Tag: choice

Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Meet At Crowne Plaza Hotels And Resorts

Whether you’re a busy business bod jet-setting your way around the most important cities in the world or a chilled explorer of the globe’s supreme sights and sounds, you’ll want somewhere to rest your worn-out brain cells or blistered feet at the end of the day. Crowne Plaza Meetings are the way to go, regardless of your destination and travel reason, ensuring you can work or play in suitable and comfortable surrounds.

1. Business Matters. You can be more in the zone than a neighbour at a neighbourhood watch meeting and more impressive than a chocolate teapot juggler, with Crowne Plaza meetings. Smart premises, professional service and modern equipment all ensure your meeting or conference is a success, allowing you to make an excellent impression on clients and colleagues – and not simply your chair. The room can be decked accordingly, guest speakers can be made to materialise, workshops can be run, and even an entire course can be conducted on the premises, with your own website at your disposal for many of the business matters.

2. Fun Times. Maybe you’re sick of meetings and the thought of arranging a business function at a Crowne Plaza Hotel makes you feel unsteady – instead, why not throw a party? As always, any excuse will do, be it your dog’s birthday, 17 days since your last party, or a friend’s twenty-third twenty-first.

3. Venues For Hire. If you want a venue for your wedding that will reduce the stress and strain of the big day thanks to the excellent facilities and friendly, capable staff, Crowne Plaza is a good choice. Able to cater for up to 1000 people for a banquet-style occasion, you’ll be able to find the venue you’re looking for.

4. Good Food. Whether you want a working lunch, food full of nutrients to fuel you throughout the long meeting and help to keep you conscious, or a delicious dinner consumed at a leisurely pace, Crowne Plaza meetings provide food for the occasion. Fresh, healthy and, most importantly, tasty, meals can be served during your business meeting, conference, birthday party or indeed visit to the restaurant.

5. No Hassle. You’re a busy individual – we all are these days. If you’re not dashing from one serious meeting to the next, you’re probably quickly checking Facebook on your smartphone or playing a rushed game of Angry Birds as you walk down the street. So the last thing you have time for is a long booking system when you want to arrange venues for hire or meeting space – instead, simply search on Crowne Plaza’s website to find exactly what you’re looking for in an instant. Plus, the moment you pick up the phone or drop an email to start your enquiry, you’ll be assigned your own Director. Oh yes, direct away my friend and your meeting, conference, wedding, guest speaker event, quad biking activity, workshop or otherwise will be arranged.

6. Fitness. Corporate wellbeing is all the rage nowadays, but your wellbeing has always been all the rage – which is why so many of the hotels feature a fitness centre. Run on the treadmill or, if you feel you do enough of that at work anyway you could spend some time in the sauna.

7. Choice. The reassuring thing is that you can travel to an array of cities around the world and chances are you’ll be able to find a Crowne Plaza Hotel just round the corner. With 92 hotels scattered across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, you’re bound to find the smart business premises you need as well as the snazzy resort you’re longing for.

December 30, 2011
Guest Post: 7 Reasons For Fake Christmas Trees

It is fair to say that there wasn’t a lot of fakery about the 7 Reasons HQ up until today – except maybe the dancing girls and the tiramisu tap – but that has rather suddenly changed. Today we find the 7 Reasons sofa in a forest. A fake forest. A fake forest of Christmas trees. And it’s all the work of today’s guest-writer, Andrew Norton. He likes them. And quite reasonably too.

Fake, fake, fake fake, fake.

A common thread in many of these 7 reasons lists seems to be idleness – you should do this or that because it is easier, or quicker or less hassle and so on. In keeping with this and for the sake of avoiding having to think too hard, I will proudly use the same rhetoric here.

1. Laziness. Artificial Christmas trees genuinely are the laziest, easiest, least hassling component of the entire Christmas period bar none. Not all fake trees are this simple I grant you, but there are pop-up Christmas trees that exist that literally jump into action, pre lit and decorated. All you have to do is find enough time and energy to rise out of a chair or bed long enough to get the tree out of the box, plug it in and switch it on. 1-0.

2. Rashes. This one might not cover everybody and I accept that, but there are a lot of people allergic to pretty much everything Christmas has to offer be it nuts, fake beards or pine needles. If you are one of those people, the festive period need not be a time of rashes and annaphallactic shock. When it comes to your Christmas tree – get an artificial one. Unless you’re allergic to plastic as well, in which case you might want to think about creating your own tree out of baby wipes, pipe cleaners and moisturiser. However, chances are that a wily Santa will mistake it for a pile of junk and leave you only the dust, fluff and crumbs that gather in the folds of his enormous Christmas sack. That is not a euphemism by the way.

3. Needles. Obvious one this, but most certainly true. The biggest pain about going into a forest, removing a tree and bringing it back into the house is that it continues to behave like a tree and very much like one that is dying. It drops its needles everywhere as a result. And they are called ‘needles’ for a reason, just ask your cat once it has finished trying to dislodge one from its larynx. They get everywhere and need to constantly be hoovered up from the giant sticklebrick that they make of your carpet. Not to mention the collection you will find on the bottom of your socks – I guarantee it.

4. They’re Identical. OK, so just stop and think for a minute about what you are doing this time of year – taking a tree from outside where it belongs, cutting it down and bringing it into your house so that you can precariously balance it in an ill-fitting stand, cover it in fragile decorations and light it up to make it pretty and sparkly. While that is fun it is also pretty laborious and ridiculous. When questioned about it by aliens or foreigners, you will tell them you do it “just coz that’s what we do”. At least save yourself accusations of madness by admitting that it is crazy and get a fake tree that looks identical to a real one. You can then argue that it is a symbol of a symbol, a postmodern ornament in reference to a pre-modern tradition. Make sense? Thought not. Just get a fake tree.

5. Religion. Had you forgotten that Christmas has anything to do with Christianity? May I take this chance to remind you that the whole reason we have Christmas trees is because a few hundred years ago St. Boniface though it would be funny to go and chop down a sacred tree devoted to the Norse gods in order to disprove the Nordic faith by remaining unscathed from their deities’ wrath. He even brought it into the house and made a display out of it. Well, if you are Christian you can continue the tradition with an artificial tree just as well as a real one. If you are an atheist or agnostic you can remove yourself from the actions of St. Boniface because unlike him you bought yours from a shop that had absolutely nothing to do with Norse gods and is not imbued with any sacred life force.

6. Reusable. So Christmas is over and the stick in your living room devoid of needles looks like a shaved cat wearing bangle earrings. Are you happy now? Did you think to get one that comes in a pot and can go in your garden? No? Well, I suppose you’ll throw it away or get it chipped. Yes, it may return to the earth from whence it came and that’s great. But so will an artificial tree. Well – in that you get it down from the attic each year and then when you’re done it returns to whence it came. They just pack back up into a box and ‘hibernate’ like all the other things you forget you own up in the forgotten world of sleeping curios in the loft.

7. Choice. Trees are green and are made of wood. The end. Artificial trees are all singing, all dancing magical constructions that take anything a real tree can do and then go one further. What’s more they are the tree equivalent of John C. Reily. They, like he, can play it straight or for laughs to equal aplomb. Remember him as the doomed fisherman in a Perfect Storm? That’s an artificial tree playing the part of a traditional Nordman Fir – compelling, believable and a joy to watch. Remember John going full slapstick with Will Ferrell in Step Brothers? That’s an artificial tree giving it as a pre-lit pop-up fibre optic mutli-coloured festive grotto in a box. Beat that real tree.

December 18, 2010
7 Reasons You Should Wear A Tie

1. It’s Smart. A tie creates a good first impression. Whether you are are going for an interview or taking that rusty bike to the skip, you should always wear a tie. It is much easier saying goodbye to the rusty bike with a tie on. It feels more like a funeral.

2. It’s Sexy. As Jennifer Aniston aptly demonstrates for us, a woman in a tie can be quite lovely. You turn up to an interview like that and you will get that job. You better just hope they don’t give you a complimentary pencil sharpener. Where are you going to put it?

3. It’s Fashion. You may not have heard about it yet, but 2010 is going to be the year of the tie-pyjama combo. That’s right, people are going to start wearing their tie in bed. It’s going to be the ‘must do’ activity so you should probably start now. Pyjama parties will never be the same again.

4. It’s You. The way you wear a tie says a lot about you. Just think of Rambo. The colour also says what type of person you are. Blue indicates a caring and humorous nature. Red shows passion and fire. Black denotes serious intent. Yellow with green dots suggests colour blindness. So remember, ‘Whatever message you want to get across, say it with a tie’. (That’s a great line and now the copyright of Jonathan Lee).

5. It’s Food. A tie is the only piece of clothing that it is acceptable to be seen chewing on. It is to apparel what the biro is to stationary. And of course you are not actually eating the tie, you are just sucking out all the nutrients. It is much healthier than a Snickers bar and does count as one of your ‘five-a-day’.*

6. It’s Useful. Why do you think James Bond always wears a tie? It’s because he never knows when he is about to be attacked. (Between you and me, I don’t know why he just doesn’t read the script. That way he could catch a different cable car than the bad guy. But anyway, he has a tie so it doesn’t really matter I suppose). James Bond and bad guy are in the same cable car. Bond left his gun under some French fancies pillow so he is both unarmed and knackered from all the fancying. Suddenly the cable car comes to an abrupt halt because bad guy’s mate has pressed the ‘off’ button. Bad guy whips out his gun but before you can say, ‘Bloody Hell Girlfriend! Bond is in a spot of bother here.’ Bond has electrocuted bad guy using the latest iPhone app and is whizzing down the cable hanging onto his tie. Genius.

7. It’s Clever. The tie was invented for one purpose and one purpose only. Everything else you have read are simply unforeseen bonus features. The one reason a tie was invented was because it is very clever at covering up jam stains on your shirt. Everyone drops jam on their shirt in the morning and it always lands right in line with the sternum. That can’t be covered with a jacket. A tie is your hero. And in the unusual occurrence that the jam stain is just off centre, well you wear a crooked tie.

*This is a lie.

November 20, 2009