Fireworks, champagne and Auld Lang Syne… there's no better place to celebrate the New Year than Britain. Wherever you find yourself on New Year's Eve, you'll never be far from a party.
YOU can happily trawl the Internet for hours looking for quotations to define happiness.
All areas of the philosophical spectrum can be found there.
Some of my favourites are: “Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy”; “Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill”; and “I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse, I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”
Another one, which is attributed to the American cartoonist Berke Breathed, and which could easily be adopted as the clarion call of the Disney corporation, is: “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”
Disney believe that they can make your dreams come true and thereby attempt to cascade you in happiness.
MY first holiday overseas was to the quiet, almost sleepy (well it was way back then) French seaside resort of Hendaye Plage.
It was a school trip for a bunch of 15 year olds who for the most part were venturing outside Britain for the very first time.
Even as you bask in the sun on Whitby's sandy beaches, you cannot fail to be aware of the imposing and slightly sinister presence of the ruined Abbey, high on the East Cliff.
Britain has always excelled at luxury - Rolls Royce cars, Connolly leather, Harris tweed, Wilton carpets, Paisley shawls – most of it aimed at a small elite of aristocracy and arrivistes, it must be said. These days, though, the whole world wants luxury, so Britannia has shaken her skirts, booked in for a facelift and upped her game. There has been an unprecedented rise in luxury hotels, bars, shops and spas, many of them in gorgeous historic buildings, others in exciting new builds. Plans are afoot to bring luxury shopping to the heart of the City (London’s financial centre), companies such as Dhillon Hotels and Crazy Bear are renovating historic coaching inns, and the Italian designers Missoni will open their first UK hotel in Edinburgh later in 2008. But that’s all to come. Here’s a thumbnail guide, for the man – or woman – on a mission to luxuriate now:
If your family has pets then you'll know how attached you can get to your four-legged friend, they are practically an extra member to the family and so you'll want them to go everywhere with you when it comes to going on holiday. If your holiday plans this year don't involve flying out of the country (and with the rising cost of flights and living in general not many will be able to afford it anyway!) then there's no reason why you can't take your dog along too.