Our government has announced that it is going to investigate why so many children are being taken out of school during term and going on holiday.The figures, it says, show that the number of people being given fixed penalties has trebled over the last three years to about 15 or 16,000 (figures aren’t available yet [...]

The results of the autumn 2008 survey by Passenger Focus are out this morning. To remind you, Passenger Focus is the body that monitors the rights of train passengers and each half year it interviews 25,000 passengers with paper based surveys at railway stations and on trains across the country.Overall satisfaction is up across the [...]

Anyone who has been to Stanfords in London or Bristol and seen the miles of books and maps that they sell can be overawed by the number. (Incidentally, Stanfords will give you back £5 voucher if you spend £25 with them but the offer ends at the end of January. See www.stanfords.co.uk for details)Most are [...]

An independent online travel agent, www.sunshine.co.uk, issued the results of a survey last week . Apart from things which you could probably guess, for example, 77%of people made a new years’ resolution to lose weight , the survey also said that 60% or respondents (the survey covered 1,225 people) do more exercise while they [...]

Last night was Burns Night, the evening when Scots all over the world get together and celebrate the poetry and Scotland of their national poet Robert Burns.But today, 25th January is also the 250th anniversary of his birth in Alloway, near Ayr. Coincidentally or by design, his birth starts amost year long celebration of things [...]

You probably remember the G’day Australia tourism campaign though it seems to have been muted of late and not as good as the “Where the Bloody Hell are you” campaign.Well this week they took the campaign to the USA under the “G’day USA” title.Yes I did say this week. You might remember that (unless you [...]

Last December the state government of NSW in Australia decided to launch Family Funday Sunday. The idea was to bring more people onto ferries and into the city. To do this it cut the price a family ticket to just $2.50 (about £1.20). The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Sunday was already the most crowded [...]

Last week AOL ran a little feature listing the 10 worst destinations for tourists in the UK. Apart from 1 in Wales (Holyhead) and 1 in Scotland (Cumbernauld) all were in England. (Well done Northern Ireland in not making the list.)Some of them seem a little unfair. Wolverhampton has a lot going for it, Bantock [...]

This year sees the centenary of the introduction of the state pension. Before David Lloyd George introduced it in 1909, people were expected to support themselves in their retirement or be supported by their family. Nowadays we have 5 million pensioners who regularly, come recession or no, holiday. Large numbers collect their pensions abroad as [...]

Today is, apparently, Blue Monday, the day of the year when we are the most depressed. It coincides with credit card bills coming in after the Christmas extravagances and a combination of long, dark nights and lousy weather. And its dark here still, and raining and windy and I did get a credit card bill [...]