Letter from France: June 2013 part 1

Château de ChantillyOnly June 22: Musical Night at the Château de Chantilly
Next Saturday from 6pm to midnight, the gardens of the magnificent Chantilly Castle will host a musical night of about fifty short classical music concerts that will be played in a dozen stages throughout the park. Thousands of candles on the ground will create [...]

In the footsteps of Jean Cocteau

One of the appeals of Menton on the French Riviera is the largest museum dedicated to the works of Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), a famous French artist who died fifty years ago. Frederic exolores the museum and the three towns forever linked with his work

Civil Aviation Authority

From the website:

“The CAA is the UK’s independent specialist aviation regulator. Its activities include economic regulation, airspace policy, safety regulation and consumer protection.”

Speedy birding

Feeling the need for speed, Wendy Johnson heads to the Yorkshire Dales in pursuit of the fastest creature on the planet

Its Official. Fewer of Us Went Abroad

Did we really need the official figures from the Office of National Statistics to tell us that fewer of us holidayed abroad this summer? Up until the end of September we took 14% fewer holidays abroad than 2008. It may not seem a lot but that equates to 9.8 million fewer visits. (A visit can be a day trip to Dublin or Calais as well as a holiday or a short break). But if you look at the figures for the main three months between July and September overseas visits dropped by just 1% and that, I think, is the key result. In the main holiday period, the number of us going abroad hardly altered.

£1.4 billion for Tourism

Two days ago I wrote about the strange position lots of tourist groups are in as the government makes its mind up about how it is going to stimulate, privatise or incentivise us to visit places. On Monday the tourism minister, John Penrose, said that local enterprise partnerships will be the main economic drivers and that they should work with local tourism bodies. Forget for the moment that this sounds suspiciously like what they are replacing but with different names and smaller geographic areas, it was what he said next that was important.

Eight great reasons to visit the 2011 British Ceramics Biennial

The 2011 British Ceramics Biennial kicked off on September 30. Here are eight (great) reasons to visit the event, which runs until November 13, and celebrates the rich history and heritage of the British ceramics industry, as well as its vibrant present and future.