What to do if you're a British hotel wanting to ride out the recession? You can drop your rates. You can run special offers. You can even give away free rooms, as long as your guests buy a bottle of Cristal. Or, if you're Birmingham hotel nitenite (yes, all lower-cased), you can throw in all the extras you'd expect at a big bucks hotel, while you keep your prices in the budget bracket.

Simply knocking down rates "may attract an entirely different market sector to those originally targeted," says the hotel which reminds me of a hybrid of Yotels and easyhotels. A bit sniffy? Maybe, but rooms start at a mere £45 ($61)

We're not quite sure if we could book ourselves into accommodation called Staying Cool but we admire the gall of people who could.

The Staying Cool moniker belongs to a group of serviced apartments in Birmingham, Manchester, Devon and Barcelona, and they strive to be, as you'd imagine, pretty darn cool. In their own words, Staying Cool apartments are:

the hip alternative to a hotel ... kitted out with bespoke pieces from some of the hottest UK designers, serviced to meet all your needs but with the independence and individuality (no two are the same) of your own wow apartment.

The Birmingham Staying Cool at Rotunda property has just been given the first five-star rating in

This weekend there will simultaneous partying involving parades, masked mischief, beads, babes, and drinking going on all over the nominally catholic world. To get the skinny, take a gander at the latest episode of The Map, where Liza runs down some of the world’s top Carnival spots, and hits up a German “Karneval” party right here in New York. For some extra goodness, take a look at other carnival videos from our archive. Here’s a clip about Rio’s Samba school parade, and a list of the cities most famed for their pre-Lent madness:



– Basel, Switzerland
– Binche, Belgium
– Cologne, Germany
– Mobile, Alabama
– New Orleans, Louisiana
– Patras, Greece
– Port of Spain, Trinidad
– Rijeka, Croatia
– Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Sitges, Spain
– Viareggio, Italy
– Venice, Italy

In an ongoing effort to convince us Birmingham is not shit, Alton Towers, a Birmingham hotel/resort, is offering what it calls a "sleepover suite" for girls. According to an article in Gizmagazine (Really we didn't make that up), the room features garishly bright furnishing, a plasma tv, a dance floor and "Chill Out Beds" that can be pushed together for late night gossip or, like, whatever. No mention is made if neighboring rooms come with peep holes, a tripod and a high speed internet connection.

Sleepove Suite [Alton Towers]
Another Outsourcing Opportunity [Gizmag via via PSFK]

Previously: Birmingham: It's Not Shit