It must now be time to consider banning all laser devices available to the general public since the increasing criminal use of them to dazzle and blind pilots will eventually cause a major tragedy – it’s just a matter of time. Continue reading →

o Parking companies operating at London Gatwick Airport are coming under scrutiny…
o Chancellor George Osbourne has promised to stop airport shops such as Boots and …

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A row over the non-payment of fees to authors and speakers at the Oxford Literary Festival has forced the charity running it to re-consider its approach (Access All Areas).

One of the festival’s patrons, author Phillip Pullman, has resigned over the matter, with it being noted that he is also the President of the Society of Authors, a body that campaigns for its members to receive fair payment for speaking at literary festivals. The festival’s organiser Sally Dunsmore has pleaded poverty on account of being a charity that gets no government funding but has agreed to review the question of speaker fees and consider amending its policy after the April event. Continue reading →

Getting to Groningen in the North of Holland is quick and easy if you start from the compact Southend Airport, as an up to eight times a week Flybe service, in conjunction with Stobart Air, makes the trip in powerful ATR 72 turboprops in 57 minutes, leaving a fifteen-minute ride in an airport bus for the five miles to the city’s bus station. Failing that a flight to Amsterdam and a three-hour train journey gets you to the same spot. Continue reading →

One big hotel choice for organisers on the Dutch coast is the long-established five-star and family-owned and managed Grand Hotel Huis ter Duin, perched up on the beachside dunes at the seaside resort of Noordwijk am Zee (pron. Noord-vike) Noordwijk is close to Leiden, destination for the bulbfields and the famous Keukenhof flower gardens, and within 40 minutes travelling from Amsterdam and The Hague, as well as Schipol and Rotterdam airports. It lacks the overt drugs and prostitution scenes of Amsterdam, which many organisers will see as an advantage for their events. Continue reading →

Those, like us, who prefer a map to satnav and looking to visit the Woodland Grange residential events centre near Leamington Spa are referred to the excellent Phillips Street Atlas of Birmingham and West Midlands where the location is clearly marked just off the roundabout at the junction of the A452 and the B4113, around 1.5 miles North of Leamington Spa centre, and just South of the village of Blackdown. Continue reading →

Those expecting a two or three-star hotel room at the new Southend on Sea Wetherspoon Hotel at the massive Last Post pub in Weston Road there could be pleasantly disappointed, judging by the quality four-star room we were given to review during a recent stay. Continue reading →

Organisers looking for an art-related venue in the Norwich area can consider the Modern Life Cafe of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

Based at the University of East Anglia this modern area with high ceilings accommodates up to 160 theatre-style, or 250 standing, and is available to hire evenings from 6.00pm. Continue reading →

The main characters in this stunningly-shot 1960s Art House morality tale of Japanese delinquents are, like Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, seriously flawed and not especially likable, but very watchable. Continue reading →