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iwarburton
Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 2133 Location: Northumberland
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 11:39 am Post subject: Hodge Slams UK Holidays |
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Margaret Hodge, Minister of Culture, Media and Sport has publicly laid into the holiday business in the UK, with adverse remarks about London, Stonehenge and the state of our hotels.
But isn't it the Minister's job to promote these things rather than publicly rubbish them?
Also, we've just been on holiday around England and, whilst there were one or two small niggles, the general standard of the hotels and B and Bs that we used was excellent. The only disappointment was the weather and the trade is hardly to blame for that!
Does Mrs Hodge ever take holidays in the UK?
Ian. |
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mark occomore
Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 9955 Location: UK
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 5:29 pm Post subject: |
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God they should be interested about sorting out poverty Britain first before they get people going on Holidays. |
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John W
Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 3367 Location: Warwickshire, UK
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 6:25 pm Post subject: |
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My wife and I occasionally have weekends away, usually randomly choosing a district and finding a B&B farmhouse or a B&B pub on the internet.
Rarely disappointed. We've recently had cosy well-fed weekends in Cumbria, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Cotswolds, Shropshire |
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Mark Mayhew
Joined: 11 Dec 2006 Posts: 2897
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Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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Go further south sir. |
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RockitRon
Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 7646
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:02 pm Post subject: |
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We always pick three or four diamond (ETB rating, or equivalent) B&Bs or guest houses, and have found them so much nicer than the equivalent-starred hotels.
We also avoid city centres and tourist hot-spots like the plague, and it is these which Ms Hodge has in her sights, although it's the same in any country. However, what she bases her opinion on is a mystery - she admits to holidaying in Italy, and sensibly avoids London in the rush hour (so that's any time between 4.00am and 3.59am).
She has something of a chequered history and obviously thought that she should put her head above the parapet for a couple of minutes to draw the flak from her boss.
I'd have put up a link to the story in the Telegraph but, although they've given the paper a good makeover this week, the website is pretty awful and I can't find it. _________________ Ron |
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SantaFefan
Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 11258 Location: top of the cliffs in Norfolk
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:35 pm Post subject: |
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RockitRon wrote: | ... and obviously thought that she should put her head above the parapet for a couple of minutes to draw the flak from her boss. |
I on the other hand, haven't stayed anywhere at all by choice in the UK apart from one time which was a place called Appledore somwhere in Kent. They allowed dogs to stay with guests which was handy..
But, I do have experience of tourist hotels ( owned by coach companies ) in the South and I wasn't impressed much by them. Some were better than others but they all had a tackyness about them which wouldn't appeal to me.
I was also brought up in Great Yarmouth. Now obviously this is a different kettle of fish to the more beautiful parts of the UK where the scenery is the holiday, but why anybody would want to spend two weeks at places like Great Yarmouth is beyond me! ( budget aside )
It's complete dross from one end of the Sea Front to the other. _________________ Johnnie Walker read out my message on Pirate Radio! 13/8/07
I have heard how radio should be. |
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RockitRon
Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 7646
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Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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Great Yarmouth - Ah, memories...
(I'm not sure whether I should admit this)
...of Easter weekends up the road at Ladbroke's Caister Holiday Camp - the annual National 18 Plus Weekend - drinking, bands like Mud, Sad Cafe, Gary Glitter , Heatwave and the embryonic Bootleg Beatles, more drinking, DLT with the Radio 1 Roadshow, trips to local breweries that ended in a bunfight, everyone reversing the electric meter in the chalets (Not me, m'lud), more drinking...
...and the obligatory shuttle coach ride into Yarmouth to freeze our whotsits off** walking along the seafront with our girlfriends. And you're right, it was dross. (** Pre-gobal warming era!)
More recently we did spend a week at Aberystwyth and stayed at the premier and highest-starred hotel on the seafront (it was a short-notice thing and we couldn't get anywhere else). It was sumptuously carpeted and furnished throughout, or at least it had been 15 years previously; they couldn't serve an evening or bar meal Friday to Sunday; most of the staff could speak neither English nor Welsh and there was a hilarious moment one morning when someone asked for bread instead of toast and was told they didn't have any; and the nearest place to park was a quarter of a mile away unless you got there about four in the morning.
I think that might be something akin to what she referred. _________________ Ron |
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