Those who admire our pillar of political integrity and judgement, Speaker John Bercow, might well spot him at his favourite curry house, Madhu’s at the Sheraton Skyline hotel, Heathrow Airport.

Bercow opened Madhu’s in 2014, and four weeks later accepted a £5,000 donation from them to his 2015 re-election fund.

Now some unkind Westminster types are saying that the arrangement is a bit smelly, and not specifically in the vindaloo sense.

As if…

The five-star Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Knightsbridge, formerly the Hyde Park Hotel is “as tacky as a plastic Christmas tree in a spray tan salon”.

This is the view of Daily Mail TV critic Christopher Stevens, who gave a one star out of five panning to C4 documentary “A Very British Hotel”, claiming that the title was a hilarious misnaming on account of the fact that none of the staff shown were actually from Britain. This was, according to the GM, because “the work is too hard, the hours too long and the pay too poor to attract anyone but immigrants” Of course it wasn’t because the mainly very rich middle-eastern clientele who drop huge piles of money there are well used to being served by immigrants.

Stevens also opined that the programme proved that “A chav is a chav, no matter how rich they are” and that the hotel “looks like a cheap knock-off from Taiwan”.

Boasting one of the most impressive cast lists in cinema history A Man For All Seasons, the 1966 film of the final years of Sir Thomas More (1529-1535) was showered with accolades, winning six Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design.

King Henry VIII wants to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon and marry his mistress Anne Boleyn and only More stands in his way. Continue reading →

A series of earthquakes and heavy snowfall triggered an avalanche in Abruzzo region, Southern Italy, which destroyed the four-star Hotel Rigopiano, killing twenty-nine and injuring eleven.

The avalanche hit in the afternoon of January 18 and was said to comprise a total of 60,000 tonnes of snow, ice, rocks and uprooted trees travelling at 60 mph.

Investigations are taking place into the failure of the Italian authorities to respond quickly to the reports of the avalanche, and whether the hotel was built on the debris of previous avalanches taking the same route down the mountainside.

It is a sobering fact that the huge increase in the number of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s or drones) in our skies – one million sold in 2015 and growing – has also increased the chances of your passenger jet being brought down by one being flown too close to an airport, or flight path, either through total stupidity or deliberate malice.

According to the UK Airprox Board there were 13 near misses of drones and passenger jets using Heathrow airport in 2016, nearly four times the number in 2015, with 10 of the incidents being graded category A, meaning “Serious risk of collision”. Some have been caused by drones being used to capture “cool” close-up views of aircraft taking off and landing, these shots then being posted proudly by their lethally stupid takers on the internet. Continue reading →

Northumbria University in Newcastle has been fined £400,000, plus £26,468 costs after it mistakenly gave a toxic dose of caffeine powder to two male sports science students who had volunteered for a test to measure the effect of caffeine on exercise in 2015.

The test dose was supposed to be 0.3g, or 3 times the amount of 0.1g in a cup of coffee. However the students were given 30g, or 100 times too much and both were hospitalised and lost more than 20 pounds in weight.

The university told Newcastle crown court that is was ‘genuinely sorry’ for what was ‘an isolated event’. Both students have recovered but are pursuing a civil action against the university.

o A wedding rehearsal for a £25,000 ceremony in the Cuban resort of Playa Esmerelda was interrupted when the roof of the lobby of the four-star Sol Rio De Luna y Mares hotel collapsed, trapping the bride and groom under the debris. The couple, both of whom suffered injuries, are suing tour operator Thomas Cook.

o Nearly a hundred Britons, including two wedding parties, are suing the Marelen Hotel on the Greek Ionian island of Zakynthos (Zante) after they became ill with the Cryptosporidium stomach parasite. Contamination of the swimming pool was blamed by the guests for the outbreak last August.

Plans to turn the vast War Office on London’s Whitehall into a £1 billion five-star hotel and 88 apartments complex by 2020 have been met with opposition from more than 30 objectors who say the plans to alter it will “mutilate” the Grade II listed “masterpiece of Edwardian architecture” The plans include the adding of three additional floors.

The building comprises 580,000 square feet of space, with two miles of corridors linking 1,100 rooms and was sold by the Ministry of Defence last year for £350 million to the Hinduja Group, a huge London-based Indian conglomerate employing 72,000 people, and Spanish construction group OHL which operates in 30 countries.

Two UK conference venues are currently changing hands (Business Desk)

In Blackpool the historic 180-bedroom four-star Imperial Hotel, with 14 conference rooms for up to 600, has been sold to an un-named buyer for £10 million+

And in Berkswell, West Midlands the 49-bedroom Nailcote Hall Hotel, Golf and Country Club, which has five function rooms for up to 180 and a 9-hole championship golf course, has just come onto the market for an un-named asking price.