A woman has revealed how her brother and new sister-in-law created a wedding cake for just $50 (£40) by using cheap Costco sheet cakes.

Jessica Hoyle-King, 41, from Texas, took to Instagram to post the picture of the finished product - a beautiful cake, which had four different tiers, cream cheese frosting and a series of beautiful flowers on it.

She revealed that the couple, Jeremy and Gosia Hoyle, bought two $18.99 (£14.96) of the cakes from the chain supermarket and then resized them, added extra frosting and then some leftover flowers to decorate it.

She posted the picture of the cake on Instagram, which got thousands of likes and people applauding the imagination behind the creation.

Jessica Hoyle-King, from Texas, took to Instagram to reveal the incredible wedding cake her brother and sister-in-law made for just $50 using sheet cakes from Costco

Jeremy and Gosia Hoyle ordered two $18.99 sheet cakes from chain store Costco and then resized them, stacked them up, added extra icing and some flowers to decorate the creation

The couple had some help from Gosia's brother, Jamie Warley, who is actually a pastry chef based at a hotel restaurant in London, but the steps they followed to make the cake are easily repeatable - as Jessica revealed in her Instagram post.

How it was created Two Costco sheet cakes - $18.99 (£14.96) x 2 - £37.98 (£29.92) Flowers - $10 (7.88) Icing - $2 (£1.58) Total: $49.98 ( £39.37) Advertisement

'It is no secret my bother is frugal...but this wedding took frugality to a whole new level,' she wrote.

'I was able to talk my brother into just “getting Costco cakes and throw some real flowers on it”.

'They ordered two of the $18.99 sheet cakes with cream cheese filling and picked up on the way to the venue before the rehearsal dinner.

'With the help of Gosia’s brother-in-law, (who happens to be a chef in England), the cakes were cut into tiered squares, stacked, re-iced, and arranged a few of the real flowers from the piles of flowers used for decorating (about $10 worth).

'All displayed on a rustic looking cake stand made with supplies from Hobby Lobby.'

The newlywed couple did their entire wedding reception on a tight budget, and relied on some clever DIY hacks in order to save money, without sacrificing things that they wanted

She posted the picture of the cake on Instagram, as well as other photos from the budget wedding, with commenters going wild for the amazing DIY reception

She explained to the Today show that the creation took 'a little over an hour' to create, with the bride's chef brother Jamie taking the time to pipe elegant frosting designs around each layer of the finished design before adding the flowers.

Jessica's followers couldn't believe how savvy the couple had been and applauded how the cake looked: 'Wow!! This is a brilliant idea and beautiful!' one said.

Jessica, who specializes in DIY decor and design, shared details about the cake creation on her Instagram page

While another commented: 'Wow !!!! Amazing!!! This is soo smart.'

Another person said of the rest of the budget reception: 'Gorgeous. I just can’t believe they got something for $10 at Trader Joe’s.'

Others loved the decoration: 'That cake is absolutely beautiful! Your decorations are fabulous!! Congratulations to the lucky couple!'

Jessica added that her how family loved to save money: 'My brother and my whole family are very hands on DIY and save money wherever we can.

'Jeremy and Gosia love to travel (they met while touring Chernobyl!) and wanted to save for their honeymoon (they ended up honeymooning in Rome!) and not spend too much on a wedding. Their flower budget was zero.'

She also revealed that before they were intending on making cupcakes before the Costco idea: 'Their cake budget was “let’s make cupcakes and freeze for the wedding.'


What’s the Deal? This week’s best travel bargains around the globe

▪ Triumph Hotels, a collection of seven hotels throughout New York City, is celebrating its second anniversary with up to 35 percent off rates. Book one or two nights and receive 30 percent off; reserve three nights or more and take 35 percent off. For example, the Iroquois in midtown starts at $210 a night (30 percent off) and $194 (34 percent), respectively, down from $301. Hotel Edison in Times Square starts at $159 and $148 (vs. $227). Taxes included. Stay Feb. 12-Dec. 30. The 24-hour sale went live Feb 11. Blackout dates apply. Info: 855-787-4867, triumphhotels.com.

▪ Lindblad Expeditions is offering free round-trip airfare or air credits on several itineraries in Costa Rica, Panama, Europe, the Arctic, Alaska and Antarctica. For example, on the 14-day Journey to Antarctica: The White Continent cruise, fly for free from Miami to Buenos Aires or Santiago, Chile. Cruise starts at $13,360 per person double, including taxes. Select departures in November and December, plus 2017 dates. The 15-day French Atlantic Coast to the Isles of England & Wales, which departs May 29, starts at $13,580 per person double and includes a $1,500 air credit, onboard alcohol and gratuities, and a three-day land extension in Bordeaux and St.-Emilion, France. Land portion includes accommodations, some meals, guided activities, entrance fees, transportation and transfers. Book by March 31. Info: 800-397-3348, expeditions.com.

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▪ Book a select sailing with Azamara Club Cruises by Feb. 29 and receive a package of extras worth $1,000 per stateroom. The More to Love deal includes unlimited WiFi (one device at a time), a $400 credit for shore excursions, a premium beverage package for two, and a bottle of wine and a cheese platter. The company has also discounted upgraded packages. For example, the Adore Package is now $600 and includes unlimited WiFi for two devices, a $600 credit for shore excursions, a top-shelf beverage package, a bag of laundry, a $300 spa credit and a chef’s table for two - a savings of $1,400. The promo applies to 27 voyages in 2016 and 2017, with itineraries in Europe, Asia, Australia, North America and the Caribbean. Prices start at $1,899 per person double, plus $137 taxes, for an eight-night cruise departing Miami on Dec. 19. Info: 877-999-9553, azamaraclubcruises.com.

▪ WOW Air, Iceland’s low-cost carrier, is launching service from BWI Marshall to Stockholm, with one-way fares from $149. Round-trip fares start at $414, including taxes. Flights connect through Reykjavik. Fly Sundays, May 22-June 26 and Sept. 4-25. Other airlines are charging more than $800. Info: wowair.us.

▪ Save an extra $100 on an already discounted London with Highclere Castle (”Downton Abbey”) tour. The Gate 1 Travel tour, which departs March 29, now starts at $1,599 per person double and includes round-trip airfare from Washington Dulles to London; four nights at Millennium Bailey’s Hotel London Kensington; a half-day tour of London’s West End; a full-day tour of Oxford and Highclere Castle, setting of the PBS drama; daily breakfasts; airport transfers; and taxes. Use promo code WPDA100 for the $100 discount. Priced separately, the tour costs an additional $215. Book by Feb. 21. Info: 800-682-3333, gate1travel.com.


Today's Hottest Travel Deals from Bestfares.com!

 FLY TO ENGLAND FROM $438 RT JUNE 17 THROUGH OCT. 11, '01--WOW!

Can you believe our super sale fares to Europe for peak travel to England can
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QUADRUPLE MILES, FREE STOPOVER IN LONDON, BIG SPRING & SUMMER EUROPEAN
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TAKE OFF TO CANADA AT BELOW WHOLESALE FARES THROUGH JUNE 14, 2001

Even through we are super-proud of our special reduced airfares to Europe,
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FINAL 8 DAYS: COAST-TO-COAST BETWEEN 58 U.S. CITIES $174 RT THROUGH SEPT. 10,
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This summer, if you want to fly from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale or San Diego
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HOTEL RESERVATIONS NETWORK

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CHILDREN (AGES 2-17) FLY TO SYDNEY OR AUCKLAND FROM $99 RT

This summer, if you have travel plans for either Auckland or Sydney with
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CARIBBEAN SALE FARES FROM $328 THROUGH SEPT. 30, '01

It doesn't get much better than our warm and sunny, relaxing and restful
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BESTFARES.COM IS NOMINATED FOR THE 2001 WEBBY AWARD

We are most honored by our nomination by The International Academy of Digital
Arts and Sciences for a 2001 Webby Award for our new, improved site. Hailed
as the "Oscars of the Internet," The Webby Awards are an eminent honor for
Internet sites. The 5th annual Webby Awards will take place on Wednesday,
July 18 in San Francisco. Two honors are presented in each category: The
Webby Award and The People's Voice Award. Judges from The International
Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences select the nominees for both awards, and
the winners of The Webby Awards. The online community determines the winners
of The People's Voice Awards. Show your support by visiting
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for us. Register with your email address and you will receive a password in
your email almost immediately. People's Voice Awards voting runs through July
4.

THIS WEEKEND'S ONLINE TRAVEL DEALS AT A GLANCE

We love to save you money but we like to save you time too. Some travelers
spend hours looking for the best prices for last-minute weekend travel
getaways. Bestfares.com travelers can get the job done in minutes. Every
Wednesday, we compile current Internet specials into easy-to-use online
summaries. We cover domestic and international airfares, hotels and car
rental discounts, giving you comprehensive coverage for one-stop shopping.
Spot the deal that suits you best and get a jump on other travelers who will
be vying for the same seats, rooms and cars.

For This Week's Major Airline Internet Discounts,
http://www.bestfares.com/travel/desks/story.asp?id=20641

For This Week's Car Rental Internet Discounts,
http://www.bestfares.com/travel/desks/story.asp?id=20640

For This Week's U.S. & Canada Hotel Internet Discounts,
http://www.bestfares.com/travel/desks/story.asp?id=20639

For This Week's International Hotel Internet Discounts,
http://www.bestfares.com/travel/desks/story.asp?id=20638

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In the tiny arctic village of Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, dusk lasts most of the day at this time of year. Against the dramatic and ever-evolving pink and purple sky sits a structure that looks like a cross between a sleek nightclub and an igloo from outer space: Lapland's storied IceHotel, the world's largest and longest-running luxury hotel made entirely of frozen water.

How do you build a hotel out of ice—and make it luxurious, to boot? Mental Floss's Jessanne Collins explains exactly how the IceHotel was born, step by frozen step.

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A sprawling single-story structure built annually on the pristine banks of the frozen Torne River, the IceHotel is in its 23rd incarnation. In the late '80s, Yngve Bergqvist, who led white-water rafting trips on the Torne during the long arctic summers, invited some ice sculptors to create a winter river attraction. The result was an ice art gallery-a small igloo on the frozen river in which art work could be displayed. After a couple of years, an adventurous group asked if they could spend the night in the igloo. Afterward, they raved so much about the experience that Bergqvist decided to build a proper hotel. The first IceHotel was erected in the winter of 1989-1990. These days, it attracts 60,000 guests who want to spend a night in one of its 65 rooms. Of these, 15 are one-of-a-kind "art suites"-among this year's are a UFO-themed room and a fairytale forest-designed and sculpted by visiting artists from all over the world.

Staying in the hotel is kind of like camping out in a meat locker. The inside temperature is a constant 23 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the bedframes are carved ice-but a mattress, a reindeer pelt, and a sleeping bag make sleeping quite cozy. In the lobby's Ice Bar, patrons huddle in heavy parkas, thick mittens, and snow pants. With the exception of a few cushions, every surface is gleaming ice-including the glasses in which the cocktails are served.

The hotel betrays a minimalist aesthetic that's a hallmark of Scandinavian design. And the frozen architecture lends a serene quality even when the lobby is crawling with tourists. But when I visited on an impossibly clear and cold week this winter, the most remarkable thing about the place was going on behind the scenes: Amid the hustle and bustle, the IceHotel team was already quietly at work on the assiduous process of building next year's hotel. It takes 1000 tons of crystal-clear ice cut straight from the river and 30,000 cubic meters of a pasty-white man-made mix of snow and ice that's called, cutely, "snice," to build the hotel each year. In a few months, everything from the king-size bedframes to the benches in the bar would be reduced to puddles-or, more precisely–reabsorbed into the river.

The Big Freeze

Building the ice hotel isn't so much an annual process as a never-ending one. But if you had to specify a starting point for the endeavor it would be sometime in November, when the river freezes over. That's when the production team, led by production manager Alf Kero, sections out a 14,000 square foot swath of ice with red plastic rods typically used to mark snow-covered roads. All winter long, Kero and his team will cultivate and monitor this patch-which will eventually become the raw material for the next year's hotel.

An average of two meters of snow blankets the village over the winter, but workers plow this special patch of river with a front-end loader to keep it clear of precipitation. This ensures that the ice grows downward, into the still waters of the river below, rather than hardening upward. The result is ice that is crystal-clear, free from bubbles and cracks, and it's this naturally formed glass-like ice that the hotel has made its trademark.

In December, during the weeks that the sun doesn't come above the horizon, the entire river, which reaches depths of more than 60 feet, is frozen solid. Because of all that ice, the temperature in Jukkasjärvi can be 10 to 20 degrees colder than the nearby mining city of Kiruna, just 11 miles to the east. But by February, as the days are beginning to lengthen, the river is slowly beginning to thaw from its bed up. This is when the team begins to gear up to harvest the ice for the next year's hotel, carefully monitoring its thickness. When it's around three feet thick, usually in early March, it's time for the harvest to begin.

Building Blocks

The ice patch is gridded out into squares that measure roughly 20 square feet, and then the team slices the ice using a vertical saw mounted on a front-end loader, specially designed for the task by the team with the help of a local construction firm. Each cube, weighing nearly two tons, is lifted out of the river with a forklift. "The river flow is quite gentle in the area where we pick up the ice blocks," Kero tells me, "but the ice can be slippery and at times it can be very windy so it is important to wear suitable safety equipment and ensure that the staff is trained and working in teams, never alone." Altogether, the team harvests 5000 tons of ice this way.

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Once a block is out of the river, the crusty top layer is sawed off, and then the blocks are sorted by clarity. The clearest of them are designated for use in the hotel rooms and to manufacture glasses-for the hotel's bar and three more Ice Bars the IceHotel runs, in Stockholm, Oslo, and London. During the summer, while the temperature outside reaches the 60s and the sun stays up all night, the giant blocks sit in two giant sub-freezing warehouses.

You can still visit the IceHotel in the summer-right now, the production team is busy building an IceBar and sample rooms that are open inside the hotel's hangar-like art center each year. Once that's done and the ice harvest has been completed, the team turns its attention to the planning of next fall's hotel. "The first steps are a number of creative brainstorming meetings, where we set out the plans for the architecture and art," says Sofi Routsalainen, a member of the Art and Design group, which oversees the production of the hotel. Over the summer, they'll carefully choose the 40 artists who will create next year's art suites from 200 applicants.

Winter Is Coming

As winter begins to descend, it's time to get ready to start construction on the new hotel. It takes a team of about 100 people-including builders, artists, lighting engineers, snice casters, tractor drivers, and the art and design group-to build the structure. In October, as the river begins to freeze, the production team prepares the grounds and wall moulds and makes sure electricity and sewage are in order, while they wait for the temperature to drop. A support wall is erected out of steel vaults.

Paulina Holmgren

When the ground freezes and there's been a week of temperatures below 19 degrees Fahrenheit, it's time to start spreading snice for the hotel floor. Snice acts like a paste and looks like the crust that builds up in a malfunctioning freezer. It's made by pumping water from the river and blowing it through "snow cannons," which results in tiny ice particles mixed with air. The substance is structurally stronger and more resistant to the sun than sheer ice, and has the insulating qualities of snow. A hotel built of pure ice would be much colder inside, and would melt quicker in the spring.

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To construct each corridor of the hotel, a row of arch-shaped steel vaults are erected, and then sprayed with snice and left to set for a few days. Once they've frozen, the vaults are lowered onto skis and pulled out with a tractor. Internal walls are built using the same process. Once the corridor is divided into a number of rooms, doors are cut using a chain saw, and the LED lights are installed. (There's no plumbing-if hotel guests have to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, they must venture to an attached warm building. Ask me about this some other time!) When the rooms are completed, the team stocks some of them with extra ice blocks-these will become the art suites.

Paulina Holmgren

For more than two weeks each November, the visiting artists chosen to create the year's art suites work in the freezing rooms, using chisels and chain saws to carve the rooms they have planned. Then in early December, once the reception area, bar, and at least one wing of rooms are ready, the hotel officially opens for business. From then until the structure becomes unsafe to occupy in April, visitors will fill their days with ice sculpting lessons and snowmobile sojourns. They might even attend one of the 150 weddings celebrated each year in the ice chapel. As for the nights: those are spent out on the frozen Torne, watching for the Aurora Borealis-and learning the value of a good down sleeping bag.


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About

Located right next to its namesake station, the Hilton London Paddington Hotel is only 15 minutes from Heathrow Airport via the Heathrow Express train, making guests' door to door commute as stress-free as possible. An art deco hotel that was opened in 1854, the Hilton London Paddington is an ideal base from which to explore London.

Amenities and Services

The hotel offers 364 individually decorated, contemporary guest rooms. Those staying in executive rooms or one of the Hilton London Paddington Hotel's 28 suites will have access to the Executive Lounge, which serves complimentary all-day refreshments and daily breakfast. A well-equipped business center and a range of meeting rooms, along with special rates for group bookings, are ideal for business functions. On-site dining in the celebrated Brasserie restaurant, and the chic atmosphere at the Steam Bar, make it easy for guests to plan their evenings.

Attractions

The Hilton London Paddington Hotel will organize sightseeing tours for guests, ensuring that visitors take full advantage of the hotel’s proximity to historic London. World-famous Hyde Park is a short stroll from the front door, where guests can ride horses, visit the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain, or simply revel in the miles of meticulously maintained pathways. Committed shoppers can walk to Selfridges, the iconic London department store. And West End shops, theaters, and nightlife are all easily accessible by public transit.


Image caption Nadine Dorries was cleared of any expenses wrong-doing

MP Nadine Dorries has said that the blog she writes on her constituency website is "70% fiction and 30% fact".

She was criticised by the MPs' standards watchdog for giving the impression on the site that she spent more time at her Mid-Beds constituency home than she actually did.

Ms Dorries, a Conservative MP since 2005, was cleared of the main charge of misusing her allowances.

She said she had written "fiction" to protect her family and staff.

The MP told BBC Radio 4's PM: "I think I probably meant to say it was 30% fiction."

'Horrific' ordeal

But she said there was "purpose to it", because she had received "unwanted and inappropriate attention" during the investigation into her expenses and the police had advised her that her blog, which mentioned dates and times of her public engagements, was making her a target.

I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another Nadine Dorries Ex-MP Mackay told to apologise

The police had told her "the best thing to do was try to disguise" her movements, she told PM.

She said the 15 month investigation into her expenses had been a "horrific" ordeal, which had seen her front window smashed, eggs thrown at her house and her daughter bullied, and she was relieved to have been cleared and could now "hold my head up high" again.

She told PM she would continue to write her blog, which is one of the most popular at Westminster, adding: "I have been as honest as any MP can be with my constituents".

Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon, earlier rejected a series of complaints made by a BNP spokesman that Ms Dorries lied about where her second home was and made inappropriate claims.

'Bullying'

But she was criticised for comments on her blog which "suggested that she spent the majority of her weekends in the constituency, whilst she had told the Commissioner that nearly all weekends were spent in her main home".

Explaining the discrepancy, she told the watchdog: "My blog is 70% fiction and 30% fact.

"It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire.

"I rely heavily on poetic licence and frequently replace one place name/event/fact with another.

"In the light of the bullying onslaught of the Daily Telegraph (which reported the claims about her expenses) I used my blog to its best effect in reassuring my constituents of my commitment to Mid Beds. My commitment is absolute and is always my first consideration regardless of where I sleep at night.

"However, I have always been aware that should my personal domestic arrangements become the knowledge of my political opponents, they would be able to exaggerate that to good effect. Hence the reason for my blog and my need to reassure my constituents."

She also told Mr Lyon that she had wanted to maintain "some degree of a private life" and that, although she was often in the constituency at weekends, as she had said on her blog, that did not mean she slept there.

'Comfort'

The Commons standards and privileges committee said Mr Lyons accepted her explanation of the blog entries but "notes that they 'provided a misleading impression of her arrangements', as did her comments about her use of the constituency home reported in the newspaper article which was referred to in the original complaint".

In a series of letters to the commissioner, which are included in the report, Ms Dorries explains why she wanted to give the impression that she lived at a house she was renting in her constituency.

She says: "Since I first rented in the constituency, I made a song and dance about being at the property. I have mentioned it on my blog a number of times.

"This was done to comfort my Association. The previous MP only visited the constituency occasionally-sometimes only as often as once every six weeks - and they were keen that I reversed that impression.

"His lack of time in the constituency contributed to his de-selection."

The £18,000 rent on the constituency house was paid using her second home allowance - she said she had considered buying a house with the allowance but it "just didn't feel right".

While attending Parliament in London, she mainly lived at her family home in the Cotswolds, and until December 2006 claimed for overnight stays in a Westminster flat.

After that, she occasionally stayed overnight in a hotel or at the Carlton Club, a central London gentleman's club with traditional links to the Conservative Party, the report reveals.

In January 2007, she changed the location of her second home to the constituency home, where her diary shows she spent 89 nights in 2007/08, compared with 223 at her main home, 10 nights in London and 44 elsewhere.

'Bolthole'

In one of her letters to the watchdog, she describes the constituency home as an "extremely modest" terraced house that was mostly unfurnished or carpeted.

When she was interviewed by a Sunday Telegraph reporter last year she said she transported "boxes of books and ornaments and a couple of pictures to make the place look lived in".

"The Sunday Telegraph journalist saw through this and commented on the sparsity and dustiness of the house and the fact that the post hadn't been picked up from the mat for two weeks.

"I then described it as my 'post divorce bolt hole' even though I wasn't yet divorced in order to give the impression to my constituents that I did in fact live there and to convince the journalist that I did."

A subsequent Daily Telegraph article, which said she spent only spare weekends and holidays away from her constituency home, prompted a complaint from BNP spokesman Michael Barnbrook, who told the Commissioner that in his view she had breached the rules of the Additional Cost Allowance by claiming second home expenses.

Ms Dorries produced detailed extracts from her office diary to prove that she had spent most of her nights at her main home, as the rules demand, and the watchdog also spoke to her constituency neighbours before deciding to reject the complaints.

Ms Dorries' blog is one of the most widely-read and popular blogs at Westminster. Former foreign secretary Jack Straw is among those who have said they are a fan.


Award Winners !

Practical Networks beat high competition to win DELL’s coveted Microsoft Windows Datacenter Partner of the Year award at the prestigious DELL Enterprise Partner Awards 2015 in London recently.

The event was hosted by Technology giant DELL to recognise excellence amongst their UK partners. And the prize makes Practical Networks the top performing Dell partner in the Microsoft datacenter market.

The company’s three directors, Neil Remmer, Lisa Remmer and David Philps were delighted to receive the award at the world famous Savoy Hotel in London.

Director David Philps said “We’ve been a Dell partner since Practical Networks was founded in 2001, supplying and supporting DELL’s full range of servers, storage and enterprise solutions to new and existing clients. Our team is thrilled to be recognised at a national level by one of the top technology vendors in the world and as we’re constantly looking at how we can deliver the best possible solution and service, we’re extremely proud to win. ”

About Dell

Dell empowers countries, communities, customers and people everywhere to use technology to realize their dreams. Customers trust Dell to deliver technology solutions that help them do and achieve more, whether they’re at home, work, school or anywhere in their world. More information about Dell is available at www.dell.co.uk

David and Neil receiving the partner of the year award from Dell, Microsoft and Intel representatives


HotelPlanner.com will be providing CRA fans and teams with the guaranteed lowest rates.

Salem, IN (PRWEB) January 03, 2013

HotelPlanner.com, the leader in the hotel group sales market, is partnering with Champion Racing Association (CRA), the sanctioning body that oversees and promotes professional asphalt stock car racing events. Currently, CRA is the sanctioning body for the ARCA/CRA Super Series, one of the premier touring series for Super Late Models in the country, the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour Presented by Chevrolet Performance, and the top touring Crate Motor Late Model series in the country.

The ARCA/CRA Super Series and the JEGS/CRA All-Stars Tour Presented by Chevrolet Performance will tour throughout the Midwest with selected events in the South in the upcoming year and HotelPlanner.com will be providing the teams and fans with the guaranteed lowest hotel rates for the events. Rates and booking instructions will be posted to craracing.net as event dates approach.

“By working with Hotel Planner, CRA will make traveling and attending our races for race teams and fans easier and more affordable,” said Glenn Luckett, Managing Partner of CRA.

“We are excited about this new partnership with CRA" said Tim Hentschel, CEO of Hotel Planner. Hotel Planner’s rates will increase fan attendance at these races and make time on the road less expensive for the race teams,” said Hentschel.

Last year, the two premier series had over 30 events at 17 different tracks, with over 250 different teams and exceeded 100,000 fans in attendance. The noteworthy events of the Series are the Winchester 400 at Winchester Speedway, the Redbud 300 at Anderson Speedway, The Rowdy 251 at Berlin Raceway and Nashville’s All-American 400 event. They feature one to three day formats, with practice and qualifying and feature events. Two of the events feature NASCAR style pit stops. More information on all the CRA Series is available at http://www.craracing.net.

HotelPlanner.com has a history of bringing the best hotel rates to athletic programs at all levels of competition. The company currently provides group travel services to the National Football League, the Professional Bull Riders, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball League, and the National Hockey League in addition to collegiate teams in all divisions.

HotelPlanner.com was founded in 2002 by Tim Hentschel and John Prince, and has since achieved a global portfolio of 50,000 hotels. The company recently opened its European Headquarters in London, United Kingdom and is rapidly expanding its team of experienced meeting planners globally.


Concierge at The Arch awarded the Golden Keys

Five-star boutique hotel, The Arch London, is celebrating this month as its head concierge has been awarded the Golden Keys.

The award, which recognises the finest hotel concierges in the UK, was given to Theo Dubroy for his hard work and dedication after the past year.

Dubroy has worked at The Arch since November 2009 when the hotel opened and has become the establishment’s resident expert in all things fun, cultural and foodie. He prides himself on knowing the city inside out and recommends to guests activities, restaurants and days out suggestions.

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Dubroy said: ‘I am delighted to have been awarded the Keys; it is the ultimate goal for every concierge. I am very passionate to provide all our guests with the best stay possible and allow them to access the magnificent shows, tours and restaurants that our great city of London has to offer


Who could have predicted what an effect a group of women talking about vaginas would have? Fifteen years ago, Eve Ensler, then a moderately successful New York playwright, opened the play she had been writing for two years, The Vagina Monologues. Drawing on interviews she had done with more than 200 women, the resulting monologues - delivered, over the years, by actors including Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon and Oprah Winfrey - told of women's experiences: sexuality, abuse, love, birth.

But Ensler didn't stop there. Spurred on by the play's success - and by the stories women would spill to her after performances - two years later she created the V-Day movement. Mission: to end violence against women. Now, fund-raising performances of the play are staged all over the world and the movement has raised $85 million to fund women's projects, including an ambitious centre in the Democratic Republic of Congo to support women who have been raped.

Could Ensler have predicted its longevity and influence? "It's all been a wonderful mystery to me," she says with a laugh.

We meet in the busy bar of Ensler's London hotel. Those who meet her always comment on her megawatt charisma - "You don't just hook up with Eve," Glenn Close, who performed in the show, once said, "you become part of her crusade" - but she is less showy, less boisterous than that implies.

For years she had a sleek, dark bob, which made her look part comic-book minx, part warrior in protective headgear, but she lost it after undergoing chemotherapy last year following a diagnosis of uterine cancer. These days her hair is cropped short.

There is something childlike about Ensler, 58. Despite the horror stories she has absorbed from other women's lives - as well as her own struggles - she seems utterly without cynicism. As angry as ever at injustice but not worn down.

Her most recent work, I Am an Emotional Creature, was based on stories from teen girls. When it made its debut two years ago, she launched V-Girls to engage girls and young women. "They don't know what the word 'feminism' means but their desires are feminist - they want to be free, safe, have opportunities and leadership roles," Ensler says. "The trick is to find the language girls speak and support that, rather than say, 'This is an ideology that has gone on for years that you all need to support.' I'm a feminist, I grew up with feminism but I also think there's a way in which we need to shake things up so that we can push it further and in other directions."

With I Am an Emotional Creature, Ensler also noticed how ready men were to engage. She mentioned it to a male friend who told her, "Men have daughters; they feel they can actively be involved because they feel they can do something to change the destiny of their daughters' lives." Now there is a V-Men movement, "a cadre of men around the world who are stepping forward and saying, 'Ending violence against women and girls means something to me.''' "That is really exciting," Ensler says.

"Unless men are active allies, we'll never end violence against women and girls."

This approach won't endear her to radical feminists but then, Ensler has divided feminists already. Germaine Greer, who appeared in a British production of The Vagina Monologues, called it a "much-hyped and fundamentally unchallenging piece of buffoonish American hoop-la". Camille Paglia wrote in one piece that Ensler represented a "painfully outmoded branch of feminism" and described her as a "feverish charlatan and cultist" in another. About Greer, Ensler smiles and says she "felt sad but she has a right to feel what she feels. There is much she has done that I really respect. The older you get, the more you are aware that everybody has a certain way of seeing things, which they have to honour."

Ensler grew up in a wealthy New York suburb. Her father was a food company executive, her mother stayed home. In her 2007 book, Insecure at Last, written partly as a response to the US obsession with "security" after the attacks of September 11, 2001, but also as a memoir, she revealed the ideal to be an illusion. The reality was that her father physically and sexually abused her.

"I could never imagine life past 30 and I came close to making sure I didn't get there," she wrote.

In her early 20s, she was addicted to drugs and alcohol, getting clean when she met and married her husband and adopted his teenage son. In the following years, she worked as an activist for homeless women and in the anti-nuclear movement, and wrote plays that had some success. Then The Vagina Monologues brought her awards, money, fame, celebrity supporters and most importantly, she says, access to power and a platform.

Last year Ensler opened City of Joy, a centre in Congo that rehabilitates survivors of rape. The stories that have come from the women of this small central African country are unimaginable - women tied to trees and gang-raped for weeks; raped with sticks, bottles and even guns; women whose sons and fathers were forced at gunpoint to violate them.

The centre is home to 40 women who will have counselling and learn English, literacy and computer skills to become practised communicators and effective leaders. "It's the most joyful place I've ever been in my life," Ensler says. "In the midst of the worst circumstances, there is this city growing up and I really believe these women will be the future of Congo.

"The Congo was a turning point in my life. I had been to many places where women were suffering but the Congo was really shattering."

She says the Congolese women "got me through it" when she was diagnosed with cancer last year. "We were building and opening City of Joy and my part of the bargain was to find the funds, so I had to live to do that. In that sense they really saved my life, because I had to get up every day and keep moving forward."

Claims that life-threatening illness can be transformative often seem trite but Ensler, who says her prognosis is good, is convincing.

"It was the worst experience that turned into a really kind of wonderful experience," she says. "I have a lot of energy coming out of it and I don't really understand it. I also love being alive, it's fantastic - particularly when you come close to losing it. It was so momentous and so catastrophic that it changed me."

Her own experience of abuse, she says, "is deeply interlinked in what motivates me. I felt caught before in the rage and the drama and the proving myself and fighting my way out of [being] that 'victim' and that's over; that's not what's driving me any more. When you're raped, you are made to feel bad because you often absorb - literally - your perpetrator and it becomes 'your' badness. It has taken me years to exorcise that."

A little later she says, in a quieter voice, "I realised that if I continued to live thinking I was a terrible person and had to prove that I wasn't, I would die."

Ensler has big plans. Next year, for the 15th anniversary of V-Day, she wants to get a billion women - the figure comes from the United Nations' estimate that one in three women will be raped or assaulted during their lifetime - to come together, "to walk out of their jobs, to walk out of any situation where they have been violated, or just to walk because they were violated and to join with whoever". She calls it a "general strike on life". "If women stop, the whole world is going to stop - who is going to take care of patients, lead classes, run companies, lift things in the field, carry the children?"

Has she missed out on anything as a result of the life she has led? She sometimes thinks about what her love life would have been like "if I hadn't been cast as a radical, scary feminist. Then I think, well, so be it, I had a great love life."

After her marriage ended, she had a long relationship with the artist and psychotherapist Ariel Orr Jordan but is single now, which seems to suit her nomadic lifestyle - she has homes in New York and Paris but travels much of the year.

She seems cheerful when she talks of a "woman spring" in the making. "On my good days," she says with a sideways smile, "and there are many, I can see that it really is in sight. It was really the Egyptian women who led the uprising. We're seeing all kinds of women activists across the planet. I look at Agnes [Pareyio, the director of V-Day Kenya, who started two safe houses for girls escaping female genital mutilation] - she was exiled in her community and she's now running for parliament and has a strong chance of winning. Look at Dominique Strauss-Kahn - it's a terrible situation but 10 years ago that would not have been front-page news, he would not have been dragged off a plane. That's huge. That is tangible change. We haven't ended violence but we have built the mechanisms to begin to combat it. The next step is ending it."

When I go to shake her hand, Ensler hugs me instead. "We do hugs in V-land," she says. It catches me off guard but then strikes me as a very Ensler thing to do - warm, funny, barrier-breaking - and when I'm forced, out of politeness, to put my arms around this small woman, I'm struck by just how strong she feels.

Striking a blow for equality ... since The Vagina Monologues, playwright Ensler has had access to power and a platform.


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In July, David Cameron confirmed his commitment to the Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award, sponsored by BIS (the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) and the Cabinet Office.

But what, you may ask, does this have to do with environmental engineering? Well, this year, up against prestigious developments such as the Acacia Centre in London and the Theatre Royal Bath in the Small Civil Engineering Project shortlist (up to £3m), is Welsh Water‘s Cardiff WwTW digesters.

Designed to convert waste into biogas, the digesters were constructed at Welsh Water’s Cardiff and Afan WwTW to generate 5MW of power. The largest of these installations was at the Cardiff site, with two 22m-diameter, 22m-high reinforced concrete digester tanks sitting on 2,900m3 raft foundations. The principal designer on this project was Arup, with Morgan Sindall as principal contractors.

The Prime Minister’s Public Building Award is assessed as part of the British Construction Industry Awards, and it’s interesting, if not telling, that an industrial engineering installation could win a building award.

Appreciation of buildings similar to this is not entirely new; there is widespread interest in water towers, now often considered as architectural landmarks. However, these structures often date from the industrial revolution, and the appreciation may be deemed as merely nostalgic.

It is refreshing to see new technology, which really does help to create better living environments, being highlighted in this way. With the shortlist being billed as the ‘the most rigorously judged in the construction world’, the award considers a range of criteria: whole life cost, procurement method and economic and social value, as well as satisfaction, safety and team working.

Winners of the award will be announced at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 12th October 2011. We wish the Cardiff WwTW digesters the best of luck!

Tags: anaerobic digestion, British Construction Industry Awards, engineering, Prime Minister's Better Public Building Award, wastewater, Welsh Water


Hazel Soan

Hazel Soan is a British artist working out of studios in London and Cape Town and on location throughout the world.

She paints in watercolour and oil and is known particularly for her direct wet-into-wet watercolour approach and her use of rich pigment and strong contrasts of light and shade. Shape, interval and tone are her predominant subject matter. Figures, African wildlife and action are the main source of reference.

Her work is represented in private and public collections worldwide, including the National Portrait Gallery, the Lister Institute, the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, the Ritz, other London and International Hotels, the British Embassy in Ankara and the EU Delegation in Windhoek.
Hazel has held numerous solo exhibitions, mainly in London and the UK, but also in Venezuela, Namibia and Zimbabwe. She has participated in mixed exhibitions, including Royal Academy, Barbican Centre, Midland Open, Mall Galleries, David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.

Hazel is a natural and talented communicator. She became popular for her television role as an Art Expert on Channel 4’s Watercolour Challenge and her own series, Anglia TV’s Splash of Colour.

Her passion for painting is shared through books, DVD film, workshops, lectures and painting holidays, demonstrating the vibrant immediacy of the watercolour medium and the properties of watercolour pigments. She is the author of more than 15 books and contributes articles regularly to The Artist magazine and other art titles.

External links
 Official website
 AllSoanUp - A Collection of Hazel Soan's Art

References

Category:Living people
Category:British painters
Category:British watercolourists
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)


He certainly doesn't suffer from a lack of confidence and on Monday, Kanye West showed his ego is as healthy as ever.

Addressing the Oxford Guild Society at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History on Monday afternoon, Kanye revealed his aspirations to become not just any artist, but 'Picasso or greater' and his regrets that he did not attend art college.

The 37-year-old rapper also told of this close friendship with US President Barack Obama, in the 30 minute speech which was both egotistical and peppered with bouts of humility.

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Healthy ego: Addressing the Oxford Guild Society at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History on Monday afternoon, Kanye compared himself to Pablo Picasso and spoke of his friendship with Barack Obama

While Kanye banned mobile phones from his talk in order to stop students taking pictures of him, student newspaper The Tab livetweeted proceedings from a laptop.

And despite his best efforts, some pictures did emerge.

At one stage Kanye compared himself to the famed Spanish artist Pablo Picasso, when he said: 'My goal, if I was going to do art, fine art, would have been to become Picasso or greater. That always sounds so funny to people, comparing yourself to someone who has done so much, and that's a mentality that suppresses humanity.'

'If I could have done it again I would have gone to the art institute over the american academy'

'We have the resources as a civilisation to make a utopia, but we're led by the most greedy and the least noble'

Busy man: Kanye West was pictured deep in thought as he left his London hotel in his uniform all-black outfit before speaking at the Oxford Union

'I approach creativity like a sport, if I have a drawing I react just like a jock: LOOK AT THE F**KINGDRAWING OVER THERE YEAH.'

He added: 'I don't think there's a living celebrity with more weapons formed against him, but I don't think there's one more prosperous.'

And speaking about Obama, Kanye said: 'Obama calls the home phone, by the way.'

Prepared: The Chicago-born musician teamed a velvet long-sleeved top and jeans with brown boots as he made his way to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

Never one to shy away from self praise, Kanye said about his own 2010 record, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: 'Chris Rock & everyone else at every single media publication called My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy the best album of the last 25 years.'

However, with a dash of humility, he admitted that Nicki Minaj's work on the album track Monster, was superior to his own.

He explained: 'One of the best thing about the album was Nicki Minaj, and that she kicked my ass, on my own song, on the best album of the last 25 years.'

'I was exiled from my own country, came back with my Magnum Opus, and I was beat by a girl.'

And he even insisted that he has gotten his monstrous ego under control.

'One of my biggest Achilles heels has been ego. And if I, Kanye West, can remove my ego, I think there’s hope for everyone,' he said.

Select few: The speech was attended by a group of 300 students who were able to get tickets over the last 24 hours but a video of the speech will the uploaded online

Earlier, Kanye was pictured deep in thought as he left his London hotel in his uniform all-black outfit.

The Chicago-born musician teamed a velvet long-sleeved top and jeans with brown boots from his Adidas line as he made his way to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History.

Chairman of the Oxford Guild revealed earlier in the day that they had spent 'many hours' trying to finalise plans for his visit.

Abbas Kazmi said: 'We are very excited to be hosting such an inspiring and high profile a speaker as the legendary Kanye West and expect it to be a fascinating and memorable event.'

He continued: 'It is great to see the hard work pay off after having spent many hours negotiating against the odds and keeping things under wraps to secure this event which is a real coup for the Guild which I am proud to see continuing to grow from strength to strength, reaching even higher heights and winning ever more national awards and accolades.'

The speech was attended by a group of 300 students who were able to get tickets over the last 24 hours with a video of the speech to be uploaded online afterwards.

The rapper finally revealed the name of his seventh solo album, So Help Me God, on Saturday with a rare tweet which also appeared to show the cover artwork.

According to rap-up.com, a release date has not been announced but the 37-year-old rapper told The Breakfast Club radio show that the album is '80 percent done' and will feature 'bars, songs, cookout—music that just feels good. 'My last album was a protest of music'.

Hard to pin down: Chairman of the Oxford guild has revealed the famous university had spent 'many hours' trying to finalise plans for his visit

Surprise: Kanye surprised fans at the adidas Originals London store on Monday by making an impromptu appearance to personally present some of the first Yeezy Boots in the UK

Perfect fit: The Yeezy Boost is the widely anticipated first footwear offering from the AW15 Kanye West and adidas Originals Yeezy Season 1 collaboration

'This album's just embracing the music, embracing joy, and just being of service to the people.'

'So Help Me God' is the follow up to 2013's Yeezus and features the track Wolves, with Sia Furler and fellow Chicago rapper Vic Mensa.

The first single heard from the album was Only One featuring Paul McCartney was released in December.

Last week, Kanye debuted his latest single called All Day at the Brit Awards 2015 after being introduced by his 34-year-old wife Kim Kardashian.

Helping hand: Kanye has been making appearances in stores across the world to share the exciting moment with fans


Banwell

Banwell is a village and civil parish on the River Banwell in the North Somerset district of Somerset, England. Its population was 2,919 according to the 2011 census.

History

Banwell Camp, east of the village, is a univallate hillfort which has yielded flint implements from the Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age. It was also occupied in the Iron Age. In the late 1950s it was excavated by J.W. Hunt of the Banwell Society of Archaeology. It is surrounded by a  high bank and ditch.

The remains of a Romano-British villa were discovered in 1968. It included a courtyard, wall and bath house close to the River Banwell. Artefacts from the site suggest it fell into disuse in the 4th century. Earthworks from farm buildings,  south of Gout House Farm, occupied from the 11th to 14th centuries where archaeological remains suggest the site was first occupied in the Romano-British period. The raised area which was occupied by the Bower House was surrounded by a water filled ditch, part of which has since been incorporated into a rhyne.

The parish was part of the Winterstoke Hundred.

Banwell Abbey was built as a bishops residence in the 14th and 15th century on the site of a monastic foundation. It was renovated in 1870 by Hans Price, and is now a Grade II* listed building. Nearby is a small building presented to the village by Miss Elizabeth Fazakerly, who lived at The Abbey in 1887 to house a small fire-engine. It served as the fire station until the 1960s and now houses a small museum of memorabilia related to the fire station.

"Beard's Stone" in Cave's Wood dates from 1842. It marks the reburial site of an ancient human skeleton found in a cave near Bishop's Cottage. William Beard, an amateur archaeologist who had found the bones, had them reinterred and marked the site with the stone with a poetic inscription.

Banwell Castle is a Victorian castle built in 1847 by John Dyer Sympson, a solicitor from London. Originally built as his home, it is now a hotel and restaurant and is a Grade II* listed building.

Of the two historical village pumps standing in the village, one of them was erected to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

Governance

The parish council has responsibility for local issues, including setting an annual precept (local rate) to cover the council's operating costs and producing annual accounts for public scrutiny. The parish council evaluates local planning applications and works with the local police, district council officers, and neighbourhood watch groups on matters of crime, security, and traffic. The parish council's role also includes initiating projects for the maintenance and repair of parish facilities, such as the village hall or community centre, playing fields and playgrounds, as well as consulting with the district council on the maintenance, repair, and improvement of highways, drainage, footpaths, public transport, and street cleaning. Conservation matters (including trees and listed buildings) and environmental issues are also of interest to the council.

The parish falls within the unitary authority of North Somerset which was created in 1996, as established by the Local Government Act 1992. It provides a single tier of local government with responsibility for almost all local government functions within its area including local planning and building control, local roads, council housing, environmental health, markets and fairs, refuse collection, recycling, cemeteries, crematoria, leisure services, parks, and tourism. It is also responsible for education, social services, libraries, main roads, public transport, trading standards, waste disposal and strategic planning, although fire, police and ambulance services are provided jointly with other authorities through the Avon Fire and Rescue Service, Avon and Somerset Constabulary and the South Western Ambulance Service.

North Somerset's area covers part of the ceremonial county of Somerset but it is administered independently of the non-metropolitan county. Its administrative headquarters is in the town hall in Weston-super-Mare. Between 1 April 1974 and 1 April 1996, it was the Woodspring district of the county of Avon. Before 1974 the parish was part of the Axbridge Rural District.

The village falls in the 'Banwell and Winscombe' electoral ward. This ward starts at its most northerly point in St. Georges visits Banwell and Winscombe before ending at Loxton at its most southerly point. The total population of the ward taken from the 2011 census was 11,036.

The parish is represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom as part of the Weston-super-Mare constituency. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. It is also part of the South West England constituency of the European Parliament which elects seven MEPs using the d'Hondt method of party-list proportional representation.

Geography

Banwell is located  east of Weston-super-Mare on the A371 road and is where the western end of the A368 road begins. The village is at the west end of the northern side of the Mendip hills.

The village is located between the M5 motorway and the A38, and is used by traffic travelling from the motorway to Bristol Airport. This traffic, together with other users of the A371 and A368, often causes the narrow streets of Banwell to become jammed.
There has been a campaign to bypass Banwell for many years, but other villages in the area have objected as increasing the traffic capacity on the roads would create problem on their roads. The Greater Bristol Strategic Transport Study in 2006 recommended that a road be built from Junction 21 of the M5 directly to Bristol Airport, bypassing Banwell and all the other local villages, thus alleviating their concerns.
However, this would not benefit local traffic passing through Banwell to and from Weston-super-Mare, Wells and Bath, so some traffic problems would still exist.

Banwell Caves is a  geological and biological Site of Special Scientific Interest at the western end of Banwell Hill.

Climate

Along with the rest of South West England, Banwell has a temperate climate which is generally wetter and milder than the rest of the country. The annual mean temperature is approximately . Seasonal temperature variation is less extreme than most of the United Kingdom because of the adjacent sea temperatures. The summer months of July and August are the warmest with mean daily maxima of approximately . In winter mean minimum temperatures of  or  are common. In the summer the Azores high pressure affects the south-west of England. However, convective cloud sometimes forms inland, reducing the number of hours of sunshine. Annual sunshine rates are slightly less than the regional average of 1,600 hours. In December 1998 there were 20 days without sun recorded at Yeovilton. Most the rainfall in the south-west is caused by Atlantic depressions or by convection. Most of the rainfall in autumn and winter is caused by the Atlantic depressions, which is when they are most active. In summer, a large proportion of the rainfall is caused by sun heating the ground leading to convection and to showers and thunderstorms. Average rainfall is around . About 8–15 days of snowfall is typical. November to March have the highest mean wind speeds, and June to August have the lightest winds. The predominant wind direction is from the south-west.

Religious sites

The mainly 15th-century parish church of St Andrew is a Grade I listed building.
The body of the church has a nave with a clerestory, north and south aisles and a rather short chancel, considering the proportions of the rest of the church. The font dates from the 12th century and there is a carved stone pulpit from the 15th century and a carved rood screen built and set up in 1552, which escaped the Reformation. The 100 ft (30 m) high tower that contains ten bells dates from the 18th to 20th century and the clock is dated 1884. Bells dating from 1734 and 1742 were made by Thomas Bilbie, of the Bilbie family.

References

External links

Banwell Parish Council
Banwell Village Online Community

Category:Civil parishes in Somerset
Category:Villages in North Somerset


Caroline Phillips

Caroline Phillips (1874 – 13 January 1956) was a Scottish feminist, suffragette and journalist. She was honorary secretary of the Aberdeen branch of the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), met and corresponded with many of the leaders of the movement and was also involved in the organisation of militant action in Aberdeen.

Early life and work
Caroline Phillips was born in 1874 in Kintore, Aberdeenshire. Caroline Phillips worked for the Aberdeen Daily Journal – the more conservative of the two daily newspapers in Aberdeen at this time. In the Edwardian era, there were only 66 female journalists in the whole United Kingdom.

She was based out of offices in Broad Street, Aberdeen - which later became the offices for the Evening Express - and her dedication to campaigning for women's suffrage meant she often landed herself in trouble with her employer.

When she was eventually banned from attending political meetings, this made it very difficult for her to carry out her job as a journalist. Yet conflict with the newspaper did not deter her from spearheading the fight for women's suffrage in and around Aberdeen.

Campaigning for women's suffrage
Phillips was the leader of the Aberdeen suffragettes from 1907-1909, and organised a march in Edinburgh in 1907. She also wrote letters to the press. While the Daily Journal was strongly against women’s suffrage, Phillips was able to get pro-suffrage arguments into conservative newspapers through the Letters To The Editor column. Shamelessly, she often used the Aberdeen Daily Journal'''s address as the address for correspondence relating to the WSPU and drafted WSPU-related letters on Daily Journal notepaper. In January 1908, her employer warned Phillips that she was ‘identifying’ herself far too closely with the woman’s suffrage movement and that if she didn't stop being involved in women’s politics she could lose her job.

Her role as Honorary Secretary for the Aberdeen branch of the Women's Social and Political Union meant she met and corresponded with many of the leadership of the WSPU. However, Phillips fitted more into the role of a suffragist rather than a suffragette. Suffragists believed in using political means to achieve votes for women, while suffragettes employed the notion of "deeds not words".

Hence, Phillips disagreed with the increasingly militant approach being employed by the WSPU. One example of this was, in December 1907, when Emmeline Pankhurst planned on disrupting the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Henry Asquith's, visit to Aberdeen's Music Hall and Phillips did her level best to stop this from happening. Phillips had learned that the local Liberal association considered banning all'' women from entrance in case suffragettes had planned to disrupt proceedings. As a result, Phillips contacted the local Women’s Liberal Association officials, offering to guarantee that there would be no such disruption. She believed that the local suffragettes should keep away from the event in order to let the women of the Aberdeen Women’s Liberal Association attend and thought the WSPU leadership would understand & accept her reasoning.

Phillips was overruled by Emmeline Pankhurst. Pankhurst arrived in Aberdeen and carried through with her plan to lead a protest. The disruption took place and it resulted in a fight in the orchestra pit and the suffragettes being thrown out accordingly. Phillips' tenure as leader of the Aberdeen suffragettes would never recover from this clash with the WSPU leadership.

In 1909, Phillips was relieved of leading the Aberdeen branch. A letter she had written suggested the WSPU should copy a non-violent strategy favoured by the peaceful National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS).

The Pankhursts' reaction to the letter was swift. Christabel Pankhurst, co-founder of the WSPU wrote to Phillips in a telegram which arrived on Tuesday 5 January 1909. It stated:“Sylvia Pankhurst arrives Thursday morning to take charge local work. Thursdays meeting had better be abandoned”Phillips had been a prominent figure in the Scottish suffragette movement but it was clear she had fallen out of favour. She would be the last Aberdonian woman to lead the movement.

Sylvia Pankhurst, Emmeline’s daughter, took over the Aberdeen branch initially as things became more militant in Aberdeen and across the whole of Scotland. This was followed later on with the closing down of the Aberdeen branch completely and the invitation to all its members to join the wider WSPU, under direct control from London, instead.

Later life and legacy
In 1912, Phillips inherited the Station Hotel in Banchory from an aunt and moved out of Aberdeen. Her editor said at her leaving do: "If only she hadn’t been involved in other things she would have made a good reporter."

Phillips devoted herself to the hotel until her retirement to Kintore in the 1940s.

She died on 13 January 1956 at the age of 85.

Professor Sarah Pedersen of Robert Gordon University said of Caroline Phillips:"Caroline Phillips was very well-respected in the suffragette movement. She had a career as a journalist as well as her role as a suffragette. She was torn between her job and her commitment to the movement. It fascinates me that she was putting her career on the line for this movement. It was also very unusual for a woman to have a role as a journalist at that time – that in itself is making a huge statement. She was quite shameless and would often write letters for the suffrage movement using work paper and equipment. It got her into a lot of trouble and must have been very difficult for her.

I think it’s fantastic that these women that have been a little bit swallowed up by history are now being remembered in their own right as well as some of the more well-known figures in the suffragette movement. “It’s so important to talk about this movement and the different cities and people involved in it."

Caroline Phillips is buried in Kintore.

See also
 Women's Social and Political Union.
 Suffragette
 Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom

References

External links
 BBC site has an image of the telegram.
The Heritage Lottery Funded project, The Suffragettes in North East Scotland, has more information on Caroline Phillips.
Kintore Kirk http://www.kintorekirk.org

Category:1874 births
Category:1956 deaths
Category:People associated with Aberdeen
Category:People associated with Aberdeenshire
Category:Scottish suffragists
Category:British suffragists
Category:British women journalists
Category:Scottish journalists
Category:Women's Social and Political Union


Quiet luxurious and private boutique hotel in the heart of central London close to Marble Arch

The Arch London was inspired by the London landmark, Marble Arch. This top London boutique hotel spans seven Grade II listed townhouses and two mews homes totalling approximately 55,000 square feet. Local ly commissioned art by emerging British artists can be found throughout the hotel, punctuating the formal spaces created by the glorious Georgian architecture. The 82 guest rooms, including 9 suites, have been created incorporating the colours of the neighbourhood, with each room showcasing one of the 10 individually designed colour schemes. Every room features a rain shower and most with in-bath TV’s, a working desk, flat screen televisions, Sky HD package including sports and movies, internet radio with over 10,000 channels, CD/DVD player with access to the in-house movie library, iPod docking station, complimentary wireless internet, Nespresso coffee machines and tea making facilities, complimentary soft drinks personal bar, air-conditioning, US and EU adaptors

The 82 guest rooms, including 9 suites, have been created incorporating the colours of the neighbourhood, with each room showcasing one of the 10 individually designed colour schemes. Every room features a rain shower and most with in-bath TV’s, a working desk, flat screen televisions, Sky HD package including sports and movies, internet radio with over 10,000 channels, CD/DVD player with access to the in-house movie library, iPod docking station, complimentary wireless internet, Nespresso coffee machines and tea making facilities, complimentary soft drinks personal bar, air-conditioning, US and EU adaptors.

Check-in and check-out

Check-in: 15:00 hrs. Check-out: 12:00 hrs

Included/not included in the price

All room rates are subject to Vat at 20%. Breakfast is not included in room rate; Continental breakfast is at £13.25 per person or English breakfast at £19.50 per person. Food & beverage prices are subject to 12.5% service charge. Baby cot complimentary, extra bed can be accommodated from Executive room category and is at £50 per night exclusive of Vat.

Reservation may be cancelled without charge up to 12 noon 1 day before arrival date.

Restaurants and bars

HUNter 486, brings together classic glamour and timeless hospitality reflecting local colour and introducing a new dimension to London’s drinking and eating experience. This incorporates a dining area off the open plan kitchen, the Library, the Bar and Le Salon de Champagne. The Library with Taschen bookcases is a stylish, relaxed area of the hotel to enjoy afternoon tea or a martini from the martini cabinet, expertly shaken in front of you. Le Salon de Champagne with original designer chairs, high banquette seating and a graffiti ceiling of wine tasting notes offers the guest a lavish area to match their mood. The open plan kitchen offers honest and real food, with an all day grazing menu in a friendly environment. Each space has a story; each story created and designed to inspire the guests.

Work out in the convenience of the hotels innovative gym, available exclusively to guests, 24-hours a day. Situated on the lower ground floor with a glorious vaulted ceiling, it features the latest fitness equipment by wellness experts Technogym, from treadmills and cross trainers, to rowers and weights. The gym also features an area for stetching and Power Plate equipment complete the offering. Hotel staff can also organise personal training sessions and yoga tuition on request. A jogging map of Hyde Park is available from the Concierge and is only a short 3 minute walk from the hotel.

Smoking policy

Non-smoking hotel, smoking is permitted only on private terraces in Courtyard Suites and in JUNiper 586 1-bedroom Suite.

Dress code

Casual

Pets

Dogs up to 10 kgs are accepted for suite bookings only

Contact information

The Arch London

50 Great Cumberland Place, Marble Arch, London W1H 7FD

Tel. +44 207 724 4700

Web. www.thearchlondon.com

Area of property

The hotel is set on a quiet residential street close to Marble Arch at the top of Park Lane and is just two blocks from Selfridges and Hyde Park. The chic boutiques and fashionable attractions of Marylebone, plus the famous shopping areas of Oxford Street and Bond Street are also within easy reach by foot. The extensive tube network also means that whether staying for business or pleasure, everything you want to experience or explore is right on your doorstep.

Getting around and parking

Vehicles in central London are subject to a congestion charge Monday to Friday 7am to 6.30pm. Parking is available close by and the hotel offers Valet parking. The nearest underground station (metro) is Marble Arch, served by the Central Line and only a 2 minute walk away

Nearest airport

London Heathrow is the city’s main airport and is around a 40 minute drive from the hotel. Alternatively, the Heathrow Express takes 15 minutes into Paddington Station, approximately a 5 minute transfer from the hotel. London is also served by Gatwick, London City, Luton and Stansted Airports.

Nearest train station

London is well served by the national rail system including the new express Eurostar service to Paris and Brussels via St Pancras International which is about 10 minutes drive from hotel.

Excursions

Hotel concierge can book private guided or sightseeing tour of your choice. Hop-on hop-off bus stop is located 5 minutes walk from the hotel

Bars, cafes and restaurants nearby

A wide variety of bars and restaurants in the area to suit all tastes and budgets.

We specialise in luxury travel and nothing else. We have direct and personal relationships with all our travel partners and independently recommend the most stylish places to stay around the world to our clients. Our service is only available to registered clients. If you are not already a registered client and would like to use our service please use the Contact us page to request a client account

Personal preferences

Please remember to let your concierge team member know about your personal preferences, whether it is a type of pillow you prefer, your favourite drink in your room or need interconnecting rooms for your children please let us know so that we can request this for you.

Luxury car hire, car with a driver or airport pickup

If you need either a self drive or chauffeur driven car or would like an airport pick up we will be pleased to arrange this for you as part of the service, please let your concierge team member know.

Special events or occasions

If you are celebrating a special occasion and you would like to plan a surprise we can help you. Let us know the occasion and an idea of what you would like and we will work with you to ensure you have an unforgettable experience.

Registered clients please complete the form below to request booking and availability for this property

(If you are not currently a client but are interested in this property you can use the form below to contact us)

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Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Liam Payne said women are linked to him just for "standing next to me"

Liam Payne has said media reports linking him romantically with "every female member of my staff" are "demeaning" and need to stop.

Linking to an online article, the singer tweeted: "Isn't it time we treat women with a bit more respect?"

The newspaper story said Payne was photographed arriving at a London hotel with a "mystery" woman on Thursday.

The One Direction star pointed out on Twitter that his team is "full of talented, smart professional women".

He criticised the fact that women end up being linked to him "just for simply standing next to me".

His comments were greeted with a show of support on social media, with fans thanking him for speaking up.

Payne, 24, announced he was splitting up with singer Cheryl, 35, in July after more than two years together.

The couple have a son, Bear, who was born in March last year.

They confirmed their split on social media, saying they were "sad" and it had been a "tough decision to make", adding: "We still have so much love for each other as a family".


The campaign to get rid of marriage has not gone away. Civil partnerships for heterosexuals were not thrown out by the Appeal Court last week, only put off till later. They will come.

In fact, after 20 years of New Labour government (some of it nominally Tory) we can now look back and survey the smoking ruins of marriage. It’s not that the New Labour radicals and their Tory imitators wrecked marriage on their own. It’s just that they have more or less finished it off.

The very words ‘husband’ and ‘wife’ have been erased from official forms and even from normal conversation. We all have partners now, whether we want to or not.

Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, after they lost their latest battle for the right to enter into a civil partnership this week

Divorce figures have fallen only because so many couples don’t get married in the first place. The marriage statistics show that more and more people simply aren’t bothering to make any sort of legal commitment at all before setting up home and starting a family.

As Lady Justice Hale, now tipped to be boss of the Supreme Court, said in 1982: ‘Family law now makes no attempt to buttress the stability of marriage or any other union,’ adding ‘the piecemeal erosion of the distinction between marriage and non-marital cohabitation may be expected to continue.’ And how.

Marriage has a strange, unique status in the courts. If you break a contract with your building society or a car leasing company, the law will come down against you.

If you break the marriage contract, the law will take your side and will eventually throw the other party out of the marital home if she or he insists on sticking to the original deal. Odd, eh? It’s amazing how many men, the usual victims of this strange arrangement, still get married at all.

I’d guess that marriage figures are artificially swollen each year by an unknown but large number of fake weddings, aimed at getting round immigration laws. Who can say? By their nature, such things aren’t always easy to detect.

The heterosexual couple fought for the right to enter into a civil partnership

But the liberal-thinking classes have for decades loathed and sought to undermine marriage. They hate it as a conservative, religious tradition which accepts that men and women are different, which is intensely private and gets in the way of the enlightened, paternal state they love so much.

The Left’s new allies, globalist commerce, also hate marriage (especially the sort where the mother stays at home) because it stops them from employing women as cheap, pliant labour and turning them into incessant consumers. This is a long campaign.

The radical Professor Edmund Leach, awarded the influential Reith lectures by the ‘impartial’ BBC, sneered back in 1967 that ‘the family, with its narrow privacy and tawdry secrets, is the source of all our discontents’.

He spoke of ‘parents and children huddled together in their loneliness’ and suggested children grow up in larger, more relaxed domestic groups, ‘something like an Israeli kibbutz, perhaps, or a Chinese commune’. Yes, he really said that.

Political radicals sympathised with this view, but in frontline politics they tended to get married. You’ll have to guess why, but I draw your attention to the marriage of Ed Miliband to the mother of his children, Justine, in May 2011, soon after he rather unexpectedly became leader of the Labour Party.

Compare and contrast them with New Labour’s true genius and mastermind, Alastair Campbell, and the mother of his children, Fiona Millar, the great apostle of comprehensive schools.

At the 2001 memorial service for Tony Benn’s wife Caroline, Fiona expressed delight at the singing of the Communist anthem, The Internationale, saying: ‘Great to hear language we aren’t allowed to use any longer.’

These two lifelong radicals have never married.

Nor, of course, have many similar sorts in the media and other areas of life where there is no pressure from spin doctors to do so. You must have noticed this.

It is a deliberate revolution, not an accident of nature.

I doubt most people ever even realised it was going on, but will we be better off when it is – as it soon will be – triumphant?

I did warn you about Ms Dick...

So the Chief Commissar of Political Correctness, Ms Cressida Dick, has overcome her unappealing record to be made Britain’s most senior police officer.

The media, who might have been expected to have reservations about her, swallowed them.

Jean Charles de Menezes’s family were left almost alone to worry about her role in his death in a botched police shooting.

Nobody seemed bothered about her liking for ludicrous, indefensible dawn raids on the homes of journalists, either. Oh well.

I told you so, long ago. On November 17, 2002, I wrote on this page: ‘Remember the name Cressida Dick. Commander Dick, I here predict, will be the first woman Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. She is the perfect politically correct copper.’

Don’t you ever wonder what force or power it is that propels such people unstoppably upwards?

UKIP, the Dad’s Army of British politics, marches rapidly backwards away from success.

Its mistakes are too many to list, but trying to attack Labour and giving up the assault on the real enemy, the Tories, may well have had something to do with it.

SS-GB NEEDS A DOSE OF GERMAN EFFICIENCY Barely credible: The naked resistance member wrapped in a Nazi flag in the drama It is time for a Campaign for Real Drama. Len Deighton’s clever book, SS-GB, would make a terrific TV series. Alas, the modern BBC isn’t capable of doing that. It isn’t just because it favours mumbling over talking. I could hardly hear what the actors were saying because my own teeth were grinding in rage and disapproval. But I listened to the whole thing again through some top-notch headphones, and gathered I hadn’t missed much. Sam Riley as Douglas Archer in the show It is just so slapdash. Deighton’s carefully researched and brilliantly imagined idea, a despairing London under German occupation after a shocking defeat, actually made me miserable when I first read it because it was so believable. But this lot can’t even get their own fictional details right. The central character, Douglas Archer, is called Inspector by a reporter, Chief Superintendent by himself and Superintendent by his German boss and a German journalist. His rank continues to veer wildly up and down. The SS chief who has supposedly handpicked him later calls him Inspector. In less than two minutes he has promoted him to Superintendent, but within 30 seconds he has demoted him back to Inspector. I thought these Nazis, with their Sturmbannfuhrers and Obergruppenfuhrers, were supposed to be sticklers for rank. I haven’t room to list all the incredible and unlikely moments. But the sheer terror of a country in which you could be shot for fiddling your fuel coupons, or deported to do slave labour at a moment’s notice, is simply not evoked. Sinister music, which often blots out the dialogue, is no substitute for real drama. Instead there is an extraordinarily stupid and incredible scene in which a supposedly passionate resistance member wraps her naked body in a Nazi flag and stands on a London hotel balcony in mid-November. There is also an exposed willy (how avant-garde!) and the tedious use of cigarettes (I counted 13 lit in an hour, despite tight rationing by the Nazis) to show we are in the past. What a missed opportunity. Advertisement

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Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Sr. (October 20, 1877 – May 7, 1915) was a wealthy American businessman, and a member of the Vanderbilt family. He died on .

Early life
Vanderbilt was born in New York City, the third son of Cornelius Vanderbilt II (1843–1899) and Alice Claypoole Gwynne (1845–1934). He attended the St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire and Yale University (Class of 1899), where he was a member of Skull and Bones.

Soon after graduation, Vanderbilt, with a party of friends, started on a tour of the world which was to have lasted two years. When they reached Japan on September 12, 1899, he received news of his father's sudden death and hastened home as speedily as possible to find himself, by his father's will, the head of his branch of the family.

His siblings were Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt (1869-1874), William Henry Vanderbilt II (1870–1892), Cornelius "Neily" Vanderbilt III (1873–1942), Gertrude Vanderbilt (1875–1942), Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt (1880–1925) and Gladys Moore Vanderbilt (1886–1965).

His eldest brother, William, had died in 1892 at age 22, and their father had disinherited Alfred's second oldest brother Neily due to his marriage to Grace Wilson, a young debutante of whom the elder Vanderbilts strongly disapproved for a variety of reasons. Alfred received the largest share of his father's estate, though it was also divided among his sisters and younger brother, Reginald Claypoole Vanderbilt.

Career
Soon after his return to New York, Vanderbilt began working as a clerk in the offices of the New York Central Railroad, as preparation for entering into the councils of the company as one of its principal owners. Subsequently, he was chosen a director in other companies as well, among them the Fulton Chain Railway Company, Fulton Navigation Company, Raquette Lake Railway Company, Raquette Lake Transportation Company, and the Plaza Bank of New York.

Vanderbilt was a good judge of real estate values and projected several important enterprises. On the site of the former residence of the Vanderbilt family, and including, also, several adjacent plots, he built the Vanderbilt Hotel at Park Avenue and 34th Street, New York, which he made his city home.

Among Vanderbilt's many holdings were positions in the New York Central Railroad, Beech Creek Railroad, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, Michigan Central Railroad and Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad as well as the Pullman Company.

Personal life

On January 11, 1901, Vanderbilt married Ellen Tuck French, in Newport, Rhode Island. She was the daughter of Francis Ormond French (1837–1893) and Ellen Tuck French (1879–1948), and was close friends with Vanderbilt's sister, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, who was married to Harry Payne Whitney. Later that same year, on November 24, 1901, Elsie gave birth to their only child: William Henry Vanderbilt III (1901–1981), later governor of Rhode Island.

In March 1908, Elsie moved to her brother, Amos Tuck French's, home in Tuxedo Park, New York. Shortly thereafter, a scandal erupted in April 1908 after Elsie filed for divorce, alleging adultery with Agnes O'Brien Ruíz, the wife of the Cuban attaché in Washington, D. C.. The publicity, which caused splits over whom to support, ultimately led Agnes Ruíz to commit suicide in 1909. Elsie, who remarried, died in Newport on February 27, 1948.

Vanderbilt spent considerable time in London after the divorce, and remarried there, on December 17, 1911, to the wealthy American divorcée Margaret Mary Emerson (1886–1960). She was the daughter of Captain Isaac Edward Emerson (1859–1931) and Emily Askew Dunn (1854–1921), and was heiress to the Bromo-Seltzer fortune. Margaret had been married from 1902-1910 to Dr. Smith Hollins McKim (d. 1932), a wealthy physician of Baltimore. Together, Alfred and Margaret had two children: Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr. (1912–1999), businessman and racehorse breeder, and George Washington Vanderbilt III (1914–1961), yachtsman and a scientific explorer.

After Alfred's death aboard the Lusitania in 1915, Margaret bought a 316-acre estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, with a 47-room mansion. She remarried twice, first on June 12, 1918, in Lenox Raymond T. Baker (1875–1935), a politician with whom she had a daughter, Gloria Baker (1920–1975). The claim for his estate was put forward Margaret, who by that point was already remarried. The net value of the estate, after the payment of all debts and funeral and administration expenses, was $15,594,836.32.

By the terms of his will, Margaret and his three sons would inherit $1,180,098.18. In addition, for their maintenance and for the support and comfort of his widow and children, he expended and contributed approximately $300,000 annually.

Interests
Vanderbilt was a sportsman, and he particularly enjoyed fox hunting and coaching. In the late 19th century, he and a number of other millionaires, such as James Hazen Hyde practiced the old English coaching techniques of the early 19th century. Meeting near Holland House in London, the coaching group would take their vehicle for a one-day, two-day, or longer trip along chosen routes through several counties, going to prearranged inns and hotels along the routes. Vanderbilt would frequently drive the coach, in perfectly appareled suit, a coachman or groom. He is recorded as a regular guest at the Burford Bridge Hotel near Box Hill in Surrey where, when driving from London to Brighton, he would stop to take lunch and to collect telegrams. He loved the outdoor experience.

In 1901, he bought Great Camp Sagamore, on Sagamore Lake in the Adirondacks, from William West Durant. He expanded and improved the property to include flush toilets, a sewer system, and hot and cold running water. He later added a hydroelectric plant and an outdoor bowling alley with an ingenious system for retrieving the balls. Other amenities included a tennis court, a croquet lawn, a 100,000 gallon reservoir, and a working farm.

RMS Lusitania

On May 1, 1915, Vanderbilt boarded the  bound for Liverpool as a first class passenger. It was a business trip, and he traveled with only his valet, Ronald Denyer, leaving his family at home in New York.

On May 7, off the coast of County Cork, Ireland, German U-boat,  torpedoed the ship, triggering a secondary explosion that sank the giant ocean liner within 18 minutes. Vanderbilt and Denyer helped others into lifeboats, and then Vanderbilt gave his lifejacket to save a female passenger. Vanderbilt had promised the young mother of a small baby that he would locate an extra lifevest for her.

Failing to do so, he offered her his own life vest, which he proceeded to even tie on to her himself, since she was holding her infant child in her arms at the time. Many consider his actions especially brave and gallant since he could not swim and he knew there were no other lifevests or lifeboats available. Because of his fame, several people on the Lusitania who survived the tragedy were observing him while events unfolded at the time, and so they took note of his actions. He and Denyer were among the 1198 passengers who did not survive the incident. His body was never recovered.

There has been some historical confusion as to which member of the Vanderbilt family was booked on the Titanic and recent studies have determined that his uncle George Washington Vanderbilt II was actually booked to travel on the Titanic along with his wife Edith and daughter Cornelia, not Alfred Vanderbilt.

A memorial was erected on the A24 London to Worthing Road in Holmwood, just south of Dorking. The inscription reads, "In Memory of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, a gallant gentleman and a fine sportsman who perished in the Lusitania May 7th 1915. This stone is erected on his favourite road by a few of his British coaching friends and admirers". Another memorial to Vanderbilt is in a small park on Broadway in Newport, Rhode Island, where members of the Vanderbilt family spent their summers.

Bibliography

External links

 Biography at The Lusitania Resource

Category:1877 births
Category:1915 deaths
Category:American people of Dutch descent
Category:American people of English descent
Category:American people of Welsh descent
Category:American socialites
Category:Businesspeople from New York City
Category:Deaths on the RMS Lusitania
Category:New York (state) Republicans
Category:People lost at sea
Category:People who died at sea
Alfred Gwynne