For lovers of art, especially that by a Claude Monet, 1840-1926, the National Gallery has an exhibition featuring more than 70 of the artist’s works.

Monet and Architecture features his oil paintings of buildings, with only five owned by the National, fifteen coming from private collections and 57 from other museums and galleries around the world. In particular there are a large number painted in villages and cities in France including Rouen (some of the famous cathedral series) Le Havre, Honfleur, Trouville, Sainte-Adresse, Varengville, Dieppe, Giverny, Vetheuil, Argenteuil, Antibes and Paris (Paris streets, bridges and some of the Gare Saint-Lazare series) Also represented are works painted in Venice, Bordighera and Dolceaqua in Italy and London, where he had a room at the Savoy Hotel and captured views of Waterloo and Charing Cross bridges and, from the newly-built St Thomas’s Hospital, our Houses of Parliament, sometimes veiled in the infamous and lethal polluting fog that fascinated Monet artistically. Continue reading →

An interesting discussion on managing and marketing to millennials was organised recently by speaker agency Performing Artistes.

Held at the Institute of Directors as the first Speaker Afternoon Tea event this featured generational expert Dr Eliza Filby who pointed out that we currently, and uniquely have all four generations competing in the workforce. These are :- Continue reading →

A highlight of our recent fam trip to five-star Marriott in Poland was the night and day spent in Krakow, a real jewel of a city in one of the most visited areas in the country.

OK, it helped that we had lovely sunny weather, which brought out the best in the city’s beautifully preserved old-town complex, especially the Ryneck Glowny grand square and the atmospheric old Jewish district of Kazimierz. This was one of the great Jewish centres of Europe until the Nazis implemented their “Final Solution” here in 1941 and forcibly “resettled” all the Jews they could find in a new ghetto area in Podgorze, south of Kazimierz, and in the concentration camp at Plaszow. These black times of man’s inhumanity to man were thrust into public awareness by the 1994 Stephen Spielberg film Schindler’s List, much of which was shot around Krakow, and visitors wanting another sobering and affecting experience that will stay with them for life can also visit the nearby Auschwitz-Birkenhau death camp, a venue that all politicians, especially the anti-semitic ones, should be required to experience for their humanisation. Continue reading →

For those who like vodka a trip to Poland offers an opportunity to try some of the hundreds of types on offer and our recent fam trip to Warsaw and Krakow was no exception, thanks to the help and knowledge of bar staff working in Marriott hotels there.

For those who like their drinks fruity and sweet the distillers Soplica produce a range of ten flavoured variants (Nalewki), all at ABV 30% and comprising the very popular cherry along with raspberry, strawberry, blackcurrant, plum, mirabelle, blueberry, quince, walnut and hazelnut. These probably go down, like all alcopops, rather too easily, especially when straight out of the fridge, and it is all too easy to over-indulge. Also bitter-sweet and fruity and with an ABV of 36% is the herb and orange flavoured Wodka Zoladkowa Gorzka which has won many awards and is valued as a digestif, and, flavoured with bison grass that gives a vanilla flavour is Zubrowka (Bison Grass Vodka in the UK) at 40% ABV and often mixed with apple juice to produce a longer drink.

Of the “straight” unflavoured premium rye based vodkas we tried, all straight out of the freezer, our personal easy winner was Potocki (pron. Potoski), a lovely creamy and nutty spirit at 40% ABV that sells for around £30 a bottle in the UK and is, for our money, worth every penny. Almost as good but without the creaminess were Belvedere and Chopin, both at 40% ABV and the latter named after Poland’s best known composer.

Horror films used to frighten audiences to death, until comic send ups appeared at the cinema encouraging the frightened to not take it all too seriously.

Long before this, in 1932, a seriously good ghoulish classic appeared – The Old Dark House. This was directed by James Whale, who went on to direct The Bride of Frankenstein and The Invisible Man, and was based on the J.B.Priestley novel Benighted, where a group of travellers are stranded in heavy rain and a mudlide in Wales and seek shelter in an old house occupied by the eccentric and potentially dangerous Femm family. Continue reading →

Is social media, which we have all been told we should be enthusiastically embracing, on the way out?

Certainly the continued posting of racial hatred material and the worrying abuse of confidential customer data hasn’t helped the social media cause. And the recent blaming of the culture for causing a mental health crisis amongst young people desperate to maintain a perfect profile, said to be a factor in seven student suicides at Bristol University, the suing of Facebook for running scam ads that defraud and the fact that the down-to-earth businssman, Tim Martin of pub chain Wetherspoons has just closed all his company’s Facebook and Twitter accounts and expects his business to improve as a result have to be three more damaging nails in the social media coffin. Continue reading →

Another Liverpool couple have been caught out trying to defraud a travel company with false claims of holiday food poisoning, and this time the doctor and solicitor who supported and brought the claim are also being investigated.

Chelsea Devine, 21, and Jamie Melling, 22, were ordered by Liverpool County Court to pay operator Tui £15,000 after finding them “fundamentally dishonest” for trying to claim £2,500 each for their fictional sickness. In this case Tui also discovered that the pair’s doctor who gave evidence supporting their claim, Zuber Bux is married to Sebana Bux, who is a partner in AMS Solicitors of Preston, who brought the case to court.

Accordingly Tui have reported the doctor to the General Medical Council and the solicitor to the Solicitors Regulation Authority and await their responses.

Another case of visitors to Venice being grossly overcharged for food in restaurants around St Marks Square has emerged.

Four Japanese students were charged a total of £970 for three steak suppers, some mineral water and a plate of fried fish, excluding alcoholic drinks, at the Osteria da Luca. The mayor of Venice is said to be “outraged” and “investigating” this latest of a string of similar cases in the city. For some it might be more constructive if he oversaw the publication of a blacklist of places to avoid, and released it to the international tourist media.

Or would that be a dog biting the hand that feeds it?

An event supplier specialised in providing cocktail and bartending expertise was robbed late last month.

Two thieves broke into the Kensal Green, London offices of Home Hire Bartender and stole bottles of champagne, cameras and business equipment before trashing the place. CEO and founder Lucio Marino is hopeful the pair can be caught as one of them walked past a CCTV camera without wearing his mask.