Where can you put your holiday pictures? On your address card, mug or duvet cover and more

Problem
Where can you put your holiday pictures?

For Yourself:
1 As wallpaper on your phone or laptop.
2 In a picture book.
3 On the cover of a notebook, such as one used for your next travel trip. Use a single photo or a collage.

For Others To See
1 As the homepage of your website.
2 In Vistaprint on caps, tee-shirts, bags, notebook covers, your own business address cards, mouse pads, posters, calendars, magnets and wedding invitations.
3 Facebook - on a profile page or in updating regularly.
4 Twitter
5 LinkedIn

6 Instagram - divided by subjects or countries.
7 Pinterest - divided by subjects or countries.

8 Able-label - put family photos or holiday photos on mugs, tee-shirts and other items, for a birthday or Easter gift.
9 The cover of your novel or other self-published book.
10 The cover of a box file in which you store your holiday brochures for a particular country.

11 Mobile phone case covers personalised with your photo from Pixum.
12 Sell photos

13 Tesco supermarket greeting cards from your photo
14 Boots cards from your photos

15 Personalised duvet cover from your photo - half a dozen companies do this at various prices, from about £60, plus postage.

16 Pillows, playing cards, and many more items from Smart Photo company.
17 Getting Personal will make you a label from a photo on a bottle of Prosecco or Champagne, a diary, a slate photoframe, a magnetic photoframe, and many more gifts, personalised with a photo or a name. For all occasions, such as Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, 50th Birthday, Christening, baby photo, wedding gift,  and many more.

18 Personalised gifts using your photos or text include aprons, photo boxes and others from amazon.co.uk
19 Pillow cases, coasters, photo mugs and more from Amazon.com.

20 Personalised key rings from photos or with names or cutout in nymerous styles, or cushions and other goods from ebay.
21 Etsy artistic suppliers will make your cat photo key ring, or pencils and square pencil tumblers with children's names on them.

CAKES
22 Personalised cake with your photo, from a small cake at £12.50 in vanilla or chocolate, to a large cake, or a set of edible photos on rice paper to stick on cup cakes. The best and most impressive was the photo of my face on a big cake, although I was not impressed by the quality of the cake it looked impressive. I had it made once with a photo of my face and once with a photo of my book.

Then we went off cakes and onto dieting. So I economised and ordered the cupcake labels but they were so small that your name obscured the picture of your face. You have to look carefully how the name and face are positioned. It might be better to order two sets, one with faces, another with messages such as happy birthday or a name.  Cut up the message and stick it on the cake separately.

Useful Websites
https://www.able-labels.co.uk/photo-mugs/
https://www.vistaprint.co.uk/photo-gifts?txi=16602&xnid=TopNav_Photo+Gifts&xnav=TopNav
https://www.pixum.co.uk/cases/smartphone?search
https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/side-gigs/sell-your-photos-online/
https://www.tescophoto.com/photo_greeting_cards
https://www.bootsphoto.com/photo-gift/photo-cards
https://www.bagsoflove.co.uk/blankets/personalised-duvet-covers.
https://www.smartphoto.co.uk/photo-gifts
https://www.gettingpersonal.co.uk/gifts/sale?page=5
https://www.amazon.co.uk/slp/personalised-gifts-using-photos/
https://www.amazon.com/slp/personalized-photo-gifts/
http://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/personalised-gifts-keyring
https://www.etsy.com/featured/personalised-gifts-
https://www.yumbles.com/the-boutique-cupcake-company/photo-logo-letterbox-cake.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Remembering the name of the restaurant, next person you meet or the person on your plane

Problem
1 You meet somebody new, the say their name and five minutes later you have forgotten. How do you remember the names of the people sitting beside you on planes, the restaurant or hotel, the group when you are holding a social or business meeting, the conference guests?
2 How do you get them to remember your name?
3 How do you remember a room full of people?

Answer
You have several ways of learning and remembering names.
These include repetition, alliteration, easy to remember names, nicknames, descriptions or the person, a halo background picture.

Remembering Individuals
1 Research a name or choose an easy name, preferably one syllable.
2 Visualise the place you met.
3  Visualise them in an imaginary house and garden or zoo with an alliterative connection.
4 Learn names in advance.
5 Attach an appearance, character, trade or profession.
6 Give or ask for a nickname.
7  Keep saying their name - and discussing their name.
8 Write it down - showing that you are doing so.
9 Write it down secretly.
10 Learn the country's popular first names and family names, and their meanings.
11 Attach some alliterative names to the places you are visiting.

Remembering groups
If you are a toastmaster at a wedding you will get a guest list printed out to announce people as they enter formally, maybe with the bride and groom first with their new name Mr And Mrs Brown, and so on. You can do this for any other occasion. If you are going to a restaurant, find out the name of the owner or manager, and ask about him on arrival. When phoning ask if the owner or manager or chef will be present, or who is speaking to you on the phone and who will be on the reception or cash desk.

Restaurants
When you reach the restaurant, even if they don't have your booking, you can say, 'I spoke to Sandra about Sicily'. If the person you met is at the door, with three others, you can ask, "which one of you is Sandra? Say, "We spoke on the phone!" and give her a big smile. If you are in luck, they will be ahead of you, and recognize you. Some of the top hotels keep cards on guests, check your birthday or star sign in your passport. When I go to Writers Holiday or Writers Summer School they keep a record of my room number and try to give me the same room every year. In a business such as a restaurant you could remember your customer's favourite cocktail and food.

Are restaurant booking people likely to mis-spell your name? You could leave your card in advance and ask them to staple it to their page for the weekend bookings. (Obviously not if you are trying to be anonymous. But good if you want to be noticed or just be sure to have a table.)

Identifying Yourself or Your Business
1 Find an alliteration or draw a caricature on your address card.
2 If you are in business, or retired with an interest in cats or cars, you can add such a symbol.
3 Add a symbol of your city to your address card or signature.
Where to find pictures?

a) Take a good picture of yourself dressed up at a family outing, wedding, Christmas party.

b) Wear your national costume or a local national costume or hat with the city or country name.
If I had been teaching English in the USA I could have worn a Union Jack tee-shirt in the USA. If I had been too shy to wear it in public, I could have photographed myself in it and had that picture printed on my address card.

Companies such as Able Label and Vistaprint have a huge stock of visuals you can add to cards.

c) If you are teaching English to a class of a dozen or more children or adults, the same people on a regular basis, create a list of names with the national flag or country map. No time? First lesson in class, teach everybody to say a sentence, ideally alliterative, and find one for every country or every letter of the alphabet, such: as
I am Al from America
I am from Brussels in Belgium
I came from Cambodia
I am Chinese from China
I live in London,
I am learning in London
I am Mr Lim from London
I am Larry from LA
I am Mike from Middlesex, Mike the Magician
I am new to New York
I am relocating to Russia
I am a citizen of Singapore
I come from sunny Singapore

Examples.
1 If you call yourself Paul the plumber or Mike the magician and sign yourself that way you increase the number of people who will remember you. I call myself Angela the Author. (This also distinguishes me from Angel the actress.)

We picked Lemongrass and Ginger hotel in Cambodia. No trouble remembering the name to tell a taxi driver when there or even remember it weeks later.

2 If you are looking for a hotel in New York, USA, America, pick a hotel with the letters N Y U S A. Always stay in hotels which start with your own initials. Pick an international hotel in your price range, always stay in one of them, keep their directory at home or on your laptop, and join their loyalty scheme.  Pick a hotel near a landmark or railway station so you can always get a taxi back easily, see the route on a map and know your driver is going in the right direction, and ask passers by for the way. On arrival at a hotel or office building, ask for the best known landmark in the street or area.

Big Meetings
When I was teaching another teacher showed me how to draw a plan of the classroom with boxes for the tables. It helps if you have a list of pupils. The school has the list. They might not think to give it to you in advance unless you ask. You might want to keep a list by surnames and a list by first names. Learn to pronounce the difficult names, and identify the country of origin or the name.

In Singapore we had to take a class register. It was not just for fun. It was a regulation, a requirement. This was done so the government could check that people with a student visa claiming to be students were actually attending a class and not working.

Table Plan
WhenI draw a plan of the table and the number of chairs around it with dots or boxes. I do this when I go to a toastmasters international club meeting in Singapore, or am involved with organising a wine tasting evening around a long table in a private room in a restaurant in London, whether I am a n organiser or guest, I draw a plan of the table and the number of chairs, write in my own name, add the people either side, or the name of the VIP at the top, and add the names of attendees or latecomers down the side so I can identify them fast when they shout or mumble their names. Then I can write the correctly spelled name on my chart, or even just the initial.

At a wedding or conference you will often have a table plan with a list of guests outside. You can photograph your table, learn the names of the people you will sit next to. Find them in the drinks reception in advance, decide if you want to be sitting next to them, or recognize them or walk in with them so two of you can circulate in opposite directions to locate your table number. If you already have their business card, you already know their name, and their spouse or college before you it down.

Changing places
I go into the hall and check where I will be sitting. Am I near enough to hear the speeches? Am I far enough from a noisy band? Am I near an exit if I feel claustrophobic, need to run to the toilet or to take a mobile phone call? Am I near enough to the buffet to get the smoked salmon? Am I far enough to avoid the temptation to eat two chocolate desserts?

Is it free seating - if so which table is my favourite? Am I seated next to my spouse? (Let's swap the cards so we separate - we've been talking all day. Let's both meet two new people.) Am I too far from my family and colleagues? Maybe get together to share drinks and stories.

Am I miles away from the VIP? Let's find him at the reception, in case he/she leaves earlier and we don't meet. I can hand my business card and say what we have in common. Maybe he or she will be left lonely in a crowd of foreigners speaking another language and come and find me to talk.

You also want to see if you need to be in contact with the organisers. On the other hand, the PR may be giving you a sales pitch all evening preventing you from doing your own networking and stopping you from making a date with the attractive person you spy elsewhere. The way to escape and be popular is to say you don't want to monopolies them and introduce them to somebody else who will be a good prospect for them.

Keep moving. For example, "Dear public company PR, you must meet my husband, would you like a drink - I'll get you one.  ... Hello, again, So sorry, I got waylaid by your charming, boss / PR lady / guest.)

Now, how can I help you to remember my posts?

Author
Angela Lansbury the author from London, speaker in Singapore, internet inspiration, inspiring teacher of English and your local languages on the internet, top travel tips and photos.

Websites which teach Romanian - and handy words such as toilet

Problem
How do I learn Romanian or print off a list of handy words, for example, to check into a hotel and order food in a restaurant

Answer
http://www.wikihow.com/Say-Useful-Things-in-Romanian
google translate

I need the key to my room.
What time does the restaurant close?
This key does not work.
Is there a toilet?
Do you have a restaurant?
Where is the restaurant?
Is there a swimming pool?
Can we book a guided tour?
Is there a hop on hop off bus?
Is there one day train ticket?Can we walk there?
What number bus?
Where is the bus stop
where is the bus station
where is the train station
How much is the ticket
I want to visit
Is it open
What time does it close

Can I phone the bedroom?

What time is breakfast?

Do you serve dinner?

Is there a set meal?

How much is breakfast / lunch / dinner?

Can I order coffee?
Double espresso with milk.
Lemon tea.Do you have any milk.
I would like some water.
Still water.
Tap water.
Is it free?
I am waiting for my husband, wife, friends.

What time is checkout?
Where can I wait?
We have an appointment to see this man
here is my ticket
Here is my letter
we have a guided tour
is this the right place
Do I have time to go for a coffee
Do I have time to go to the toilet
What time are you leaving
Can you wait
I have lost my ticket, passport, friend / family
I have found my friend passport family
Do you have a map
Do you have a business card with your address
What time will it open?
Thank you so much.
what is your phone
what is your email
can you take a photo of us
may I take a photo of you
I will email you.


From Google I got these translations into
Romanian

Am nevoie de cheia în camera mea.
La ce oră se apropie restaurantul?
Această cheie nu funcționează.
Există o toaletă?
Aveți un restaurant?
Unde este restaurantul?
Există o piscină?
Putem rezerva un tur cu ghid?
Există vreun hop pe autobuz?
Există bilet de tren de o zi? Putem merge acolo?
Ce număr de autobuz?
Unde este stația de autobuz
unde este stația de autobuz
Unde este gara
Cât costă biletul
vreau sa vizitez
Este deschis
La ce oră se închide

Pot să sun la dormitor?

Ce vreme este micul dejun?

Servi cina?

Există o masă stabilită?

Cât costă micul dejun / prânzul / cina?

Pot să comand cafea?
Espresor dublu cu lapte.
Ceai de ceai. Ai lapte.
Aș dori niște apă.
Apă plată.
Apă de la robinet.
Este gratis?
Îmi aștept soțul, soția, prietenii.

La ce oră se termine comanda?
Unde pot să aștept?
Avem o întâlnire pentru a vedea acest om
Aici este biletul meu
Iată scrisoarea mea
Avem un tur cu ghid
Este locul potrivit
Am timp să mă duc la o cafea
Am timp să mă duc la toaletă
La ce ora pleci
Puteți aștepta
Mi-am pierdut biletul, pașaportul, prietenul / familia
Mi-am găsit familia de pașapoarte a prietenului meu
Ai o hartă
Aveți o carte de vizită cu adresa dvs.
La ce oră se va deschide?
Mulțumesc foarte mult.
Care este telefonul tău
Care este e-mailul dvs.
Poți să ne iei o fotografie
Pot lua o fotografie cu tine
Te voi trimite prin e-mail.

I don't know how accurate this is but I recognise several useful and easy words. I shall put them in alphabetical order.

Romanian - English
camera - room
cheia - key
email - email
f a m i l i a - family
f o t o g r a f i e - photograph
t o a l e t a (flat line above the second a) - toilet


Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Badges At Hotels And Conferences - save them and re-use them

Many hotels and conferences give you a badge, sometimes on a free lanyard. They might ask you to return the badge or lanyard or both so that the organisers can use the items again. Often they cannot use the lanyard again because it has the date of the event, so next year's lanyard will be a different colour, for novelty, or to go with a new theme or venue, and with a different date.

If the badge is not collected, I save the badge in my suitcase for my next trip. But then, I am a hoarder and recycler. Many people are tidy minded and hate clutter and like to travel light and prefer to give back an unwanted badge. But I carefully keep mine.

At my next networking event, if I arrive before the badges are given out, or no badges are given out, I have one ready to wear. On a recent trip I was given a badge in the name I did not want to use. I was at a writing conference and wanted to use my writer's name which was on the books I was offering for sale in the book room. If your name is wrongly spelling, or the badge shows your married name instead of your maiden name or business name, you might find it handy to swap over the cards.

Swapping the cards is also a handy option if the new conference offers cards which are typed and in small writing and your previous card had bold felt tip pen writing which could be seen at a distance. You might also prefer a neat Italic script, rather than untidy handwriting.

If you don't like the writing on the card you have been given, sometimes you can reverse it. If it is double size and folded in half, turn it inside out.

Some lanyards and cards are designed with the name on both sides, so that if the lanyard is put on back to front or turns itself, the writing is still visible.

You could keep a stencil in your luggage or briefcase or the laptop bag if you are likely to want to add your name or company name to a badge.

Failing all else, you can insert your business card, or a return address sticker, on a blank card.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Uploading Photos To Your Blog and Recording Business Cards

Recording Cards On Phones
Running out of business cards at an exhibition? No problem. So long as you have one business card, get the person who needs it to take a photo with their phone.

Similarly, when you want their card and they have run out, photograph both sides of their card, then them holding the card. That way you can put the face to the name later.

Loading Photos To Blogs
I've found a new way to upload business cards. Take a photo on your phone. Email it to yourself. Move on your laptop later into photos. Then upload to your blog.

Or upload to a blog from your phone. Just find time to do it. You may need to check you have your blog's ap loaded onto your phone.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Business Cards and Quotations on drink and wine

I have one business card from the food and wine and hotel show at Expo in Singapore (ends 4 pm April 2016, next one in April 2018). The card advertises not just one product but several:
San Miguel\Hoegaarden
Icelandic
Mission Estate Winery
Appletiser

The card is from Pacific Beverages Pte Ltd.

www.burndownthehouse.com
e jeffreyang@pacbev.sg

His card has a picture of a ring pull on one side of the card. On the other side are the logos of all the products and two great quotations:

"Well, I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer."
Jim Morrison, The Doors

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."
Humphrey Bogart

For more on memorable business cards see my previous post on prunes from California.
I will upload a photo by tomorrow.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker

Wonderful Wines For Weddings, Romance & Surprise Novelties: Icewine For Valentine's Day, Wedding Wines, Cork Showing Klee; label with Dirdl

1 Squashed Wine Bottles Displaying Business Cards
The Austrian wine show at the Institute of Directors in Pall Mall, London showed Austria's latest wines and wine related gifts. Business address cards were displayed on a flattened bottle. You can buy these bottles and use them to serve cheese and biscuits with wine.

For a special occasion such as a wedding, anniversary, Valentine's Day, birthday, or birth of a baby, you can have your wine or champagne bottle flattened afterwards as a souvenir. I found flat-bottles.co.uk . Their charge in Feb 2014 from the website was £12+£9 postage for a bottle without label. (You remove your label and save it and stick it back afterwards.)  With labels £18 plus postage. They also do champagne and beer bottles. Other sellers offer bottles as olive trays or spoon rests, with a wine quote (old wine like old friends  better with age) and personalised. The bottle in my picture was at the Austrian wine trade show in London and was made for Weingut Hellmer by an Austrian company. I thought it was flattened by www.mth.com.at but I haven't yet found the website. The bottle itself is from Weingut Hellmer, www.winzer-hellmer.at office email office@winzer-helmmer.at tel:+43 (0)2738/3149

2 Ice Wine In Icicle Thin Bottles
I loved the ultra sweet ice wines which have to be picked at night when the weather is icy, sold in a bottle slim as an icicle. I first found this delicious wine in New Zealand, then in Canada, and did not realise it was closer to home in Europe, from Austria. My favourite eisweins were by Lang; and by Zantho whose bottle labels feature the winery's local lizard.

 Lizard Logos On Bottles Of Sweet wine - how sweet!

For the lizard logo on bottles of ice wine www.zantho.com

3 Dirndl Dress On Labels
Wandering through the show was a girl wearing a wonderful iridescent skirt. The same outfit, a folk fashion of Eastern Austria, is worn by the girl pictured on bottles of wine. The Dirndl dress has a laced corset-style bodice, a full circular skirt, and often a white puff sleeve blouse, skirt lengths varying from knee length to ankle length. You can buy these dresses in various colours for girls of all ages from babies to brides up to grannies, and co-ordinating lederhosen for boys and granddads too.

This wine with its wonderful label is brand new, so they are looking for importers to the UK. If you want to buy a dirndl dress, google dirndl or Salzburger dirndl. The pretty dirndl dress featured in the film Sound of Music so many little girls would love to have one. I met Bianca, above, the daughter-in-law of the people who run the winery.

More details of the wines from www.schmelzweine.at

info@schmelzweine

t:+43 (2715) 2435. 

4 Klee Paintings on Corks & Labels
Another novelty is a portrait from a Klee painting on a cork. Klee was an Austrian painter. The whole painting is shown on a wine label.

For the klee labels and corks check out wwww.szigeti.at

5 New Baby Bottles With Hearts and Keys For Valentine's Day and Weddings
The same company makes miniature bottles, the smallest bottles in the world, holding just a glassful of wine, 125 cl, with trinkets around the bottle neck as gifts. You can have little hearts or keys. Or anything you want to order. The bottles come in conventional colours or silver.

More Details From:

For the bubbly bomb baby bottles, with Bubbly Bomb Vienna designs, Bubbly Bomb Christmas Designs, Bubbly Bomb Wedding Designs - www.szigeti.at

You can buy the bubble bottles from Selfridges, Conran, the British Library or from the producers' website. They specialise in sparkling wines. The bottles with the hearts and keys cost about £8.99, while the ones with silver bottles and pink ribbon are about £12.99.

www.austrianwine.com

For anybody in the trade some more details:

Szigeti, Am Anger 31, 7122 Gols

T: +43 (2173) 2167 F: +43 173) 2514

E:sektkellerei@szigeti.at

W:www.szigeti.at

Contact: Hans-Peter Hofmann

Importer Grays & Feather Ltd.

Haider & Malloth make little lightweight glassy coloured printed papers to go under glasses (in German Glasuntersetzer) Vol.1.

They also double as circular business cards for their marketing staff:

Christopher Malloth MSc, marketing und Sales, Haider & Malloth OG, Am Schrandlsee 2, 7142 Illmitz, Austria.

www.weingut-haider-malloth.at

tel:+43 1 512 29 90-0

More details from:

Facebook: www.austrianwine.com/facebook

Twitter: www.twitter.com/austrianwine

Austrian Wine Marketing Board

www.austrianwine.com

Visit their Webshop shop.oesterreichwein.at

info@austrianwine.com

Next year I hope to go back to their trade show and taste the other sweet wines I missed by wineries: Fritsch; Haider & Malloth Weinkellerei OG; Etz; and Weubrueder

WINE QUOTATIONS

Finally a few quotations on wine:

A glass of wine and thou.

Drink, drink, drink. (Drinking song.)

In vino veritas.

In victory you deserve it; in defeat you need it. (Napoleon on Champagne.) 

Wine, women and song.

Angela Lansbury is the author of Quick Quotations which you can buy on line from lulu.com