Stay in London With Your Mother-in-Law?

So, you should visit your mother-in-law in London but don't really want to stay the night with her? Well, there are plenty of alternative places to stay in London and loads of things to do whilst in the Capital.

Hotels in London are quite well-known for their high costs; however, if you have some foresight and plan ahead, you can stay there without emptying your pockets. Accommodation in London is variable, ranging from luxury, 5-star hotels to snug and comfortable bed & breakfast pubs and guest houses. A great way to save money on accommodation in London without staying with your mother-in-law is to simply choose to go in the off-season time. Accommodation in London is extremely expensive and quite hard to find over the summer. In general, accommodation in London is the most expensive in the UK and Ireland.

It's possible to stay in London on a slim budget. B&Bs are comparatively cheap places where you can stay in London and still be comfortable.

You could even become a member of Hostelling International and get discounts on accommodation, trips, activities and admission to museums and cultural centres. If you get an international youth hostel card, you can stay in London hostels for under $30 a night. You can join through your local Youth Hostel Association.

Your mother-in-law may offer you a meal but if not there are plenty of places to eat, but eating out is generally expensive in London. But it is a place that enjoys diverse restaurants offering cuisines of different kinds and places. In fact, they rival the restaurants of some of the modern and thickly populated American cities like New York and San Francisco.

Some of the finest bars and restaurants in London may be on your mother-in-law's doorstep, along with many attractions like Buckingham Palace and the Royal Academy of Arts.

London has some ambitious Indian restaurants that offer outstanding and original Indian cuisine. Some Indian restaurants even specialise in the cuisines of another country, calling it their own and attracting new admirers to it.

You may prefer French food and whilst there are excellent French restaurants in London they can also be found in Greater London, too. It's true that restaurants in London are famous for variety and you'll find just about every type of food imaginable from all over the world but probably not quite like your mother-in-law will provide! Restaurants in London are certainly not cheap and you may sometimes have to cough up more than you bargained for! Remember that if you stay at a guest house in London, you may be able to arrange an evening meal along with your bed and breakfast.

Some of the places you can visit whilst you are in London include the British Museum, Natural History Museum, the London Eye, Tate Modern, National Gallery, Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Madam Tussauds (now with a new figure of Michael Jackson), the Tower of London and National Maritime Museum. Other places to visit in London include Covent Garden, Harrods in Knightsbridge for some retail therapy, the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, London Zoo, Hampton Court Palace (try the maze) and Kew Gardens. A guest house in London makes a very good base from which to visit all of these interesting places.

Recommended Theatre Events For the London Autumn

When the weather turns brisk after a wet and none-too-warm summer we Brits well know that now is the time to enjoy London. The winter is too cold and miserable and the summer is generally blighted by hordes of tourists. But the Spring and Autumn are the highlights of the year with the best cultural events and reasonable weather to enjoy them. This Autumn there is heaps to do with theatre a particular highlight.

Recommended London theatre

Right now there are a number of particularly good productions on stage in London. Whether you are interested in musicals or serious theatre there are in excess of 75 plays in production. However, as I know that many visitors in London are after a jolly show I have profiled three musicals below as well as a serious piece theatre which promises to be one of the most talked-about productions of the decade.

The 39 Steps has just past its second birthday at the Criterion and has just announced that its run has been extended yet again. The play is adapted from the novel by nineteenth century novelist John Buchan and the 1935 film of the book by Alfred Hitchcock. The play is a comedic spoof-thriller about Richard Hannay a London gentleman who is drawn into a foreign plot and ends up on the run himself after a woman is found murdered in his flat. I saw the original London show at the Tricycle before it opened at the Criterion and it is heartily recommended. The production won "Best New Comedy" at the Olivier Awards in 2006. A Broadway spin-off won two Tony Awards this year.

Grease. London revival of the 1972 Broadway hit immortalised by Olivia Newton John and John Travolta in the 1978 film. This 2007 revival has been much acclaimed by critics and audiences. It is full of life and energy and will leave you singing the songs and feeling great.

The Donmar Warehouse is known in London for its confronting dramas. It is an intimate theatre around a horseshoe stage with only three rows so you can feel the actor's effort and sweat throughout. The theatre attracts major stars returning to the stage for intellectual refreshment. In its latest production Shakespeare veteran Kenneth Branagh has cast Hollywood heart-throb Jude Law as Hamlet. Will Law succeed in such a cramped domain? Many stars have returned to the stage in London to sold-out runs but critical panning. I think Law is cut above the rest and will enhance his reputation in this performance which is certain to be one of the most talked-about shows of the year.

The Phantom is back. Andrew Lloyd Webber's classic romance has been revived at Her Majesty's theatre. For those who remember the London launch of the musical in the 1980s, relive the magic.

After the show catch a late supper at Gaucho Piccadilly. Gaucho is a chain of Argentinean restaurants which are recognised as having the best steaks in London. Try an Argentinean merlot with your steak; it should have much more spice and body than the typically soft European and Californian versions of the grape.

Getting to the theatre district is easy. On the Central Line you have stations at Holborn, Tottenham Court Road or Oxford Circus. On the Piccadilly Line Leicester Square, Covent Garden and Holborn (again) may all be helpful. In addition there are plenty of buses from all over London.

Commissions And Foreign Students

ST. LOUIS — At the start of an open discussion on the use of agents in international student recruiting, some leaders of the National Association for College Admission Counseling suggested not so subtly that it was important for those at the annual meeting here to remember that the association’s standards evolve.
Scott Anderson, director of outreach for the Common Application and chair of NACAC’s Admission Practices Committee, noted that the association’s ethics code has sometimes been amended to create exceptions, such as those that allow colleges that award athletics scholarships to do so under national norms for such scholarships, but in violation of some NACAC standards (had the exemptions not been added).
Steve Syverson, a former chair of the Admission Practices Committee who is vice president for enrollment at Lawrence University, noted that at one point NACAC members were deeply skeptical of independent counselors (those hired by families, not schools or colleges), but that such counselors are now widely seen as a crucial part of the field and are well-represented at NACAC gatherings.
But despite the message that times change and standards sometimes evolve, most of the speakers here from the rank-and-file of the association advocated that NACAC stick to its current policy barring colleges from using commissions to pay anyone to recruit any students.

Many here said the issue represents a crucial choice.
“This goes to the heart of the tension we’ve been experiencing for many years, which is what is the nature of what we do” in admissions, said Philip A. Ballinger, assistant vice president for enrollment and admissions at the University of Washington. The tension, he said, is a divide between viewing admissions as “connected to the educational mission” of academe and viewing admissions as “essentially sales.”
With a few exceptions, many endorsed that view — and suggested that it was wrong to work with international agents who are paid on commission. But many also said that they saw an increasing number of colleges ignoring the NACAC standard and signing up to use international agents. And some who defended the use of such agents said that in fact many of them are providing ethical and essential services to colleges and students — and that ethical issues are raised by not dealing with agents.
Use Grows
Until recently, the use of agents paid on commission to recruit international students was considered taboo by most American colleges. But in the last two years, that reluctance has weakened as major companies that have helped British and Australian universities attract foreign students have started promoting themselves in the United States. This has happened at the same time as many colleges in the U.S. have decided that attracting more foreign students is a key goal — in no small part because many of the most coveted foreign students pay full freight to enroll.
The relevant portion of NACAC’s Statement of Principles of Good Practice doesn’t even use the word agents or refer to international students. It simply states that all NACAC members “agree that they will not offer or accept any reward or remuneration from a secondary school, college, university, agency or organization for placement or recruitment of students.” When it comes to domestic students, federal law bars such commission-based pay. But that law doesn’t extend abroad, which is why colleges that use agents aren’t violating the law, even if they are violating NACAC’s ethics code.
Many here said that NACAC’s lack of distinction between foreign and domestic recruiting was laudable. “If it’s wrong here, why is it OK overseas? International students are not here for your benefit,” said one counselor. There were repeated references to agents reducing foreign students to “bounty” or viewing them as “cash cows” or “commodities.”
There was anger at the idea that NACAC could respond to the growing number of colleges ignoring its standard by changing its rules. One member gave an impassioned speech in which he said: “It is wrong to pay a commission. If you are a member of NACAC and doing it, you should resign. It’s that simple…. You are acting unethically if you don’t adhere to the practices.”
Many of the strongest statements against the use of commission-paid agents came from independent counselors, who noted that because their fees (paid by students’ families) are based on time or service provided, and not a commission paid by the college, they have no incentive to encourage a student to consider any one college over another. That disappears in a commission-based system, they said.
Mark Sklarow, executive director of the Independent Educational Consultants Association, said that “when someone in China or Latvia knows that they are going to get paid for sending a kid to one of these five or six colleges” that are paying his or her commissions, “and in fact that Number Six will pay twice what College Four will pay, there is no question that when your meal depends on that commission, the best interest of the kid has been left behind.”
Laura M. Oliveira, vice president of enrollment at Salve Regina University, went so far as to question why companies that use agents are allowed in the exhibit hall at the meeting, as they are. If the “business model is based on commission-based recruiting,” she said it was wrong for NACAC to welcome the companies. “NACAC has to look at its own practices.”
Mark Shay, U.S. regional director for IDP, one of the leading companies with global networks of agents, had the unenviable task of being the only identifiable representative of agents in the room. He argued repeatedly that critics of commission-based agents inflate the significance of the commission when paying for performance is common in the admissions world (and is not controversial if commissions aren’t involved).

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