To The Brocket Arms, a traditionally-styled Wetherspoons pub/hotel around three-quarters of a mile from Wigan town centre.

This offers 28 en suite bedrooms, 14 with baths, and broken down as 14 doubles, 6 twins, 3 singles, 3 family and 2 double twins. Some bedrooms have separate toilets, a thoughtful feature if one is sharing. Prices, for accommodation only, range from £44 for a single, £49 for a double and £54 for a family room, with all rooms at £39 on a Sunday night. All have tea/coffee making facilities with biscuits and free still and sparkling water, digital Freeview TVs and hairdryers, iron and ironing boards. Free unlimited Wi-Fi is available throughout the building. Continue reading →

o Concerns that the 212-room Britannia Airport Hotel at Northenden is changing its use to a hostel have been voiced over recent reports that 300 asylum seekers are staying there. Asylum seekers are placed in hotels by Home Office contractor Serco when there is a shortage of housing.(The Business Desk)

Apparently Manchester City Council knew nothing of this and have said that the agreement between Serco and Britannia could have broken planning laws, and that they did not believe that hotels were “appropriate places for asylum seekers to be housed”

o Planning permission for the US Embassy in London’s Grosvenor Square to be turned into a five star hotel is being sought by the Quatari Investment Authority.

The Grade 11-listed building becomes empty in 2017 as the American officials move out to Nine Elms, and the plan is to convert it to a 137-bedroom unit with a spa, a ballroom for 1,000, and six luxury shops and restaurants.

o Dutch firm Flexotels, which offers temporary cabins for accommodation to festival and concert organisers are expecting to have the first en-suite versions ready for June.

Currently the 3m x 2.5m cabins, which are delivered, erected and then dismantled on site, accommodate two persons on two separate boxspring beds and are fully furnished with power for heat and light provided.

Those who like taut, cat and mouse political thrillers will love this prescient 1975 film of a rogue cancer in the CIA that desperately wants to protect American oil interests in the Middle East and is prepared to kill its own to do it.

Adapted from the 1974 novel Six Days of the Condor by James Grady, which has the CIA killing to line its officer’s pockets with drug money, the film was directed by Sydney Pollack and enjoyed a stellar cast. Robert Redford, at the top of his game here, plays the lowly CIA analyst Joe Turner, codenamed “Condor”, whose job, along with six others in the clandestine department is to read books, magazines and journals looking for coded messages. When he stumbles on some he reports his suspicions to his CIA bosses, not realising that they link to a CIA plot to take over an oil-rich country. As a result the CIA send in a murder squad which ruthlessly wipes out their whole department, all except for Condor who is out buying sandwiches at the time and who gets back to find all his colleagues dead. Thereafter he goes on the run, not knowing who to trust, as his CIA bosses try to kill him. Continue reading →

Operators of Alton Towers theme park, Merlin Attractions Operation Ltd are to be prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) over the serious accident on the Smiler ride last june.

The accident, where a car carrying passengers smashed into a stationary car on the same track left five people with serious injuries, including two young women who suffered leg amputations. After a nine-month investigation HSE say they are satisfied that there is sufficient evidence to bring a prosecution under the Health and Safety at Work Act, and that this will be in the public interest.

The company will appear at court at Newcastle-under-Lyme in April and faces, if convicted, an unlimited fine. Any individuals held responsible could face up to two years in prison.

Following the Shoreham Air Show disaster last year which saw 11 people on the ground die the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has introduced tougher new regulations for air shows.

The CAA have warned that events will not be able to go ahead unless organisers comply with the new regulations, which include enhanced risk assessments and tougher checks on the health and experience of pilots.

The Brew opened last year at 163, City Road. Shoreditch, London, opposite Moorfields Eye Hospital and close to Old Street roundabout, and offers a range of flexible, hi-tech event spaces in a trendy industrial setting (exposed pipes, distressed surfaces) that one either loves or not. Continue reading →

Those who enjoy the pomp and pageantry of a historical procession will want to know about the annual Ommegang event, staged in Brussels this year July 5-7.

Ommegang honours the visit of Charles Fifth to the city in 1549 and two colourful processions in the Grand Place are taking place from 9.00pm on the evenings of July 5 and 7 featuring more than 1,400 actors, as well as horses, music, flag-waving and tossing and staged fights between stilt-walkers, some several storeys high. A medieval village and tournaments are offered in the Brussels Park from 12.00 midday to 9.00pm on all three days.

Web: brussel.be/5442

Wrongly called “Friesland” by us Brits this province in the North of the Netherlands has the black and white Holstein-Friesian cows, famous for their high milk yield of healthily low butterfat levels, and the famous Friesian horses, large, black, strong and beautiful and a natural choice these days for dressage, films and TV, though they were once used as war horses since they were one of the few breeds strong enough to carry a knight in full armour. Continue reading →

Organisers looking to run small and medium-sized events in Amsterdam, and who worry that they could rattle around in the vast spaces of the Rai, can consider the modern 4-star Movenpick Hotel Amsterdam City Centre, and the adjacent venues it also sells. Continue reading →