Hotel Rafayel. The future is Now…

HOTEL RAFAYEL is a bet, a new concept of living London. A new prospective of accomodation in the newest vibrant area of London: BATTERSEA .

Classy and modern at the same time as well as luxury and comfort Hotel Rafayel offers a new way to live London.

A concept of ECOGREENHOTEL in London. Showcasing the latest technological advances in LED lightings, air-conditioning and VDA efficiencies, Hotel Rafayel aims to minimise environmental impact by reducing each guest’s carbon footprint.

According to the hotel, the average London guest notches up a colossal carbon footprint of 70kg per night; which at Rafayel will be reduced to 17kg. Rafayel’s interior design is sleek and modern, yet retains a warm charm through its bespoke furnishings.

The hotel has 65 guestrooms; 15 apartments, two restaurants with indoor and outdoor dining, bar, lounge, spa with gym and pool, meeting room, conference hall to accommodate 150, coffee shop, brasserie and a florist.

The hotel’s curved blocks afford 360° views of London from the roof terrace. Many rooms enjoy expansive views over the river and city skyline, through their floor-to-ceiling windows.

The bedrooms are available in four categories – Big (Mississippi), Bigger (Yangtze), Even Bigger (Amazon) and Biggest (Nile).

The restaurant will offer an International Cusine for the international visitors of London. The waterfront 120-cover restaurant, Banyan Riverside, with its crystal bar overlooking the river, will offer distinctive Indo-Japanese cusine fused with Chinese and Indian spices and simple Italian ingredients, all presented in a refined French style. Rafayel’s restaurants will offer both formal and casual dining, breakfast, morning brunches, and traditional afternoon tea.

The Rafayel Wa Michi Wellbeing Spa has been created in conjunction with Content (who are also supplying bathroom amenities) alongside Wellworld Spas.

The hotel’s developer Mr Ike Latif aims high at low emissions, but believes -‘‘there is no need to return to Stone Age living. Being “green” should be our overall goal, but without compromising on the luxury that the modern age offers us’’.

Says Ike Latif: “The concept of the hotel on the Capital’s new Left Bank in the culturally prosperous environ of a bustling Battersea is a key step forward in formalising the intellectual renaissance of Battersea, not unlike the discovery and patronage of the Seine’s Rive Gauche by intellectual greats like Sartre, de Beauvoir, Zola, Camus or Hemingway and Fitzgerald”.

The hotel is due to open in December 2009.

AF

London

Elisa Sergi: Polemic revolving around the june election in Florence

It is an acknowledge fact that in Italy the right wing (PDL) elects notorious show business people in politics and now even a football player , but the surprising and rather shocking news is that the left wing (PD) is said guilty of doing the same. Today’s news in the  italian newspapers revolves around Elisa Sergi.

ELISA SERGI is a young Fiorentine girl. At the age of eighteen, she worked on TV as a show girl. I happen to know her very well, we could say that we are good friends, therefore my point of view can be misunderstood as biased but it is not, I am trying just to report the truth and to be fair.

I really think that people who have been working in politics in Florence so far, are middle age with rather conservative point of view, and I think young people, could be exactly what we (voter) are looking for at the present time.

Why her ? Why not !

Elisa is young, she has a degree in psicology and is currently taking her masters , she has been working like a journalist for a long time. She has always been interested in politics, in her family everyone has a high education and she grew up in a proper environment. We used to hang out together and also talk about italian politics as I studied political science and this has always been my interest. Elisa always had a clear idea in what she wants for Florence and now it looks like she has the opportunity to show that a young girl with a good education can make it happen.

I wouldn’t want that the polemic around her is just used as a way to fight between the two parties and I wouldn’t want  her career as a politician  to be destroyed just because at the age of eighteen,  as hundred of girls wanted to be famous. However working like a show girl and having all this picture almost naked do not help her to make people take her seriously but I do not think we should put everyone at the same level. She was a show girl when she was eighteen but now she is a psychologist and works like a journalist, therefore she has the right to be respected for what she is doing now, and if this gives her publicity, we cannot but hope that people wont stop at the title but will read the whole article, as see that she is a smart, young, professional.

As she is starting from a low position in politics, she will have time to improve and to show if she is worth to be in politics and not like in other cases when people without experience and not even a degree, had an important position and we (voters)  had no the time  and way to reply to such an imposition.

Elisa Sergi and me in one of our nights out together in Florence

www.elisasergi.it

Corriere fiorentino

Antonietta Fishta

London

London Book Fair 2009 – Presentation of Lilou Mace’s book, I lost my job and I liked it

What is the London Book Fair?
The London Book Fair is the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels. Taking place every spring in the world’s premier publishing and cultural capital it is a unique opportunity to hear from authors, enjoy the vibrant atmosphere and explore innovations shaping the publishing world of the future. The London Book Fair brings you three days of focused access to customers, content and emerging markets.

Here there are some of the picture of today 22 April 2009, at the ” 38′ London Book Fair”, Earls Court. I had the opportunity to meet so many important publishers and writers at the world’s leading spring publishing event.
I am so happy, I had the opportunity to assist to the birth of my friend Lilou Mace’s first book ” I lost my job and I liked it” . Lilou gave me a special copy of her book, which she signed for me.

The book is really well written and it helps to turn the hard time of loosing a job into a good time. As she lost her job she empathise with others suffering at this time of economic hardship, and the porpuse of this book is to help the people to find a new career direction … and a new life direction.

Antonietta Fishta
London
2009