DoSomethingDifferent.com unveils month-long booking incentive
The incentive is for bookings made by 31 July. Booking references should be emailed to WIN@DoSomethingDifferent.com with EPIC in the subject line before 8th August to be counted.
A Universal Orlando 3 Park Explorer PLUS 1-Day Universal Epic Universe Ticket for 2025 visits is from £465 per adult and £456 per child, based on November arrivals. For customers booking ahead for 2026, the new Universal All Parks Ticket for 14 days admission to all four parks including Universal Epic Universe, costs from £482 per adult and £473 per child based on late January visits.
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Telegraph
11 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Robot bricklayers that can work round the clock coming to Britain
Robot bricklayers are set to be trialled on British construction sites amid warnings of a major labour shortage in the house building industry. The machines, developed by Dutch company Monumental, use two mechanical arms that dispense mortar and lay bricks at a similar pace to a human. That is equivalent to roughly 500 bricks per robot in a typical eight-hour shift, but they can be programmed to work around the clock if required – albeit under human supervision. It represents one potential solution to help ease a chronic shortage of brickies in Britain's construction industry, with experts warning that at least 25,000 more are needed to meet the Government's house-building plans. In the Netherlands, Monumental's machines have already built facades for dozens of houses as well as canal-supporting walls in housing developments. They can construct straight-lined brick walls and some cornering. Now, Monumental is preparing to trial the machines in the UK for the first time with London bricklaying contractor Galostar, a company that has previously worked on residential projects as well as bigger schemes such as the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, and the capital's Sadler's Wells Theatre. Tony Chapman, Galostar's managing director, said the tests were expected to begin next month. They will initially focus on whether the robots can be successfully adapted to British standards and can handle being deployed on scaffolding. He said: 'We don't think they [the machines] will ever completely replace brickies, but they can certainly help with the skills shortages we are dealing with. 'From our point of view it also helps because the robots don't need breaks, they don't take time off, and so if you have several of them you will know exactly what your output is going to be.' One person can supervise two of the machines at once but the supervisor does not need to be a qualified bricklayer, meaning it should be easier to keep construction sites manned, said Salar al Khafaji, Monumental's co-founder. He said: 'You just contract us to do work, and we will come with our machines to do the work, instead of a bunch of humans. 'Your labour pool will now be much bigger, and you can work multiple shifts.' He expects to charge about the same as the going rate for a human brickie, or around £1 per brick. Monumental says the robots can also be programmed to lay different brick configurations and patterns. It potentially opens the door for a return to the more elaborate styles of brickwork beloved by Victorian and Edwardian builders that are considered too labour-intensive by large-volume housebuilders today. 'Today, if you want to ask for a very nice, patterned facade with two brick colours, you'll get an outrageously expensive quote, because it's quite hard and it will slow the masons down,' Mr al Khafaji added. 'But this is exactly the kind of thing that robots excel at – you just enter it once, and our system allows you to have a mixed supply of coloured bricks and different types of bricks. 'And we won't charge you more, because it's not more expensive. So you'll be able to bring some of those things back into the industry. 'We're doing a canal wall in Amsterdam soon with really elaborate patterns – bricks sticking out, that sort of thing. It's kind of crazy, I'm very excited about it.' Mr al Khafaji is a former executive at Palantir, the US defence tech giant co-founded by PayPal billionaire and Donald Trump supporter Peter Thiel. He said he wanted to apply his expertise in software and machine learning to help solve problems in the construction industry, which has long been viewed by economists as a laggard. He co-founded Monumental in 2021 with Sebastiaan Visser. The pair raised $25m (£18.6m) from investors last year. They have long been eyeing the UK – where roughly five times as many bricks are laid per year than in the Netherlands – because of the huge national shortage of bricklayers. A recent report by the Home Builders Federation and the Construction Industry Training Board estimated that 25,000 more brickies are needed to meet the Government's target to build 1.5m homes before the next election.
The Sun
11 minutes ago
- The Sun
World's best holiday cities revealed and three of them are only two hours from the UK
THREE of the world's best cities are just a few hours away from the UK, offering sun and beautiful sights. Florence, Seville and Porto all won big at the Travel + Leisure Awards 2025 - and you can get to all three of them in just over two hours from the UK. 7 7 Travel + Leisure readers voted for their favourite worldwide cities, and Florence came in at number 11 with a reader score of 90.08 out of 100. Voters praised the capital of Tuscany for its shopping, quality of hotels as well as artistic treasures. There was an honourable mention of the Ponte Vecchio for its incredible views. Florence is considered a romantic city, full of beautiful architecture like the Duomo cathedral, which has its own piazza. It's the ideal destination for art lovers too as its home to work by Michelangelo, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci. Just because it's a hub of culture, doesn't mean that it's necessarily costly. In fact in Florence you can pick up slices for pizza for €1.50 (£1.30) and pasta dishes from €5 (£4.33). Florence is 80 miles inland, but you could still be at the beach in an hour and a half. Or even head over to Pisa which is an hour and a half by both car and rail. One Sun Travel writer travelled to Florence where she tried olive oil tasting, and checked out the famous sites. You can fly directly from London Gatwick to Florence in two hours 25 minutes. San Sebastian cider season 7 7 Seville came in twelfth place with a reader score of 89.49. It was described as offering a "window on thousands of years of history" with its best site being Alcázar Palace. The Spanish city is famous for its Cathedral and Plaza de España. It's also famous for tapas, Seville orange trees and the traditional art of flamenco - if you're lucky, you'll catch some dancers in the street. Deputy Travel Editor Kara Godfrey visited the city earlier this year - and ventured out on a secret food tour in the southern district of Triana. For anyone wanting to visit Seville Cathedral, Kara discovered 100 free tickets are given out at a certain time of day. You can fly directly from London Gatwick to Seville in two hours 40 minutes. 7 7 Porto, in the northwest of Portugal, is little but packs a punch. The colourful city came in 24th place on the list of Top 25 best cities - and was awarded a reader score of 88.24. Porto is filled with restaurants and bars and, of course, is known for its port wine production. Readers of Travel + Leisure said they love the city because of it's "wine-soaked culture". Porto is found on the River Douro where visitors can take a boat trip or even head down it on a kayak. When one writer visited last year, he couldn't get enough of the custard tarts, or pastel de nata, which he said you can pick up on every street for around €1. And of course there are vineyards aplenty and an opportunity to do tastings all around the city. Brits can fly directly to Porto from several UK airports, including London Gatwick, which takes two hours 20 minutes. Here are 20 of Europe's most beautiful islands that have direct flights from the UK - with the world's best beaches. Plus, the European city with £15 flights that feels like 'going to Japan without the cost'. 7
Daily Mail
11 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Fraudster behind £1.2m VAT con who blew £19,000 on 40th birthday party and lived it up in luxury hotel stays in Dubai and London is jailed
A fraudster who masterminded a £1.2million VAT con and blew £19,000 on his birthday party has been jailed. Nicholas Adams handed in bogus company tax returns to HMRC and then used the VAT repayments to pay for his 49th birthday party, flights to the UAE and luxury hotel stays in London and Dubai. Over a 19-month period between January 2022 and August 2023, Adams posed as the director of a shell company, Greenpoint Technologies, which he claimed specialised in aircraft and spacecraft maintenance. However, this was only a front for the scam, which made him £373,706. In total, Adams tried to claw back over £1.2million in total before raising suspicions of officials at HMRC, who then withheld further payments. He splashed hundreds of thousands of pounds on what prosecutor Martha Smith-Higgins said was 'a very lavish lifestyle'. There were three stays at five-star hotels - two at The Savoy in London and one at the Atlantis in Dubai. Newport Crown Court heard that Adams lived it up on the proceeds, throwing a £19,000 birthday party at The Botanist in Cardiff, and splashing out on luxury trips to Dubai and London, including stays at The Savoy and Atlantis The Palm. He also spent £43,000 on clothes and jewellery and jetted off to the UAE using the stolen money. But the lavish lifestyle came crashing down when HMRC launched a probe and raided his home, uncovering a trove of forged paperwork. Initially when officials queried the tax returns, Adams lied and created fake documents to support his story but these proved to be wrong after the raid. 'He was the controlling mind behind a substantial and sophisticated VAT fraud,' said Ms Smith-Higgins. 'This was fraud from the outset.' The court was told Adams spiralled into debt after losing his job following Brexit and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act in 2021. His defence lawyer, Peter Dennison, said he had since tackled alcohol dependency and was 'ashamed and remorseful'. But Judge Daniel Williams was clear: 'This was a vehicle for fraud. It was sophisticated offending over a prolonged period. The culpability was high.' Adams, of Whitchurch, Shropshire, who had pleaded guilty to knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of VAT at an earlier hearing, was jailed for two years, though he's likely to serve just one behind bars. Following sentencing, an HMRC spokesperson said: 'Tax fraud is not a victimless crime. 'It has real consequences for the public services we all rely on and we are working hard to ensure tax cheats like Nicholas Adams do not gain an unfair advantage over their law-abiding competitors who pay the tax that's due. 'We encourage anyone with information about any type of tax fraud or money laundering to report it online at
