Dateline Monday 9th June 2025

 Happy Monday morning I hope you are well and that you had a great week last week as well as a terrific weekend, the constant rain on Saturday notwithstanding (such a great word) 

If you were celebrating the Jewish religious festival of Shavuot (שָׁבוּעוֹת in Hebrew), I hope you had a wonderful time and overdosed on cheesecake. If you celebrated Eid al-Adha I hope you had an amazing time

OMG did you see the film footage of MT Etna eruption? Mother Nature at her most spectacular thankfully no one was injured 

Talking of Mother nature again amazing film footage of Mother Nature this time in Switzerland apparently millions of tons of rock part of Kleines Nesthorn mountain’s peak were held in place by an ancient glacier above the village of Blatten, sadly over the decades the glacier has been melting, It finally melted away releasing several tons of rock crashing onto the village of Blatten and burying it. The scientist have been predicting the collapse and the village had been evacuated a week earlier so there were no injuries or fatalities.

The news that Russia and Ukraine continue to take lumps out of each other is not good, not good at all and it seems President Trump has once again failed to talk sense into Prick Putin. 

Another week and another President Trump spat this time with his “Frist Friend” Elon Musk those two falling out was simply bound to happen and it did.

I see The Trumpmiester is now interfering in local politics, local being California he has sent in the National Guard to Los Angeles without being asked silly Mr President so when the trouble gets worse it will be the Silly President’s fault and not the Governor of California’s fault.    

Soap box time

The bitter news AGAIN today, it is 612 days since Israeli and other nations’ citizens were on 7th October 2023 wrenched violently from their homes, streets, fields, and places of leisure in Israel and taken to be held hostage as pawns of war imprisoned in squalid conditions in the Hamas terror tunnels in Gaza. A total of 59 Israelis are still being held captive by the group of evil, blood thirsty, barbaric terrorists called Hamas. Sadly out of the 59 people being kept in horrific conditions only 24 are still alive.

SAD NEWS but closure, the bodies of two elderly Israeli hostages have been retrieved from Gaza and returned to their loved ones to give them a proper burial it has also been reported that the body of a Thai citizen who was working in Isreal and kidnapped by Hamas on 7th October 2023 has also be retrieved from Gaza and returned to his family

Here is a thought, GAZA is 25 miles long 3-7 miles wide with 2.1 MILLION people living there and not ONE PERSON in Gaza has helped to find the 59 Israeli hostages

Off the soap box now

Congratulations to Coco Gauff who won the Roland-Garros French Open Tennis women's title and well done to Aryna Sabalenka who was the runner up.

Congratulations to Carlos Alcaraz who won a stunning match to beat Jannik Sinner at the French Open

Congratulations to The English Cricket team who beat The West Indies with a game to spare, very different from the results they got last year

And finally, June is PRIDE month the west end shops are beginning to decorate their shop windows and with pride publicity, John Lewis in Oxford Street the frontage  if you are celebrating pride, enjoy, I am certain it will be a lot of fun.

That’s it from a David point of view for this week.

MM and Company news update

Greece

Nassos and the team at AME DMC Group have told us that Hyatt Hotels has announced the opening of Zélia Halkidiki, an adults-only resort. Located in the region of northern Greece, Zélia Halkidiki has 104 guestrooms and suites with sea views

Vienna

Martin Evelyn and the team at e+o DMC Austria have told us that The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) has published its ranking of global congress destinations for 2024: Vienna takes first place worldwide, ahead of Lisbon and Singapore. The city last reached first place in 2022; in 2023, Vienna was ranked fourth. With 154 congresses, Vienna holds the top spot in the newly published ICCA ranking of internationally held congress events in 2024

That’s it from me for this Monday morning, wishing you a terrific week ahead, enjoy the sunny weather