London is the Party Capital

London firms are splashing out £100million on staff parties over just two nights as the capital celebrates the biggest party season of the year.

Hotels, restaurants, clubs and bars will be full to capacity tonight as around one million workers down tools to celebrate ahead of the Christmas break.

Analysts today revealed that London companies had sanctioned between £80million and £100million on two massive party nights, last night and tonight.

The figure is down slightly on last year, when £120million was spent over the Thursday and Friday nights before Christmas, with the fall blamed on the credit crunch.

Companies have swapped huge company bashes for smaller departmental events, as well as sharing venues with other firms to cut costs. Many firms are moving their annual bash to January to secure a better deal

Source: Mail Online

Tags: Christmas, Christmas Party, Entertainment, hotels, money, office

Wallace and Gromit all set for Christmas

Cartoon favourites Wallace and Gromit will return to BBC One at Christmas with their latest half-hour adventure. A Matter of Loaf and Death sees inventor Wallace and his dog Gromit open a bakery.

It reunites Oscar-winning animator Nick Park with Bob Baker, co-writer of The Wrong Trousers and A Close Shave. “Over the years, the BBC has been incredibly supportive of Wallace and Gromit,” said Park. “This film feels like their homecoming.”

The film - originally entitled Trouble At’ Mill - marks Wallace and Gromit’s first appearance since their 2005 film The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

Peter Sallis will again provide the voice of Wallace with Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay playing his new love interest Piella Bakewell.

‘Who-doughnut’

“I love making films for the cinema but the production of Chicken Run and Curse of the Were-Rabbit were virtually back to back,” said Park. “Each film took five years to complete,” he continued, saying A Matter of Loaf and Death had been “so much quicker to make.”

BBC One controller Jay Hunt said she was “delighted” to be premiering the latest instalment which she promised would be “unmissable family entertainment”. The film is described as “a classic ‘who-doughnut’ mystery… in the tradition of master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock”.

Source: The BBC

Tags: 2008, BBC, Blog, Christmas, Entertainment, Kew, New, TV, Wallace and Gromit, Win