The Grand Life: Confessions of an Old School Hotelier in the Digital Age

The Grand Life: Confessions of an Old School Hotelier in the Digital Age PDF Author: Patrick L Griffin OAM
Publisher: Patrick Griffin OAM
ISBN: 0645055948
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1144

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Book Description
A funny, moving and heartfelt memoir of social upheaval from postwar Britain to the digital age. Patrick Langley Griffin OAM grew up in the post war years of a gloomy Britain in the 40s and 50s and his career spanned fifty years as a hotelier in Grand hotels across the UK, Europe and Australia. His memoir is filled with characters famous, infamous and hitherto unknown. From his first star encounter with Charlie Chaplin, the memoir is filled with tales of film stars, rock legends, celebrities, Heads of State and politicians, as well as the British Royal Family. No less enjoyable are the tales of ordinary folk, just as full of laughs, tears and crazy behaviour. The memoir is full of humour, candour and genuine empathy for the common humanity that binds us all. Born in Rugby, England in 1946, his early youth was spent in Swanage, Dorset, where the family had moved to escape the German bombing while their father served in the RAF. Although not academically inclined, his charm, wit and unfailing ability to make lemonade when he was given lemons ensure his childhood and public school years are filled with adventures and hilarious mishaps. His career started in 1963 as a trainee manager at The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, a very traditional Victorian-era five-star hotel, where he found his passion for hospitality. Half a century of social and political change comes to life, from post-war austerity and bureaucracy through the Swinging 60s and the ‘Summer of Love’ in Amsterdam, to England’s industrial upheaval and ‘Winter of Discontent’ of the 70s. He moved to Australia at the dawn of a new century to open two new upscale hotels, and survived and thrived in the global financial crisis that shook the world.

The Grand Life: Confessions of an Old School Hotelier in the Digital Age

The Grand Life: Confessions of an Old School Hotelier in the Digital Age PDF Author: Patrick L Griffin OAM
Publisher: Patrick Griffin OAM
ISBN: 0645055948
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 1144

Get Book Here

Book Description
A funny, moving and heartfelt memoir of social upheaval from postwar Britain to the digital age. Patrick Langley Griffin OAM grew up in the post war years of a gloomy Britain in the 40s and 50s and his career spanned fifty years as a hotelier in Grand hotels across the UK, Europe and Australia. His memoir is filled with characters famous, infamous and hitherto unknown. From his first star encounter with Charlie Chaplin, the memoir is filled with tales of film stars, rock legends, celebrities, Heads of State and politicians, as well as the British Royal Family. No less enjoyable are the tales of ordinary folk, just as full of laughs, tears and crazy behaviour. The memoir is full of humour, candour and genuine empathy for the common humanity that binds us all. Born in Rugby, England in 1946, his early youth was spent in Swanage, Dorset, where the family had moved to escape the German bombing while their father served in the RAF. Although not academically inclined, his charm, wit and unfailing ability to make lemonade when he was given lemons ensure his childhood and public school years are filled with adventures and hilarious mishaps. His career started in 1963 as a trainee manager at The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, a very traditional Victorian-era five-star hotel, where he found his passion for hospitality. Half a century of social and political change comes to life, from post-war austerity and bureaucracy through the Swinging 60s and the ‘Summer of Love’ in Amsterdam, to England’s industrial upheaval and ‘Winter of Discontent’ of the 70s. He moved to Australia at the dawn of a new century to open two new upscale hotels, and survived and thrived in the global financial crisis that shook the world.

The Grand Life

The Grand Life PDF Author: Patrick L Griffin OAM
Publisher: Australian Self Publishing Group
ISBN: 1922327433
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The Grand Life' is the funny and touching memoir of the life and times of Patrick Langley Griffin OAM, growing up in the post war years of a gloomy Britain in the 40's and 50's, then through his long career an hotelier in some 'Grand' hotels in England and Australia. Part 1: 1946 to 1947 Patrick L Griffin OAM, growing up in the post war years of a gloomy Britain in the 40s and 50s, through his fifty years as a hotelier in grand hotels across the UK, Europe and Australia. His memoir is filled with characters famous, infamous and hitherto unknown. From his first star encounter with Charlie Chaplin, the memoir is filled with tales of film stars, rock legends, celebrities, Heads of State and politicians, as well as the British Royal Family. No less enjoyable are the tales of ordinary folk, just as full of laughs, tears and crazy behaviour. The memoir is full of humour, candour and genuine empathy for the common humanity that binds us all. Born in Rugby, England in 1946, his early youth was spent in Swanage, Dorset, where the family had moved to escape the German bombing while their father served in the RAF. Although not academically inclined, his charm, wit and unfailing ability to make lemonade when he was given lemons ensure his childhood and public school years are filled with adventures and hilarious mishaps. His career started in 1963 as a trainee manager at Te Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, a very traditional Victorian-era five-star hotel, where he found his passion for hospitality. Half a century of social and political change comes to life, from post- war austerity and bureaucracy through the Swinging Sixties and the 'Summer of Love' in Amsterdam, to England's industrial upheaval and 'Winter of Discontent' of the Seventies. He moved to Australia as the century drew to a close for a new beginning, opening two hotels that would set a new benchmark in luxury hotel standards. His resilience and sense of humour helped him to survive and thrive.

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies PDF Author: Erik Brynjolfsson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393239357
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
The big stories -- The skills of the new machines : technology races ahead -- Moore's law and the second half of the chessboard -- The digitization of just about everything -- Innovation : declining or recombining? -- Artificial and human intelligence in the second machine age -- Computing bounty -- Beyond GDP -- The spread -- The biggest winners : stars and superstars -- Implications of the bounty and the spread -- Learning to race with machines : recommendations for individuals -- Policy recommendations -- Long-term recommendations -- Technology and the future (which is very different from "technology is the future").

Stavrogin's Confession and the Plan of The Life of a Great Sinner

Stavrogin's Confession and the Plan of The Life of a Great Sinner PDF Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Russia
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description


Heads in Beds

Heads in Beds PDF Author: Jacob Tomsky
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0385535643
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
In the tradition of Kitchen Confidential and Waiter Rant, a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. “Highly amusing."—New York Times Jacob Tomsky never intended to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in “hospitality” for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He’s checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In Heads in Beds he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we think we know. Heads in Beds is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who’s seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department’s dirty little secrets—not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it’s like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge. Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you’ll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 PDF Author: Sue Townsend
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060533994
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Adrian Mole's first love, Pandora, has left him; a neighbor, Mr. Lucas, appears to be seducing his mother (and what does that mean for his father?); the BBC refuses to publish his poetry; and his dog swallowed the tree off the Christmas cake. "Why" indeed.

Interpreter of Maladies

Interpreter of Maladies PDF Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 039592720X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Navigating between the Indian traditions they've inherited and a baffling new world, the characters in Lahiri's elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations.

Jim Henson

Jim Henson PDF Author: Brian Jay Jones
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0345526139
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • For the first time ever—a comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth century’s most innovative creative artists: the incomparable, irreplaceable Jim Henson He was a gentle dreamer whose genial bearded visage was recognized around the world, but most people got to know him only through the iconic characters born of his fertile imagination: Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Miss Piggy, Big Bird. The Muppets made Jim Henson a household name, but they were just part of his remarkable story. This extraordinary biography—written with the generous cooperation of the Henson family—covers the full arc of Henson’s all-too-brief life: from his childhood in Leland, Mississippi, through the years of burgeoning fame in America, to the decade of international celebrity that preceded his untimely death at age fifty-three. Drawing on hundreds of hours of new interviews with Henson's family, friends, and closest collaborators, as well as unprecedented access to private family and company archives, Brian Jay Jones explores the creation of the Muppets, Henson’s contributions to Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live, and his nearly ten-year campaign to bring The Muppet Show to television. Jones provides the imaginative context for Henson’s non-Muppet projects, including the richly imagined worlds of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth—as well as fascinating misfires like Henson’s dream of opening an inflatable psychedelic nightclub. An uncommonly intimate portrait, Jim Henson captures all the facets of this American original: the master craftsman who revolutionized the presentation of puppets on television, the savvy businessman whose dealmaking prowess won him a reputation as “the new Walt Disney,” and the creative team leader whose collaborative ethos earned him the undying loyalty of everyone who worked for him. Here also is insight into Henson’s intensely private personal life: his Christian Science upbringing, his love of fast cars and expensive art, and his weakness for women. Though an optimist by nature, Henson was haunted by the notion that he would not have time to do all the things he wanted to do in life—a fear that his heartbreaking final hours would prove all too well founded. An up-close look at the charmed life of a legend, Jim Henson gives the full measure to a man whose joyful genius transcended age, language, geography, and culture—and continues to beguile audiences worldwide. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE “Jim Henson vibrantly delves into the magnificent man and his Muppet methods: It’s an absolute must-read!”—Neil Patrick Harris “An exhaustive work that is never exhausting, a credit both to Jones’s brisk style and to Henson’s exceptional life.”—The New York Times “[A] sweeping portrait that is a mix of humor, mirth and poignancy.”—Washington Independent Review of Books “A meticulously researched tome chock-full of gems about the Muppets and the most thorough portrait of their creator ever crafted.”—Associated Press

Media Review Digest

Media Review Digest PDF Author: C Edward Wall
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780876503966
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 834

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Book Description


Confessions of a Necromancer

Confessions of a Necromancer PDF Author: Pieter Hintjens
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781539178842
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
Thirty-five years I've written code, a necromancer weaving spells to bring the dead to life. Hardware and electronics never held any charm for me. I've no love for chips and cables and solder. Give me a keyboard, a screen, and a language, and you have my attention. Thirty-five years produced a lot of work. So I thought, maybe time to talk about some of those projects.