European cities are likely to become permanent no-go areas for women if the mass sex attacks in Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and Helsinki on New Year’s Eve are ever repeated.

Authorities in Germany are being blamed for playing down the attacks because of the strong possibility that the thousand or so attackers in Cologne, said to look “of North African or Arab appearance” by the police, were part of the 1.1 million asylum seekers given sanctuary in Germany. Unusually the full picture of the attacks did not emerge in the German media for five days afterwards, leading to accusations of a press cover-up for political correctness.

It is not racist to accept that respect for women is not a part of the culture of every race, a hard lesson we learned here over Rotherham. The question is how tolerant of this difference all countries are prepared to be when the personal safety of its girls and women is so clearly compromised by it.

Researchers at Herriott-Watt University have discovered that a period of rest immediately after being presented with a lot of new material helps to consolidate it in the memory.

Subjects were read a story and then half were sent off to just lie quietly in a darkened room, without their mobile phones, and let their minds wander for ten minutes. The other half had their attention immediately focussed on a spot the difference game.

The first group, when tested a week later, remembered 10% more of the story than the second group. Continue reading →

British commuters on our privatised railways are paying up to six times more for their travel than many of their counterparts in Europe, who are using publicly-owned services.

According to a report this month by the Action for Rail group of the rail unions and the TUC commuters on the short 29-mile stretch from Chelmsford to London spend an estimated 13% of their salary for their monthly season ticket, against commuters on similar journeys on their publicly-owned railways paying 10% in France, 4% in Germany, 3% in Spain and 2% in Italy. Rail companies say the figures do not reflect the greater frequency of trains and the better rail safety record in the UK. Continue reading →

Hotel booking platform Booking.com have been censured by the German regulator, the Federal Cartel Office (FCO) for a clause in their contracts with hotels which prevented the hotels from selling rooms more cheaply on their own website than on Booking.com’s website. The FCO say this infringes European competition law, an aspect contested by the company, which has announced it will appeal. (Source: Pinsent Curtis solicitors.)

Nevertheless Booking.com have removed the offending clause from their contracts.

The consumer-unfriendly nature of online booker’s contracts came to light when FCO’s president Andreas Mundt stayed an extra night in a Bavarian hotel and was charged more for it by the hotel directly than the nights he had booked on another online booking platform.

The five-star, 63-storey Address Downtown Dubai hotel is currently closed after a major fire broke out there in the closing hours of 2015.

The blaze, thought to have been started by a stray firework, took hold on the 20th floor around 9.00pm on December 31st 2015. All guests were evacuated. There were no reported fatalities, 14 people suffered minor injuries, one suffered moderate injuries and one suffered a heart attack during the evacuation. Continue reading →

Organisers looking for a London venue with strong artistic connections can enjoy the sumptuous surroundings of the Leighton House Museum, in Holland Park Road, just north of Kensington High Street. This is the former studio and home of celebrated Victorian artist and President of the Royal Academy, Frederic Lord Leighton (1830-1896), who was knighted in 1878.

Leighton’s most famous work was Flaming June, which featured a beautiful woman in a transparent orange gown curled up asleep on a marble surround, and for which the model was said to be the strikingly classical-looking actress Dorothy Dene. Before she changed her name and turned to acting Dene was Ada Pullan from Clapham, and working as a head model for a Kensington studio cooperative. She was 19 when the 49 year-old Leighton met her in 1879 and was captivated by her, and she became his favourite model and muse, also rumoured but never proven to be his mistress. Given Leighton’s high position in London society and Dene’s strong cockney accent there was speculation that the relationship was the inspiration for George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion. Another beautiful painting of Dene by Leighton, Crenaia, Nymph of the Dargle, showed her standing full-length and semi-naked, and looking beguilingly demure. Continue reading →

Caterers Searcys are offering £1500 worth of drinks, including VAT, free for new event bookings at The Gherkin for January – March.

The offer applies to evening drinks receptions for up to 250 or seated banquets for up to 140 using levels 39 and 40 of the building.

Drinks prices at the Gherkin will be around £5 for a 33cl bottle of beer, £10 for a cocktail and £10 – £20 for a glass of champagne.

With the name Marion Michael Morrison the man was probably not going to make it in some of the best action movies made but with the stage name of John Wayne the man, known to his friends and family as “Duke” after a family dog, was memorably good many times over.

The Quiet Man, directed and produced by John Ford in 1952 from a 1933 short story of the same name by Maurice Walsh starred the Duke as American ex-boxer Sean Thornton who tragically kills a man in the ring in the USA and seeks peace by returning to live in his parent’s old cottage in the Irish hamlet of Innisfree. Here, as well as meeting some cringe-worthy Irish caricatures he spies Mary Kate Danaher, a flame-haired beauty played by Maureen O’Hara who first plays love-struck like a frightened fawn around Wayne but a spirited and even bolshie young woman around everyone else. Fortunately they have something in common to hate in the form of Danaher’s bullying brother Squire “Red” Will Danaher, a star turn from the burly Victor McLaglen. Continue reading →