The calendar was produced by the Public Affairs party, a new formation on the Czech political scene described as a conservative liberal party and is intended to highlight the presence of women in Czech politics; I don’t see how these glamour pics help their cause.

Is it something our political parties might ponder on producing too? Certainly not, the MPs would instantly be labelled as “window dressing”;  remember the furore following Caroline Flint in that red dress! We struggle in this country to accept that women parliamentarians can be stunningly attractive and taken seriously, particularly by the media.

How can these women hope to be taken seriously posing like this? Why couldn’t the pics had shown them at work in their parliamentary offices or constituency instead of posing on a bed? But then I guess sale figures would be far fewer. And how fair is this calendar to women MPs whose looks don’t match up to theses glamour pusses?

The pic on the left shows Katerina Klasnova MP, the vice speaker who is featured in January, and on the right is Karolina Peake MP, an anti-corruption campaigner and lawyer who represents a Prague constituency, and graces the month of July.

It was only by chance I learned about this botanical delight thanks to one my blog readers alerting me to it after I wrote about my planned visit to Portmeirion. Otherwise I would never have known about it, and I did not see any flyers about it locally.

At first we drove right by the entrance as we were looking for a car park, and there didn’t seem to be one. A beautiful gate painted in Mediterranean blue and sunshine yellow welcomed me.

From then on, I repeatedly drew my breath and gasped with pleasure at everything I viewed as I scanned each corner of this tranquil heaven on earth. I can only describe it as a romantic treasure, a jewel surrounded by soft, mountainous landscape, with stunning breathtaking vistas. I really didn’t want to leave. I wanted to walk the same paths and experience the exhilaration of these gardens with its ponds and orangery, flower borders and topiary. Whichever way you looked, the vast sky and soft mountains looked down on these gardens lovingly created by Clough who was given the house in 1908 at the age of 25 and wrote:

“It was for Brondanw’s sake that I worked and stinted, for its sake that I chiefly hoped to prosper. A cheque of ten pounds would come in and I would order yew hedging to that extent, a cheque for twenty and I would pave a further piece of terrace.”

Clough’s daughter, a lover of plants, created the famous Portmeirion Pottery, with its botanical theme. I can see why the garden so inspired her.

No wonder The Independent described it as one of the top ten recommended gardens to visit. Sadly few visitors make their way there, only around 1,000 – 1,500 a year, and 15,000 – 20,000 are needed to make it self-sufficient, as its dedicated gardener explains on this video.

I wish I had asked the gardener how long it took him to trim those stunning sculptured topiaries ….

This is what Murray has planned for 20 September at the Cavendish Centre:

Social Gaming: The World’s Most Compelling Ad Campaigns
Social gaming has hit new heights in the last 12 months. Runaway success stories like FarmVille and Mafia Wars have attracted over 100 million gamers to join in the fun and the industry is set to surpass its forecast $1 billion in revenue in 2010. In this session we’ll highlight the benefits of advertising through social gaming and identify the best opportunities on the horizon.

New Forms of Measurement for Advertising
With the rise of social media, CPM (cost per impression), the standard form of measurement for advertising, has proved inadequate as a means of measuring ROI. This has prompted networks to introduce new forms of measurement, such as CPE (cost per engagement) and to seek to measure returns in terms of participation, involvement, attention or trust. In this Panel Discussion we’ll analyse which forms work best, and why.

Video Advertising: Ten Tips to Leverage the Viral Power of Social Media
What is the secret to effective online video advertising? How can companies use video advertising to strike a balance between paid and earned media? How much “seeding” is needed? Should you be seeking conversations or click-thrus? And, what KPI’s should you use to evaluate the success of your campaigns.

How to  Manage and Optimise Facebook Advertising Campaigns
Facebook is set to make over $1 billion from advertising in 2010 and thousands of businesses are using the social network’s targeting tools to connect with customers. This works for SME’s, but what about large agencies and brands that need to manage complex advertising campaigns? In this session we will explore how to create, optimise and manage major ad campaigns on Facebook, including A/B ad testing and integration with analytics tools.

Social Targeting : Understanding Social Media Data Mining & Analysis
With the advent of the social web, companies that aren’t actively mining, analysing and using social media data are missing a huge commercial advantage. In this session Chase McMichael (CEO, Infinigraph) will explain how social targeting works, including technologies, techniques and opportunities. He will also highlight the privacy challenges facing the industry.

The Future Has Arrived: How to Get Started in Mobile Social Advertising
Mobile social networking usage is soaring (Twitter access from mobiles is up 347% in the last year alone) and the Mobile Marketing Association expects mobile ad spending to grow 27% to $2.1 billion in 2010. In spite of this many brands aren’t advertising on mobile social networks and in the many popular mobile social gaming sites and applications available. In this session we’ll explain how to leverage this emerging market to secure new customers.

Using Advertising to Drive Social Media Traffic
In this fascinating session E.J Garcia will provide tested and proven strategies and tips on how to effectively leverage social media and paid search to generate new social media connections. He will explain how to integrate paid advertising with social media engagement, including Facbook Advertising and Google Adwords.

Some of these buzz words are new to me, but it’s essential for me to keep up with the constantly emerging digital social marketing tools.

Earlier this year Murray was ranked as having one of the top UK online marketing blogs. It’s certainly great to learn from someone who is successful at practicing what he preaches. And it’s a bonus to discover that he lives nearby in Cambridge!

Tickets are sensibly priced too at under £200; see here for details of venue and speakers too.

See you there…

The walk is easy peasy and takes you along a well trodden footpath flanked by undulating meadowland and the meandering River Stour. Suddenly you arrive at the mill, made famous by artist John Constable with the Haywain. We were lucky enough to join a guided walk and paused at the spot where the great man himself once stood and painted this well known scene which was to become immortalised centuries later as  famous landmark of a tiny corner of  English countryside.

At this point the battery gave up on me on my iPhone and so this walk only covers the 3.9 miles from Manningtree to the mill. I promised to publish this walk to two girls working at Flatford Mill who share my enthusiasm for the EveryTrail app and wanted to see the end result. Unfortunately,  this meant I was unable to capture the remainder of the trail we followed across the unspoilt countryside and river path to nearby Dedham. I regarded it as a blessing in disguise because I was able to totally focus on my stunning surroundings and its breathtaking beauty. Many families also shared my thoughts and were loving Constable Country too, and having fun boat trips along the river.

One of the first things I noticed as I gazed up into the clear blue skyline was that there wasn’t a pylon in sight. Then I remembered having read about a well supported action group, the Groton Pylon Alliance which has been formed in Suffolk to prevent the spread of new pylons in the region – though I doubt the national grid would even contemplate placing them on this sacred land – but the absence of these ghastly structures is certainly a campaign worth supporting.

Constable certainly wouldn’t have approved!

Manningtree to Flatford Mill

Plan your trips with EveryTrail iPhone Travel Guides

A fairly horrendous life followed which forced Richard to lie about the true nature of his mother’s death to Army comrades, culminating with a spell in jail as a drugs dealer, and a desperate struggle to get back on his feet after his release so he would not lose his home. The theme of Richard’s motivational “I can” speech, which he gives around the country in schools, prisons and to business groups, is to make us believe that even the worst situations in life can have positive outcomes if you focus on them, rather than the negative.  He wants to inspire people and give them self-belief – and counsels others who have lost loved ones in violent situations – using his early wretched life with a brutal father and his unhappy experiences as an example of  this. His dramatic life story and how he coped with his personal tragedies has been described in his moving best seller, “Just A Boy: The True Story of a Stolen Childhood.”

Thankfully, the story has a happy ending as Richard is now blissfully married to a midwife with three adorable ginger haired kids! But that is not the end of the story.

I sense that his real happiness came from being able to forgive – first of all his father for the misery he caused to his family, and then, most surprisingly, forgiving Peter Sutcliffe for the murder of his mother. This happened after he heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at the Forgiveness Project charity which explores forgiveness, reconciliation and conflict resolution through real-life human experience of which he is patron. Here are video links to the Archbishop’s Inaugural Lecture which had an incredible effect on Richard. Afterwards, Richard managed to catch up with Desmond Tutu before he left and told him that he was now able to forgive Peter Sutcliffe who had stabbed his mother 14 times. The two men hugged, and I imagine there were tears following such a huge release and acknowledgement, something 99% of people in his situation could never do.

Richard is an amazing, powerful speaker. He left us all speechless and humbled. His mum would be so proud.

Do you find it easy to forgive?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Introduces The Forgiveness Project

No visit to Burnham Market is complete without calling in at The Hoste Arms. It was a nostalgic visit because I have spent many happy hours there with my dear friend Sue, who could not fight her demons, and it was my first visit there since the death of its inspirational owner Paul Whittome whose death shocked us all last month when he died of cancer aged 55.

I am thrilled I have managed to order a couple of fabulous books he wrote describing his passion for his hotel where his favourite Elvis music still plays in the loos, and another with his reviews of restaurants around the world, when no doubt he was seeking ideas for his own hotel. I wish I had known Paul better as he had such a remarkable life. He was born on a farm near Peterborough and became an art and furniture dealer at 14, a gangmaster at agricultural college, a bouncer in Australia, then back to the UK where he worked as a potato and fruit merchant and became the youngest councillor in the UK, and later a hotelier and property developer with the golden touch. He left an amazing legacy behind in Burnham Market. Thank you Paul. You will always be remembered.

*I spent yesterday paddling away in a canoe on the Norfolk Broads and it was a complete coincidence that fellow blogger Maalie planned a trip there too, so we doubled up for our guided tour with The Canoe Man. It was a while since I had last canoed in Centre Parcs, which seemed like a puddle compared to the vast expanse of the Broads. But I took to it like a duck to water and knew I was in safe hands as Maalie told me he had impressively steered a canoe through the Everglades while alligators swam in the water. Impressive stuff. While these waters lacked reptiles, they made up for it with stunning birdlife, including cormorants and a beauty of a long legged graceful heron perched high on a branch as we gently paddled by.

The best part of this trip was leaving the main Broad and manoeuvering our way through the narrowest waterways where we had to duck under overhanging branches and glide across tall grasses, reeds and lily pads. The biggest challenge was having to then having to turn around and go back when the width of the inlet was just a fraction bigger than the canoe.

We had set off from Fairhaven Woodland and Water Garden which was another reason I chose to do this trip as I have long wanted to see the garden. Richard Ayres, the former head gardener of Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge, had often sung its praises to me. I was not disappointed. My jaw dropped repeatedly as I turned corner after corner and saw another lush vista. It was stunningly beautiful, with miles of narrow waterways, many lined with pink laced hydrangeas. The gigantic Gunnera was a popular backdrop for photos, as well as a gnarled 950 year-old oak tree. I cannot imagine a more beautiful water garden anywhere in the world.

I hope to visit another county later this week as I plan to put on my walking shoes and head to Flatford Mill, Suffolk and explore Constable Country which I also adore; then it will be time to pack my bags for my visit to Wales next week.