Free business skills events

Experts at the Growth Hub are hosting a number of free skills events for businesses in the Duchy. Whether it is sales, finance or appraisal skills, Growth Hub has got you covered with workshops running from November and into the new year. Finance for Non-Financial Managers is a one-day course in Falmouth on Thursday November…

Sports This Week: Book explores the stories of hockey

YORKTON – When it comes to the NHL there is a long history.

Entwined in that history are hundreds of interesting smaller stories, which for Canadian author Eric Zweig has been a rich vein from which to collect stories for what has now become two books with the release of Hockey Hall of Fame True Stories 2 from Firefly Books.

While the cover shows Joe Sakic and Brian Leetch and Jaromir Jagr most of the stories here go back still farther into the halls of hockey highlighting the likes of Sprague Cleghorn and Lester Patrick, which means for a fan with many miles upon him such as myself, the book takes me back to my early fandom when I devoured the history of the game in a range of books.

So a quick plug from the publisher’s website; “Immerse yourself in the intense rivalries, epic showdowns and historic clashes that shaped the NHL’s early years, providing a fresh prospect on the quest for hockey supremacy. Delve into the narratives surrounding the sport’s most prestigious awards, accompanied by newspaper clippings and of-the-moment reactions. Learn about pivotal rule changes, the intriguing stories behind their inception, and even the experimental rules that didn’t quite make the cut. Witness the birth of hockey broadcasting as it takes its first steps onto the radio and television airwaves. Discover the origins of the iconic 3 stars tradition, the excitement of barnstorming hockey trips and the early days of hockey cards and parades. Prepare to be shocked as you learn about the peculiar injuries and illnesses that befell some of hockey’s greatest stars. From polo injuries to snow blower misadventures, these tales highlight the quirky and unpredictable side of the game.”

The variety of stories here are engaging, and I must say I love that each story is rather condensed. You don’t need to devote hours here. You can steal a few minutes in your day, read a take or two, and move on, happy for the little break and a good story.

It’s not surprising given the content that the author enjoyed penning this one.

“It was fun. It’s my job but I can take a little bit of fun away from it too,” said Zweig in a recent interview with Yorkton This Week.

It helps too Zweig admitted he likes going down the rabbit hole of history.

“I like looking stuff up,” he said, adding he’s always like unearthing interesting stories “ … so I’d kind of be doing this anyway.”

While this one is a follow up book for Zweig, it is also one he sort of indulged himself more in writing than the first.

“Here are stories I’ve always sort of known and wanted to tell,” he said, adding he again went generally farther back into the history. “. . . I kind of doubled down on old stuff.”

From a personal perspective Zweig said he holds a deep interest in the older history of the game, and that interest is fully reflected in the material included in the book.

In that regard Zweig said often the stories are integral to the sport being in-part at least foundational “to the game we have today.”

That glimpse of how the game once was and how the past influenced today’s game is intriguing when encapsulated in a somewhat inter-connected series of near vignette stories – an effort for which Zweig deserves kudos.

Certainly, the style of book should make it a popular gift over the upcoming holidays, ideal for hockey fans, especially for those with some gray hair upon their heads.

DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship Now Accepting 2025 Applications, Closes Jan. 16

WASHINGTON, Oct. 31, 2024 — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) recently announced a fellowship open to all U.S. students pursuing doctoral degrees in fields that use high-performance computing (HPC) to solve complex science and engineering problems.
Established in 1991 and currently carrying a $45,000 annual stipend, the DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (CSGF) program provides outstanding benefits and opportunities, fostering a community of energetic and committed Ph.D. students, alumni, DOE laboratory staff, and other scientists who want to have an impact on the nation while advancing their research.
Fellows come from diverse scientific and engineering disciplines but share a common interest in using computing in their research.
More than 675 students from 85 U.S. universities have trained as fellows through the CSGF program. The program’s alumni work in DOE laboratories, private industry, and educational institutions.
Additional Information
To apply, candidates must be U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents who plan full-time, uninterrupted study toward a Ph.D. degree at an accredited U.S. university.
The DOE CSGF’s interdisciplinary science and engineering track supports students in a range of fields, but all share a common element: applying high-performance computing (HPC) to complex research problems.
A second track supports those studying applied mathematics, statistics, computer science, computer engineering, or computational science – in one of those departments or their academic equivalent − with research interests that help scientists use emerging HPC systems more effectively. This includes students focused on issues in HPC as a broad enabling technology rather than a particular science or engineering application.
Regardless of track affiliation, fellows’ research increasingly includes elements of artificial intelligence and machine learning, uniquely positioning them to contribute to the nation’s investments in current and future computing architectures.
In addition to the $45,000 yearly stipend, fellows receive exceptional benefits including full payment of university tuition and required fees and an annual academic allowance. Renewable for up to four years, the fellowship is guided by a comprehensive program of study that requires focused coursework in science and engineering, computer science, applied mathematics, and HPC. It also includes a three-month practicum at one of 22 DOE laboratories or sites across the country.
Deadline, Workshop
It is the applicant’s responsibility to see that all application and supporting materials are received by Thursday, January 16, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. CST. The Krell Institute administers the fellowship on behalf of DOE.
To register for the informational webinar and live Q&A on December 10, 2024 at 2:30 p.m. EST, please visit the DOE/CSGF web page here.
For more information, please visit: www.krellinst.org/csgf/about-doe-csgf/news-events/apply-now.

Source: U.S. Dept. of Energy

Have we had enough of travel?

Holidaymakers queue at Dalaman Airport, Turkey. Image: Oleg Elkov/Shutterstock

Crowds, queues, disgruntled locals, fractured communities, soaring prices… can the problems of overtourism ever be solved?

By Mark Rowe

The El Farol bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is no tourist hotspot. But it lends its name to a game theory scenario that’s pertinent to the phenomenonof unfettered global tourism.

Once a week, the theory goes, a fixed population wants to go and have fun at the El Farol bar, unless it’s too crowded. Everyone must decide at the same time whether to go or not, with no knowledge of others’ choices. If more than 60 per cent of the population go to the bar, they’ll have less fun than if they stayed home.

The theoretical El Farol quandary is all too real for Mallorca, Barcelona, Bali, beaches in Greece, major museums and cruise ship itineraries. Too many people at the same time – can anyone really be having fun? The local population definitely isn’t.

Travel’s breaking point

In many parts of the world, the volume of tourists sipping coffee or taking Instagrammable pictures has gone way beyond saturation point. Overtourism, asit’s known, is now so rampant that many communities are pushing back. In April, activists on Tenerife staged a hunger strike against the building of new tourist megaprojects.

In Mallorca (2023 tourism data: 1,232,014 residents, 18 million tourists), signs proclaiming ‘kill a tourist’ have appeared and water pistols have been squirted at visitors. In Greece last year, locals reclaimed beaches from sunbeds and beach bars in a guerilla protest dubbed the ‘towel movement’.

[embedded content]
As tourists flock towards Greek beaches, locals attempt to reclaim the spaces now overcrowded by visitors. Video: WION

For 250 years, since the advent of the 18th century Grand Tour, tourism has generally been ‘a force for good’, says Guillem Colom-Montero, a lecturer in tourism and communities at the University of Glasgow. ‘Travel was a joy, transformational; you learned to understand the world. The same was also true for the host. This worked until ten years ago.’

The advent of low-cost airlines, booking phenomena such as Airbnb the internet and digital working have ‘caused this model to collapse,’ he says. ‘The scale of mobility is radically different, even disturbing for local communities.’ For the first time in history, ‘tourism has a negative narrative’, he says, the benefits are no longer enough to appease the host population.

‘When you see so many people protesting, so widely, so strongly, it tells you that the balance has been lost. The idea that most people benefit from tourism is no longer so clear.’

The aviation industry is responsible for at least three per cent of global carbon emissions. Image: Shutterstock

.gb-67237f36203c6{font-size: 20px;}@media only screen and (max-width: 600px) {.gb-67237f36203c6{font-size: 20px!important;}}
Around 286m tourists travelled internationally in the first quarter of 2024, 20% more than over the same period in 2023, driven primarily by increased flights in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Symptoms of overtourism include local people being unable to eat out at affordable prices or being forced to walk on roads around large groups of tourists. Deeper issues include visceral anger about how affordable housing has been gobbled up by the behemoth of Airbnb. In many Spanish tourist hotspots, says Colom-Montero, it takes 17 years of salary to access a property – much higher than the Spanish average.

‘When you talk to local communities, the major issue is housing. I hear tourism compared to a cancer – first it colonised the coast, then the interior and now, thanks to Airbnb, it occupies even the private space, the house.’

‘At the most insignificant level, overtourism makes visiting places less pleasant for those visiting,’ says Adrian Phillips, managing director of Bradt Travel Guides. ‘Most of us would prefer to appreciate St Mark’s Square [in Venice] without having to jostle for space. But overtourism can be more than inconvenient – it can damage the local landscape, put pressure on local amenities, bend and change traditional culture.’

Hotels & the homeless

Overtourism exacerbates the symptoms of wider societal problems. From the shores of the Mediterranean to African wildlife spots, local communities increasingly feel excluded and overwhelmed: rampant construction, environmental degradation and water shortages are imposed without reciprocal benefits.

Overtourism is a complex issue that is far from reaching a clear solution. Image: Zarya Maxim Alexandrovich/Shutterstock

Tourism accounts for 9.1% of global GDP in 2023. Revenues from international tourism reached US $1.7 trillion. The total number of tourist-related jobs reached 330m – 10% of the global workforce.

‘Overcrowding all year round of people and cars, pressure on public services – they have big impacts on both urban and rural landscapes,’ says Colom-Montero. ‘The countryside is blighted with new roads and hotels, the cities are gentrified and lose their identity, traditional shops get replaced by ice-cream parlours, expensive franchise restaurants and bars. Locals feel they lose control over their locality and that tourism officials favour tourists over the people who live there. They feel they are not listened to.’

To this can be added uncomfortable reports from just about every popular tourist destination of culturally inappropriate behaviour, drug taking and drunkenness.

‘The protests don’t surprise me at all,’ says Harold Goodwin, managing director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership. ‘Tourists are always wealthier than waiters or cleaners; the difference between the guest and the host has been exacerbated, the relationship has broken down.

As was said of American soldiers during the war, “They’re overpaid, oversexed and over here.” In Barcelona, the housing problem is obvious when you see that the waiters serving you sleep in their cars. People don’t want their city to become a museum, where everyone is either a tourist or serving coffee to tourists.’

Pushing back against overtourism

Many countries, regional and city governments, and trading blocs such as the EU are now seeking to regulate home-sharing to tackle the Airbnb movement. Barcelona says it will stop all short-term lets by 2028 and the 10,000 city apartments currently listed on Airbnb will return to the housing market; the Scottish government and Florence have moved to restrict or ban short-term licenses.

Amsterdam is one of many cities to ban loud hailers and restrict group sizes, while southern European cities increasingly outlaw the sale of ice cream and alcohol after midnight. Italy this year introduced new entrance fees and group size limitations for Venice, while tourists in Portofino risk being fined if they linger too long taking a selfie.

Pedestrian jams are now common in Venice’s narrow streets and bridges. Image: Bumble Dee/Shutterstock

In Europe, tourism is worth US$259 trillion or 9.6% of EU GDP, supports 39m supports 10% of all employment, and is set to create a further 7m jobs by 2034.

The Greek island of Santorini (25,000 residents; 3.4 million visitors in 2023) has limited or banned construction in areas under pressure, while elsewhere in Greece, 70 per cent of beaches must be sunbed-free and in Spain’s Costa Blanca, setting up chairs, sunbeds and parasols before 9.30am has been banned.

A poster campaign in Malaga calls on women not to walk around in bikinis and both sexes to wear upper garments ‘out of respect and hygiene’. In Japan, ¥10,000 (£50) fines are in place for anyone taking a photo of a geisha without her consent, and a ‘Mind Your Manners’ English-speaking guide has been created to enlighten visitors about local customs and etiquette.

The Indonesian island of Bali, where by the middle of 2024, international tourism arrivals – 7.75 million – surpassed those of all of 2019, is also seeing pushback against the rampant, unfettered expansion of tourism, with hotlines set up to report inappropriate behaviour by foreigners or who are thought to be selling drugs.

‘People go abroad and behave with licence, abysmally,’ says Goodwin. ‘They think they have bought not just a holiday but the destination. If you wouldn’t do it at home, don’t do it on holiday.’ In September, Indonesia announced plans for a ten-year moratorium on hotel construction on the island.

[embedded content]
Barcelona’s increase in tourism has led to protests in the city this year. Video: DW News

Addressing short-term rentals is ‘the fundamental game changer’, says Goodwin, but he adds that there are many other micro-measures governments can take. ‘In Barcelona, the government took a bus route off Google Maps so that tourists no longer used it, leaving it free for locals, especially the elderly, who had previously struggled to get on the crowded bus.’

More subtle measures are also being tried. Barcelona is rebranding from ‘Visit Barcelona’ to ‘This is Barcelona’, while Mallorca has launched a new campaign, ‘Diviértete con Respeto’ (Have Fun with Respect), with a theme of ‘Menys Turisme, Més Vida’, or ‘Less Tourism, More Life’.

Portugal’s Algarve has launched a ‘Futourism’ initiative that invites visitors to spend more time exploring local culture and asks them to save the equivalent of six suitcases of water during their stay as a means of highlighting the water pressures posed by tourism and climate change.

‘In the next ten years, the situation will look radically different in our cities,’ says Moreno, who also favours meaningful tourist taxes – way above the typical €2/night tax – along with restrictions on car rentals (Mallorca sees 100,000 car rentals a year) and cruise ships.

IN THE DOCK

Orkney is the number one UK destination for cruise ships. Twenty years ago, just a handful of cruise ships visited every year, but by 2022, this had risen to 170 vessels and 125,000 passengers, while a record-breaking 234 ships visited in 2023, a year that also saw a day when 6,069 passengers arrived in Kirkwall (population: 10,020).

A cruise ship docks at Kirkwall in Orkney. Image: Peter Titmuss/Shutterstock

The island council seems happy – port revenues add up to around £3 million a year – but for islanders, cruise ships and the volumes of passengers they bring can be intrusive. Locals struggle to get a seat in a café while the visual impact of legions of cruise-ship passengers disgorged on to Kirkwall’s narrow streets can be negative for both islanders and other tourists seeking the ‘empty spaces, at one with nature’ vibe that is Orkney’s biggest draw.

Cruise-ship passengers have been sighted on their bicycles, riding out in pelotons reminiscent of the Tour de France, slowing local traffic.

This year, the island council has graded visiting liners according to size in an attempt to regulate numbers. However, tour operators have called for transport infrastructure to be upgraded to make it easier for coaches to avoid the narrow lanes that lead to the island’s prime sites, such as Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar.

Many islanders oppose this, feeling that two-lane (in each direction) highways would be out of character for the islands.

Fewer flights

Banning, or significantly cutting flights is often championed as a measure that can tackle both overtourism and climate change. Such moves are controversial, but Anna Hughes, director of Free Flights UK, believes it’s essential, and that banning flights shorter than 2.5 hours would be a game changer.

‘The current problems have a lot to do with society and how we feel we have to travel more and more, how the only way we can feel fulfilled if is we are constantly going somewhere,’ she says. ‘If you had to go by train it would take longer and be more expensive, so you wouldn’t do it so often. We can still go to tourist hotspots, but we’d all be visiting them less often, rather than piling on Barcelona or Venice four times a year.

As many as 15 million people visit the Great Wall of China each year. Image: Shutterstock

Travel is worth is worth US$2.36 trillion in the USA and US$1.3 trillion in China. According to EU data, tourism accounted for 26% of GDP in Croatia in 2023, followed by Portugal (20%), Greece (19%) and Spain (14%).

‘The era of cheap flights has enabled us to travel far more easily, but it’s not a sustainable model,’ she adds. ‘Overtourism happens because we keep jumping on cheap flights just because we can.’

Measures to discourage flying could draw on lessons from anti-smoking campaigns, she says, where workplace bans have been accompanied by graphic warnings on the side of packaging. Package holiday documents could carry similar messaging about the detrimental impacts of visits.

However, Goodwin is uncomfortable with wider moves to cut flights per se, which could hit long-haul nations, such as those in the Caribbean, that are heavily dependent on tourism. ‘It really riles me,’ he says. ‘These islands were self-sufficient, then we went and grew tobacco and sugar there and gave them slavery. Then we gave them our tourists and now we’re going to tell them they can’t have tourism?’

Any campaign to ban or reduce flights is facile, he argues, as fuel prices and carbon taxes are already flattening demand. ‘People get uppity at calls to ban flights but they also get uppity when flight prices go up,’ he says, ‘but they are already expensive and getting higher’.

Elite travel – a solution to overtourism?

The counter-argument is that rationing flights in some way would be elitist: overseas holidays would quickly become unaffordable to the poorest. Fewer flights or cruise ships mandated by law to land fewer passengers, would quickly equate to higher prices.

Hotels, too, would respond, knowing they could reach capacity with a captive market. Phillips is uncomfortable about blanket legislation to increase the cost of flights to cap travel. ‘I don’t believe in charging more for long-haul flights – this simply makes travel to places beyond our backyards a preserve of the wealthier, which takes us back decades,’ he says.

Cruise ships with as many as 7,000 passengers and 2,000 crew are now visiting Caribbean ports with smaller populations. Image: Shutterstock

Across the Caribbean, tourism is accounts for 2.9m jobs over 16% of all employment and is worth US$91.2bn or 11.5% of GDP. By 2034, tourism is expected to provide 18% of all jobs in the region and to be worth US$136bn.

‘No-fly holidays effectively ring-fence wealth in the West, denying tourism income to far poorer countries, which can hasten degradation of precious habitat rather than slow it.’

‘Everybody has the right to travel – the increased access to travel for groups beyond the privileged classes is a good thing,’ he says. ‘But people also have a right to determine the character and future of the areas in which they live.’

This, argues Colom-Montero, is an uncomfortable reality but one that bumps up against what he argues is a wider societal need. ‘Elitism is an issue with this scenario,’ he says. ‘People have the right to travel – but this is a moment in the history of tourism where we should be prioritising the wellbeing of local people rather than the right to travel. This is part of the deal.’

Airline assertions that forcing up flight prices is elitist is greeted with snorts of derision by Goodwin.

‘Only Europeans make that point. It’s one of the oldest tropes. Only two per cent of the world flies every year; flying has always been elite. The world’s not fair. Please, can they spare us that sob story? If airlines are so morally troubled by this, they could strip out first and business class, and put more people on the plane. I wonder, why are they so bothered about people’s right to fly? There are people in Cornwall who can’t afford to go to the coast, millions in India who will never go to their nearest city let alone fly from it.’

New horizons

Much of the world remains relatively unexplored, says Colom-Montero. ‘Tourism has become homogeneous. Do we really all want to eat avocado on toast whether we are in Bali or Australia or Skye? Local people protesting against overtourism are reminding us of the centrality of community and place. They don’t like being transformed into a place that gives you the same breakfast the world over. What kind of tourism is that – isn’t the value of tourism in the thirst of finding the difference from us?

‘Everywhere has empty places that are of interest and will welcome tourists,’ he says. ‘Even Spain has empty areas of the interior. The problem is that social media drives us all to go the same places. On Skye, everyone feels they must go to the Fairy Pools for a selfie but there are so many other places on Skye and so many other Scottish islands that are magical and empty.’

Marrakesh in Morocco is one of Africa’s most popular destinations, with 2.5 million visitors a year. Image: Posztos/Shutterstock

Across Africa, tourism employs 26m people, valued at US$209bn and projected to rise to US$322bn, and create a further 12m jobs by 2034.

This resonates with Phillips. ‘Ultimately, the best way to reduce overtourism is to champion the merits of the many, many wonderful spots away from the most densely visited tourist sites and encourage people to spread their tourist dollars more widely. That needn’t be through penalising certain types of travel – instead, let’s focus on the positives, stress the benefits and the pleasures of trips to the alternatives.’

Is the wonder and joy of exploration enough to trigger a transformation?

Hughes is doubtful. ‘I hope we will be travelling a lot less but there is a lot of resistance to change,’ she says. ‘Campaigning, arguing the case, can only take you so far. Unless we have political leadership it won’t happen. There doesn’t seem to be that leadership so, not to sound too dystopian about it, at the moment, money talks – I think we are screwed.’

Enjoyed this article? Why not check out our related reads:

The inquisitive spirit that makes us explore is a reason for being positive, says Colom-Montero. ‘Tourism is inherent in the human spirit. The basis of tourism is encountering the other, the difference, something that is new to you. I’m optimistic – when the phrase “overtourism” was first coined, there was a push back by political leaders saying protesters were “tourism-phobic”. Now those same leaders are saying there is a problem. Overtourism has moved from the margins to the centre and so it’s impossible that we won’t see improvements.’

Goodwin believes the difference between a negative and positive tourist impact on a locality is not necessarily one of scale but of attitude. ‘Is there a basic difference between a cruise ship passenger and a couple wandering around with a guidebook? I’m not sure there is. The right kind of tourist is one who behaves like a guest on the beach, in the bar or hotel. It’s about the way you try and fit in.’ The only way to travel guilt-free, suggests Goodwin, is stay in hotels, hostels or B&Bs.

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‘There are amazing things being done across the world,’ he adds, ‘we know the solutions, we just have to implement them and speed up that process. We will definitely reach that equilibrium in cities, it’s just that things are not improving fast enough.’

Have we had enough of travel?

Holidaymakers queue at Dalaman Airport, Turkey. Image: Oleg Elkov/Shutterstock

Crowds, queues, disgruntled locals, fractured communities, soaring prices… can the problems of overtourism ever be solved?

By Mark Rowe

The El Farol bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is no tourist hotspot. But it lends its name to a game theory scenario that’s pertinent to the phenomenonof unfettered global tourism.

Once a week, the theory goes, a fixed population wants to go and have fun at the El Farol bar, unless it’s too crowded. Everyone must decide at the same time whether to go or not, with no knowledge of others’ choices. If more than 60 per cent of the population go to the bar, they’ll have less fun than if they stayed home.

The theoretical El Farol quandary is all too real for Mallorca, Barcelona, Bali, beaches in Greece, major museums and cruise ship itineraries. Too many people at the same time – can anyone really be having fun? The local population definitely isn’t.

Travel’s breaking point

In many parts of the world, the volume of tourists sipping coffee or taking Instagrammable pictures has gone way beyond saturation point. Overtourism, asit’s known, is now so rampant that many communities are pushing back. In April, activists on Tenerife staged a hunger strike against the building of new tourist megaprojects.

In Mallorca (2023 tourism data: 1,232,014 residents, 18 million tourists), signs proclaiming ‘kill a tourist’ have appeared and water pistols have been squirted at visitors. In Greece last year, locals reclaimed beaches from sunbeds and beach bars in a guerilla protest dubbed the ‘towel movement’.

[embedded content]
As tourists flock towards Greek beaches, locals attempt to reclaim the spaces now overcrowded by visitors. Video: WION

For 250 years, since the advent of the 18th century Grand Tour, tourism has generally been ‘a force for good’, says Guillem Colom-Montero, a lecturer in tourism and communities at the University of Glasgow. ‘Travel was a joy, transformational; you learned to understand the world. The same was also true for the host. This worked until ten years ago.’

The advent of low-cost airlines, booking phenomena such as Airbnb the internet and digital working have ‘caused this model to collapse,’ he says. ‘The scale of mobility is radically different, even disturbing for local communities.’ For the first time in history, ‘tourism has a negative narrative’, he says, the benefits are no longer enough to appease the host population.

‘When you see so many people protesting, so widely, so strongly, it tells you that the balance has been lost. The idea that most people benefit from tourism is no longer so clear.’

The aviation industry is responsible for at least three per cent of global carbon emissions. Image: Shutterstock

.gb-67237f36203c6{font-size: 20px;}@media only screen and (max-width: 600px) {.gb-67237f36203c6{font-size: 20px!important;}}
Around 286m tourists travelled internationally in the first quarter of 2024, 20% more than over the same period in 2023, driven primarily by increased flights in Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Symptoms of overtourism include local people being unable to eat out at affordable prices or being forced to walk on roads around large groups of tourists. Deeper issues include visceral anger about how affordable housing has been gobbled up by the behemoth of Airbnb. In many Spanish tourist hotspots, says Colom-Montero, it takes 17 years of salary to access a property – much higher than the Spanish average.

‘When you talk to local communities, the major issue is housing. I hear tourism compared to a cancer – first it colonised the coast, then the interior and now, thanks to Airbnb, it occupies even the private space, the house.’

‘At the most insignificant level, overtourism makes visiting places less pleasant for those visiting,’ says Adrian Phillips, managing director of Bradt Travel Guides. ‘Most of us would prefer to appreciate St Mark’s Square [in Venice] without having to jostle for space. But overtourism can be more than inconvenient – it can damage the local landscape, put pressure on local amenities, bend and change traditional culture.’

Hotels & the homeless

Overtourism exacerbates the symptoms of wider societal problems. From the shores of the Mediterranean to African wildlife spots, local communities increasingly feel excluded and overwhelmed: rampant construction, environmental degradation and water shortages are imposed without reciprocal benefits.

Overtourism is a complex issue that is far from reaching a clear solution. Image: Zarya Maxim Alexandrovich/Shutterstock

Tourism accounts for 9.1% of global GDP in 2023. Revenues from international tourism reached US $1.7 trillion. The total number of tourist-related jobs reached 330m – 10% of the global workforce.

‘Overcrowding all year round of people and cars, pressure on public services – they have big impacts on both urban and rural landscapes,’ says Colom-Montero. ‘The countryside is blighted with new roads and hotels, the cities are gentrified and lose their identity, traditional shops get replaced by ice-cream parlours, expensive franchise restaurants and bars. Locals feel they lose control over their locality and that tourism officials favour tourists over the people who live there. They feel they are not listened to.’

To this can be added uncomfortable reports from just about every popular tourist destination of culturally inappropriate behaviour, drug taking and drunkenness.

‘The protests don’t surprise me at all,’ says Harold Goodwin, managing director of the Responsible Tourism Partnership. ‘Tourists are always wealthier than waiters or cleaners; the difference between the guest and the host has been exacerbated, the relationship has broken down.

As was said of American soldiers during the war, “They’re overpaid, oversexed and over here.” In Barcelona, the housing problem is obvious when you see that the waiters serving you sleep in their cars. People don’t want their city to become a museum, where everyone is either a tourist or serving coffee to tourists.’

Pushing back against overtourism

Many countries, regional and city governments, and trading blocs such as the EU are now seeking to regulate home-sharing to tackle the Airbnb movement. Barcelona says it will stop all short-term lets by 2028 and the 10,000 city apartments currently listed on Airbnb will return to the housing market; the Scottish government and Florence have moved to restrict or ban short-term licenses.

Amsterdam is one of many cities to ban loud hailers and restrict group sizes, while southern European cities increasingly outlaw the sale of ice cream and alcohol after midnight. Italy this year introduced new entrance fees and group size limitations for Venice, while tourists in Portofino risk being fined if they linger too long taking a selfie.

Pedestrian jams are now common in Venice’s narrow streets and bridges. Image: Bumble Dee/Shutterstock

In Europe, tourism is worth US$259 trillion or 9.6% of EU GDP, supports 39m supports 10% of all employment, and is set to create a further 7m jobs by 2034.

The Greek island of Santorini (25,000 residents; 3.4 million visitors in 2023) has limited or banned construction in areas under pressure, while elsewhere in Greece, 70 per cent of beaches must be sunbed-free and in Spain’s Costa Blanca, setting up chairs, sunbeds and parasols before 9.30am has been banned.

A poster campaign in Malaga calls on women not to walk around in bikinis and both sexes to wear upper garments ‘out of respect and hygiene’. In Japan, ¥10,000 (£50) fines are in place for anyone taking a photo of a geisha without her consent, and a ‘Mind Your Manners’ English-speaking guide has been created to enlighten visitors about local customs and etiquette.

The Indonesian island of Bali, where by the middle of 2024, international tourism arrivals – 7.75 million – surpassed those of all of 2019, is also seeing pushback against the rampant, unfettered expansion of tourism, with hotlines set up to report inappropriate behaviour by foreigners or who are thought to be selling drugs.

‘People go abroad and behave with licence, abysmally,’ says Goodwin. ‘They think they have bought not just a holiday but the destination. If you wouldn’t do it at home, don’t do it on holiday.’ In September, Indonesia announced plans for a ten-year moratorium on hotel construction on the island.

[embedded content]
Barcelona’s increase in tourism has led to protests in the city this year. Video: DW News

Addressing short-term rentals is ‘the fundamental game changer’, says Goodwin, but he adds that there are many other micro-measures governments can take. ‘In Barcelona, the government took a bus route off Google Maps so that tourists no longer used it, leaving it free for locals, especially the elderly, who had previously struggled to get on the crowded bus.’

More subtle measures are also being tried. Barcelona is rebranding from ‘Visit Barcelona’ to ‘This is Barcelona’, while Mallorca has launched a new campaign, ‘Diviértete con Respeto’ (Have Fun with Respect), with a theme of ‘Menys Turisme, Més Vida’, or ‘Less Tourism, More Life’.

Portugal’s Algarve has launched a ‘Futourism’ initiative that invites visitors to spend more time exploring local culture and asks them to save the equivalent of six suitcases of water during their stay as a means of highlighting the water pressures posed by tourism and climate change.

‘In the next ten years, the situation will look radically different in our cities,’ says Moreno, who also favours meaningful tourist taxes – way above the typical €2/night tax – along with restrictions on car rentals (Mallorca sees 100,000 car rentals a year) and cruise ships.

IN THE DOCK

Orkney is the number one UK destination for cruise ships. Twenty years ago, just a handful of cruise ships visited every year, but by 2022, this had risen to 170 vessels and 125,000 passengers, while a record-breaking 234 ships visited in 2023, a year that also saw a day when 6,069 passengers arrived in Kirkwall (population: 10,020).

A cruise ship docks at Kirkwall in Orkney. Image: Peter Titmuss/Shutterstock

The island council seems happy – port revenues add up to around £3 million a year – but for islanders, cruise ships and the volumes of passengers they bring can be intrusive. Locals struggle to get a seat in a café while the visual impact of legions of cruise-ship passengers disgorged on to Kirkwall’s narrow streets can be negative for both islanders and other tourists seeking the ‘empty spaces, at one with nature’ vibe that is Orkney’s biggest draw.

Cruise-ship passengers have been sighted on their bicycles, riding out in pelotons reminiscent of the Tour de France, slowing local traffic.

This year, the island council has graded visiting liners according to size in an attempt to regulate numbers. However, tour operators have called for transport infrastructure to be upgraded to make it easier for coaches to avoid the narrow lanes that lead to the island’s prime sites, such as Skara Brae and the Ring of Brodgar.

Many islanders oppose this, feeling that two-lane (in each direction) highways would be out of character for the islands.

Fewer flights

Banning, or significantly cutting flights is often championed as a measure that can tackle both overtourism and climate change. Such moves are controversial, but Anna Hughes, director of Free Flights UK, believes it’s essential, and that banning flights shorter than 2.5 hours would be a game changer.

‘The current problems have a lot to do with society and how we feel we have to travel more and more, how the only way we can feel fulfilled if is we are constantly going somewhere,’ she says. ‘If you had to go by train it would take longer and be more expensive, so you wouldn’t do it so often. We can still go to tourist hotspots, but we’d all be visiting them less often, rather than piling on Barcelona or Venice four times a year.

As many as 15 million people visit the Great Wall of China each year. Image: Shutterstock

Travel is worth is worth US$2.36 trillion in the USA and US$1.3 trillion in China. According to EU data, tourism accounted for 26% of GDP in Croatia in 2023, followed by Portugal (20%), Greece (19%) and Spain (14%).

‘The era of cheap flights has enabled us to travel far more easily, but it’s not a sustainable model,’ she adds. ‘Overtourism happens because we keep jumping on cheap flights just because we can.’

Measures to discourage flying could draw on lessons from anti-smoking campaigns, she says, where workplace bans have been accompanied by graphic warnings on the side of packaging. Package holiday documents could carry similar messaging about the detrimental impacts of visits.

However, Goodwin is uncomfortable with wider moves to cut flights per se, which could hit long-haul nations, such as those in the Caribbean, that are heavily dependent on tourism. ‘It really riles me,’ he says. ‘These islands were self-sufficient, then we went and grew tobacco and sugar there and gave them slavery. Then we gave them our tourists and now we’re going to tell them they can’t have tourism?’

Any campaign to ban or reduce flights is facile, he argues, as fuel prices and carbon taxes are already flattening demand. ‘People get uppity at calls to ban flights but they also get uppity when flight prices go up,’ he says, ‘but they are already expensive and getting higher’.

Elite travel – a solution to overtourism?

The counter-argument is that rationing flights in some way would be elitist: overseas holidays would quickly become unaffordable to the poorest. Fewer flights or cruise ships mandated by law to land fewer passengers, would quickly equate to higher prices.

Hotels, too, would respond, knowing they could reach capacity with a captive market. Phillips is uncomfortable about blanket legislation to increase the cost of flights to cap travel. ‘I don’t believe in charging more for long-haul flights – this simply makes travel to places beyond our backyards a preserve of the wealthier, which takes us back decades,’ he says.

Cruise ships with as many as 7,000 passengers and 2,000 crew are now visiting Caribbean ports with smaller populations. Image: Shutterstock

Across the Caribbean, tourism is accounts for 2.9m jobs over 16% of all employment and is worth US$91.2bn or 11.5% of GDP. By 2034, tourism is expected to provide 18% of all jobs in the region and to be worth US$136bn.

‘No-fly holidays effectively ring-fence wealth in the West, denying tourism income to far poorer countries, which can hasten degradation of precious habitat rather than slow it.’

‘Everybody has the right to travel – the increased access to travel for groups beyond the privileged classes is a good thing,’ he says. ‘But people also have a right to determine the character and future of the areas in which they live.’

This, argues Colom-Montero, is an uncomfortable reality but one that bumps up against what he argues is a wider societal need. ‘Elitism is an issue with this scenario,’ he says. ‘People have the right to travel – but this is a moment in the history of tourism where we should be prioritising the wellbeing of local people rather than the right to travel. This is part of the deal.’

Airline assertions that forcing up flight prices is elitist is greeted with snorts of derision by Goodwin.

‘Only Europeans make that point. It’s one of the oldest tropes. Only two per cent of the world flies every year; flying has always been elite. The world’s not fair. Please, can they spare us that sob story? If airlines are so morally troubled by this, they could strip out first and business class, and put more people on the plane. I wonder, why are they so bothered about people’s right to fly? There are people in Cornwall who can’t afford to go to the coast, millions in India who will never go to their nearest city let alone fly from it.’

New horizons

Much of the world remains relatively unexplored, says Colom-Montero. ‘Tourism has become homogeneous. Do we really all want to eat avocado on toast whether we are in Bali or Australia or Skye? Local people protesting against overtourism are reminding us of the centrality of community and place. They don’t like being transformed into a place that gives you the same breakfast the world over. What kind of tourism is that – isn’t the value of tourism in the thirst of finding the difference from us?

‘Everywhere has empty places that are of interest and will welcome tourists,’ he says. ‘Even Spain has empty areas of the interior. The problem is that social media drives us all to go the same places. On Skye, everyone feels they must go to the Fairy Pools for a selfie but there are so many other places on Skye and so many other Scottish islands that are magical and empty.’

Marrakesh in Morocco is one of Africa’s most popular destinations, with 2.5 million visitors a year. Image: Posztos/Shutterstock

Across Africa, tourism employs 26m people, valued at US$209bn and projected to rise to US$322bn, and create a further 12m jobs by 2034.

This resonates with Phillips. ‘Ultimately, the best way to reduce overtourism is to champion the merits of the many, many wonderful spots away from the most densely visited tourist sites and encourage people to spread their tourist dollars more widely. That needn’t be through penalising certain types of travel – instead, let’s focus on the positives, stress the benefits and the pleasures of trips to the alternatives.’

Is the wonder and joy of exploration enough to trigger a transformation?

Hughes is doubtful. ‘I hope we will be travelling a lot less but there is a lot of resistance to change,’ she says. ‘Campaigning, arguing the case, can only take you so far. Unless we have political leadership it won’t happen. There doesn’t seem to be that leadership so, not to sound too dystopian about it, at the moment, money talks – I think we are screwed.’

Enjoyed this article? Why not check out our related reads:

The inquisitive spirit that makes us explore is a reason for being positive, says Colom-Montero. ‘Tourism is inherent in the human spirit. The basis of tourism is encountering the other, the difference, something that is new to you. I’m optimistic – when the phrase “overtourism” was first coined, there was a push back by political leaders saying protesters were “tourism-phobic”. Now those same leaders are saying there is a problem. Overtourism has moved from the margins to the centre and so it’s impossible that we won’t see improvements.’

Goodwin believes the difference between a negative and positive tourist impact on a locality is not necessarily one of scale but of attitude. ‘Is there a basic difference between a cruise ship passenger and a couple wandering around with a guidebook? I’m not sure there is. The right kind of tourist is one who behaves like a guest on the beach, in the bar or hotel. It’s about the way you try and fit in.’ The only way to travel guilt-free, suggests Goodwin, is stay in hotels, hostels or B&Bs.

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‘There are amazing things being done across the world,’ he adds, ‘we know the solutions, we just have to implement them and speed up that process. We will definitely reach that equilibrium in cities, it’s just that things are not improving fast enough.’

Tourists share concern as ‘chaotic’ queues erupt at Canary Islands Airport

There’s nothing quite like the thought of a well-deserved holiday, but it’s no secret that the journey to your dream destination can be anything but relaxing.This week, social media has been full of videos capturing hordes of tourists trapped in seemingly endless queues at Tenerife South Airport. The passport control chaos has emphatically been branded an “awful” experience.Security screening is mandatory for all outbound travellers from Tenerife Sur, involving an airport metal detector and possibly an additional check with a handheld device. Passport control, however, has recently become notorious for its incredibly long queues.Footage circulating online shows countless passengers lined up, awaiting their turn, as the queue crawls at a snail’s pace.For TikTok influencer Claire Walters, known by her handle @walters101515, the situation represents a shocking failure in efficiency. Another TikTok user, Scott Story, shared similar frustrations in his footage from the destination.One dismayed traveller commented: “Just came back today and half the plane was empty due to people being stuck in the queue. Absolute joke.”Someone else said: “We were fortunate enough last Friday to get through just before our plane left. What happens if you don’t get through on time? How do you arrange another flight and do you have to pay?”A third replied: “We had this a few weeks ago. Stood in that queue for an hour-and-a-half.”Not everyone shared the same views though, with one person noting: “This must depend on the time of your flight. I flew home yesterday and we were the only people there. Maybe 40 minutes or so before our flight boarded.”In a similar vein, another traveller observed: “I fly to the UK and back once a month. This is not the norm – far from it.”Back last year there were reports of “chaos” at the south airport, a situation that has been partially attributed to Brexit ramifications. During the fracas, exasperated tourism chiefs on the island denounced passport control at the bustling Tenerife Sur as “nonsense”, and called for immediate measures to curtail the one-hour queues through passport checks.Tourism authorities conceded that this conundrum had persisted for several months, significantly affecting droves of British holidaymakers. Current talk indicates that this may seem to be a problem that hasn’t gone away.The team at Tenerife Sur have been asked to comment about queuing issues.

Tourists share concern as ‘chaotic’ queues erupt at Canary Islands Airport

There’s nothing quite like the thought of a well-deserved holiday, but it’s no secret that the journey to your dream destination can be anything but relaxing.This week, social media has been full of videos capturing hordes of tourists trapped in seemingly endless queues at Tenerife South Airport. The passport control chaos has emphatically been branded an “awful” experience.Security screening is mandatory for all outbound travellers from Tenerife Sur, involving an airport metal detector and possibly an additional check with a handheld device. Passport control, however, has recently become notorious for its incredibly long queues.Footage circulating online shows countless passengers lined up, awaiting their turn, as the queue crawls at a snail’s pace.For TikTok influencer Claire Walters, known by her handle @walters101515, the situation represents a shocking failure in efficiency. Another TikTok user, Scott Story, shared similar frustrations in his footage from the destination.One dismayed traveller commented: “Just came back today and half the plane was empty due to people being stuck in the queue. Absolute joke.”Someone else said: “We were fortunate enough last Friday to get through just before our plane left. What happens if you don’t get through on time? How do you arrange another flight and do you have to pay?”A third replied: “We had this a few weeks ago. Stood in that queue for an hour-and-a-half.”Not everyone shared the same views though, with one person noting: “This must depend on the time of your flight. I flew home yesterday and we were the only people there. Maybe 40 minutes or so before our flight boarded.”In a similar vein, another traveller observed: “I fly to the UK and back once a month. This is not the norm – far from it.”Back last year there were reports of “chaos” at the south airport, a situation that has been partially attributed to Brexit ramifications. During the fracas, exasperated tourism chiefs on the island denounced passport control at the bustling Tenerife Sur as “nonsense”, and called for immediate measures to curtail the one-hour queues through passport checks.Tourism authorities conceded that this conundrum had persisted for several months, significantly affecting droves of British holidaymakers. Current talk indicates that this may seem to be a problem that hasn’t gone away.The team at Tenerife Sur have been asked to comment about queuing issues.

Halloween and other Holiday Movie Recommendations

It’s that time of the year when several major holidays are celebrated within a two month span of time. This gives time for some American workers to take time off from their jobs so they can spend their hard earned dollars on commercial products for the occasion. It’s also a chance to watch some specially themed movies or holidays specials. So here are some recommendations.

(Some Descriptions Taken from Wikipedia)

October 31, 2024
Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) This isn’t so much of a Halloween film as it is a film that has an incident that takes place at Halloween. It also has a scene that takes place at Christmas. That’s because the story is divided into a series of seasonal vignettes, starting with Summer 1903, that relates the story of a year in the life of the Smith family in St. Louis leading up to the opening of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (most commonly referred to as the World’s Fair) in the spring of 1904. The film stars Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien. It is one of the films that my wife Kristin watched over and over with our daughter Princess. It’s a classic with many take away lines and scenes.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948): The original cinematic universe blending comedy and horror. Besides their famous ‘Who’s on First’ routine Abbott and Costello appeared in several crossover movies with Universal Monsters. This would include besides the above mentioned film

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In the 1948 film Abbott and Costello go up against  Universal’s greatest horror creations, Count Dracula (Bela Lugosi), Frankenstein’s monster (Glenn Strange) and The Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.). Interestingly Bela once played Jesus in a stage play.

It also has a cameo by the classic horror actor Vincent Price as the The Invisible Man. If your kids haven’t seen it, it’s a good way to introduce them to good clean classic horror and classic comedy at the same time.

Monster Mash  (1963) Not a film but a song appropriate to the season. Monster Mash” is a 1962 novelty song by Bobby “Boris” Pickett (February 11, 1938 – April 25, 2007).
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It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966) Christmas has Santa and Easter has the bunny and the beagle. Halloween has the Great Pumpkin. This is the classic Peanuts special where Charlie Brown and the gang go trick or treating and have Halloween fun, although Charlie Brown gets rocks in his bag instead of candy. While the kids are at a halloween party Linus and Sally go off to the Pumpkin Patch to await the arrival of the Great Pumpkin. Snoopy meanwhile climbs aboard his doghouse to fight the Red Baron. This animated classic kicks off the Peanuts holiday season.

Michael Jackson’s Thriller (music video)  (1983) Not an actual movie but a song with a cool video and a narration from Vincent Price. It’s great to dance to at Halloween.
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Little Shop of Horrors (1986): I was in this musical in a small role back in my first year of college. The story centers on a floral shop worker who discovers a sentient carnivorous plant that feeds on human blood.  It is filled with catchy songs and comedy. It was directed by muppeter Frank Oz and starred a multitude of comedic actors that included  Rick Moranis,   Steve Martin, Jim Belushi, Bill Murray and John Candy. It is an adaptation of the 1982 off-Broadway musical of the same name by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, which is itself an adaptation of the 1960 film The Little Shop of Horrors by director Roger Corman that had a bit part played a young Jack Nicholson. Roger made  House of Usher (1960) which became the first of eight films directed by Corman that were adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and which collectively came to be known as the “Poe Cycle“.

The other horror comedy musical that John was in was…
Nothing but Trouble (1991) I’ve never seen this horror comedy film that received the Worst Supporting Actor Razzie at the 12th Golden Raspberry Awards. But I include this and Little Shop here because they are horror based film starring John Candy who was born on October 31, 1950. Trouble was a film written and directed by Dan Aykroyd in his directorial debut, based on a story by his brother Peter, and starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd (in a dual role), John Candy (in a dual role), and Demi Moore. It tells the story of two yuppies and the clients of one of them who are taken to court for running a stop sign in the bizarre, financially bankrupt small town of Valkenvania, which is dominated by a 106-year-old judge. Tupac Shakur made his acting debut as a member of the rap group Digital Underground.

The Nightmare Before Christmas  (1993): This beautifully stop-motion animated film by master director Tim Burton tells the story of  Jack Skellington, the King of “Halloween Town”, who stumbles upon “Christmas Town” and schemes to take over the holiday. Filled with memorable songs  such as ‘What’s This’.
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The great thing about this film as that it can also function as a Christmas movie as well as a Halloween one.

The Sixth Sense (1999): If you haven’t seen this classic ghost story directed by M. Night Shyamalan be warned; it has a great twist ending that most people who watched it say they didn’t see coming. As you watch it pay attention and watch the clues. It is a master class in filmmaking. A child psychologist played by Bruce Willis starts  treating a young boy played by Haley Joel Osment who has  a disturbing secret. He sees dead people. It is a great eerie film that will give you chills with some Christian imagery. It also illustrates beautifully for all souls day the reality of purgatory. The catechetical application is that we can help those souls by our prayers.

Bless the Child  (2000) This movie has little but some gore. It stars Kim Basinger as  a woman who discovers that her niece, whom she has adopted, is being sought by a Satanic cult seeking to use her supernatural abilities. What makes this film stand out for me is the display of intercessory prayer portrayed in the film especially by a group of nuns pleading to Jesus during a critical moment in the film. It also shows stepping in leading the characters in a path to safety
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The Exorcism  of Emily Rose (2005) ‘Emily Rose’ however is not a straight out horror film. It is more like a courtroom drama with horror elements. The film however seems to go beyond the description of any one genre. Those of you, who might like to see it but are expecting ‘The Exorcist’, can rest assured. The movie is actually based upon the true story of a young German woman named Anneliese Michel who died in 1976 after a year of exorcism sessions given to her by her local priest. In the film version she is an American young woman named Emily Rose. Click on the link to read my whole review.

Constantine (2005) The plot is as good as a very low b horror flick , but tailored to fit an A class action movie. All the sound doctrinal theology is centered around Constantine and his mission to kick half-demon’s butts. Yes Half-demon, like the demigods in Percy Jackson. Just one of the many incorrect theological aspects of the film. Any theology that is off the beaten track of truth is made once again to serve the overall action of the film and not as a missionary effort to convince someone that this is actually true and you should believe it.  That is not necessarily bad in a picture, provided it serve the bigger purpose of portraying an overall truth that is beneficial to all who watch it. There are some bothersome theological errors and there are some “for the sake of the Plot” theological errors. Click on the link to read my full review.

I Am Legend (2007): The last place you would expect to find God is in a world overrun by vampires. The year is 2012 and 90% of the world has been wiped out by a lethal virus. 1% survived with immunity to the virus but were hunted down by the 9% that had turned into vampires. The last remaining normal human being is U.S. Army virologist Lieutenant colonel Robert Neville who is accompanied by his faithful dog Sam. He spends his days hunting, exercising, playing, searching for other possible survivors via a radio broadcast, and trying to find a cure for those turned into vampires, he has dubbed Dark Seekers.

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” Psalm 139: 7-8

He thinks he is the last man on earth. Click on to read the full review.

Happy Death Day (2017): Groundhog Day meets a Slasher Horror Film. Happy Death Day and its sequel Happy Death Day 2U (2019) bring a time loop sci-fi theme to the horror genre.  It follows college student Tree Gelbman, who is murdered on the night of her birthday but begins reliving the day repeatedly, at which point she sets out to find the killer and stop her death. Time Loops are a subgenre of Time Travel movies, one of my favorite genres. I’m glad they made one you can watch at Halloween.

Time Cut (2024)
Just in time for Halloween another new Time Travel horror movie premiering on Netflix. It’s about a high school senior student and amateur inventor accidentally finds a time machine and travels back to 2003, the year her sister was murdered by an unknown killer. Looks good.
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Heretic  (2024): Nov 8, 2024
A little late past Halloween but this latest entry to the horror genre showcases the dangers of being a Mormon missionary when two missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints attempt to convert a Scottish man, it turns out to be far more dangerous than they could have anticipated. Hugh Grant looks really creepy in this. It might be worth a watch.
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All Saints Day/All Souls Day
November 1/2, 2024
The Song of Bernadette (1943): This is about Saint Bernadette Soubirous who was the visionary of the apparitions of Our Lady of Lourdes. It starred  Jennifer Jones in the title role and horror icon Vincent Price as Vital Dutour, Imperial Prosecutor. You get a horror actor in a Catholic saint movie. A two for one special.

The Reluctant Saint (1962)  St. Joseph of Cupertino (June 17,1603 – September 18, 1663) could easily be the patron saint of slapstick comedians.   This young man resembles the kind of character you might find in a Jerry Lewis, Laurel &  Hardy or Mr. Bean picture.  He’s not that bright,  is scorned at by the well to do, and seems to destroy expensive and valuable items in his vicinity.  But in the end he comes out on top as an inspiring figure who has beat the odds and has achieved remarkable success in some way or other.  It is a compelling religious drama with lots of humorous touches, but could easily have been a great slapstick comedy (or even a musical) having great sight gags and physical comedy (and great musical numbers) and still retain its  Christian themes and tone. The great thing about this particular film however is that it is based on a real person and real events and not a character created by a talented comedian.

Cabrini  (2024): This is the latest movie to join the ranks of great films about great saints. So it is a great film for All Saints Day. Here is my take on the film.Cabrini Was Awesome. I haven’t enjoyed a cinematic experience this much in quite a long time. It was a great faith based film in the traditional hollywood style of films such as The Song of Bernadette (1943) Going My Way (1944) or Francis of Assisi (1961). Everything from the cinematography to the musical score, from the storytelling to the acting was nothing short of amazingly fascinating.
Also Check Out Cabrini Reactions.

The Carpenter (November 1, 2023)
Not a Saint movie, but a new Christian movie.
An adopted viking orphan becomes a carpenter’s apprentice to Jesus. The orphan, Oren, fights as a side hustle. His experience training as a carpenter with Jesus as his mentor changes his lifestyle.- IMDB
I told a coworker who is into wrestling about this and he said he would check it out.
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November 5, 2024
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) The president is not the only office up for election. This classic lighthearted political satire film is directed by Frank Capra (It’s a Wonderful Life) and stars Jean Arthur and James Stewart (It’s a Wonderful Life). The story is about a naive, newly appointed United States senator who fights against government corruption, and was written by Sidney Buchman, based on Lewis R. Foster‘s unpublished story “The Gentleman from Montana”. It was loosely based on the life of Montana US Senator Burton Wheeler, who underwent a similar experience when he was investigating the Warren Harding administration. 
The film believe it or not was controversial in the US when it was first released, with attacks from many politicians claiming that it brought Washington into disrepute, but it was very successful at both the domestic and international box offices, and it made Stewart a major star.

Abbott and Costello Service Comedies

Japan used this Buck Privates as propaganda to demonstrate to its own troops the “incompetence” of the United States Army. The film was shown to U.S. troops in every theater of war.

Dave  (1993) This is a American political comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters (1984)) and starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. Kline plays the president of the U.S.A. and also plays a man named Dave  who looks like the president. He is recruited by the Secret Service to become a momentary stand-in for the President of the United States after he has a heart attack while having a stroke with his chief of staff. This is a very charming funny film with a lot of heart. The type of president we are not going to elect.
I forgot that I was hired to do a job for you and that it was just a temp job at that. I forgot that I had two hundred and fifty million people who were paying me to make their lives a little better and I didn’t live up to my part of the bargain. See, there are certain things you should expect from a President. I ought to care more about you than I do about me… I ought to care more about what’s right than I do about what’s popular. I ought to be willing to give this whole thing up for something I believe in.

Air Force One (1997): The movie is another Die Hard on a plane type film where a group of terrorists who hijack Air Force One and the President‘s (Harrison Ford aka:Han Solo, Indiana Jones) attempt to rescue everyone on board by retaking his plane.

I would like a remake where Donald Trump uses some of his wrestling movies on some terrorists.
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Swing Vote (2008) A unique parablish type of film. In a unbelievable remarkable turn-of-events, the result of the presidential election comes down to the vote of just one man played by Kevin Costner. Kelsey Grammer as President Andrew Boone and Dennis Hopper as Senator Donald Greenleaf vow to win his vote.

Lincoln  (2012): This film is directed and produced by Steven Spielberg, and stars Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln. The screenplay by Tony Kushner was loosely based on Doris Kearns Goodwin‘s 2005 biography Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln and covers the final four months of Lincoln’s life.
The film focuses on Lincoln’s efforts in January 1865 to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude by having the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution passed by the United States House of Representatives.

New Christmas Before Thanksgiving 2024
Does releasing Christmas movies before Advent bring in any box office revenue? I would add these to my Christmas movie list but they might be out of theaters way before Christmas and I think they are at least worth mentioning.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever: Nov 8, 2024
I hope his new movie does well. This early Christmas movie is opening against a late Halloween movie. Both with religious themes. From the man who brought us The Chosen Dallas Jenkins, now gives us the movie based on the 1972 novel of the same name by Barbara Robinson. It centers around the Herdmans, a group of juvenile delinquent siblings who have inadvertently found themselves starring in the town’s Christmas pageant, and stars Judy Greer, Pete Holmes, Molly Belle Wright, and Lauren Graham. It will be interesting to see what he does with something outside  what he is best known for. Kristin and I have been going to Immaculate Conception Church in Cranston, R.I. to hear Fr. Wilson give a biblical and catechetical lesson on each episode. It’s quite inspiring and informational. Very faith filled experience each time we go.
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Red One (November 15, 2024)
After Santa Claus (code name: Red One) is kidnapped, the North Pole’s Head of Security (Dwayne Johnson) must team up with the world’s most infamous bounty hunter (Chris Evans) in a globe-trotting, action-packed mission to save Christmas. (IMDB) This is the Christmas film that you didn’t know existed but can only imagine wanting it to.
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Veterans Day 

Monday, November 11,2024

Saving Private Ryan  is a 1998 American epic war film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Robert Rodat. Set in 1944 in Normandy, France, during World War II, it follows a group of soldiers, led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), on a mission to locate Private James Francis Ryan (Matt Damon) and bring him home safely after his three brothers have been killed in action. The cast also includes Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg and Jeremy Davies. It lost best picture to ‘Shakespeare in Love’, which always puzzled and bugged me.

Hacksaw Ridge(2016) The film focuses on the World War II experiences of Desmond Doss, an American pacifist combat medic who, as a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, refused to carry or use a weapon or firearm of any kind. Doss became the first conscientious objector to be awarded the Medal of Honor, for service above and beyond the call of duty during the Battle of Okinawa. Andrew Garfield stars as Doss, with Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, Hugo Weaving, Rachel Griffiths, Vince Vaughn and Richard Pyros in supporting roles.

Remains of POW chaplain Emil Kapaun identified after 70 years. Another chaplain embarks on journey to greet them, inspired by 419 chaplains’ sacrifices. The convergence of their paths from different eras leads to a healing moment.-IMDB
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(November 28, 2024)
And looking ahead to a few other movies at the end of November and December.
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1973): Another classic Charlie Brown holiday special where the Thanksgiving dinner consists of a feast of toast, pan-fried popcorn, pretzel sticks, jelly beans and ice cream sundaes.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) with John Candy and Steve Martin. It is one of the few Thanksgiving themed movies out there. It stars Martin as a Chicago advertising man who struggles to travel home from New York for Thanksgiving  who ends up traveling with John Candy’s lovable oaf of a shower-curtain-ring salesman as his only companion.

They get into all types of scrapes involving Trains, Planes, Buses, and Automobiles. It has one of the funniest scenes I’ve ever seen in a movie.
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Free Birds (2013) A thanksgiving animated sci-fi movie where two turkeys named Reggie and Jake travel back to the first Thanksgiving to prevent turkeys from being domesticated and eaten by humans. The film stars the voices of Owen Wilson (Loki) Woody Harrelson (Hunger Games, Cheers) and Amy Poehler (Inside Out, Parks and Recreation) with a great supporting role by Star Trek’s George Takei.
Some Other New November Movies That Look Good

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Just in Time For Thanksgiving

Entertainment News | ‘Santosh’ a Deeply Political but Accessible Film, Says Director Sandhya Suri

New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri says her debut feature “Santosh”, which is the UK’s official entry to the Oscars, is a deeply political film but she was careful that the story, woven around two female cops, doesn’t become “didactic”. Set in the interiors of north India, the movie revolves around a widow, played by Shahana Goswami, who gets her late husband’s job of a police constable. She and her senior inspector (Sunita Rajwar) are soon sucked into a high profile investigation into the rape and murder of a Dalit teenager. Also Read | ‘Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3’ Song ‘Hukkush Phukkush’: Kartik Aaryan Brings Desi Halloween Vibes to Diwali With This Fun Track (Watch Video). “My film is deeply political about the role of women and where we are,” Suri told PTI in an interview, admitting that she often gets lost for words to talk about the movie in a “bigger way” because she funnelled everything she felt about the subject into her movie. Suri said she knew from the beginning that her script was strong and hoped that as a director she makes the film “as good as the script”. Also Read | ‘Amaran’ Full Movie Leaked on Tamilrockers, Movierulz & Telegram Channels for Free Download & Watch Online; Sivakarthikeyan’s Film Is the Latest Victim of Piracy?. “I’m happy that I did manage to do that… The key to the story is that it doesn’t become didactic or it doesn’t become a campaigning film or a militant film,” she said. “Santosh” premiered in the Un Certain Regard category at the Cannes Film Festival in May and recently screened at the Mumbai MAMI film festival. It will travel to the Dharamshala International Film Festival in November. Suri, who has made critically acclaimed documentaries such as “I For India” and “Around India with a Movie Camera”, said the violence perpetuated against women is not a new topic, but it always disturbed her. It was also the starting seed for her movie. “There’s been more media and outrage about some of these incidents in the last 10 years. But I remember reading daily reports about the casual daily violence and how almost depressingly normal it was for these things to happen even before 2012 (the Delhi gangrape and murder case). I was more outraged by the regularity of such incidents. So it was more like a cumulative effect about the violence as opposed to one particular event.” Asked whether not being based in India gave her the necessary distance to explore the caste, gender and political faultlines in her movie, Suri credited her training in documentary filmmaking for helping her approach the topic a certain way. “For me, it is not about distance. It is about being a documentary maker and having a certain rigor about the level of observation and research, having a lot of respect for detail and putting them in the film… This film, in script and in shooting, elevated in its craft,” she said. While she didn’t set out to make a commercial or genre film, Suri is hopeful that when the film releases in India, “people would want to go and see it”. “It just ended up that I made a film on the Indian police. Actually, it is a very accessible film and the actors are so great. I had an amazing run in the cinemas in France.” Suri said the film’s release in India is of “supreme importance” to her. “I did not make this film for viewers only outside of India… There are things which an Indian audience will definitely pick up that others might not.” It was by design that her central protagonist is a housewife-turned-cop because the filmmaker wanted a lower middle class constable, who “does not move in higher circles”. “I just wanted that really normal average woman who goes on this crazy journey. I wanted that type of woman to be seen all over the world.” Suri does not want to make much of the fact that her film is the first Hindi film to represent the UK in the best international film category at the Oscars. “Given that it is a largely British-funded film with support from France and Germany and that I’m a British filmmaker of Indian origin, it sort of makes sense. In the beginning of this journey, financing myself out of the United Kingdom was difficult but with time, people have become a bit more used to that and I had great support here,” she said. Both “Santosh” and Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine As Light” screened at Cannes at different times. The director said while she missed meeting Kapadia at the French movie gala where “All We Imagine As Light” won the Grand Prix award, they crossed paths at the Telluride Film Festival later. On the inevitable question of female filmmakers triumphing at Cannes this year, she said, “I met Payal in Telluride for the first time, and I think for a joke that was the first question I asked her, ‘Like, what do you feel about another female filmmaker?’ “And she asked me the same thing and we had a little laugh because I think it’s just a hard question to answer because we are filmmakers and we should be there. I think we’re just happy in our own right to be there and in our own journeys because good films are good films.”(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

Book Review: Heavy Weight of Darkness

Heavy Weight of Darkness

by J.M. Erickson

Genre: Science Fiction / Dystopia

ISBN: 9781942708551

Print Length: 210 pages

Reviewed by Elizabeth ReiserA cinematic sci-fi dystopia following one man’s search for redemptionIn J.M. Erickson’s Heavy Weight of Darkness, readers follow former military officer Willard Bennett as he confronts the consequences of his past actions.Bennett, once a first-class patrician, has been stripped of everything that allowed him privileges in society. Instead of being revered, he is now just like the people he once found deplorable. To regain his freedom and the life he misses, Bennett must find the person who helped put him in this state. Once he captures the rebellious Cassandra Kurtz, he then must kill her. However, as Bennett begins his journey and starts looking into more about the elusive Cassandra, he learns the world he has always fought to protect is far more corrupt than he was willing to acknowledge. He now finds himself at an impasse regarding what to do. Bennett is one intriguing protagonist. He begins the story angry at being in a low place, searching for redemption for his prior perceived failures. His anger is palpable, and that underlying rage adds to the tension that drives the first third of the story. It is a slow-burn start to the book, but the reader stays interested up and through the embarking of his adventure.Bennett does not work alone on his task, and his cohorts are the ones who help open his eyes to the truth. Working with the mysterious Betsy Ann Hall on his mission to capture Cassandra, they engage in conversations where he is forced to confront and question what he has always believed. Betsy and their other sidekick Virgil balance one another nicely, with Betsy being frank and Virgil more malleable until he finds his way. Their conversations range from serious topics like racism to humorous ones where they tease one another in a genuine, likable way. Combined, they make a great trio. Cassandra is not seen much in this story. As a sequel to Erickson’s Endless Fall of Night, which follows Cassandra closely, this book focuses primarily on Bennett. While this can be read as a standalone, reading the first installment would provide more context to understand the nuances of Bennett’s tumultuous relationship with Cassandra.  It should also be noted that this series uses Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as inspiration. Like Conrad, Erickson focuses on how different power dynamics work within classes, race, and morality. The topic is heavy, but it makes for an entertaining read nonetheless. Fans of the science fiction genre and classic books like Conrad’s will enjoy this one. Heavy Weight of Darkness reads like watching a movie—and an exciting one at that. What a terrific job Erickson has done in creating this world.Thank you for reading Elizabeth Reiser’s book review of Heavy Weight of Darkness by J.M. Erickson! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.