Post LONDON

Post Published: Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Good morning/afternoon/evening.

I hope you are all well.

Today’s blog will be mainly focused on London. This is for two reasons; 1. I have just been given the task of writing features and articles on all of London’s 5* hotels (and there are many!!) and 2. I’ve been spending a lot of time there of late.

London has always been one of my favourite places in the world. In fact, I love just about everything about it. There is something so intrinsically charming about our capital city that makes every visit there fun and interesting and different. Maybe that’s because I don’t live there. I could imagine a place that is so busy and fast paced all of the time could be slightly draining to live in but certainly in my fairly regular and varied experiences, I can find very little wrong with the world’s best city. It certainly beats New York, but more on that another time.

My most recent trip inside the M25 boundary was for a gig with my band Boydidgood. We were playing at the wonderful Wilmington Arms in Clerkenwell and while this is a rather up market area of our fair city, it did mean a 4pm, Friday afternoon foray into the dreaded congestion charge zone. We were predicting chaos. We thought we’d be lucky get there before the weekend was up, let alone in time for a 6pm sound check. However, I found the experience to be rather uplifting. Yes, it was busy, of course it was. But let’s remember, this city has a population of almost 9 million people, which almost DOUBLES during the day with commuters, so a little traffic is to be expected! I was not driving prior to the Congestion Charge so I have nothing to compare my experience to, though I can only say that it was much busier outside the ‘zone’ than within it and that the former Mayor of London, Mr Livingstone, was right all along in bringing the charge in.

Which leads me nicely to another aspect of London that will have been hot on the end of many people’s tongues recently; the election of Mr Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson as Mayor Of London. I must admit, this rather amused me. A man with very little experience has been given the most important job in one of the most important cities in the entire world! His supporters will say he did a fine job as MP of Henley, and I’m sure that’s the case. But let’s face it; an untamed, wild spider monkey could be elected and run Henley as long as it was representing the Tories with very little qualms at all. I think this is compounded evidence of the public’s recent desire to elect character politicians. Our fastidious love of celebrity culture has seeped unwittingly into our politics and now we come to polling stations with the desire to elect the person we are most likely to remember as opposed to remembering the person most likely to be able to do the job…It’s a shame but it’s why our Conservative party has been no opposition at all in the last 10 years, with their consistently and ostentatiously beige party leaders. That all looks set to change though…

That said, I am very intrigued by one of Boris’ first moves in his new position – the ban of alcohol throughout London’s transport network. I think this is a great move, though I will rue not having a beer or two on my way to Victoria Park to see Radiohead on 24th June. I’m sure the move will provide a safer and happier environment to travel in. I wish Mr Johnson every success in his new role.

In other news, the site has been redesigned! Please familiarise yourself with the new look and if there are any change’s you think may be worth mentioning, send them through to me at alex@e-travelguide.info. Feel free to email me with your accommodation enquiries as well.

Till next week, take care,

Alex

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [StumbleUpon] More »
Powered by Bookmarkify™
Read on >>


  Tags: Weekly Blog | COM 0 Comments » | TOP


Post THE FIRST E-TRAVELGUIDE BLOG

Post Published: Monday, April 28th, 2008

Welcome to the first ever E-Travelguide Blog!

For the foreseeable future, this will be your definitive resource to refer to in order to read and appreciate the no doubt inane and hardly relevant ramblings of an E-Travel employee. In these blogs, I will be writing whatever comes to and may be on my mind, ranging from some no doubt misconceived opinions on current affairs through to recommendations on wonderful places to stay throughout the UK & Europe for business or leisure. There will also be some serious criticism of the Manchester United Football Team and occasional updates on the progress of our website build as we expand and come ever closer to our goal of becoming the definitive and completely essential guide for business & leisure travel in the world.

So, perhaps now would be a good time to introduce myself. My name is Alex Burrington and I am an employee for E-Travelguide and, more specifically, a member of the highly competent and wonderfully eloquent Reading based reservations team. If you have made a booking through E-Travel, there is a chance you may have spoken to me, although you may well have mistaken me for, and I quote, ‘a charming, well spoken girl named Alice’. If you would like to have a chat or ideally allow me to sell a room to you at any hotel in Europe, please do call our reservations hotline and ask for Alex. Lord knows I need assistance this month with my target which appears to be woefully short of my manager’s desired benchmark.

As you may have guessed from the above, I do not support Manchester United. I am an avid fan of Arsenal Football Club. People say I faff (sic) too much though I am rarely late when it is important. I enjoy Mario Kart and am also lead singer of one of Britain’s finest up and coming bands, Boydidgood. I prefer coffee to tea and as a true Brit, my favourite meal is obviously Chicken Tikka Masala.

With the introductions out the way, let us move onto this week. Various areas of the website are currently receiving a small re-vamp, two examples of these being our features for The Midland Hotel, Manchester & The George Hotel, Edinburgh. We know many of you book again and again for these two hotels so take a look at the newly amended sites and start planning your next stay now.

Furthermore, and perhaps more exotically, our Essential Guide to Spain has just been launched! Please do have a look…Some exhaustive and extensive work, almost to the point of fanaticism, has been undertaken by our writing team to get our Spanish guide as thorough and as useful as possible and we hope that planning your visits to Spain will be made much easier as a result. Our booking engine for Spain will be becoming live in the near future though you can use our Laterooms powered system for the UK already.

For those of you looking for last minute accommodation for events this week, no doubt the European Cup Ties between Manchester United V Barcelona and Chelsea V Liverpool will stand out. For accommodation in Manchester, please do call though we must warn you availability is very, VERY limited throughout the city. As for the contest between the Blues and the Reds, we should be able to find you something for the night and the number to call, as always, is 0118 9714700.

Anyway, I must get onto some work if I am to hit my already mentioned target. If you have anything you would like me to specifically mention in next week’s blog or if you would like to make an enquiry please do email me at alex@e-travelguide.info . If you are making an enquiry, I would love to say that you will win a prize if you are the first to mention reading this blog, however, I have nothing to give, save a pack of playing cards on my desk that is woefully rueing the absence of a King of Hearts. That said, I could give you guest list access to a Boydidgood gig…Now there’s an idea!

Till next week, have fun and make sure you book your hotels with me, as the two really do go hand in hand.

Alex

[del.icio.us] [Digg] [Facebook] [StumbleUpon] More »
Powered by Bookmarkify™
Read on >>


  Tags: Weekly Blog | COM 0 Comments » | TOP