Tony Walsh – author on Oman & Arabia
Are you planning to travel through the UK (in transit) or visit it without requiring a visa?
If so, you might want to know about the new Continue reading “New UK Entry & Transit Requirements being rolled out for many nationalities“
London’s remarkable new train service, the Elizabeth Line is more, or less, open. Its cost is massive (as all UK infrastructure is) – pushing £20 billion – and the approval process is sluggish (again as is usual in the UK).
It’s currently running as 3 separate services: the east & west sections (largely overground) and the core section mainly underground. The service will be completely linked in late Autumn 2022, by which time the unopened Bond Street station will be finished. The trains are full-size overground trains – up to 200m long, and the system may well be capable of running automatically, though currently, it does have drivers – (the drivers Union is especially powerful).
Named in honour of Queen Elizabeth, who already has the Jubilee Line named after her for the Silver Jubilee. The Elizabeth Line’s purple colour may well have been chosen to represent Imperial Purple (or perhaps it was one of the few colour options left for the Tube lines), irrespective purple is the colour theme.
It is a superb service – the trains are extremely comfortable, and the stations themselves are well designed; goodness knows how many psychological and physical tricks have been used to get people moving between entrance and train. As a result, its very easy to use.
London is en fete, decked out in flags for the Jubilee celebrations. Even the miserable grey London Pigeons have been ousted by far more attractive Parakeets, in their lime green and bright crimson beaks.
This week London has been hosting the World Travel Market (WTM) at ExCeL London from November 1 to 3 . Incidentally ExCeL , owned by Abu Dhabi was a centre for overflow Covid hospitalisations in London.
The theme of the event was ‘reconnect, rebuild’ Continue reading “World Travel Market (WTM) London 2021 ExCeL London from November 1 to 3“
London was in bloom
for the International Media MarketPlace 2019, at the Continue reading “International Media MarketPlace 2019 the TravMedia event“
Tulips under a male Date Palm, just off Kensington High Street in London,
set the tone for a mix of Continue reading “Arabia at the London Book Fair 2018”
The first warmish day of summer 2017 encouraged me to visit the memorial to David Bowie in Brixton, London.
The day started well as I walked past Continue reading “Books and David Bowie in Brixton”
North of London’s centre for Lawyers is Lincoln’s Inn Fields one of London’s great public squares.
It’s where one of London’s oldest and nicest Museums, Sir John Soane’s Museum, is located. Despite the good weather I had a Continue reading “Wandering through London”
Alison Cryer of RepresentationPlus visits Oman as the Ministry of Tourism organised a meeting of their overseas representatives and Oman based travel industry companies at Al Bustan Palace.
RepresentationPlus gave Continue reading “RepresentationPlus visits Oman at Al Bustan Palace Hotel”
A nice video and music of the Royal Oman Cavalry from the Diamond Jubilee in London
A great idea in London is what’s called ‘Boris’s Bikes’, the bikes can be hired by the hour from numerous locations and left at any other. So it was a nice reminder to see how many Cambridge has always had, here parked outside one of the colleges.
Another trend Continue reading “Bikes & Birds”
Flying from the green of an English Summer into Muscat on Oman Air
The rain of a typical British Summer has kept trees in early summer leaf (except the Horse Chestnut which, where we live, has been badly affected by the new fungus which creates an Autumn brown off in early July).
On the ground the constant downpours have forced the birds of the garden under the creepers, Continue reading “Oman Air to Muscat”
in Bond Street London
For me the outstanding impact was the representation of Hadrian throughout his rule – each artist created a sculpture of a man whom the “vir in via” must have been able to recognize has they walked past him. It was wonderful that among the marble, the curators included a written plea for support, from a foreign civilian living in northern England, to the region’s governor.
Perhaps the same man had touched a large amphora, found near Hadrian’s Wall, which was displayed along with an image of a shard mountain of 26million amphora. Later, walking along Bond Street, I was surprised to see a familiar shop name. ‘Bateel’ a shop selling Dates and Date products has a branch in Muscat. Amazingly they had set up close to where a company I was general manager with 25 years ago had a shop. My surprise was not really in seeing Bateel but, with a rental of probably GBP300,000+ per year, the extraordinary volume of dates they must sell to cover costs – probably Arab Embassies are ideal clients.
You must be logged in to post a comment.