Heathrow in numbers - how the UK's biggest airport is getting ready for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Some 500,000 people will be flying into London for the Olympics and Paralympics this summer.
That includes 100,000 athletes, 20,000 members of the media and 150 heads of state. Most of them will arrive via Heathrow.
It will be the start and finish line for the bulk of visitors, giving the country's biggest airport its busiest day ever.
That day will be Monday 13 August, the day after the closing ceremony and the day 65% of visitors are planning to leave.
Some 203,000 bags will be squeezed on to the baggage system - that's 35% more than on a normal day and about 13,000 more than it is designed to handle.
Of those bags, 15,000 will be oversized - full of canoes, javelins, bikes and poles for the pole vault. There will also be more than 980 firearms to check, plus ammunition.
'Heavily-congested skies'A special temporary terminal is being built just for the "Games family" - athletes and coaches to you and me.
It will be open for three days, snuggled between terminals four and five, and will boast 31 check-in desks and seven security lanes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of extra border staff - they will not give an exact figure - will be on hand to try to keep passport queues down.
Sixteen mobile teams of 10 guards each will be available to target trouble spots if, or should that be when, the queues build up.
It is not just Heathrow of course.
Air traffic control is facing its biggest ever challenge, coping with heavily-congested skies, the threat of a terror attack and possible bad weather. Twenty-five controllers are practising in the simulator every day.
In all, 400 have been specially trained over the past four years to deal with the extra workload.
Any rogue planes should be spotted within two to three minutes, after which military controllers take over that zone and a decision is made whether or not to scramble fast jets.
Extra plane?The Paralympics is a third of the size of the main event but it is still a huge challenge.
“Start Quote
End QuoteThe Chinese team are arriving on 27 different planes and they'll probably need an extra plane at the end to carry all their medals”
Heathrow will have to deal with a month's worth of wheelchair users in just a week - about 1,800 in total.
Thirteen new scissor lifts and 100 new ramps have been deployed to load and unload wheelchairs while there are six new powered stair climbers to move large electric wheelchairs.
Two-hundred extra staff will welcome the Paralympians and help with the biggest challenge of all - making sure every athlete is reunited quickly with their chair.
As one Paralympian put it, you wouldn't expect able-bodied athletes to leave the plane in someone else's trainers would you?
The Chinese team are arriving on 27 different planes and they'll probably need an extra plane at the end to carry all their medals. I made that last bit up.
Finally, 1,000 local volunteers will greet athletes off the plane, help with their luggage and welcome them to London.
Then a few weeks later, as the Olympic flame dies, those volunteers will wave them off again as they head for home.
One thousand people will be standing there waving goodbye at planes, so if you happen to be going on holiday that day, you might want to wave back.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
Tesco offering double Clubcard points cash-in towards cost of new smartphones - Know Your Mobile
Tesco's Phone Shop is now running an offer which will allow you to cash-in your Clubcard Points and get double the value towards the cost of a new smartphone.
Regular shoppers at Tesco supermarkets who have a Clubcard can take part in the ‘Summer Clubcard Voucher Exchange' and buy a variety of handsets from the Tesco Phone Shop.
The deal means your Clubcard points are effectively doubled, cash-in £50 worth of Clubcard points and you can get £100 off an up-front payment for a brand new smartphone, for example.
Amongst the handsets available is the iPhone 4S, which can be had on contract with O2 with unlimited texts and 500MB of data for £21.50 per month and £100 worth of Clubcard points, saving £100 from the usual price.
Samsung's Galaxy S2 can be had for £13.50 per month with unlimited texts, again on and O2 tariff for £50 worth of Clubcard points.
BlackBerry fans can get hold of the Bold 9900 on O2 with unlimited texts, 200 minutes and 500MB of data for £21.50 per month and £50 worth of Clubcard points.
There are plenty of other handsets available through the deal as well. The offer is set to run for one month and ends on June 13 2012.
Source: www.knowyourmobile.com
London Dining: Steak Near Covent Garden And Lesser Calamint Near Goodge Street - Huffington Post
The first Hawksmoor steakhouse opened in 2006 near London's Spitalfields Market, a couple of minutes' walk from the beautifully restored Christ Church Spitalfields, designed in the early eighteenth century by the architect Nicolas Hawksmoor. Hence the name.
Jackie and I never managed to get there for a meal, largely because steak is not often something we crave when traveling, but with the late-2010 opening of Hawksmoor Seven Dials near Covent Garden, the convenient location tipped the balance and we reserved a table for after the theater. Another factor was our eagerness to eat dry-aged beef from The Ginger Pig, a butcher shop whose owner raises his own longhorns in the wilds of Yorkshire.
Hawksmoor Seven Dials is in the iron-columned, brick-vaulted basement of what was originally a brewery, decorated largely with reclaimed furniture and presenting an image of always-been-there solidity. Our server told us that toward the end of the week, when filled with drunken traders, this can be a noisy space, but it was pleasant late on a Tuesday night. She too was pleasant, and well-informed. She instantly took it on board that we weren't the customers who order two-and-a-half-pound porterhouses and proposed that we share a sirloin (shell or strip loin as we'd call it in the US) weighing around a pound and a quarter including the bone: a steak offered on the menu as a one-diner portion (£30 - $48). She didn't push side dishes beyond what we wanted (crunchy chunks of potato fried in beef fat -- delicious). She didn't try to sell us fancy wine either. Some might say that she wasn't doing her job, but I'd say that she took our wishes seriously.
The steak, charcoal grilled and thickly sliced off the bone in the kitchen, was excellent: Not sweetly rich or eerily tender like a typical American steak from a feedlot-bloated animal, but funkily deep in a long-aged flavor that stayed with me (in a good way) long after the steak was gone. As usual, it got better as it cooled: next time I must remember to have them bring the steak while we're half way through our first courses.
Oh: First courses. We shared a generous smoked eel and hamhock salad (£10), an appealing idea marred by superfluous ingredients (peas or pea shoots, please, preferably the latter, as all the peas do is roll around the plate evading your fork), tough croutons and under-seasoning. Desserts, on the other hand, were wonderful, notably an orange-flavored variation on sticky toffee pudding: a good reason to go easy on the rest of the meal.
While there are costly wines, the list includes bottles starting at £18, and many wines are available by the glass or half-liter carafe.
I haven't eaten enough steaks in London to say that Hawksmoor's are the best, but they are awfully good.
The half-year-old Dabbous (named for its chef/co-owner, Ollie Dabbous, about whom you can read here) could hardly be more different from Hawksmoor and its grilled slabs of meat. Here too the décor involves ironwork and hard surfaces, but I found the effect brutal rather than solid. The food, however, is elegant, subtle, thought-through and (mostly) clear-flavored: no brutality there at all. Portions are (happily) moderate but not tiny: unless you are particularly hungry, greedy or curious, two of you will do fine sharing, say, three first courses and two mains -- plus dessert, of course. (Note that many dishes contain nuts, even if not as a principal ingredient; those who do not eat nuts should keep well away.)
And you will eat bread: The home-made loaf, modestly studded with nuts and seeds and its crust crisped and caramelized over live coals, is extraordinary. Slices of it, brought in a brown paper bag, come with a dish of creamy, salty butter, also home-made and made with skill.
Home-made butter yields a byproduct: buttermilk. The night we were there, this was the basis of the sauce for a bowlful of tiny new-season potatoes, wild St. George's mushrooms and fava beans (like most first courses, a bargain at £7). The favas, sadly, were overcome by the richness of the sauce and might as well have been saved for another purpose -- or included in larger numbers to add freshness to the dish.
Mixed alliums (members of the onion-garlic family), including intensely flavorful flower buds, were served in an irresistible crystalline broth scented with pine: subtle but aromatic. A lovely way to serve asparagus was with toasted hazelnuts and a "virgin" rapeseed oil mayonnaise topped with meadowsweet.
Main dishes (£14) too were delicious (that is sometimes the perfect word, even if it is imprecise). Halibut cooked to pure-white perfection, very gently grilled, was served with beets, watercress stems (which, come to think of it, were more than a little chewy) and a marvelous emulsion called iodized sour cream, containing herbs and oysters but tasting less specific than that. Cheese added extra flavor to lamb shoulder served with grilled runner beans and what else but lesser calamint, a member of the mint family. A medium-rare shoulder cut of Ibérico pork could have been more tender, but it was beautiful and flavorful.
Custardy milk curd with fragrant rose petals was a happy way to end, as was a ganache dessert made with a good citric chocolate. The dish was lightened with sheep's milk ice cream and scented with dill (brilliant) but freighted with a basil "moss" that, while beautiful, did nothing for the dish. One-bite cannelés prettily topped with cherries came with the very reasonable bill.
The cooking here is not perfect, but it is consistently interesting, pleasing and -- that word again -- delicious. While it would be possible to wax intellectual about Dabbous, I found it easy to enjoy, which can't be said for all restaurants with similarly clever menus.
Hawksmoor Seven Dials, 11 Langley Street, London WC2H 9JG; +44 (0) 207 856 2154; www.thehawksmoor.com (reservations can be made through the website). Open lunch and dinner (lunch only on Sundays). Our dinner for two, including wine and service charge, totaled £115 ($180).
Dabbous, 39 Whitfield Street, London W1T 2SF; +44 (0) 207 323 1544; www.dabbous.co.uk (reservations for the restaurant and its downstairs bar can be made through the website, though they are hard to come by). Open lunch and dinner Tuesday-Saturday. Our slightly too large dinner for two, including wine and service charge, cost £111 ($175).
Follow Edward Schneider on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimeToCook
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Children combine maths and athletics (From Watford Observer) - Watford Observer
School pupils explore role of maths in Olympic events
11:48am Wednesday 23rd May 2012 in News
Pupils from two schools met to explore the role of maths in popular Olympic sporting events.
The children were split into mixed groups to encourage them to create new friendships from the different neighbourhood areas, learn good sportsmanship and team work skills.
The event was arranged by Hayley Mirza, year four teacher at Woodhall School, and Olivia Lea-Robinson, year four teacher at St Meryl School, where it was held on Thursday.
Ms Mirza said: "The children enjoyed the Olympic Maths Morning very much and from this are looking to spot and record some of the maths involved in the 2012 Olympics.
"This will hopefully help move their learning into real life situations and inspire not just future sports stars but mathematicians also."
There were six challenges in total and the two enjoyed most by the children were the 60 metre sprint and the long jump.
In the 60 metre sprint the children had to measure the running distance, run as fast as they could while being timed, and work out their points achieved for running within a specific time frame.
The event was arranged to show the children how close sprinting events can be, and how a split second can separate first and fourth place.
Michael Leavens from Woodhall School said: "The long jump event was my favourite, I found this really fun and looking at my results I jumped further and further each time."
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Source: www.watfordobserver.co.uk
What London 2012 Olympic tickets are left? - Channel 4 News
Many sports, including athletics, cycling, equestrian, swimming and tennis - as well as the opening and closing ceremonies - are sold out from earlier ticket sale rounds.
Like other high demand events including pop concerts, we expect the website to be very busy. Locog Commercial Director, Chris Townsend
Organisers say there are still some £20 tickets available for boxing, fencing, football, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, weightlifting, judo and wrestling.
There is good availability for tickets ranging from £45 to £450 in archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, canoe sprint, diving, handball and hockey and limited availability for the race walk, mountain biking, artistic gymnastics, rowing, sailing and water polo.
Source: www.channel4.com
Blues announce Watford friendly (From Bucks Free Press) - Bucks Free Press
Blues announce Watford friendly
11:26am Wednesday 23rd May 2012 in Wanderers By Andy Carswell
CHAMPIONSHIP club Watford will pay Wycombe Wanderers a visit in the latest pre-season friendly to be announced by the Chairboys.
The Hertfordshire club come to Adams Park on Tuesday July 31, with the match kicking off at 7.30pm.
Blues players Marvin McCoy and Joel Grant both started their careers at the Vicarage Road club, who could include former Wanderers loanee Matty Whichelow in their squad.
It’s the fifth friendly to be confirmed by Wanderers, who also announced this week they will face Staines Town for the second successive pre-season campaign.
Last year they won 5-0 against the Conference South side in their first friendly, which saw teenage starlet Jordon Ibe announce himself to the world with a wonderstrike.
Blues go to Wheatsheaf Park on Saturday July 21 and also face away friendlies at Farnborough on July 14 and Forest Green Rovers on Wednesday July 18.
League One club Brentford will also face Wanderers in pre-season, arriving at Adams Park on Tuesday August 7.
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Source: www.bucksfreepress.co.uk
Waddock worked up for Watford - SkySports
The game on July 31 will bring back memories of the last clash between the two sides in July 2006 when Watford were 3-2 winners on Paul Lambert's managerial debut in Buckinghamshire.
It will also provide a chance for Blues duo Marvin McCoy and Joel Grant to come up against the club where they began their careers.
"I'm delighted that we've been able to arrange a game with a side of Watford's quality," Wycombe boss Waddock told the club's official website. "It's a good fixture in our pre-season programme and it will test the players' fitness levels against a Championship team."
Meanwhile, Waddock's men will travel to Staines Town for the second summer running on July 21.
The Blues cruised to a 5-0 success at Wheatsheaf Park last year thanks to goals from Matt McClure (2), Stuart Beavon, Jesse Kewley-Graham
and Jordon Ibe, who has since signed for Liverpool.
Source: www1.skysports.com
The Olympic and Paralympic Games will be the biggest sporting event in the UK this year. Will you be travelling to the UK to see the Games? Please send us your comments and experiences.