Hot & Cool Blog

Noticed the Olympics excitement...not

When the Olympics start in Beijing on 8 August, there will be two weeks of pleasant but taxing chaos in the hospitality business - excitement, messy scheduling, customers glued to their TV sets at home etc etc...

It's no gift to this industry.

The bureaucracy of the various Olympic bodies doesn't do much to build enthusiasm - this is the sign-up form to receive Olympic team information from the Australian body ->>>

What the...why is all the information compulsory, including my phone number?? No thanks.

What the World Eats

Click your way through the photos showing one week of food consumption by families around the world... And more here.

Chicago and Las Vegas Tour Update

We're been blogging regularly on the main Profitable Hospitality website - it's the best tour yet!

Googling my coffee preferences

Google Maps is just so good - why aren't more sites adding a map that features their own selection of what's best?

Here's my local cafe collection:

View Larger Map

It's Australia Day

Just back from the beach where people were playing cricket, enjoying barbecues and surfing.

Now for a little music...

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A nice way to show photos using SlideFlickr

Paris life...

The wonderful French...

I'm now processing 1000's of photos from 5 weeks of travel. This one jumped off the screen - from the incredible Pompidou Centre in Paris - part of the bar of their striking roof-top restaurant.

After half a day immersed in their 20th century collection, the whole world looked different when I went back outside. Colours, shapes and details all stood out in another way...

Allergy Cards in foreign languages

A great service for travellers with allergies - print cards with a description of your allergy (175 covered) in any one of 22 different languages. While we're not encouraging our customers to be fussy, it's a fact of life so let's work with it...

Carbon footprint calculator

BP have an easy-to-use Carbon Footprint Calculator - it only takes 2 minutes to complete. Covers your living arrangements plus travel impact. Our household footprint is 10 tonnes of CO2, compared to the country average of 14.5.

How much is a tonne of CO2? They have a good explanation:

1 tonne of CO2 emissions occupies 556 m3 of space at 25 degrees Celsius and standard pressure. The volume of water in an Olympic swimming pool is approximately 2500m3. Therefore the average household CO2 emissions in the UK (approximately 10 tonnes per year) would be enough to fill about two Olympic swimming pools and the average household emissions in the USA (approximately 20 tonnes per year) would be enough to fill about four and half Olympic swimming pools!

Bondi Beach racing...

Believe me, it's not really like this every weekend at the local...