Tower, which stands at 162 metres.

History
Charles Busby was part of an architectural partnership (with Amon Wilds and his son Amon Henry Wilds) which gave Brighton much of its character in the 19th century.  They met high demand for residential, ecclesiastical and public buildings of all types in the rich, fashionable town by producing elegant designs which combined contemporary architectural expectations with imaginative devices (such as prominent cornices, bold bay windows and columns with decorative capitals) in a distinctively "powerful and assertive" style. Busby has been described as the best architect of the three, having already achieved much by the age of 20.  He moved to Brighton in 1822 and joined Amon and Amon Henry Wilds.

One of their commissions was St Margaret's Chapel, a proprietary chapel built near Regency Square for Barnard Gregory, a local speculator and businessman. The Greek Revival/Neoclassical church stood at the end of St Margaret's Place, just behind the seafront.  Built in 1824, it was one of five Anglican churches to be constructed in the town in six years—an indication of the growth being experienced at the time. The chapel is usually attributed to Busby alone (and has been called "his finest church" and "the best Classical church in Brighton"), but Amon Henry Wilds has also been identified as its designer. It had a gigantic tetrastyle portico of Ionic columns, a stuccoed façade, a large dome over the nave and a cupola.  The first service was on 26 December 1824, and the church could accommodate 1,500 worshippers. John Oldrid Scott carried out alterations in the 1870s.

The church closed on 30 September 1956 after congregations fell. It survived until 1959, but it stood within a zone of proposed redevelopment behind the Metropole Hotel, Alfred Waterhouse's prestigious seafront hotel of 1888 (once England's largest outside London) which was itself about to be altered by the R. Seifert & Partners architectural firm. St Margaret's Chapel was demolished in June of that year, and the same firm was commissioned to build a series of exhibition and conference halls topped by a block of flats on the site.  Work on the hotel itself started in 1961, followed a few years later by the rest of the redevelopment. The block of flats was given the name Sussex Heights after the historic county of Sussex in which Brighton is situated, and work started in 1966. The 24-storey tower was finished in 1968. The  building had 91 two-bedroom flats and 24 with one bedroom, all with balconies, allocated garage space and leases of 125 years. The typical sale price of a two-bedroom flat in 1968 was recorded as £5,950 (£ in ); by 2006 it was £250,000 (£ in ).

Peregrine falcons have nested at the top of Sussex Heights since early 1998, when a nest box was erected.  A breeding pair moved in and successfully reared two chicks.  Although the birds occasionally used the (now destroyed) West Pier as well, Sussex Heights has been a successful breeding ground ever since. The Sussex Ornithological Society rings the chicks each year and has installed a webcam through which activity in the nest box can be viewed.  As of 2010, 40 chicks have been reared. The nest box was threatened with removal in January 2010 when renovation work was scheduled, but this did not happen and the 2010 breeding season produced two chicks.

In November 2013, Sir Terence Conran's architectural practice Conran and Partners—who had recently worked on Embassy Court and Saltdean Lido elsewhere in the city—were commissioned to refurbish the building.  Work was expected to begin in spring 2014.

At  tall, Sussex Heights is the tallest building in Sussex and the only building in Sussex taller than .  It is also the fifth-tallest structure in Sussex, after the British Airways i360 at  tall, the mast at Heathfield transmitting station at  tall, the mast at Midhurst transmitting station at  tall and Shoreham Power Station at  tall.

Description
Sussex Heights was the tallest building in the city of Brighton and Hove. It has 115 flats on 24 floors, plus a penthouse which takes up the whole of the top floor. The 23 floors below the penthouse have five flats each; three face east and two face west, and four have two bedrooms (the other is a single-bedroom flat).  Two-bedroom flats typically have a  balcony, a  living room, a  kitchen, a master bedroom of , a second bedroom of , a bathroom, separate lavatory and hallway.  The bedrooms in single-bedroom flats are considerably larger and have been subdivided in many cases. Most flats have uninterrupted sea views, and many also have views over the South Downs and the city of Brighton and Hove.  Other facilities include underground parking garages, concierge and CCTV monitoring. Early advertising material described the flats as "beautifully finished" and "built to the very highest standards", and the building is typically described as a luxury apartment block.

Architecture

Opinion regarding Sussex Heights' architectural quality and its contribution to Brighton and Hove's cityscape and skyline is mostly negative. Although it stands on the seafront, the lowest ground in the area (Brighton is built on a north–south slope, with the South Downs sloping towards the English Channel), its height dominates the surroundings, which consist mostly of early 19th-century terraces of Regency-style houses of three and four storeys. Its effect on both short- and long-distance views has led to it being called "appalling" and the "most damaging" modern building in the city. Other commentators have noted that it has an "imposing and prestigious" presence, and that it has become Brighton's main landmark (replacing the octagonal tower of the nearby St Paul's Church, which had this status for more than 100 years and was used as a reference point by generations of sailors).

Ownership
Sussex Heights is owned by a management company called Sussex Heights (Brighton) Ltd, which is in turn owned jointly by all lessees—each of whom holds one share.  It was formed as a private company limited by shares in 1992.  Its company officers are residents of the building, and all shareholders are invited to an annual general meeting.

The company's formation was prompted by concerns that the former freeholder of the lease was letting Sussex Heights become dilapidated and potentially structurally unsound by failing to exercise control over the actions of the managing agency which looked after the building on the freeholder's behalf.  The company now oversees the agency's actions and scrutinises its work.

See also

References

Notes

Bibliography

Category:Residential buildings completed in 1968
Category:Buildings and structures in Brighton and Hove
Category:Houses in Brighton and Hove
Category:Richard Seifert buildings
Category:1968 establishments in England


Simon Gallup

Simon Jonathon Gallup (born 1 June 1960) is an English musician and bassist of the alternative rock band The Cure.

Early years
Born in Duxhurst, Surrey, Simon is the youngest of six children born to Bob and Peggy Gallup. After moving to Horley, Surrey in 1961 he attended Horley Infants and Junior Schools between 1961 and 1971, followed by Horley Balcombe Road Comprehensive from 1971-1976. Between 1976 and 1978 he worked in a plastics factory and became the bass player for local punk band Lockjaw, who later evolved into The Magazine Spies (1979–1980), also known as The Mag/Spys.  Lockjaw and The Mag/Spys played regular live shows with Easy Cure and later The Cure between 1977 and 1979, and after collaborating in the studio on the Cult Hero recording sessions in October 1979, both Gallup and keyboardist Matthieu Hartley left The Mag/Spys to join The Cure. Former Mag/Spys Gallup, Hartley and Stuart Curran later performed together under the name of The Cry and later Fools Dance during Gallup’s hiatus from The Cure between 1982 and 1984.

Career

The Cure
Gallup first joined The Cure in 1979, replacing Michael Dempsey on bass guitar. He also has been credited for occasionally playing the keyboards, particularly after Matthieu Hartley's departure in 1980. He took over keyboard lines for many of the songs that Hartley played. Examples of songs he played keyboard on live include "At Night", "A Forest", "A Strange Day" and "Pornography". During "Cold" he multi-tasked playing bass guitar and bass pedals.

On the Swing Tour in 1996, he played twelve-string acoustic guitar on "This Is a Lie".  On the Dream Tour in 2000 he played a Fender Bass VI on "There Is No If".

Gallup is also credited with singing lead vocals for a demo for "Violin Song". Gallup first performed on The Cure albums that make up "The Dark Trilogy": Seventeen Seconds, Faith, and Pornography.

Departure from The Cure
During the Pornography Tour in 1982, a series of incidents prompted Gallup to leave The Cure, including an incident on 27 May 1982 after a live performance at Hall Tivoli, Strasbourg, France when he got into a fist fight with Robert Smith at a nightclub in Strasbourg reportedly over a bar tab.

Gallup has said that "I was about to leave when some guy came up and told me I hadn't paid for my drinks. He thought I was Robert. I was knackered but the bloke took me up to the bar and Robert appeared to see what was going on. I hit him, he responded and we had a fight".

Smith, on the other hand, said that "I was on the first floor of this club when they came up and told me there was a problem downstairs. Simon was so wound up that no-one could talk to him - he was screaming at the barman, this young kid who was nearly in tears. By himself, Simon would have never behaved like that but he was surrounded by the road crew so he was behaving the way he thought a rock and roller ought to behave.
He didn't want to pay for his drinks because he thought I wasn't paying for mine. I told him to shut up and he punched me. It was the first time he really laid into me, we had an enormous ruck and I said 'That's it', walked out, got a cab back to the hotel, got my suitcase, my passport from the tour manager's room and got on the first flight to London. That was at 6.30 am and I was home by half past 10. I left a note saying I wasn't coming back. Simon returned the same afternoon. I'd left so I suppose he thought he could do the same. Good idea ... we had three days off!".

Lol Tolhurst adds that "The pressures of having to keep up the intensity and aggressive sentiments of Pornography turned Simon into someone different though, at the time, I don't think he noticed. Or didn't want to ...".

Gallup and the rest of The Cure returned to complete their Fourteen Explicit Moments Tour in support of Pornography, concluding their 11 June 1982 live performance at Ancienne Belgique, Brussels, Belgium with an improvised song, "The Cure Is Dead", with Gary Biddles singing abuse about Smith and Tolhurst. Smith, on drums, then threw his drumsticks at Biddles, and they stormed off stage. Tolhurst played bass guitar and Gallup played rhythm guitar during this last concert.

This second incident, occurring weeks after the first notable incident, was more infamous and resulted in Gallup leaving The Cure to form Fools Dance with Biddles. Initially, at this concert, The Cure decided to play "Forever", with instrument changes; Gallup played guitar, Tolhurst played bass, Smith played the drums, and Biddles, a part-time roadie and friend of Gallup's, doing vocals. As soon as he got on stage, Biddles started singing, "Smith is a wanker, Tolhurst is a wanker, only Simon is worth anything in the band! The Cure is dead!". Smith got angry and threw his drumsticks at Biddles' head, and yelled "Fuck off!".

Fools Dance
Gallup left the band and started The Cry with Gary Biddles and Matthieu Hartley. Their first gig was at the Covent Garden Rock Garden on 19 April 1983, supported by SE London-based band The Wait. They later changed their name to Fools Dance, which released two EPs; Fools Dance and They'll Never Know. Biddles sang most of the songs that were released by this band, Gallup sang on one called "The Ring". When asked why he left The Cure, he said, "It's just basically that Robert and I are both really arrogant bastards, and it got to such an extreme. I suppose you just can't have two egocentrics in a band, and Robert was sort of 'the main man'."

Return to The Cure
In 1984, Smith asked Gallup to return to The Cure, an offer which he accepted. Since then, the two of them have remained on good terms. Gallup also served as best man at Smith's wedding in 1988.

In late 1992, Gallup again took a brief break from the band during the Wish Tour after he had to be transported to hospital, suffering from pleurisy after being ill for several months. During this time, he was replaced on bass by former Associates and Shelleyan Orphan member Roberto Soave.

Gear
Gallup's favourite bass is his Gibson Thunderbird. In 2004 Gibson created a special red Thunderbird bass for Gallup, to celebrate his 25th year as the bassist for The Cure.
He has also played Fender Precision, Fender Jazz, Rickenbacker 4001, Music Man StingRay, Washburn AB10 acoustic, Kramer acoustic, custom Dick Knight, Epiphone Jack Casady and Eccleshall 335 basses live.
In 2011 Gallup started using a Schecter signature model based on their Ultra Spitfire bass.
Gallup uses the following Boss guitar effect pedals: BF-2 Flanger, CE-5 Chorus Ensemble, MT-2 Distortion, DD-3 Digital Delay and NS-2 Noise Suppressor.
Gallup is a supporter of Reading Football Club and draped a team flag over his amp while playing in Sydney and Melbourne during the band's 2007 Australasian tour. He also draped a Reading F.C flag over his amp at Coachella 2009, during the set at Bestival 2011, Isle of Wight, during Reading Festival in 2012, Lollapalooza 2013 in Chicago and Glastonbury 2019.There is also a Reading Football Club flag covering one of the large speakers of their 2013 concert held in Austin, Texas which is clearly visible on the live concert video available on YouTube.

Discography

Lockjaw
 Radio Call Sign, The Young Ones (1977), - 7" Single
 Journalist Jive, A Doong A Doong A, I'm A Virgin (1978), - 7" Single

The Mag/Spys
 Life Blood, Bombs (1980), - Split 7" single with The Obtainers

The Cure
 The Cure discography - All releases except Three Imaginary Boys, Boys Don't Cry, Japanese Whispers, The Top, Concert, and singles taken from those albums.

Fools Dance
(See Fools Dance discography)

Personal life
Gallup's older brother David Gallup was the manager for Lockjaw, while Ric Gallup was responsible for the promotional artwork of Lockjaw, The Mag/Spys, and (following Porl Thompson's departure from the original Easy Cure line-up) early art and design for The Cure, Ric also founded the Dance Fools Dance label, which released The Mag/Spys' only split-single release in 1980 (from the earlier Cult Hero sessions), and produced the animated short film Carnage Visors, which featured a soundtrack by The Cure and was screened in place of an opening band during The Cure's Picture Tour in 1981. Ric also designed promotional materials for Fools Dance, and was responsible for the band’s lighting on tour. Since the mid-1980s, Gallup has also been the regular lighting designer/director for And Also The Trees.

Relationships
Simon Gallup’s first marriage was to Carolé Joy Thompson, a former secretary who had also contributed backing vocals to the Mag/Spys recordings in 1979. They had two children together, Eden and Lily, before they divorced.

Simon met Sarah in Oxford, and later married in December 1997.  They have two children together, named Evangeline "Evie" Gallup, born 2000 and Ismay Gallup, born 2007. According to The Cure's Chain of Flowers newsletter, the title to The Mission's 2001 single "Evangeline" was dedicated by Wayne Hussey to Evie Gallup, although the lyrics were "about someone else altogether".

References

External links
Simon at Pictures of You

Category:The Cure members
Category:English rock bass guitarists
Category:Male bass guitarists
Category:Alternative rock bass guitarists
Category:English keyboardists
Category:English male singers
Category:English new wave musicians
Category:British post-punk musicians
Category:1960 births
Category:Living people
Category:People from Surrey


Rangers manager Mark Warburton has reignited the debate over the Old Firm’s participation in a European Super League, saying that a possible match between his side and Arsenal would be more attractive to broadcasters than the likes of Leicester, Norwich and Bournemouth.

Under the former Brentford boss Rangers have emerged from the darkest period in their history, reforming in the Scottish Third Division after being liquidated in 2012, to a return to the Premier League next season after a near miss in last year’s play-offs.

South of the border recent years have seen the financial might of the Premier League grow ever greater, with clubs in the English top flight spending over £2billion on wages and flexing their muscles in the transfer market.

With the likes of West Ham and Leicester competing with perennial Italian champions Juventus for Michy Batshuayi Warburton is convinced that Europe’s heavy hitters will look to distance themselves from the English game.

He wants Rangers to be part of any such breakaway.

“If Bournemouth are competing with Bayern Munich for players it tells me that the market is skewed, and that a European Super League cannot be far away,” Warburton told The Times. “The big European clubs won’t want to be left behind by smaller ones in England and if you’re a broadcaster which game would you rather show: Norwich v Leicester or Arsenal v Rangers?

“Sky Sports and BT are relatively small players in global terms, but if Google or Amazon bought the rights and started streaming games to billions of people around the world they would want a guarantee of the biggest clubs.

Deloitte Football Money League Top Twenty 20 show all Deloitte Football Money League Top Twenty 1/20 Real Madrid: £439m 2/20 Barcelona: £426.6m 3/20 Manchester United: £395.2m 4/20 Paris Saint-Germain: £365.8m 5/20 Bayern Munich - £360.6m 6/20 Manchester City - £352.6m 7/20 Arsenal - £331.3m 8/20 Chelsea - £319.5m 9/20 Liverpool - £298.1m 2015 Getty Images 10/20 Juventus - £246.4m 2015 Getty Images 11/20 Borussia Dortmund - £213.5m 12/20 Tottenham Hotspur - £195.9m 13/20 Schalke - £167.1m 2016 Getty Images 14/20 AC Milan - £151.5m 15/20 Atletico Madrid - £142.3m 16/20 Roma - £137.2m 17/20 Newcastle - £128.8m 18/20 Everton - £125.6m 19/20 Inter - £125.4m 20/20 West Ham - £122.4m 1/20 Real Madrid: £439m 2/20 Barcelona: £426.6m 3/20 Manchester United: £395.2m 4/20 Paris Saint-Germain: £365.8m 5/20 Bayern Munich - £360.6m 6/20 Manchester City - £352.6m 7/20 Arsenal - £331.3m 8/20 Chelsea - £319.5m 9/20 Liverpool - £298.1m 2015 Getty Images 10/20 Juventus - £246.4m 2015 Getty Images 11/20 Borussia Dortmund - £213.5m 12/20 Tottenham Hotspur - £195.9m 13/20 Schalke - £167.1m 2016 Getty Images 14/20 AC Milan - £151.5m 15/20 Atletico Madrid - £142.3m 16/20 Roma - £137.2m 17/20 Newcastle - £128.8m 18/20 Everton - £125.6m 19/20 Inter - £125.4m 20/20 West Ham - £122.4m

“It may not feel right, but if Leicester, Tottenham and West Ham, end up in the Champions League next season I think there could be ramifications even sooner.

“The challenge for Rangers is to make sure we’re part of that conversation when it happens. We’re never going to join the Premier League, but a European League could be a possibility.”

In the early 2000s talks involving both Rangers and Celtic were held over an ‘Atlantic League’ that could include sides from the Netherlands and Portugal, however these proposals fell apart.

The prospect of a breakaway involving top sides from across the continent was revived earlier this year amid discussions between the European Club Association – which represents over 200 teams – and Uefa over the future of the Champions League.

The chairmen of five of the biggest clubs in England, including Arsenal and Chelsea, met with American billionaire Stephen Ross at London’s Dorchester Hotel last month, though the Gunners insisted they were not in favour of a breakaway competition.


A CHEF from Worthing was voted one of the best curry chefs in the UK at the 2015 Curry Chef of the Year Awards.

Askor Ali, executive chef at the Mahaan Restaurant, in Montague Street, was one of 40 chefs to receive official recognition for their contribution to an industry worth more than £4.2billion a year, at the awards held inside The Lancaster Hotel, in London.

Mr Ali said: “To win this title is the greatest vote of confidence I could wish for, not just for myself but for my team who work so hard to make things happen at the Mahaan of Worthing.

“The award will inspire us to keep improving and I’d also like to thank all our customers for their help putting us on the map.”

The UK may have a soft spot for old favourites like bangers and mash and fish and chips but the British appetite for curry remains unrivalled.

This year’s awards ceremony recognised the best 40 curry chefs in the UK and special recognition for restaurants serving exemplary Indian cuisine.

Don’t miss out on all the latest breaking news where you live.

Here are four ways you can be sure you’ll be amongst the first to know what’s going on.


Country Music At The Grammys!

Best New Artist - The Band Perry

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 05: (L-R) Musicians Neil Perry, Kimberly Perry and Reid Perry of The Band Perry pose in the press room at the American Country Awards 2011 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 5, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Best New Artist - Skrillex

INDIO, CA - APRIL 16: DJ Skrillex posess during Day 2 of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival 2011 held at the Empire Polo Club on April 16, 2011 in Indio, California. (Photo by Michael Tullberg/Getty Images)

Best New Artist - Nicki Minaj

INDIANAPOLIS, IN - FEBRUARY 05: Nicki Minaj performs during the Bridgestone Super Bowl XLVI Halftime Show at Lucas Oil Stadium on February 5, 2012 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Photo by Christopher Polk/Getty Images)

Best New Artist - J. Cole

NEW YORK, NY - OCTOBER 25: J Cole stops by Fuse's "Hoppus On Music" for a performance and interview with Mark Hoppus on October 25, 2011 at fuse studios in New York City. This episode airs Friday, October 28th at 11pm ET. (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images)

Best New Artist - Bon Iver

LONDON, ENGLAND - OCTOBER 24: Justin Vernon of Bon Iver attends the Q awards at The Grosvenor House Hotel on October 24, 2011 in London, England. (Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Best Country Album - Taylor Swift 'Speak Now'

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 22: Taylor Swift performs onstage during the "Speak Now World Tour" at Madison Square Garden on November 22, 2011 in New York City. Taylor Swift wrapped up the North American leg of her SPEAK NOW WORLD TOUR with two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden this week. In 2011, the tour played to capacity crowds in stadiums and arenas over 98 shows in 17 countries spanning three continents, and will continue in 2012 with shows Australia and New Zealand. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

Best Country Album - George Strait 'Here For A Good Time'

NASHVILLE, TN - NOVEMBER 10: George Strait performs "The Breath You Take" at the 44th Annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena on November 10, 2010 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)

Best Country Album - Blake Shelton 'Red River Blue'

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 05: Singer Blake Shelton performs onstage at the American Country Awards 2011 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 5, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Best Country Album - Lady Antebellum 'Own The Night'

NASHVILLE, TN - NOVEMBER 29: Honorees Lady Antebellum's Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood perform at the 2011 CMT Artists of the year celebration at the Bridgestone Arena on November 29, 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for CMT)

Best Country Album - Eric Church 'Homeboy'

NASHVILLE, TN - NOVEMBER 09: Eric Church performs at the 45th annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena on November 9, 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)

Best Country Album - Jason Aldean 'My Kinda Party'

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 05: Musician Jason Aldean accepts the Artist of the Year Award onstage at the American Country Awards 2011 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 5, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Best Country Song - Kenny Chesney and Grace Potter "You and Tequila"

NASHVILLE, TN - NOVEMBER 09: Grace Potter and Kenny Chesney perform at the 45th annual CMA Awards at the Bridgestone Arena on November 9, 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)

Best Country Song - Vince Gill "Threaten Me With Heaven"

NASHVILLE, TN - OCTOBER 13: Musician Vince Gill performs onstage at the "We're All For The Hall" benefit concert for the Country Music Hall of Fame at the Sommet Center on October 13, 2009 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame)

Best Country Song - Taylor Swift "Mean"

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 22: Taylor Swift performs onstage during the "Speak Now World Tour" at Madison Square Garden on November 22, 2011 in New York City. Taylor Swift wrapped up the North American leg of her SPEAK NOW WORLD TOUR with two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden this week. In 2011, the tour played to capacity crowds in stadiums and arenas over 98 shows in 17 countries spanning three continents, and will continue in 2012 with shows Australia and New Zealand. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

Best Country Song - Trace Adkins "Just Fishin'"

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 05: Host Trace Adkins speaks onstage at the American Country Awards 2011 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 5, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Best Country Song - Blake Shelton "God Gave Me You"

MANHATTAN, KS - JUNE 25: Singer/Songwriter Blake Shelton performs during The 2011 Country Stampede Day 3 at Tuttle Creek State Park on June 25, 2011 in Manhattan, Kansas. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)

Best Country Song - Thompson Square "Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not"

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 05: Musicians Shawna Thompson (L) and Keifer Thompson of the band Thompson Square perform onstage at the American Country Awards 2011 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on December 5, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

LAS VEGAS, NV - DECEMBER 05: Musicians Shawna Thompson (L) and Keifer Thompson of the band Thompson Square perform at the American Country Awards at the MGM Grand Garden Arena December 5, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Best Country Duo/Group Performance - The Civil Wars "Barton Hollow"

PARK CITY, UT - JANUARY 23: Musicians John Paul White (L) and Joy Williams of The Civil Wars attend the T-Mobile Presents Google Music at TAO, an exclusive four-night concert series at Sundance to celebrate the launch of the new Google Music Magnifier program on January 23, 2012 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for T-Mobile)

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 15: (CALL FOR IMAGE, NO ARCHIVE, FOR EDITORIAL USE OF STORIES RELATED TO A DECADE OF DIFFERENCE: A CONCERT CELEBRATING 10 YEARS OF THE WILLIAM J. CLINTON FOUNDATION ONLY) In this handout image provided by Getty Images, musicians Grace Potter and Kenny Chesney perform at ?A Decade of Difference: A Concert Celebrating 10 Years of the William J. Clinton Foundation.? The star-studded affair, a charitable event organized to raise awareness around Clinton Foundation?s efforts to improve global health, strengthen economies worldwide, promote healthier childhoods, and protect the environment, was held at the iconic Hollywood Bowl on October 15, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Control Room)

LAS VEGAS, NV - SEPTEMBER 23: Singer Carrie Underwood performs onstage at the iHeartRadio Music Festival held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on September 23, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images for Clear Channel)

Best Country Solo Performance - Taylor Swift "Mean"

NEW YORK, NY - NOVEMBER 22: Taylor Swift performs onstage during the "Speak Now World Tour" at Madison Square Garden on November 22, 2011 in New York City. Taylor Swift wrapped up the North American leg of her SPEAK NOW WORLD TOUR with two sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden this week. In 2011, the tour played to capacity crowds in stadiums and arenas over 98 shows in 17 countries spanning three continents, and will continue in 2012 with shows Australia and New Zealand. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

Best Country Solo Performance - Blake Shelton "Honey Bee"

NEW YORK, NY - JULY 08: Singer/musician Blake Shelton performs on NBC's "Today" at Rockefeller Center on July 8, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

Best Country Solo Performance - Martina McBride "I'm Gonna Love You Through It"

NASHVILLE, TN - NOVEMBER 10: Martina McBride performs at the 2011 Country Christmas at the Bridgestone Arena on November 10, 2011 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)

Best Country Solo Performance - Jason Aldean "Dirt Road Anthem"

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 30: Singer Jason Aldean performs at the GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live at the Nokia Theater on November 30, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)


The stylish 4-star Ambassadors Bloomsbury Hotel is set in a shopping area within a 20-minute walk of Covent Garden. After the renovation in 2007, the hotel features historic architecture in a 6-story building.

The hotel is in a good location just near Mornington Cresent subway station. The property is neighboring a zoo and a circus as well as Museum of London, which is around 30 minutes` walk.

This hotel is placed in Kensington and Chelsea district, known for a theater, monuments and a tower.

Offering a view over the city, 100 rooms feature colorful décor, satellite TV, a heating system, a storage space, a Nespresso machine and a personal computer along with private bathrooms. These luxury rooms offer beds with a pillow-top mattress, foam pillows and luxury linens.

Breakfast is served in the bar each morning. The onsite small restaurant entices with Italian dishes. Guests can try complimentary drinks in the lounge bar. A variety of dishes are served in Prezzo - Euston and Woburn Place, which are 5 minutes’ walk away.

Ambassadors Bloomsbury Hotel is at a short distance from Euston train station. It takes around 20 minutes' drive to get to London City airport, which is 15 km away.

The on-site car rentals are also provided.

The hotel offers a gym and a fitness center available on site.

Important notice

Check-in:from 12:00 hours

Check-out:until 12:00 hours

Children and extra beds

All children under the age of 2 may stay free of charge when using existing bedding.


Video: Robot Turns Your Dreams Into Art

Ever wondered what your nightly tossing, turning, and snoring would look like if turned into art by a robot? Now you can find out, by winning the chance to stay at a hotel belonging to European chain Ibis, where an ABB robot paints your sleep patterns.

As part of the hotel's "Sleep Art" advertising campaign, ABB's smallest robot, the IRB 120, will paint patterns inspired by the dreams of 25 people. By sleeping on a specially designed mattress in an Ibis-owned Paris, Berlin, or London hotel, participants' dreams will be conveyed to the robot via 80 motion, sound, and temperature sensors in the mattress' topper.

Winners of a chance to stay at a European hotel chain will leave the next morning with a brand new piece of art, based on their sleep pattern data, which will be captured by sensors and painted by this ABB robot. (Source: ABB)

"The topper is built with a grid of force sensing resistors (FSRs), which detect exactly where and how the person is lying," ABB France spokesman Guillaume Pradels wrote in an email to Design News. "Over time, this obviously translates to motion as well."

The sensor grid is connected to the "Dreambox," which collects detailed information on each individual FSR. Along with the room's temperature and sound levels, also captured by the Dreambox, this data is then streamed by a WiFi link to a computer that controls the art production.

The software running on the computer, and the Dreambox hardware, was made by ACNE Production, the Swedish production company overseeing the project. After receiving the sensor data, the computer parses it into an algorithm and sends the sleeper's positions to the IRB 120.

ABB wrote software that collects the data from the Dreambox and allows the robot to capture sleep patterns, process the data, and turn it into a personalized visualization. ABB also wrote software that talks to the IRB 120's controller interface using a TCP socket via the IP protocol over Ethernet. After the IRB 120 gets the data from the computer, ABB's robot path algorithm calculates the correct path by applying the relevant orientation on the brush, avoiding collision, and other out-of-reach or singularity problems.

Proprietary smart path computation assures the robot's delicate and smooth movements. So does the fact that the robot path is speed-independent, due to ABB's proprietary QuickMove and TrueMove technology. The result is a series of multi-colored brushstrokes applied to a canvas in a rendering of the data that becomes a unique acrylic painting.

In its normal everyday life, the IRB 120 is used mostly in the 3C (computing, communication, and consumer) industry for handling parts, dispensing, and machine tending. It was chosen for the Sleep Art project for several reasons. Both the manipulator and the controller, which each weigh 25 kg (55.1 lb), are small in size and weight, so it's relatively easy to handle. The robot also has 0.01mm top-of-class repeatability, as well as top-of-class accuracy.

Although digitally streaming computed data to an industrial robot is not new, the robot path algorithm developed for this application is unique, said Pradels. ABB hasn't decided yet what other applications the algorithm might be used for. One possibility might be digital fabrication in construction, which has already been explored by architects Gramazio & Kohler using ABB's IRB 4600 robot.

It is an interpretation of the data, so how was the software designed? It would be interesting to see how the data is handled. I will admit, I'd like my dreams to be interpreted. I would like to see a nightmare vs. a typical one.

Robert, I agree. Ann this is a nice article.The idea of using FSR data to control a robot is pretty cool. I discussed FSR's and motion control in my book, Learn Electronics with Arduino and can see the technique in operating a robot being implemented in this application. I'm wondering what's the room rate for this techno-art experience?

Cabe, yes it would be interesting to see how the sensor data is converter to robot movement. Since the data is coming from body movement, it may not distinguish between pleasant dreams and unpleasant dreams unless the dream affected body movement.

I know when my wife is having a bad dream, she tends to toss around and mumble. If the data is body sensors and audible, could the software interpret 'erratic' behavior? Or how about erotic behavior? Or most nights, you remember nothing?

Either way, this is cool. Wake up in the morning and see what surprise painting is waiting for you!

I agree about the interpretation of the data: in fact, that was my first (and second and third...) question to ABB: what were the assumptions in the software design about how motion, temperature and sound sensor data would be interpreted visually? Although I didn't get an answer, it's obvious that you can design it any way you want (more or less). So the applications could be pretty broad.

Focus on Fundamentals consists of 45-minute on-line classes that cover a host of technologies. You learn without leaving the comfort of your desk. All classes are taught by subject-matter experts and all are archived. So if you can't attend live, attend at your convenience.


A Look back on 2018

I know, I know. We’re already in February and it’s ridiculous to look back on last year when we’re already almost two months in! I recently found this blog post though, where I had looked back on what happened in 2012 (the year I started this blog). It’s something that definitely needs to come back. I love a reflective post and 2018 was a crazy year, so I may as well remember it!

2018 was a year of travel for Ben and I. We had set that as our goal for the year. To tick off new places and see new things and make our first trip with Pepi, so we did exactly that! It was also the year that I fell back in Love with London but Ben and I also made the big decision to start looking for more permanent roots in our own home.

January – This is always a quiet month for me. I like to take a little time out after the Christmas and New Year break, to re-coop all of my thoughts and write goals to aim towards. We tried Veganuary for the first time and took some of my favourite ever photos in London.

February – The first trip abroad to The Cayman Islands. This is a trip I will remember forever. The Caymanian Tourist Board looked after us amazingly well. Grand Cayman was explored in our hire car before, we moved on to Little Cayman.

March – One of my favourite months of the year. Back to The Philippines! One of my favourite places on earth. Ben had been invited by Don Papa to explore the making of their rum and I flew out at the tail end of their trip to join him.

June – The month kicked off with a very sick Pepi after we gave her a meal that was too rich for her to digest. We were extremely worried as she was so frail, but with a quick response from our vet, an overnight drip and a course of medication, she was starting to feel a bit better.

We delayed our roadtrip to France a few days, to ensure Pepi was doing better (although we did have a few emergency toilet stops through Paris for her) and kicked off the trip in the rainy Loire Valley at Chatueau de Perreaux. The chateau was a recommendation from our friend Ramona after she had booked it for her and Nik’s anniversary trip and it was a great way to start.

We stayed in a few different places in Provence to really explore, and attended our friends wedding which was absolutely beautiful. They were married at a family member’s property, in the middle of the countryside, overlooking vineyards and mountains. Stunning.

July – A relatively quiet month as a lot of people were on holiday, but we were lucky enough to have another trip planned.

Marrakech; a special birthday trip with my bestie and her (now) fiancé. It was such a gorgeous trip, although stiflingly hot, we all got on so well and had the best time.

The rest of the month, we had our heads down getting on with lots of work and we popped back to Devon for a bit of house hunting. We did manage to fit in the Mary Poppins afternoon tea at The Shard however and a trip to a £20million penthouse in Victoria!

August – A busy month again filled with splitting our time between Devon and London.

This was also the month that we sadly lost my beautiful Keya. Right at the end of the month. The whole family had been in Devon and it was an extremely traumatic incident. I still think about her every day.

September – September started with a girls trip to Mallorca which came just after Keya’s death. I was actually going to cancel the trip. Ben convinced me to go though, and try to take my mind off everything. It was exactly what I needed and I had the most incredible time with my girls.

I was invited to try the ‘Be Our Guest‘ Afternoon Tea at The Townhouse, Kensington.

I also tried to squeeze in a few more meetings. Before Ben and I were off again, on our first ever trip to Dubai with the Movenpick Jumeirah Beach. It was unbearably hot! I’m glad we went but, to be honest, it’s not somewhere I would rush back to in a hurry.

After Dubai, we ticked another gorgeous location off our bucket lists and hopped over to The Maldives.

Arriving back from the Maldives, there was just enough time to unpack and repack our bags. Before we were off again on a trip to Ibiza with San Miguel. It was such a fabulous four days with the loveliest group of people staying at the San Miguel Villa.

During September I also started K&H Social with my bestie and business partner, which is now growing ever stronger and has some really exciting prospects for 2019!

October – After such a busy September, we went straight down to Devon to be reunited with our baby Pepi and were plunged straight into a gorgeously warm autumn. October consisted of loads of meetings and enjoying the change of season.

On our return, London had been transformed into a winter wonderland. Every shop front, hotel and area in London had made the biggest effort to get into the festive spirit. We made sure to make the most of the gorgeous displays!

December – The middle of the month kicked off our final trip of the year. A relaxing break to Babington House in Somerset with Koko Kanu.

On Christmas day, we woke up in our own flat for the first time. Then headed to Ben’s parents for Christmas day, and onto my parents in time for a second Christmas on Boxing Day!

2019 holds some amazing prospects already. We have a big move on the cards. Trips planned to incredible destinations and lots of things happening with K&H Social. 2018 saw most of my content fall to Instagram. This year will also see me putting a lot more effort back into my blog and YouTube, channel with some really exciting content!


Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

Tameem Antoniades, Ninja Theory's chief creative ninja - that's according to the business card - looks like he's been yanked back in time from some promising point in the dim future where videogame designers exist in the same social troposphere as Hollywood actors and hip-hop personalities. His face has something of a young Bill Murray's charming cragginess to it, which blends well with the fact that he appears to have borrowed Johnny Cash's hair for the day.

Sat wearing a double-breasted pin-stripe jacket, Lady Gaga sunglasses and huge leather boots (their sartorial brilliance lies either with the fact that they were once very, very expensive or luminously cheap) you could be forgiven for thinking that he's hanging out in the bar of an upmarket London hotel on an afternoon in March to discuss what it's like to work with Bowie, or explain why he took time off from the difficult second album to launch his own line of luxury four-slice toasters.

Instead, he's here to talk about rust. Here's what he has to say on the subject: "You think about rust and you assume it's all the same: dull brown, a bit ordinary. But that's not the case. When you really get into it, you can get all kinds of rust: green rust, bright blue rust, yellows and silvers. Rust is amazing."

Antoniades is talking about rust because he's eager to explain that not everybody's take on what happens after an apocalyptic disaster has to look the same. His certainly doesn't. Most games suggest the aftermath of civilisation's collapse will be "dull brown" and "a bit ordinary". Ninja Theory launches things in another direction.

These are the stats: 150 years after the world ends in a muddle of nuclear whimpers and drone warfare, the population of the US stands at around 50,000. The landscape is sparsely populated, but it's still perilous, riddled with aging military robots too stupid to stop fighting.

A tiny countdown clock tells you when an enemy is trying to broadcast for backup.

But here are the snapshots: with Fox News and all those pesky Chinese sock factories out of the way, nature has clawed its way back into prominence, sending creepers and vines spilling over the decaying bones of cars and lorries, towns and cities. Urban skyscraper canyons burn red with swaying fields of poppies, mechanical graveyards look more like grottoes than scrap piles as they ripple with clear pools of shimmering water, and New York City is a vast, echoing nature reserve, bisected by a huge, and fairly pretty tectonic rift.

This is the world of Enslaved: Odyssey to the West. Ninja Theory's latest is inspired by the Eastern classic, Monkey: Journey to the West, and is a game that Antoniades hopes will confound your expectations at every turn. "There's always a twist to what we're doing, hopefully," he says. "It's the end of the world, but everything's so pretty. And the landscapes are beautiful, but they're also deadly."

Speaking of confounding expectations, Enslaved is another acrobatic action game, but if you're hoping for a spiritual successor to Heavenly Sword - all carefully separated combat arenas and intricate fighting stances - you'll be disappointed. "We spent months on Heavenly Sword giving the combat depth," says Antoniades, briefly looking like he might want to snap his sunglasses in half. "It was all about these huge combo strings to pull off special moves. I don't know how many people really put the effort in for all that in the end. Enslaved takes it in the other direction: tactical depth rather than mechanical depth."


1924 in Scotland

Events from the year 1924 in Scotland.

Incumbents

 Monarch – George V
 Secretary for Scotland and Keeper of the Great Seal – The Viscount Novar until 22 January; then William Adamson until 3 November; then Sir John Gilmour, Bt

Law officers
 Lord Advocate – William Watson until February; then Hugh Pattison Macmillan until November; then William Watson
 Solicitor General for Scotland – Frederick Thomson; then John Charles Fenton until November; then David Fleming

Judiciary
 Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General – Lord Clyde
 Lord Justice Clerk – Lord Alness
 Chairman of the Scottish Land Court – Lord St Vigeans

Events
 22 January – Ramsay MacDonald becomes the first Labour Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, leading a minority government.
 28–30 January – Curling at the 1924 Winter Olympics: The gold medal is won by a Scottish team representing Great Britain in Chamonix.
 April – The Scots Magazine resumes publication in Glasgow under this title.
 3 June – Gleneagles Hotel, in Perthshire, is opened by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway.
 11 July – Eric Liddell wins 400m gold at the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris in a new world record time of 47.6 seconds.
 28 July – At Edinburgh Haymarket railway station, a passenger train ignores a stop signal and is in collision with a second train; five people are killed.
 The Scottish county of Linlithgowshire is officially renamed West Lothian.
 Duncansby Head lighthouse, engineered by David Alan Stevenson, is established.
 The London and North Eastern Railway officially names its Flying Scotsman express train, although the 10.00 a.m. service from London King's Cross to Edinburgh Waverley over the East Coast Main Line has previously been known by this title, and has operated since 1862.
 Annandale distillery closed.

Births
 29 January – Bobby Combe, international footballer (died 1991)
 7 March – Eduardo Paolozzi, artist (died 2005 in London)
 11 March – Anne Macaulay, musicologist, author and lecturer (died 1998)
 20 March – James Barr, biblical scholar (died 2006 in Claremont, California)
 28 March – Robert James, actor (died 2004 in England)
 3 April – Murray Dickie, tenor opera singer and director (died 1995 in South Africa)
 13 April – Sammy Cox, international footballer (died 2015 in Canada)
 14 April – Robert Stewart, textile designer (died 1995)
 15 April – Rikki Fulton, comedian (died 2004)
 18 April – Buxton Orr, composer (died 1997)
 20 May – Stan Paterson, glaciologist (died 2013 in Canada)
 25 May – Gordon Smith, football player, the only player to win a Scottish league championship with three clubs, Hibernian, Heart of Midlothian and Dundee (died 2004)
 1 June – Rev. Professor Alexander Campbell Cheyne, scholar of Church history (died 2006)
 9 June – Peter Heatly, diver (died 2015)
 14 June
 James Black, pharmacologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (died 2010 in London)
 John Grieve, actor (died 2003)
 17 June – Archibald Hall, serial killer and thief (died 2002 in HM Prison Kingston)
 19 July – Sir James Fraser, surgeon (died 1997 in England)
 15 September – Piers Mackesy, military historian (died 2014)
 6 October – Margaret Fulton, cookery writer in Australia (died 2019)

Deaths
 3 February – Major General William Burney Bannerman, military surgeon (born 1858)
 6 February – Sir John Stewart, 1st Baronet, of Fingask, whisky distiller (born 1877; suicide)
 17 April – James Brown Craven, ecclesiastical historian (born 1850)
 27 April – James Salmon, architect (born 1873)
 22 June – William Macewen, pioneer in brain surgery (born 1837)
 26 July – William Robert Ogilvie-Grant, ornithologist (born 1863)
 4 September – Constance Gordon-Cumming travel writer and painter (born 1848)
 17 October – Hector C. Macpherson, writer and journalist (born 1851)
 31 December – James Gardiner, Liberal MP (born 1860)
 John Henderson, painter (born 1860)

The arts
 April – French-born critic Denis Saurat publishes "Le groupe de la Renaissance Écossaise" in Revue Anglo-Américaine bringing writers of the modern Scottish Renaissance to wider European notice.

See also
 Timeline of Scottish history
 1924 in Northern Ireland

References

Category:Years of the 20th century in Scotland
Scotland
Category:1920s in Scotland


The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) published its twelfth report in July last year. The report entitled – “a recipe for rip offs”: time for a new approach, was put before the House of Commons for consideration. The PASC expressed concern about the Government’s over-reliance on an “oligopoly” of large suppliers, the costs and risks arising from skills gaps within Whitehall, the problems arising from legacy information technology (IT) systems, and weaknesses in the Government’s capacity to plan and drive through wholesale change in the way it uses and exploits IT in delivering public services. The Committee also explored some possible ways in which the delivery of public services online could be reformed—and transformed—through a combination of data release, giving individuals control of their own personal records, engaging users (both within and outside Government) in the design of services, and opening up the online delivery of services to a wider range of organisations. Continue reading…

Welcome to Big Data Analytics, 2012, the UK’s largest and most prestigious cross-industry event for the Large Enterprise Sector. The event, which will be held the Hotel Russell, London on 20 June, 2012, will bring together CEO’s, Business Directors, Heads of BI, CIOs and IT executives to discuss data management, analysis, security and storage strategies and best practices. Big Data Analytics 2012 is an event geared to senior business and technology leaders who approve or recommend analytical systems and solutions that run against large data sets, and are planning an analytical project in the next 12 months. Continue reading…

Information and communications technology (ICT) is critical for the effective operation of government and the delivery of the services it provides to citizens and businesses. An efficient ICT system can offer key benefits, and give businesses and citizens simpler and more convenient access to transactional services and the opportunity to collaborate and share information. A cost-effective and functional ICT strategy is a fundamental tool that every modern state needs. The coalition government’s ICT strategy has been designed to deliver better public services for less cost, release savings by increasing public sector productivity and efficiency, and reduce the structural deficit in order to continue to fund front-line services. Continue reading…

The continuing economic recession and burgeoning national debt will eventually affect the pocket of every individual and business in the UK in the next two to three years as government cuts in funding start to bite. The cuts sadly are an economic necessity if the country is ever to get itself back onto a stable footing. However, subsidy reductions also strike at the very heart of government too. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than in the governments ICT strategy. Continue reading…

It is becoming increasingly clear that an organization’s ability to achieve high performance in today’s shifting, competitive business landscape will be largely dependent on its ability to get the right information to the right person at the right time. With so much competition out there, and so much data being generated, it’s now become vital for enterprises to use big data-derived insights to identify important intelligence like hidden market trends, customer behavior and security breaches to create value and profit. With big data analytics, companies will have a greater degree of intelligence to help them make better-informed decisions, develop more timely strategies, spot disruptive trends, both positive and negative, and create new types of businesses. Whether you’re a large enterprise in the manufacturing industry or a non-profit organization in the public health sector, one message is coming through loud and clear: big data and big data analytics are going to transform the way businesses work.

So where is all this big data coming from?

Governments, businesses, individuals, and even machines are all contributing to the massive accumulation of data. Companies maintain vast amounts of transactional data, gathering information about their customers, suppliers, and operations. And the same is true for the public sector. Most countries in the world manage enormous datasets containing census data, health indicators, and tax and expenditure information. If you then add into that online and mobile financial transactions, social media traffic, and GPS coordinates, in other words, the kinds of activities that most of us do several times a day on our smartphones, we are currently amassing over 2.5 quintillion bytes of global big data daily.

It isn’t just humans who are contributing to the mass of information either: increasingly machine-to-machine communication is also creating huge amounts of data. Digital sensors are installed in shipping crates to track movement along a route and send the information to transportation companies; sensors in electrical meters measure energy consumption at regular intervals and report the information to utilities companies. The gathering of such information is becoming increasingly common. It’s estimated that are more than 30 million networked sensor nodes present in the transportation, automotive, industrial, utilities, and retail sectors today, and the number of these sensors is increasing at a rate of more than 30 percent per year.

How will we know if big data analytics actually adds value and efficiency to enterprise?

While big data may be big news right, it’s worth bearing in mind that it’s been around some time. It may now have come into mainstream consciousness, but some organizations have been using it for a while now and have been benefiting from the analysis of big data and data mining. Amazon is a prime example. The online retailer has been using data in this way for years and has utilised customer information, purchase history, and other data to power its recommendation system: that’s why the recommendations are so spookily accurate. Similarly online dating services have analysed big data to determine potential matches among their users, and sports teams put digital information to use in their recruitment strategies. Studies by bodies like the McKinsey Global Institute show that those companies which have been employing data-driven decision-making, achieve productivity gains that are 5 percent to 6 percent higher than other factors could explain.

Even in the public sector, big data analytics have been used to better identify needs, provide services, and predict and prevent crises among low-income populations. A new initiative by the United Nations, for example, is using natural-language processing software to predict job losses and spending reductions in the regions that are considered to be at risk. They will then be ahead of the game and able to help and agencies deal with any potential issues. During the cholera outbreak in Haiti in 2010 and 2011, researchers tracked the movement of people from the affected zones to new areas via data generated by SIM cards. This information helped aid organizations prepare for new outbreaks.


Harvey Weinstein is one of Hollywood’s top producers. His company is behind multiple Best Picture award winners and he himself is an outspoken progressive who has hosted a fundraiser for President Obama in one of his homes. According to a blockbuster story published today by the NY Times, Weinstein has also been involved in sexual harassment of actresses and young female employees for decades:

Across the years and continents, accounts of Mr. Weinstein’s conduct share a common narrative: Women reported to a hotel for what they thought were work reasons, only to discover that Mr. Weinstein, who has been married for most of three decades, sometimes seemed to have different interests. His home base was New York, but his rolling headquarters were luxury hotels: the Peninsula Beverly Hills and the Savoy in London, the Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc near the Cannes Film Festival in France and the Stein Eriksen Lodge near the Sundance Film Festival… In interviews, eight women described varying behavior by Mr. Weinstein: appearing nearly or fully naked in front of them, requiring them to be present while he bathed or repeatedly asking for a massage or initiating one himself. The women, typically in their early or mid-20s and hoping to get a toehold in the film industry, said he could switch course quickly — meetings and clipboards one moment, intimate comments the next. One woman advised a peer to wear a parka when summoned for duty as a layer of protection against unwelcome advances… “It wasn’t a secret to the inner circle,” said Kathy DeClesis, Bob Weinstein’s assistant in the early 1990s. She supervised a young woman who left the company abruptly after an encounter with Harvey Weinstein and who later received a settlement, according to several former employees.

One of the women accusing Weinstein of this kind of harassment is actress Ashley Judd. In 1997 while working on a film, Judd was summoned to Weinstein’s hotel room for breakfast:

When Mr. Weinstein invited Ms. Judd to breakfast in Beverly Hills, she had been shooting the thriller “Kiss the Girls” all night, but the meeting seemed too important to miss. After arriving at the hotel lobby, she was surprised to learn that they would be talking in his suite; she decided to order cereal, she said, so the food would come quickly and she could leave. Mr. Weinstein soon issued invitation after invitation, she said. Could he give her a massage? When she refused, he suggested a shoulder rub. She rejected that too, she recalled. He steered her toward a closet, asking her to help pick out his clothing for the day, and then toward the bathroom. Would she watch him take a shower? she remembered him saying. “I said no, a lot of ways, a lot of times, and he always came back at me with some new ask,” Ms. Judd said. “It was all this bargaining, this coercive bargaining.” To get out of the room, she said, she quipped that if Mr. Weinstein wanted to touch her, she would first have to win an Oscar in one of his movies.

Weinstein also reached a settlement with actress Rose McGowan in 1997. But the accusations continue up until at least 2015. That’s when a former Miss Italy finalist named Ambra Battilana reported to police that Weinstein had groped her and put his hand up her skirt during a business meeting at his office. The case was investigated by the Special Victims Unit of the NYPD but the DA declined to press charges against Weinstein. Despite that, the NY Times reports Weinstein made a settlement of some kind with Battilana.

What’s stunning here is not that a Hollywood producer is a casting-couch creep. Hollywood has been producing those for as long as it has been profiting off beautiful young starlets. What’s striking is that Weinstein could travel in the most elevated social circles and be treated as a progressive political champion while carrying on like this for decades. Here’s Weinstein in February writing about the need to defend progressive causes including, ironically, women’s rights:

The way transgender children were treated this week is an act of pure malice that’s beyond compare. We need to Defend them and the LGBT community. We need to Defend Planned Parenthood and women’s rights. We must Defend against racial crimes and anti-Semitism. We must Defend ourselves against those that would divide us. But no matter how we win, the Defenders need to do it in the Red States and prove our point by being there.

In 2012, Weinstein hosted a star-studded fundraiser for President Obama at which he once again spoke of the fight for women’s rights. From the pool report published by the Hollywood Reporter:

As we entered the room, Harvey Weinstein was speaking, introducing the president, who was standing beside him. “Leading with your heart is the utmost for this president. Fighting for Planned Parenthood and protecting women’s rights, this president has fought the good fight,” Mr. Weinstein said. “Recently in Aurora, we saw him put his arms around the people that needed him the most.” He added, “You can make the case that a he’s the Paul Newman of American presidents.”

Weinstein’s penchant for outspoken progressive activism has led to plenty of praise for his excellent qualities as a person. Just a few months ago Weinstein, along with Jay Z, received the inaugural “truthteller” award from LA Press Club:

“In our troubled times, we could not find two finer examples of integrity and social responsibility than Jay Z and Harvey Weinstein,” said Los Angeles Press Club president and NBC4 anchor Robert Kovacik in a statement.

Integrity. Social responsibility. Sexual harassment. One of these things is not like the others. And yet, it doesn’t seem to have crimped Weinstein’s style at all. At least not until now.

Weinstein has released a very brief statement saying he’s “caused a lot of pain” and adding that he’ll be taking a leave of absence to work on his issues. That’s a great option for a wealthy Hollywood mogul who appears to have paid off potential accusers with settlements over the years. He’ll just slink off to some resort while his team of PR gurus prepares for his return. Naturally, Weinstein’s crisis PR advice is being handled by people best known for their work in Democratic politics. From Buzzfeed:

Anita Dunn, a top Obama campaign staffer and former White House communications director, helped offer damage control advice for the Hollywood mogul… Sources said that Lanny Davis, former special counsel to Bill Clinton, has been central to the PR effort for Weinstein, who is a major Democratic donor. Dunn, for her part, is the managing director of SKDKnickerbocker, a Washington public affairs firm with deep ties to Democratic politics. She was communications director for Obama’s 2008 campaign and served briefly in his administration.

The bottom line here is that Weinstein won’t be crossed off Hollywood’s progressive power list over decades of (alleged) sexual harassment. The people who are still rooting for Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Joss Whedon and of course, Bill Clinton are not about to have a problem with this. Frankly, the bar is already so low for progressives in Hollywood that Weinstein will be back in action before you know it. If credible accounts of rape aren’t enough to take the sheen off someone’s character in tinsel town, a naked mogul pressing young women (who depend on him for employment) for “massages” sure isn’t going to do it. We’ve known for a long time now that Hollywood has two standards, the one it uses to attack conservative hypocrites and the one it uses to ignore the progressive ones.


Meta

On the Road Again – August, 2017

Greetings and salutations, gentle readers! I know it’s been months since TCT posted; we’re just about to undertake our next travel adventure. We’ll be starting in a very familiar place and, after that, visiting some amazing places we’ve never been before. Added to which, we’ll be traveling like we’ve never done before.

Just about 24 hours from now, we’ll be arriving at JFK for an overnight flight to London, via British Airways. Once we’ve checked in, we’ll have the very good fortune to dine at the airport, courtesy of BA’s Concorde Room.

Entrance to the Concorde Room, JFK

Here’s a sample menu from the Concorde Room:

Then it’s off to the gate to board our 747 chariot which will transport us across the pond:

Because we’ll have already eaten, we’ll just climb under the covers and grab some zzzzzs.

Fortunately, we’ll get some “fuel” before landing at LHR:

One of our favorite ways to travel from LHR into Central London is to take the Heathrow Express. If you’re able to manage your own luggage, it’s a painless (and very economical) way to get there. And, best of all, it’s 15 minutes from the airport to Paddington Station. And then we’re just a short taxi ride from the station to our hotel.

The Heathrow Express – only 15 minutes from LHR to Central London!

This time, we’re back at the Shangri-La, atop the amazing Shard

The Shangri-La at the Shard is a stone’s throw from London Bridge

Guest rooms at the Shangri-La are spacious and have amazing views

While we’re in London, we’ll have having some new adventures, starting with London theatre. We’ll be checking out the following shows:

Visiting the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see “Sargent: The Watercolours”

Checking out the world-famous Selfridges – the real thing, not the TV series

Having a spot of lunch at Selfridges’ new dining venue, the Roof Deck

After spending the week in beautiful London, we’ll be heading back out to LHR and boarding a flight for Vienna – our 1st visit there.

Vienna: City of My Dreams

So, you may ask, why have we chosen Vienna? Besides the fact that it’s one of the world’s most beautiful cities, with amazing culture and culinary treasures, and an incredible history all its own, it’s the place where we’ll start our next adventure:

Crystal Mozart

Yes, we’re embarking on our first river cruise aboard the year-old Crystal Mozart. Although this boat is wider than just any other river boat (double width, in fact), it’s still a bit small by the standards to which we’ve become accustomed.

Our cabin is a “Penthouse with French Balcony” – actually, there is no balcony.

The Mozart is a 4-deck boat, accommodating about 150 passengers, and carrying about 90 crew. That’s a lot of crew for 150 passengers!

We were on the Mozart in April and just loved it. We’ve sailed on Crystal Symphony & Serenity and were also worried about the smaller size f the ship but it’s a totally different experience and we didn’t miss the extra space at all. The food is truly good on the Mozart – much better than the ocean ships which is really saying something – so much so that we wish we hadn’t dined at the Michelin included restaurant in Budapest and stayed on board! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Also just wondering after your experience on SB how it compared to Crystal?

Hey – Thanks for your very thorough comments! I’m encouraged by your excellent review of Mozart. I’ll keep you posted – we board her next Saturday for 11 days. Sounds like we may have a similar itinerary. Our “Michelin” experience will be at Ciel in Vienna. Although we love Crystal (and have been very loyal to the line for the past 12 years), its failure to deliver a new ship has caused us to look around at other options. Although we mostly prefer crossings, our Seabourn adventure on the brand new Encore was a very different cruise experience for us – Dubai to Athens over 19 days. The ship was beautiful, the service excellent and the food was outstanding. While onboard, we made a deposit on some future Seabourn cruise, to be determined at a later date. While nothing can replace Crystal at its best, it’s nice to try other sailing experiences once in awhile. Thanks again for your interest in TheCulturedTraveler


Jeffrey Skitch

Jeffrey Ralph Skitch (16 September 1927 – 7 March 2013) was an actor, operatic baritone and teacher best known for his performances and recordings with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1952 to 1965.

Born in Australia, Skitch moved with his mother to England when he was two years old.  He served in the RAF during World War II and began acting by 1949.  After his career with D'Oyly Carte, he turned to teaching, and from 1981 to 1995 he was the Principal of Elmhurst Ballet School.

Early life and career
Skitch was born in Millicent, South Australia, the son of Ralph Aubrey Skitch (1896–1959), a land agent, and Magda Katie Helena Herman Skitch (1897–1959), who met in London during the First World War.  The couple married in Australia in about 1920.  In 1929, Skitch and his older brother Robert Ernest Skitch (1923–1999) travelled with their mother on a visit to London and did not return to Australia. His parents divorced, and his father remained in Australia, later remarrying.  Skitch was educated in England.  After National Service with the Royal Air Force during World War II and for two years thereafter, he trained as an actor and singer at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and The Old Vic Theatre School.

Skitch first performed professionally in London in 1949, in She Stoops to Conquer, as an extra at the Arts Theatre.  That autumn, he served at the Arts Theatre as an assistant stage manager and actor in the play The Romantic Young Lady.  He appeared in Idomeneo with the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1951.

He joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for the 1952–53 season.  His first roles with the company were Luiz in The Gondoliers and the small role of Second Yeoman in The Yeomen of the Guard.  When Alan Styler temporarily left D'Oyly Carte later that year, Skitch began to share the larger role of Giuseppe in The Gondoliers and added to his repertory the roles of Archibald Grosvenor in Patience, Strephon in Iolanthe and Pish-Tush in The Mikado. The next season, Skitch added the role of Captain Corcoran in HMS Pinafore, the role for which he is perhaps best remembered (his Grosvenor – his favourite role – and his Pish Tush were also particularly admired), and also briefly appeared as Samuel in The Pirates of Penzance.  During this period, he dropped the role of Strephon and switched back to Luiz in The Gondoliers.  In 1954, he took over the role of Florian in Princess Ida and, in addition to his other roles, occasionally played Strephon. Except for a break from the company in the second half of 1957, Skitch played most of these roles until 1965, also sometimes playing the Counsel for the Plaintiff or the Learned Judge in Trial by Jury.  The company toured extensively in Britain and also toured the US during these years.

Skitch recorded several roles with D'Oyly Carte on the Decca label, including Doctor Daly in The Sorcerer (1953), Florian in Princess Ida (1955, 1965), Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore (1960) and Luiz in The Gondoliers (1961). He also participated in several radio broadcasts with the company during his tenure. In 1975, during the company's centennial season, Skitch was invited to participate in the final performance of Trial by Jury, in which the regular D'Oyly Carte chorus was augmented by fourteen former stars of the company.

Family, teaching career and later years
While touring with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in Los Angeles, Skitch met an American singer, Stella Maria Hawley, and the two married in the Actors' Church in New York City.  Skitch returned to London with his bride, and the couple had two sons, Robert and Phillip, respectively a schoolmaster and a hotel manager.

During his years with D'Oyly Carte, Skitch studied law. After leaving the company, he obtained a BSc in Biological Science from London University and subsequently became a teacher, working at Oakham School in Rutland before moving on to Malvern College as head of the Biology Department. In 1981 he became the Principal of Elmhurst Ballet School, with his wife as vice-principal. His ex-D'Oyly Carte colleagues found this amusing, as they considered that dancing had not been his strong suit. They bought a weekend home in Lymington in Hampshire, where they enjoyed sailing their yacht Pinafore. On his retirement in 1995, Skitch and his wife moved to Lymington, where he served as a director of a property management company called "South Grove Maintenance (Lymington) Limited".

Skitch died in Southampton at age 85.

References

External links

Jeffrey Skitch on Broadwayworld.com
Skitch at Allmusic
Photo of Skitch as the Learned Judge, 1964
Postcard images, including three of Skitch
Postcard images, including two of Skitch

Category:1927 births
Category:2013 deaths
Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
Category:Alumni of the University of London
Category:Australian opera singers
Category:Australian operatic baritones
Category:Australian expatriates in the United Kingdom
Category:Royal Air Force personnel of World War II
Category:Heads of schools in England
Category:20th-century Australian musicians
Category:People from Millicent, South Australia
Category:20th-century male musicians


Raffles Hotel

Raffles Hotel is a colonial-style luxury hotel in Singapore. It was established by Armenian hoteliers, the Sarkies Brothers, in 1887. The hotel was named after British statesman Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the British coloniser of Singapore. It is the flagship property of Raffles Hotels & Resorts, and is managed by AccorHotels after Accor acquired FRHI Hotels & Resorts. The hotel is owned by Qatar-based, government-owned Katara Hospitality. The hotel commenced Phase 3 of a three-phase restoration programme on 13 December 2017. The Raffles Hotel reopened in August 2019 following the completion of the renovation.

History
Raffles Hotel Singapore started as a privately owned beach house built in the early 1830s. It first became Emerson's Hotel when Dr. Charles Emerson leased the building in 1878. Upon his death in 1883, the hotel closed, and the Raffles Institution stepped in to use the building as a boarding house until Dr. Emerson's lease expired in September 1887.

Almost immediately after the first lease expired, the Sarkies Brothers leased the property from Syed Mohamed Alsagoff, its owner, with the intention of turning it into a high-end hotel. A few months later, on December 1, 1887, the ten-room Raffles Hotel opened. Its proximity to the beach and its reputation for high standards in services and accommodations made the hotel popular with wealthy clientele.

Within the hotel's first decade, three new buildings were added on to the original beach house. First, a pair of two-story wings were completed in 1890, each containing 22 guest suites. Soon afterward, the Sarkies Brothers leased a neighboring building at No. 3 Beach Road, renovated it, and in 1894, the Palm Court Wing was completed. The new additions brought the hotel's total guest rooms to 75.

A few years later, a new main building was constructed on the site of the original beach house. Designed by architect Regent Alfred John Bidwell of Swan and Maclaren, it was completed in 1899. The new main building offered numerous state-of-the-art (for the time) features, including powered ceiling fans and electric lights. In fact, the Raffles Hotel was the first hotel in the region to have electric lights.

The hotel continued to expand over the years with the addition of wings, a veranda, a ballroom, a bar, a billiards room, as well as other buildings and rooms. The Great Depression spelled trouble for Raffles Hotel and, in 1931, the Sarkies Brothers declared bankruptcy. In 1933, the financial troubles were resolved, and a public company called Raffles Hotel Ltd. was established.

Upon the start of the Japanese occupation of Singapore on February 15, 1942, it is said that the Japanese soldiers encountered the guests in Raffles Hotel dancing one final waltz. Meanwhile, staff buried the hotel silver—including the silver beef trolley—in the Palm Court. During World War II, Raffles Hotel was renamed , incorporating Syonan ("Light of the South"), the Japanese name for occupied Singapore, and ryokan, the name for a traditional Japanese inn. The hotel was reclaimed in 1945 during Operation Tiderace by the British Navy. Stanley Redington raised the British Naval Jack on top of the Raffles Hotel.

In 1987, a century after it first opened, Austrian writer and researcher Andreas Augustin discovered the long lost original drawings of Raffles Hotel, hidden in a Singaporean archive. That year these drawings were published for the first time in the book The Raffles Treasury. The Raffles Hotel was declared a National Monument by the Singapore government in 1987.

In 1989, the hotel closed to undergo an extensive renovation that lasted two years and cost $160 million. The hotel reopened on September 16, 1991. While the hotel was restored to the grand style of its 1915 heyday, significant changes were made. All guest rooms were converted to suites. In addition, Long Bar, which was a favorite spot of celebrities such as Somerset Maugham, was relocated from the lobby to a new adjoining shopping arcade. Long Bar is also where the national cocktail, the Singapore Sling was invented by bartender Ngiam Tong Boon.

On July 18, 2005, it was announced that Colony Capital LLC would purchase Raffles Holdings the entire chain of Raffles Hotels, which included the Raffles Hotel, for $1.45 billion.

In April 2010, it was reported that a Qatari sovereign wealth fund bought Raffles Hotel for $275 million. In addition to taking over the Raffles Hotel, the Qatar Investment Authority would inject $467 million into Fairmont Raffles Hotels International in exchange for a 40% stake in the luxury hotel chain.

At one time, the Raffles Hotel maintained a hotel museum. It displayed memorabilia such as photographs, silver and china items, postcards, and menus, as well as old and rare editions of the works of the famous writers who stayed there. The museum also displayed photographs of its famous guests and visitors. The Raffles Hotel Museum closed in 2012. In December 2015, the Fairmont/Raffles brands were purchased by the French multinational hotel group AccorHotels.

A major renovation of the hotel was undertaken starting January 2017, and the hotel closed in December 2017 allow renovation work to proceed. The rooms were refurbished and soundproofed, and the number of suites increased from 103 to 115.   New technology were incorporated  and a new marble floor was installed. Its various food and beverage outlets were revamped, and the  Writer's Bar formerly in a corner of the lobby given its own space. its former Jubilee Theatre was transformed into a ballroom.  The hotel reopened on 1 August 2019.

Arcade
Raffles Hotel has a shopping arcade with 40 specialty boutiques.  The arcade also houses most of the hotel's restaurants.

In popular culture
Raffles is the setting for Ryū Murakami's novel and its film adaptation titled Raffles Hotel.  The film was shot on location.
The hotel was featured as a Japanese stronghold in Medal of Honor: Rising Sun.
Raffles Hotel was the subject of Paul O'Grady's Orient for Carlton Television.
Raffles Hotel featured in episodes of the BBC/ABC co-production Tenko, with the majority of series 3 taking place in the hotel.
The hotel won Best Heritage Hotel awards by Tripzilla magazine in 2017

See also
Stamford House, formerly leased as an annex for Raffles Hotel.
Eastern & Oriental Hotel and Strand Hotel, other prominent hotels established by the Sarkies Brothers.

References

Further reading

 Andreas Augustin, The Raffles Treasury, Secrets of a Grand Old Lady. Treasury Publishing (1987).
 Andreas Augustin, Raffles, The Most Famous Hotels in the World. London/Singapore/Vienna, (1986)
 Chefs of Raffles Hotel, The Raffles Hotel Cookbook. Butterworth-Heinemann (2003).
 Fables From the Raffles Hotel Arcade. Angsana Books (1995).
 Raymond Flower, The Year of the Tiger. Singapore (1986).
 Gretchen Liu, Raffles Hotel style. Raffles Hotel (1997).
 Ralph Modder, Romancing the Raffles: A Collection of Short Stories. SNP Editions (2000).
 Ryu Murakami (Author), Corinne Atlan (trans.), Raffles Hotel. Picquier (2002).

 Maurizio Peleggi, "The Social and Material Life of Colonial Hotels: Comfort Zones as Contact Zones in British Colombo and Singapore, ca. 1870–1930." Journal of Social History 46.1 (2012): 125–153
 Ilsa Sharp, There Is Only One Raffles: The Story of a Grand Hotel. Ulverscroft Large Print (1991).

 Nadia Wright, Respected Citizens: The History of Armenians in Singapore and Malaysia. Amassia Publishing (2003), pp. 114–132.

External links

 Raffles Hotel timeline

Category:Hotel buildings completed in 1899
Category:Downtown Core (Singapore)
Category:Hotels in Singapore
Category:Tourist attractions in Singapore
Category:National monuments of Singapore
Category:Museums in Singapore
Category:Hotels established in 1887
Category:Raffles Hotels & Resorts
Category:1887 establishments in British Malaya


Welcome to Insider Out Travel, a blog about LGBT travel written by LGBT tourism professionals. Travel the globe and gain insight into the tourism industry (with a gay twist), brought to you by the International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association.

Enjoy!

Friday, August 21, 2009

First Time in London – Part Two: Getting Acquainted

The beginning of the trip was the quintessential travel beginning - one you hope for whenever you travel. After the first 24 hours I began to get into the groove of the city and it started to become a part of me as most vibrant cities do. My friends were coming in Thursday for the festivities, so I had a few days to explore by myself and see what was out there. I allowed myself to be a tad more touristy than I usually allow to go sightseeing and whatnot.

I am a huge fan of modern art, so the first stop on my list was the Tate Modern. A very interesting architectural building on the Thames, I was almost giddy walking into the incredibly dramatic building. The exhibits were great - some better than others - but a couple really stuck with me. There was a room full of Soviet propaganda posters that created an image of Lenin and Stalin as gods. It was alluring - some of the best political propaganda. Then there was an instalment of different artists depicting the escape of a Japanese anime star from her animated world and corporate creators. Very cool.

The day I did all this was absolutely beautiful. The weather was warm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. I equally wanted to lie in a square and people watch and explore every inch of London. I walked tons that day. I do this thing involuntarily where I sing showtunes if I am in a place a musical takes place. (I know, how gay is that? I annoyed my boyfriend-at-the-time living in Paris and belting out Les Mis always.) So I found myself in front of St. Paul's singing "Feed the Birds" from Mary Poppins and then walking down Fleet Street looking for the demon barber and loving Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Naturally this type of behavior puts me into a great mood and I stumbled into a Chipotle-like place and had a lovely burrito.

When I could walk no more and my peeps back home were waking up I went back to the hotel to do some work. I had a friend of mine then meet me and show me some more of London (he lives in NY but travels to London often.) We walked all over Soho and my were the boys out even though it was a weekday afternoon. We actually were walking and I heard somebody yell my name - so I turn around to see a coworker of mine and a colleague! It's a crazy small world so we had a drink with them and chatted.

The evenings those first few nights were incredibly fun. Bar hopping to G-A-Y, Ku and other bars I can't remember their names. I never felt more American - from "Hi" I got that look and then the inevitable, "Oh! You're American!" Smiling and saying yes would then open up endless dialogue from how great New York and Miami are to our lack of universal healthcare and gay marriage.

I will use this opportunity to describe the type of people I came into contact with at these instances. I have heard many stereotypes about British people and I have to say - like all stereotypes - you can see where they came from but obviously barely fit across the board. Londoners that I met were incredibly social, great conversationalists and you could feel their thirst for life that the city oozes. At the same time nothing is sugar coated and debates seem to be friendly ways to engage each other. Being an honorary New Yorker, I loved this. It added to the life of the city and I felt myself enjoying everybody I was meeting. I must say I've met a few Londoners in my travels and was less than impressed, but those few bad apples - it was nice to see - were not the norm.

So I spent the week working, exploring the city and letting it become a part of me. It was fantastic. I was ready for Tommy and Trenard to come and show them what I've learned and get ready for pride. The weekend hadn't even started yet...