Owners of Samling hotel in Windermere offer guests discount if rain interrupts stay – even a light drizzle

One of Britain’s soggiest holiday areas is so enjoying one of its longest dry periods that a local hotel is offering a £100 refund to guests if it rains during their stay.

The Samling hotel in Windermere, Cumbria, has had gauges put on its roof to check for rain, with managers saying they will honour claims even if there is light drizzle.

The move follows the Lake District’s driest winter and spring since 1929. Sunshine this week has also attracted lots of tourists to the national park. For the first time in seven years, the ruins of Mardale Green have reappeared at the head of Haweswater, the Manchester reservoir that flooded the village in 1926.

A hosepipe ban is expected next week in many parts of the north-west and staff at the Samling, a Michelin-starred hotel whose guests have included Tom Cruise and David Beckham, believe there will be no rain and are unlikely to have to pay out.

Andrew MacKay, the hotel’s general manager, said: “We’re convinced that we’re going to have a long hot summer in the Lake District. We had some terrible weather last year from floods to heavy snow before the dry spell set in, so I think we are due a bit of fortune.”

Usual advice for visitors to the Lake District is to expect rain. Seathwaite, below England’s highest mountain, Scafell Pike, has the highest average rainfall in England, and the nearby hamlet of Stonethwaite has an engraved stone plaque saying: “In memory of a sunny day in Borrowdale.”

The dry weather has shattered that image. A spokesman for Cumbria Tourism said many lakes in the national park were “at their lowest levels for years after five months of drought”.

Bookmakers William Hill is offering evens, or a 50% chance, on the Samling not having to pay out between now and the end of the offer in September.

The drought has prompted water company United Utilities to ask the Environment Agency for permission to take more water from Ennerdale lake, which drains some of England’s highest mountains including Pillar, Steeple and Great Gable.

Similar requests may follow for Windermere and Ullswater, whose water levels have already dropped significantly.

The utility company has launched a radio campaign appealing to people to take showers rather than baths.

Rainfall in Keswick in the northern Lake District was only 23mm in May compared with a monthly average of 76mm. In November, when the town and its neighbours Cockermouth and Workington were devastated by floods, there was an exceptional fall of 504mm.

It’s not where you might expect. Mercers have ranked the world’s most expensive places for ex-pats to live. See how the cities compare
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Yes, it’s Luanda in Angola. According to the latest research from Mercers, this is the world’s most expensive city for expatriates

According to the latest Cost of Living Survey from Mercer. Tokyo is in second position, with Ndjamena in Chad in third place. Moscow is in fourth position followed by Geneva in fifth while Karachi is ranked as the world’s least expensive city. The survey found that Luanda is three times as costly as Karachi.

From the survey, London (rank 17) is the UK’s most expensive city, followed by Aberdeen (149), Glasgow (155), and Birmingham (158). Belfast (182) is ranked as the UK’s least expensive city.

The survey covers 214 cities across five continents and measures the comparative cost of over 200 items in each location, including housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment. New York is used as the base city for the index and all cities are compared against New York. The cost of housing – often the biggest expense for expats – plays an important part in determining where cities are ranked.

There’s some great country comparisons below. What can you do with the data?

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Local Basque officials rail against decision taken in New York to place new Guggenheim in nature reserve

The Guggenheim Museum has become the emblem of the northern Spanish city of Bilbao and its main tourist attraction, but now attempts to spread its magic by building an extension in a nearby nature reserve have run into fierce opposition.

Provincial authorities want to call an international competition for a museum extension in the bucolic surroundings of the coastal Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve, 25 miles from Bilbao, hoping it will help boost the local economy in the same way the Guggenheim helped Bilbao.

“People in Urdaibai are worried because unemployment is growing and traditional industries are in decline. The museum would be a great boost,” said Andoni Ortuzar, local head of the Basque Nationalist party.

The move has provoked concern that authorities might choose to place a building as loud and intrusive as the main museum, designed by Frank Gehry, in the unspoilt surroundings of a nature park which boasts some of Spain’s finest surfing beaches. It has also run into the opposition of the regional Basque government, which has threatened to veto a competition.

The project has the enthusiastic backing of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which also runs museums in New York, Berlin, Venice and Abu Dhabi. The foundation’s director, Richard Armstrong, told a recent conference that he wanted the Urdaibai extension to become the “first important museum of the 21st century”.

The foundation, however, sees the extension as very different from the dazzling building that towers over the River Nervion in Bilbao. “It would not be an architectural icon, but a landscape one,” Armstrong said.

“The idea is to repeat the success, but not the model,” added the Bilbao Guggenheim director, Juan Ignacio Vidarte.

The plan aims to raze a summer camp built in 1925 in the village of Sukarrieta and replace it with “an innovative ecological museum”, with an emphasis on the “creative process rather than the finished product”, according to the Guggenheim chief curator, Nancy Spector.

Critics have accused the Guggenheim of looking for a free new museum, given that the Urdaibai building would be paid for by local taxpayers.

Some local commentators already complain that the big decisions affecting the Bilbao Guggenheim are made in New York. “In the really important decisions the Basque and provincial governments have only been there to give their approval to what is decided in New York,” said a former adviser to the museum, Javier González de Durana.

Provincial authorities said they still hoped to persuade the Basque regional government to go ahead with the architectural competition and that, if they did not get support, they would postpone it until a new government was elected.

A woman who went on a week-long Mediterranean cruise in her friend’s boat
developed a syndrome that has left her feeling seasick for nine years.

Ryanair chief blames BAA’s high charges at Stansted and the Government’s £11
Air Passenger Duty for his decision to base fewer planes in Britain this
winter.

Airport body scanners emit radiation up to 20 times more powerful than
previously thought, a scientist has warned.

Global Infrastructure Partners, the American owners of Gatwick Airport have announced an investment and development programme worth £1 billion over the next two years.

Part of the improvements include a new state of the art inter-terminal shuttle that will come into operation in July, a full two months ahead of schedule. July will also see an extension to the airport's North Terminal put into use.

Over the next two years the departure lounge, baggage systems, immigration hall and entrance forecourts will all see major improvements made to them. Global Infrastructure Partners has said the investment will focus on the airport's world-class facilities and quality of service, making it a unique draw to airlines and passengers alike.

Gatwick is the busiest single runway airport in the world and the second largest airport in the UK.  It serves more than 200 destinations across 90 countries in the world – more than any other airport in the UK. It is estimated that approximately 33 million passengers use the airport every year.

Speaking about the improvement programme, Alistair Smith, interim executive director of the Gatwick Diamond Initiative, a local business group which aims to take the economic performance of the business area around Gatwick from good to excellent, said "The £1 billion capital investment will bring the facilities up to date. The business community in particular looks forward to seeing more long-haul flights with planes like the Airbus 380 flying to major international hubs such as New York, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mumbai."

Cheap Flights and Travel News – © 2010 – Just The Flight

The luxury Tortuga Bay boutique hotel in Punta Canta in the Dominican Republic has been awarded the 2011 AAA Five Star Diamond Award. Only four hotels in the Caribbean have received this distinction to date and this is a first for the Dominican Republic resort, which has villas designed by Oscar de la Renta. The award is normally reserved for hotels and restaurants, which exemplify the highest standard of excellence in every aspect of operation.  

Making up part of the Puntacana Resort & Club the Tortuga Bay hotel has received high praise for its guest amenities, including VIP transport to and from Punta Cana airport, the facilities at the Six Senses Spa, access to the exclusive Bamboo Restaurant as well as the resort's golf courses.

President and Chief Executive Officer of Groupo Puntacana, Frank Raineri said of receiving the honour "The focus of Tortuga Bay has always been to create a memorable experience for our guests and I am so proud that the hard work of our staff is being rewarded in such a wonderful way."

The AAA Five Star Diamond Award follows on from the announcement earlier this month that the hotel, a member of the Leading Small Hotels of the World, had also been added to the American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts program. Flights to Punta Cana via Kennedy Airport in New York depart from London Heathrow regularly with both Virgin Atlantic and American Airlines.

Cheap Flights and Travel News – © 2010 – Just The Flight

Tony Naylor is delighted to see decent station pubs making a comeback, especially in the north. But we want to find more all over the British Isles

For those of us who believe that, at some level, it is better to travel than arrive; for those of us who like to savour the process of moving from A to B, the state of Britain’s railway stations is a source of some dismay.

Few British stations are places to linger or socialise. With the odd, honourable exception (St Pancras), most modernised stations are simply shopping centres, with trains, while the older, larger stations are dank, filthy, windblown holes, with none of the gritty character that might imply. It is a situation that may soon get worse, too. One of the Con-Dem government’s first budget cuts slashed a £50m grant meant to fast-track the regeneration of Britain’s 10 worst stations, including such benighted hubs as Manchester Victoria and Clapham Junction.

However, one thing is slowly (very slowly) improving at British stations, and that’s their pubs.

The last few years have seen a small but significant renaissance of the station pub. In northern England, particularly, the regional railway lines are now dotted with good on-platform pubs, such as the Steam House at Urmston, Greater Manchester, and the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms at Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire. Not only do such places improve the day-to-day rail experience of local commuters, but they are often destinations in their own right.

The trans-Pennine route – which takes in Stalybridge Station Buffet Bar; Huddersfield’s two on-station pubs, the Head of Steam and King’s Head; and Dewsbury’s West Riding Licensed Refreshment Rooms – is renowned for offering a great mix of well-kept beers, good, affordable food, interesting pub architecture, and multiple opportunities for gawping at trains. If you like any of the above, it is a great day out.

The success of the Sheffield Tap, meanwhile, a handsome renovation of a previously abandoned, Grade II-listed, 1904 restaurant and bar, at Sheffield station, is of an entirely different order. Where most station pubs are in rural locations, this is a speciality beer pub (20 draught beers, over 200 by-the-bottle) of real character, at a mainline, city-centre station. And it couldn’t be busier. It was opened in December by beer importer and bar owner Jamie Hawksworth, in collaboration with Thornbridge Brewery, and plans are already in place to extend the Tap’s main bar – all dark woods, picture windows and vintage tilework. Phase three, which should be completed next year, will see the further renovation of another “beautiful old room”.

Thornbridge director Simon Webster says: “We calculated what the through-put of beer would be by the end of the year and we exceeded it within three months. It was phenomenal – 100,000 people pass through the station every week. If you get 1% of those, you’ve got a thousand people, but it’s become far more than that. It’s a destination. With no joke intended, it does have excellent transport links. We hear about groups [coming] from Stockport, Nottingham, Leeds. They jump on a train and it drops them outside. It’s that easy.”

In an ideal world, station managers would be inspired by this. It’s the kind of activity that would, you imagine, boost the economy and atmosphere at any station. As Webster puts it: “Up until now, pubs in stations have not had the greatest of reputations. Hopefully, this can herald a change.” However, looking at the convoluted decade-long gestation of the Jubilee Refreshment Rooms, and the lack of enthusiasm that Hawksworth encountered when trying to generate interest in the Sheffield Tap, it seems that Network Rail, the train operating companies, investors and local regeneration agencies, all of whom have a stake in this, have yet to realise the potential of good station pubs.

In the meantime, we’re stuck, for the most part, with awful, identikit on-station boozers. You know the kind of thing: a chain-owned barn of a place, playing chart pop at top volume; Sky Sports News on mute on a big screen; prices that’ll make your eyes water; barely edible food. This review of several London station pubs sums up the soul-destroying nature of the beast, perfectly.

Which is why we need to know of any other exceptions to the rule. The Good Beer Guide-listed Mad Bishop & Bear at Paddington, for instance, and the Centurion at Newcastle’s Central Station are both widely considered to be a cut-above, but where’s your favourite station pub?

Four Britons were injured when two speedboats collided as they made their way to the monthly ‘full moon’ party on the Thai island of Koh Phangan.