Meanwhile an 11 year old schoolgirl on a May 9 school trip, Evha Janneth, has died at Drayton Manor theme park, Staffordshire after she stood up to change seats on one of the circular boats of the Splash Canyon water ride. As he did the boat hit a rock and she was thrown out into the fast flowing water, and dragged under by the strong current. Despite receiving life support from ambulance crews she suffered cardiac arrest and died after being airlifted to Birmingham Children’s Hospital. Continue reading →

The financial controller of the four-star Danubius hotel, Nasser Ahmad (42) stole more than £110,000 over five years by letting friends and family stay there free, a court has heard.

Reportedly Ahmad found a way to hack into the computer system of the Regent’s Park, London hotel, which overlooks Lords Cricket Ground, and access an unmonitored “English Breakfast Account” to pay bills.

Ahmad, who also works for Tesco claimed to be the victim of a racist conspiracy at the hotel involving his colleagues.

This much-garlanded revival of Edward Albee’s pitch-black comedy play about the toxic lives of two American academics and their wives deserves, for our money, every supportive word, much as the 1966 film with Elizabeth Taylor as Martha, husband Richard Burton as her husband George, George Segal as the predatory Nick and Sandy Dennis as his wife fully merited all its Academy nominations and awards. Continue reading →

A film without much sex, violence or foul language might not sound like a feast of fun to some but The Olive Tree, a quirky, leisurely-paced and bitter-sweet story of a ballsy young Spanish woman who sets out to find and bring back her family’s ancient olive tree for her dying and catatonic grandad is endearing and affecting. Continue reading →

The number of hotels amongst businesses named by the government as paying employees less than the national minimum or living wage rate has risen from 4 out of 197 in August last year to 14 out of 359 this February.

This equates to nearly double the percentage caught, with the amount underpaid by the hotels rising from £10,533 last August to £87,334 this February. In August last year the hotels named, with the underpayment and the number of workers involved were: Continue reading →

A former receptionist at Premier Inn, Cardiff has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years for the murder of a former girlfriend and her current boyfriend.

Andrew Saunders, 21, stabbed to death Zoe Morgan, 21, and Lee Simmonds, 33 , last September in a premeditated killing that featured Saunders researching sick internet sites and threatening the couple.

The Attorney General’s Office is currently considering whether the sentence was unduly lenient.

Relatives of the 38 British tourists killed in the June 2015 terrorist massacre in Sousse Tunisia have claimed that Tui, the parent company of travel agent Thompson instructed its sales staff to play down the risk of terrorist attacks in the country, despite warnings from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

A coroner has obtained an internal Tui document that was published two days after the Bardo museum massacre in March 2015, when 22 European tourists were shot, which instructed Tui staff to tell customers “Tunisia remains a popular destination for us and customers are enjoying their holidays as normal”.

Three months after Tui’s reassuring words 38 more tourists were shot in Tunisia.

Following our piece in last month’s issue about Liverpool streets, such as Penny Lane, named after slave traders, a row has broken out over a building in another UK seafaring city famous for its slave traders.

Colston Hall, a music and event venue in Bristol was named after Edward Colston, deputy governor of the Royal African Company which got very rich indeed from 1672 to 1698 transporting around 100,000 captured Africans to plantations in America and the West Indies, with thousands dying and being dumped in the sea. Colston, who also has half a dozen streets, pubs, three schools and student flats named after him, as well as a stained glass window dedicated to him in Bristol Cathedral latterly made lots of friends in Bristol with generous philanthropy. His bronze statue in the city centre has a plaque describing the slaver as “virtuous” and “wise”. Continue reading →