One nifty encouragement to networking we recently experienced was the electronic delegate badge system used at the Clic+ organisers conference at Robinson College, Cambridge in November.

By touching badges together until they flashed and buzzed delegates could capture information about each other, as well as about exhibitors there by touching the badge on a spot on the exhibitor’s display, both for later downloading, thus saving going home with a pocketful of business cards and/or an armload of brochures. Continue reading →

Those who enjoy gritty psychological dramas will want to see The Offence (1972), a bleak and harrowing story of a detective-sergeant (Sean Connery) brutalised and damaged by the horrors of his job, and a suspect (Ian Bannen) brought in after a series of rapes of young girls, and killed during a shockingly revealing interrogation.

The film, based on the 1968 stage play This Story of Yours and directed by Sidney Lumet, did not do well at the box office, nor with most film critics, yet the acting of the two leads is superb – Bannen won a BAFTA nomination for Best Supporting Actor- and the film benefits from strong performances by Trevor Howard as the investigating officer and Vivien Merchant as Connery’s long-suffering wife. Continue reading →

Visitors to riot-damaged Thailand, once again under martial law since the bloodless coup to restore order on May 22, are being advised of the serious consequences of openly criticising the military, an action now illegal across the country.

Three months after the coup a Bangkok taxi-driver was sentenced to 30 months in jail after a heated discussion and difference of opinion with his passenger on inequality in Thai society. The passenger recorded the conversation on his cell-phone and handed a copy to the police, after which the taxi-driver was charged with and found guilty of insulting the king. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in Westminster have warned against the advisability of visitors making any political statements in public and counselled to avoid any political gatherings, marches, demonstrations or protests. Since the coup a number of media outlets have been taken off air and a number of websites have been blocked. Continue reading →

Old Grit’s vitriolic rant about speakers who sell from their stages in Issue 123 touched a nerve, it seems, amongst professional speakers. When it was posted at a portal putting event organisers directly in touch with speakers it generated some interesting responses, as below. Continue reading →

Those running, or looking at running events in Denmark will need to know about the modern Bella Center, and the adjacent Bella Sky Comwell Hotel, Copenhagen.

The centre is Scandinavia’s largest and was completed in 1975 on what was then a greenfield site at Orestad, conveniently located between Copenhagen city centre and its airport and now linked within ten minutes of both by the nearby Metro. It has a total capacity of 20,000 delegates, with more than 100 meeting rooms and auditoria for all sizes of groups, the largest accommodating 12,000 delegates theatre-style. Continue reading →

Those wanting to run an event near Heathrow Airport will want to include the Marriott London Heathrow hotel in the list of options.

This modern property on the Bath Road offers 393 comfortable en-suite bedrooms, with tea and coffee facilities, air-conditioning, mini-bar, large work areas, Sky TV, internet access, safes for lap-tops and good in-bed reading lighting. There are 13 Executive rooms that offer access to the complimentary snacks and drinks in the relaxing Executive Lounge. There are 20 accessible bedrooms, and 30 where guests can smoke. Continue reading →

Patisserie Valerie, the continental-style cafe and cake-shop chain, is to offer traditional English afternoon tea at its branches. This is for a charge of £12.95 per person, or around a half of that charged by most hotels, or a third of the charge at some top London hotels.

The move follows a successful trial in cafes in Soho, Marble Arch and Knightsbridge in London, the Bullring in Birmingham, and York, Nottingham and Cambridge. Continue reading →

Featuring a range of 50 hotels, hotel groups, convention bureaux and DMC’s from 20 countries the Moulden Marketing B2B Destination Showcase takes place at the Radisson Blu Portman Hotel, 22 Portman Square, London on Thursday Jan 29, 2015.

Entrance is free to event organisers, who can book up to twelve 15-minute appointments, with others on an ad-hoc basis. Countries represented by suppliers there include the UK, Republic of Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UAE, Korea, Estonia, Canary Islands, Greece, India, Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica and the Caribbean.

Tel: +44 1628 532020 email: [email protected]

Shoah, a nine-hour, ten-minute documentary detailing the horrors of the Holocaust from interviews with survivors and perpetrators is not easy to watch, but it is important to watch it, to understand that it was the ugly racism of ordinary folk, and the connivance of German industry for a profit, that made the unprecedented murder on an industrial scale possible.

Director Claude Lanzmann spent twelve years tracking down more than fifty eye-witnesses, and producing 350 hours of interviews that he took five years to distil down to the final film. As the terrible truths unfold it is the facial expressions and tones, and sometimes the breakdowns, that convey as much as the words, giving a unique film document of the brutal and systematic extermination of millions of men, women and their children, who died choking in the dark on exhaust-fumes in the gas-vans, or on cyanide gas in the chambers at the death-camps. Continue reading →