Smoke-Free Pubs in England may Stink Worse than Before

by Neil Woodburn on

With the recent legislation prohibiting smoking in pubs in England, your favorite British pub will no longer smell like smoke. The problem, however, is that it might smell a whole lot worse.

Shortly after a similar smoke-free law went into effect in California nearly ten years ago, I visited my favorite neighborhood bar in Venice Beach excited that I would no longer be accosted by wafts of stinky cigarette smoke. The moment I walked in, however, I was overwhelmed by a far worse smell: cat piss. Apparently the two cats who lived in the bar regularly did their duty their as well. All the cigarette smoke had masked their little secret over the years.

I had never imagined a bar might smell worse after cigarettes were banned but this often the case. Usually it’s not cats, though. Bodies sweat, people throw up, food goes bad, carpets grow moldy–a lot can turn foul in a bar or nightclub.

With this in mind, one company is trying to capitalize on the new funky smell of smoke-free bars in England. According to a recent Reuters article, Ambius is a company that normally produces and sells scents to casinos and hotels. The company is now targeting pubs in England with promises of making their watering holes smell as wholesome as crisp apples or rose petals.

Nice! It sure beats cat piss, if you ask me!

(Photo: Wsogmm on Flickr)

The ‘Wonders of the World’ Votes are in!

by Iva Skoch on

Following up on an earlier post, the voting is now complete, and the winner has been announced. And here are the “New Seven Wonders of the World”: Mexico’s Chichen Itza, Brazil’s statue of Christ Redeemer, The Great Wall of China, Machu Picchu, Jordan’s Petra, the Colosseum in Rome, and India’s Taj Mahal.

The organizers say that they got about 100 million votes in what they’re calling the world’s first global vote.

The Egyptian pyramids at Giza retain their place in the “original” list of the Seven Wonders of the World, and that site is the only site which still exists from the original Seven.

The organizers are now busying themselves with the next world-vote: the New Seven Wonders of Nature. Vote online at www.natural7wonders.com

Unicef Stores in the U.S.: Going, Going, Gone?

by Jamie Rhein on

When I’ve describe my house, I often say that it looks like a Unicef store without the price tags. If you’ve ever been to a Unicef store, you’ll know what I mean. They are filled with high quality crafts from around the world and the profits go towards Unicef’s humanitarian projects. Or perhaps, I should say, the stores were filled with quality crafts.

I’m not saying that all the craft items in my house are high quality, but they are from all over the place and if we sold some of it, it would be hard to tell what’s missing. What is missing is a number of Unicef stores. I’m hoping it’s not all of them.

Unicef stores are having a hard time making ends meet. I just found out that the Unicef store in Sacremento, California closed a few months ago because the greeting cards sold there weren’t the new stock. It has something to do with a Hallmark cards taking the card production over. This article explains it. According to the article, other Unicef stores in the United States have closed also because people aren’t as drawn into the stores without the cards.

Darn it. I looked at the Web site for Old Town in Albuquerque, New Mexico to see if the Unicef store I used to go to is still there and I didn’t see it in the list of merchants. I loved that store. It was intimate and gathered much of the world on its shelves.

It’s too bad Unicef stores might not exist any more. They have that feeling about them that if you shop there, you are doing good. You can still buy Unicef cards year round at Pier One and 100% of the card sales go to Unicef, but still, shopping at Pier One does not feel the same.

Mapping the Continental Divide Trail

by Kelly Amabile on

Here’s a cool group project — a mini-army of dedicated volunteers have come together to create a definitive map of the Continental Divide Trail that runs from Canada to Mexico through the Rocky Mountains, Great Basin Divide and New Mexico desert. There are, of course, maps in existence already, but a number of discrepancies exist and none of them have been declared authoritative.

So, back in February, Backpacker Magazine editor-in-chief Jonathan Dorn called on hikers to help the Continental Divide Trail Alliance and federal agencies tackle a massive undertaking–to give this King of Trails an official map. Over 3,000 willing folks applied to help, and 300 volunteers where chosen.

There’s a blog where you can follow along with their progress. At this point, almost 300 miles of the 3,100 mile trail have been reviewed. There are 52 teams assigned to different lengths of the trail, some have been at it since April, and the work will continue through September. They’ll be snapping photos, producing video and plotting points of interest for the entire length of the trail.

National Parks Traveler Gets Facelift

by Erik Olsen on

One of my favorite Web sites about the National Parks, National Parks Traveler, has received both a face and content lift, and I highly recommend you give it a spin. It is lovely and they have a much more sensible web address now.

NPT is run by the ever-diligent, park-loving Kurt Repanshek who has done a stellar job over the years bringing to light issues and developments within our nation’s national parks. Seems he has teams up with the folks that do Park Remark to create a fantastic new site dedicated to the parks.

I wax rhapsodic about the parks frequently here because I deeply believe they are the crown jewels of our national heritage. We should all thank Teddy Roosevelt Ulysses Grant for having the foresight all those years ago to set off Yellowstone as a place that would be protected from development and where all Americans (and others) would be welcome3 to enjoy. The parks are in peril…well, there is a large backlog of much-needed repairs, and it is our duty to pay attention to what is happening to them. Now, that said, I am a realist. My first job out of school (my first REAL Job…after being a photographer in Tahoe) was with the Department of the Interior, the government agency that contains the National Park Service. At that time, there was a serious backlog of repairs, a shortage of qualified rangers and various threats to the sanctity of the parks (i.e. snowmobile issues, planes over the Grand Canyon, etc.). So many of these issues are not new. Not that we shouldn’t continue to pay attention, especially during these “difficult” years.

Anyway, I’ve given the new National Park Traveler a once-over and it is loaded with new features and lots of useful, interesting info. So I urge you, as we move swiftly into summer during which time your plans might include a trip here and there to the parks, to check it out.