We're now two weeks into the opening of the first of the Missoni Hotels in Edinburgh, Scotland, and already more news of future destinations have swamped us with surprise.

There's big plans in the works for this new fashion line of hotels; the Missoni Kuwait Hotel comes in early fall, followed by more hotels in South Africa and Oman, of all places. The latter will be a beachfront resort even!

Yes, we have a hard time believing the New Kids on the Block — who, were they real kids on real blocks would be neither new nor kids nor living on any blocks of ours — are still getting mobbed outside of their hotels these days. But apparently the boys are still being greeted with screaming fans wherever they go — and to be fair, they warned us about all of this many years ago in their song "Hangin' Tough": "and if you try to keep us down were gonna come right back." Yes, they came right back.

No room to dream: Online vendors are freaking out after a Times Online report revealed internet searches for travel were down 42 percent after Christmas, when holiday-fattened bank accounts are traditionally emptied out for spring vacations.

Searches for travel to the US were one of the hardest hit segments of the British travel biz, as the pound falls against the dollar and Brits tighten their belts. The only segment that showed any improvement were searches for package holidays, but the interest didn't lead to a corresponding lift in bookings.

Online bookings were taking a hit back in October already, but the gap between booking a trip and not even looking for one is pretty enormous. So dear readers, are you still looking for travel online, even if you can't afford to go now?

Related Stories:
· Internet Travel Searches Drop 42 Percent [Times Online, via]
· Financial Fallout Travel: Online Booking Hurting, Too [Jaunted]
· Budget Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo of an empty terminal at MAN: Jett Loe]

Ho ho no! Blue 1--a Finnish budget airline affiliated to SAS Airlines and not to be confused with Romania's Blue Air--has made a bunch of British kids really blue this Christmas.

The airline should have carried 160 people in two small planes from Manchester to Santa's home in Finnish Lapland early on Saturday morning, but the passengers were then told there'd be a delay while Blue 1 found a new aircraft. The bigger one they got was then deemed too big to land at Finland's Enontekio airport in bad weather and the whole trip was canceled.

Police had to be called to calm down the screaming children, and angry parents had to explain to their kids that they hadn't been good enough to meet Santa this year after all.

Related Stories:
· Blue 1 [Official Site]
· Fury as Santa Trip is Sleighed [SMH]
· Will the Real Santa Please Stand Up? [Jaunted]

[Photo: (stephan)]

Something called "Britain's Next Bear Model" is going down this weekend -- and it has nothing to do with the kind of bears you're thinking of, nor is it produced by Tyra. Check this out if you're not catching our drift.

Starting tomorrow in Manchester, Bears, Cubs and Daddies from all over the UK will congregate for Pre-hiBEARnation, an "annual celebration of all things butch, beefy and bearlike," according to The Lesbian and Gay Foundation.

The festival is calling the Hotel International its home base, the owners of which have taken a few extra steps to make sure the spot is "bear friendly". There are a number of different events over the course of

Hey, remember a few weeks ago when you bought a British football team? No, you weren't drunk at the time, but when the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve board voted to bail out insurance giant AIG, it effectively bought a piece of Manchester United, the popular club AIG paid £56.5 million ($99 million) to sponsor in 2006. Finally, a reason for Americans to care about soccer!

But seriously: If you're in a footie-playing country, a game is a great way to experience life as a local. You may not recognize all the songs whistling past your ears towards the players (nor the colorful language) but you're in for a great game.

This month, Man U takes on West Brom and West Ham United at home and Everton away; British readers, any tips for Americans enjoying their first game ever?

Related Stories:
· US Government Announces AIG Bailout [CBC.ca]
· AIG Still Sponsoring Manchester United [Yorkblog]
· Manchester Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: tunis marsh]

I may be a vegetarian, but I would eat a peacock in a second. I’m not even picky: peacock brownies, peacock pizza, I’d even eat peacock ice cream with a little feather sticking out of the cup for garnish. And then I’d eat the feather. Maybe you’re wondering: why all this spite? Don’t worry, there’s a story to back it up.

I was about 3 years old and I was at the London Zoo with my parents for a day out, as we lived there at the time (in England, not in the zoo). The London Zoo just happens to be the oldest zoo in the world, and opened in 1828. I was in my stroller, buckled in tight. It was then that my parents handed me one of my favorite things: a chocolate chip cookie.

I took a bite and began to smile from the top of my ears to the tips of my toes. And I think it was at this point that my parents turned away, because soon after a peacock waddled over to me, plumage all aflutter. (This frankly was weird, because the male peacocks are only supposed to shake their tailfeathers when they’re trying to find a lady peacock to mate with, and I know I’m not their type.)

Apparently English zookeepers think hungry, horny, 3-foot-tall birds should just be able to mingle amongst the common folk. The peacock stared at me with his beady little eyes, lowering his head so he was almost at my eye level. And then he grabbed the cookie right out of my hand and stood there, just past my reach, chowing down on it. As I was fastened in to my stroller, there was not a damn thing I could do. Like some kind of school bully, he just stood there until he finished the whole cookie before running away. And I wish I had yelled out, “What? Don’t you want to insult my mama while you’re at it!?” as I shook my little fist.

My parents never saw this peacock, or so they say. They just thought I had a very vivid imagination. I know this, because they asked if the peacock could talk and whether he asked for something to drink after he finished the cookie. The valuable lesson I got from this excursion? Never trust a dude who’s into tail.

- by Emily Epstein of b’scuse me? fame.

If you long for the glory days of festivals like Woodstock, where the mud seeps into your Converse sneakers and there are no VIP accommodations, Bonnaroo '08 is your bag: The tent-camping-centric, off-the-beaten-path concert weekend draws ever increasing star wattage this weekend in Manchester, Tennessee while still being its sweet hippie self.

We're definitely catching MGMT and Lez Zeppelin tonight, Chris Rock and The Swell Season (the musicians from "Once") tomorrow, Kanye "Almost Mr. M.I.A." West on Saturday and, if we haven't died from heat stroke by then, Aimee Mann on Sunday. Drink your water and wear sunscreen, people.

And remember, if you absolutely must live-blog your concert experience, check out the Fuse TV barn. They'll have cell phone charging stations and computers with web access so you can make your friends jealous without even leaving the fest!

Related Links
· Bonnaroo [Official Site]
· Summer Music Festivals: We Heart Bonnaroo [Jaunted]
· Bonnaroo coverage [Jaunted]
· A Travelpod for Bonnaroo? [HC]

[Photo from Bonnaroo '07: batesvillebreeze]

Bromley Mountain is having quite the political summer. Vermont's senior senator, Democrat Patrick Leahy, snuck a provision into a recent farm bill that would have had the federal government sell some national forest land to the ski resort in his state. But President Bush--or more likely one of his aides--caught the earmark; Bush specifically cited the proposed sale as one reason he vetoed the farm bill.

Congress didn't care for that, and they overrode the veto--only to find out that a paperwork mistake will force a re-vote on the entire thing. So Bush may have yet another chance to stick it to Leahy and Bromley Mountain.

In the meantime, the resort has plenty of summer activities on its current property. A three-track alpine slide is the main draw, but the zip line, "space bikes" and water slide also look pretty decent. If they ever get that extra land from the national forest, who knows what might be added... Maybe a statue of a senator?

Related Stories:
· Bromley Mountain [Official Site]
· Farm Bill Background [NC Mountain Times]
· President Bush's Message on Farm Bill Veto [Official Site]
· Ski Resorts in Summer coverage [Jaunted]

The fact that this made-from-surveillance-camera-footage music video came out of England shouldn't surprise us in the least. After all, the UK is where you'll find airports planning to implement facial-recognition technology.

But however creepy all these cameras are, it's still pretty cool. Maybe making videos with closed circuit cameras is the 21st century equivalent of waving to your friends back home via webcam?

Related Stories:
· The Most Clever Music Video of the Year (So Far) [WorldHum]
· Band Record CCTV Video [BBC]
· Dystopia Travel: British Airports Getting Face Scanners [Jaunted]
· Videos coverage [Jaunted]