Category — Wales

I drove through London this week to some meetings. It took me over 2 hours to cover the 25 miles or so across the city to Canary Wharf in the east end. Should have taken my own advice and used public transport!

However I did take a short diversion on the way to see the newly restored St Pancras Station, the new terminal for Eurostar trains that will whisk you away to Paris in the same time it took me to get across London!

What a fantastic building.

I was asked by Juliana one of our experienced Britain guides this week if I knew anything about a particular castle, as she knew it was in the same area of North Wales that I was born and bred. The castle was Penrhyn Castle and she was looking to get a few pictures and details onto our website.

It’s strange how buildings can shape one’s life but my early years were totally dominated by this castle (and the family that lived there). You see, they were the only landowners in our corner of the world – Llandegai near Bangor in North Wales. The Pennant family was also the owner of the slate quarry in Bethesda, that had supplied the world with roof slate since the 18^th century. They had therefore been, for a few centuries, the largest employers in the area where farming and quarrying were the main occupations. They were also owners of vast sugar plantations in Jamaica, a fact the family was never keen to publicise – for understandable reasons.

Last weekend an estimated 1 billion viewers worldwide watched live coverage of the Arsenal versus Manchester United soccer match at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal’s ground in London. This is an incredible number and testimony to the “beautiful game’s” popularity. As is usual with big matches it never really lived up to the pre match hype but still managed to entertain with a 2-2 draw.

We get many requests for tickets from people wanting to see a Premier League soccer match involving some of the “big” sides – notably Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool. Our answer is always the same – we can’t get tickets to any matches involving these clubs. The only tickets generally available, unless you have a well connected aquaintance, are the ones through the specialist ticket companies that also provide hospitality before, during and after the game for absolutely staggering amounts of money in my opinion ($300 min).

Yesterday Harry Potter, today Shakespeare. Both great friends of the British tourism industry!

My niece is a professional actress currently touring Britain with the Red Shift Theatre company performing Shakespeare’s “Much Ado about Nothing”. I went to see her on stage last night as the tour ventured into South Wales. Needles to say she was brilliant as usual. However this was no ordinary performance – it was set against the backdrop of war torn Sarajevo in the 1990’s. And it worked. It just shows why Shakespeare is so popular. Great stories that have the right mix of love, jealousy, rivalry and revenge with a good quantity of comedy. I’m sure we all identify with different things in his works.

At 6ft 6ins and 288lbs Jason Taylor is big man, but this week a 26 foot animatronic version of the Miami Dolphins defensive end has been touring around London because on Sunday, the city is home to the Dolphins as they entertain the New York Giants in the first regular season game on British soil at a sell-out 88,000 capacity Wembley Stadium. I’m lucky enough to have tickets and already looking forward to my first live NFL game. Although the Dolphins are bringing their cheerleaders I suspect that the Giants will have plenty of support in what should be a road game for them. Both teams are treating the game very seriously so apart from a Dolphins private party at the Tower of London on Friday (to which I did not get invited) the players will be kept from view. Shame really as I’m sure the teams would have enjoyed an open top bus tour of London, a visit to the Tate Modern Art Gallery or even an audience with the Queen at Buckingham Palace.