While most people expected the recent ban on smoking in British pubs to make the air cleaner and fresher, there's been a surprise development: all these years, cigarette smoke has actually been masking a whole heap of other smells. As Oliver Devine, a marketing manager in the pub business, delicately puts it:
Appetising food smells have increased but others are less attractive, such as stale food and beer, damp, sweat and body odour, drains and -- how do you put this nicely? -- flatulence.
So one large pub chain is now trying out various artificial scents that should sweeten up the air. (Reminds us of a certain hotel chain.) Smells of ocean breezes, freshly cut grass and beer are all on trial, so give your nose a good workout next time you're in an olde English pub.
Scientists in Britain have been carefully doing research that'll enhance your summer vacation: working out which is the scariest roller coaster in the UK. And the winner is: the Stealth Ride at Thorpe Park. This tall coaster thrills you with a combination of height and acceleration--so much so that riders' heartbeats usually double to 170bpm and stress hormone levels triple.
But here's the really big news for the 2007 season:
We've tweaked the nitrogen boosters on Europe's fastest launch rollercoaster for a super acceleration of 0-80 mph in under 2 seconds!
These scientists must've enjoyed their research and they actually issued a Top 10 of scary roller coasters with names like Rita Queen of Speed and Nemesis Inferno; the tenth coaster, Velocity, wins our prize for the amusement park with the funniest name:Flamingoland. Sounds almost better than the scariest roller coaster.
We're not sure what comes to your mind first when you think of a visit to Wales, but some of those 50-letter-long unpronounceable town names is about where our imagination ends. So if you want to find out a bit more about what makes Wales tick, we recommend the Home Dinners in Wales system.
Similar to the Meeting the French website, Home Dinners in Wales gives travelers the chance to get inside a real Welsh house, eat a typical Welsh meal and chat to some genuine Welsh people. Average costs are about $55, including wine, and probably some hearty food like cawl (a broth) or Welsh lamb. After a few glasses of wine, you'll know more about Wales, and those town names will get easier to pronounce.
When the Eurostar moves its London-end terminal to St Pancras in November, we hope it'll keep up its recent marvelous punctuality record. But if you are stuck at St Pancras station, just follow some tips from the UK Times to take yourself on a tour of some of the architectural highlights of the new station and its surrounds.
Or if you're really keen on swotting up on some London architecture, especially the newer stuff, sign up for a walking tour with local architect Tim Bruce-Dick. He takes people on a weekly Wednesday evening walk throughout the summer, starting at a different tube station each week. Now you just need to know when your train will be late and you can book a tour to pass the time.
In the ongoing war between budget airlines and good ol' train travel, the Eurostar train line is busily pumping out its own good PR. Eurostar trains generally travel between London and Paris, with a few trips to Brussels, Euro Disney and the south of France. They reckon they're fast, convenient, and recently, punctual.
Yep, punctuality is the big Eurostar news of the week. Between May 7 and May 13, 98.5% of trains arrived on time (or early!). And the big news: on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week, 100% of the Eurostar trains were punctual. Eurostar is quick to point out that performance like this "easily outstrips airlines." Add to that the assumption that the carbon footprint is smaller and it almost seems logical to take the train. Except when you see an airfare for just a couple of pounds.
We've already expressed a hint of dismay at the growing popularity for the British to hold their bachelor parties in Eastern Europe, often causing drunken havoc and mayhem at their destination, since it's so much cheaper to drink there than at home. Getting drunk, throwing bottles and breaking bar stools is one thing, but in Poland the situation's definitely getting out of hand: the Scots are lifting their kilts.
Seeing a man in a skirt while you're trying to enjoy a night on the town is disturbing enough, but seeing what's under his skirt (nothing!) is just a touch too much. Some Polish cities are trying to get men in skirts banned and are at the least threatening to throw them in jail for the night. Seems kilt-wearing in Poland gives a whole new meaning to the idea of "traveling light".
What do you think of when you plan to visit Britain? The Queen and her corgis, maybe, or shopping at Harrod's, London Bridge, perhaps even a stop at Stonehenge. Would pornographic sites cross your mind? No, of course not, they're British!
But pornographic sites are exactly what crossed a number of people's web browsers recently when they dropped by the Visit Britain website. It seems that a hacker with a particularly twisted sense of humor had changed some of the links in the section on Cardiff, redirecting prospective visitors to some graphic porn. As one websurfer said:
I wanted to see what kind of things were being done to promote Cardiff and I was just amazed when I saw this website link; I couldn't believe it.
Don't click away too fast--the tourist board has corrected the link and apologized for any offence it might have caused. But then again, perhaps it'll increase the visitor figures for Cardiff.
It must be hard to keep a straight face in those tourist information offices with us travelers constantly coming in and asking really stupid questions. In Britain this week they've revealed some of the best clangers from visitors to London and Norwich, and probably even we wouldn't be dumb enough to ask all of these questions. But someone did ask "Is Wales closed during the winter?" and "Are there any lakes in the Lakes District?".
In Norwich, people often call in for help in finding where they've left their car; they've even had a prostitute drop in with brochures to advertise her services to tourists in need. Other tourists who've visited before often want to know the name and location of some nice place they remember: one woman was sure that by identifying a farm she stayed at twenty years earlier as "having a cow outside it" the tourist officers would be able to help her. But our favorite question was actually asked of the helpful tourism reps up in Scotland:
What time of night does the Loch Ness monster surface and who feeds it?
0 Comments - Add Yours
by amandak
