DATELINE MONDAY 22ND NOVEMBER 2021

Good morning, chilly greetings from the cold, crisp Alpine like streets of London W10 I hope you are well

Whoa was Sunday cold or what? The first real cold day of the late Autumn and early Winter, clearly we have all just got ourselves a wakeup call to tell us we are in the last full week of November and it should be cold it has been anything but cold. The “cold snap” as the Weather Peeps tells us has come down from Iceland and it is a chilly wind from the north, blooming ek they aint half kidding.

Yesterday I went to the AJEX Remembrance Sunday gathering at The Cenotaph in Whitehall, AJEX is the Association of Jewish Ex-Service Men and Women. Records show that 55,000 Jewish men and women from Britain’s 350,000 strong Jewish Community served in the First World War Some 2,920 service men and women were killed in action. According to Google in World War II about 30,000 Jews served in the British military, including 5,500 who served in the Jewish Brigade, a military formation composed of Jewish soldiers led by British-Jewish officers. My Mum served in the Women’s Royal Navy as a communications WREN at Dover Castle from 1944 when she was 18 years old. Mum who is 95 years old did not go but my sister’s 101 year old Father in Law who served in Burma attended and assisted by his son Nigel my brother in law and his on harry my nephew, they marched in the parade although Geoffrey was in a wheel chair, well at 101 years old marching is not on top of his to do list. All in all there must have been over 1,000 veterans or relatives of veterans who marched in the parade and spectators.

So what’s happening around the World this week? Oh lots of European type folk are very unhappy about new COVID restrictions that have yet again come into play, I can tell you I am NOT happy about it at all but there is not much I can do about it, rioting and burning stuff is not going to help one bit, getting shot at by the Police in Rotterdam or soaked by water canon in Brussels is not going to help either.

I sincerely hope that the corporate body understands that COVID has to be managed when travelling overseas and these lock downs are only a short temporary measure that should not and must not be a regressive step in the conference, incentive and event industry’s recovery

Some good news it is Thanksgiving in the United States this counts as one of their most important annual holidays. As regular readers of my Monday morning blog will know I like to ask Google what the holiday is all about. Thanksgiving is traditionally celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November, which means that this year it falls on Thursday 25 November. Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a regular national day of thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November in 1863. The origins of Thanksgiving are traced back to September 1620, when a small ship called the Mayflower left its dock in England carrying 102 pilgrims seeking a new home where they could freely practice their faith. They were drawn to America, then called the New World, by the promise of prosperity and the opportunity to own their own land. In 1621 these colonists and Wampanoag Native Americans shared an autumn harvest feast that they had laboured together to produce – the first ever Thanksgiving celebration – in Plymouth, which is in modern-day Massachusetts.

Did you know that there is a Christmas Market in Trafalgar Square this year, to be honest it tis is NOHING like the awesome Christmas Markets in Germany and Hungary but it is an attempt, there is normally one in Hyde Park incorporated in the Winter Wonderland area, I have not been there this year and I am not planning to go, if I do I will review here.

Nice to see The Queen was up and about and was able to attend the christening of two great grandchildren.

Next week sees the start of December I have my shopping list ready puff pastry mince pies and a panettone are two things on the list, for those lovely people who have seem my cake baking efforts on Facebook and twitter please note I will not be posting any photos of cakes mid preparation and end results fresh out of the oven during the whole month of December, I will not be baking any cakes far too many festive goodies to buy in the shops.

The Festive end of year lights are on in all the London West End shopping streets I will post more photos on Facebook and twitter over the next few days.

And that is the news so far.

MM and Company news update

As we at MM and Company look forward to the start of 2022 we are putting several thoughts and plans together, one of them is to strengthen the team by employing a Marketing graduate, if you happen to know a young adult who is a graduate with marketing qualifications, ideally with some experience, please send them our way.

That’s it you are fully up to date 😊

Wishing you a good week, a great week even.