Latest news with #Balmoral
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Cruise passengers can get free drink packages on over 40 sailings in 2025
Fred Olsen cruise line has launched a huge summer sale and Brits can currently get free drinks packages on a host of sailings in 2025 including Northern Lights cruises Brits planning cruise holidays this year may want to check out Fred. Olsen's latest summer sale, as the cruise line is currently offering a tempting deal with drinks. Cruises already include plenty such as your food, accommodation and travel, but if you want drinks, these usually come at an extra cost on the majority of cruise lines. A drinks package can be a great way of being able to indulge in a tipple or two without having to worry about the size of your bill at the end of the holiday, but these also come at an extra cost. However, Fred. Olsen is currently offering free drinks packages on over 40 sailings in 2025. That will include a range of house beers, spirits, wines and soft drinks too. Holidaymakers who book by June 25, 2025, will be able to enjoy the free drinks, worth £24.99 per person per night (or if you're booking five-night cruises, worth £35.99 per person, per night). You can already book on the Fred Olsen website, and there's an impressive array of itineraries included whether you're hoping to make the most of the summer sun on a sailing to Spain, or have a bucket-list-worthy winter and go in search of the Northern Lights. There's more good news as the sailings are across all three of its ships - Bolette, Borealis and Balmoral - with a range of UK departure ports including Southampton, Dover, Portsmouth, Liverpool, Newcastle and Rosyth (Edinburgh). Whatever cruise itinerary you're eyeing up, according to one cruise insider there are six items you should always pack before heading to the ship. One top tip? Packing both a backpack for your onshore excursions, but also a smaller evening bag for around the ship so you can carry a few essentials whether heading to dinner, a show or even just enjoying a trip to the bar. A card holder is also another essential item, although if you book a package that includes your drinks, gratuities and service charges, then you may not need to think too much about additional costs throughout the holiday! Meanwhile, sun-seeking Brits may want to keep an eye out for itineraries featuring Cartagena in Spain, after the beautiful city was named the sunniest in Europe. The historic port city, which is a popular stop for cruise ships, boasts a plethora of gorgeous architecture, as well as impressive museums and an eye-catching Roman amphitheatre. Unsurprisingly, it's a firm favourite with history and culture fans as well the foodies who flock to the city to indulge in some of that mouthwatering Spanish food. (Tapas and wine, anyone?). The cruise hotspot is underrated, with most tourists opting for the likes of Alicante or Murcia instead, so one of the benefits of visiting is that it doesn't always have the huge crowds found in other spots in peak months (although on a shore day, you might find it a little busier because of the cruise crowds).
Daily Record
7 days ago
- Daily Record
Scottish Del Boy's tea scam conned luxury clients out of £550k
Thomas Robinson supplied Edinburgh's Balmoral and other big hotels with 'authentically Scottish' single-estate tea. A conman was behind bars last night for a £550,000 fraud in which he sold luxury 'Scottish-grown' tea to posh hotels – that he'd bought from overseas. Thomas Robinson supplied Edinburgh's Balmoral and other big hotels with 'authentically Scottish' single-estate tea from his Wee Tea Plantation. The chancer even claimed tea he supplied to five-star The Dorchester in London was 'the Queen's favourite'. The reality was not unlike Del Boy Trotter's Peck-ham Spring scam in the TV comedy Only Fools and Horses, where Del fills bottles with water from his kitchen tap to sell on – at a considerable profit. Robinson, 55, rented a former sheep farm in Perthshire where he planted tea plants for show then imported more than a ton of tea from overseas and repacked it. One expert said a kilo of quality tea from Africa could be sold for 100 times what it cost if it was passed off as being grown in Scotland. The scale of Robinson's lies was laid bare in a three-and-a-half-week long case at Falkirk Sheriff Court. He was found guilty of defrauding tea growers of £274,354 and the hotels and tea companies of £278,634 – a total of nearly £553,000 – between January 2014 and February 2019. Robinson denied the crimes, claiming paperwork for his defence had been destroyed in a flood and his electronic records had been lost. The conman, also known as Tom O'Braan, bought tea plants from a nursery in Sussex called Plants4Presents. He carried out his scam by showing tea plants to buyers such as those acting for Fortnum and Mason of London, where the wealthiest in society like to shop. Other victims who bought the Wee Tea Plantation's supposedly single-estate Scottish-grown tea products included France's oldest tea house, Mariage Frères. He claimed to have found a way of making his tea grow in half the usual time at the former kitchen garden at Dalreoch Farm, at Amulree in Perthshire, using a 'special biodegradable poly-mer' which the prosecution said looked like a black bin liner. He claimed to have given a presentation on his methods to the Royal Horticultural Society. The tea menu at the Balmoral Hotel's Palm Court, based on descriptions Robinson gave them, boasted: 'Our Scottish grown teas come from gardens in our farming heartlands in Perthshire and Dumfries and Galloway.' The teas had names including Dalreoch White, Silver Needles, Scottish Antlers Tea, and Highland Green. Robinson spun customers lies that his company had sold tea to Kensington Palace and that he was a former rugby star and multi-millionaire. He also claimed to be a polymer scientist, had invented the 'Bag For Life', served in the Army in bomb dis-posal and worked for ex-US president Barack Obama's administration on a maize project. Prosecutors described this as 'the CV of a fantasist'. The court heard Robinson disguised that he was repackaging foreign tea and selling it on by getting it delivered to a mailbox address in Glasgow registered to a company called 'Thomas James Consultants'. He also paid through a joint personal bank account, not the business account of The Wee Tea Plantation. Robinson managed to sow success stories in the Press. He appeared on a BBC podcast, telling presenter Mark Stephen he had learned to quickly grow tea plants by restricting UV light. An expert later said this would kill them. Robinson also claimed to have produced tea plants at his farm from cuttings and seed. Between 2015 and 2018 he supplied 22,000 plants to a dozen other growers in Scotland and one in Jersey at £12.50 each. The jury heard that over the period he was actually importing tea plants at €3 each from a horticulturalist in Italy. He either passed them off as Scottish-grown or allowed his customers to assume they were. Many died or did not thrive, and yields were a fraction of what Robinson's customers expected. One grower, Henry Baggott, 45, an antique dealer, who bought thousands of plants for his wife's family farm near Castle Douglas, said Robinson had told him he could expect to be picking his first tea at the end of a year. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. He promised an eventual yield of 100 kilos (220lb) of top-quality tea plus 450kg (992lb) of secondary leaf for blends. After battling for seven years, the Baggotts finally managed to harvest just 100g (less than 4oz) of finished tea. Robinson claimed that with the exception of 15,000 plants sold to a grower in Jersey, all the Italian plants had been in Scottish ground for a period and that made them Scottish. The scam began to unravel in 2017 after Perth and Kinross Council tried to locate Robinson's food processing licence. When a Scottish Government adviser asked about plant passports, he insisted all the plants were for his own use, then tried to cover up by sending a story to the local Press claiming thousands of his plants had been stolen. Prosecutor Joanne Ritchie said Robinson formed 'a scheme to deceive and make money on the basis of lies'. She said: 'When you look at what he was actually doing, the suggestion that this was genuine Scottish tea or these were Scottish-grown plants is almost laughable. 'He lied to every single witness who encountered him, but more than that he lied to the population at large, to the people who had been buying this tea on the understanding it was Scottish.' Robinson, of Amulree, Perthshire, insisted he had done no wrong. He told the jury: 'I wanted to leave something that would stand in the history of tea.' He shook his head when the verdicts were announced. Sheriff Keith O'Mahony deferred sentence for reports until June 25 and remanded Robinson in custody. He told him: 'There will be significant sentencing consequences for you.'
The Courier
7 days ago
- The Courier
The Great Scottish Tea Blag — Perthshire businessman guilty of £550k tea firm fraud
A Perthshire businessman who claimed to have created the Queen's favourite brew at 'Scotland's first tea plantation' has been convicted of an elaborate £550k fraud. Thomas Robinson – better known as Tam O'Braan – made up awards and qualifications to blag sales from some of the country's top hotels and stores including the Dorchester, the Balmoral and Fortnum and Mason. The father-of-four also duped growers from around Scotland into buying Camellia Sinesis tea plants from his remote facility in the hills of Amulree, south of Aberfeldy. In reality, the crops were purchased wholesale from a plantation in northern Italy. Other plants were used to decorate a 0.3 acre 'kitchen garden' at this farm ahead of visits from potential buyers. Robinson bought these 'show plants' from esteemed tea vendors in the UK, and even demanded one sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep his sales a secret. The 55-year-old's too-good-to-be-brew story sensationally unspooled following a three-year investigation by Food Standards Scotland and a four-week jury trial at Falkirk Sheriff Court. Robinson – who once told the press 'call me Mr Tea' – was remanded in custody and told jail will be 'inevitable.' The jury deliberated overnight for six-and-a-half hours before returning unanimous guilty verdicts to two charges of forming a fraudulent scheme over a period of more than four years. Sheriff Keith O'Mahony told Robinson: 'The jury have convicted you of two very serious charges, with a total combined value of between half-a-million-pounds and £600,000. 'There will be significant sentencing consequences for you.' Robinson will also face proceeds of crime action to claw back his ill-gotten funds. He showed little emotion as he was led out of the dock in handcuffs but could be seen shaking his head as the jury delivered its verdict. Claims Robinson's tea was grown in Scotland using some kind of miracle plastic sheeting sparked a media buzz, helping to secure sales with high end customers. Michelin star chef Jeff Bland of Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel was among those who were tricked into buying it. Between November 2014 and February 2019, Robinson's Wee Tea Plantation made £84,124 selling nearly 460kg of loose leaf tea to the Balmoral for its Palm Court menu. Mr Bland, known as Jeff the Chef who referred to Robinson as Tam the Man, told the trial he would not have bought the tea if he knew it was not Scottish. Similarly Robinson sold £54,648 of tea to the Dorchester, £39,875 to Fortnum and Mason and £32,878 to gourmet tea company Mariage Freres. Robinson also duped Jamie Russell and Derek Walker of Fife's Wee Tea Company, who agreed to package and sell his teas, again believing they had been grown at Dalreoch. Between 2014 and 2018, he sold £67,109 to the Wee Tea Company. Robinson was further convicted of defrauding 12 individual buyers – 11 in Scotland and one from Jersey – out of £274,354. Suspicions started to grow around 2016 when, on the back of press reports, Perth and Kinross Council investigated Dalreoch to see the scale of the operation for itself, only to be told production was carried out in Fife. A subsequent probe by Fife Council found this was not true. At the same time, people who had bought plants from Robinson were surprised to find their own teas listed on The Balmoral menu. Food Standards Scotland, set up in the wake of the horse meat scandal, was tasked to investigate. As the probe progressed, the teas were yanked from hotel menus and Robinson's contract with the Wee Tea Company was terminated. During the trial, it emerged Robinson made up outrageous claims about his product, telling one customer it was the Queen's favourite tea. His tall tales including signing a contract with President Barrack Obama's US administration for crop trials, deals with Kensington Palace and playing and coaching rugby for several well-known clubs. Robinson, most recently working as a chef at Taymouth Castle, claimed to have invented a 'unique' plastic sheeting that allowed his tea plants to grow at record-breaking speeds. He fabricated awards, including the prestigious-sounding Salon de Thé prize, to boost his company's profile. He pretended to be former employee Lindsay Deuchars, using her old email address without permission to communicate with customers and media – usually when trying to avoid troublesome questions – signing off messages with 'Lins x'. Robinson tried to explain he had a four-and-a-half acre plot near his land which was used to grow thousands of tea plants. The land, he said, had been leased from a shepherd but he could not remember his name. No one who visited Dalreoch – such as potential buyers and investors – was shown this land. Robinson struggled to explain how he claimed 70,000 plants had been removed from the four-and-a-half acre plot, when he had earlier said he grew plants at a rate of about 1,000 per acre. He said the plants and all the equipment at Dalreoch had been moved to Ireland, because he was quitting Scotland after Perth and Kinross Council gave funding to a competitor. But he said he could not produce photos of the plants and equipment sitting in Ireland because he had been let down by an IT guy called Mike, whose surname he could not remember. Prosecutor Joanne Ritchie told jurors: 'This was a scheme to deceive, a scheme to make money on the basis of lies. 'This man has lied to every single witness who encountered him. 'But more than that, he lied to the public at large.' She said Robinson made himself out to be a 'knowledgeable and credible person,' while exploiting a gap in the market but urged jurors to reject his testimony entirely, branding it 'absurd.' Defence advocate Colin Neilson KC urged jurors to acquit his client, even if they had suspicious about his business practices and his tendency to 'big himself up' to others. Giving evidence at his trial, Robinson said he was 'proud' of his achievements. 'This is what I consider to be my life's work,' he said. 'This will stand in the history of tea.' Robinson said he felt 'injured and hurt,' but also 'annoyed and angry' by the allegations. 'The first time I've heard the evidence is here, at the same time as the jury,' he said. The case represent a significant win for the Food Standards Scotland's crime and incident unit. Ron McNaughton, who heads up the department, said: 'This was a highly complex and protracted investigation which required a significant amount of time, expertise and coordination across our team with partner agencies.' He added: 'This is not a victimless crime – individuals, businesses and an emerging sector of genuine Scottish tea growers suffered real financial and reputational harm as a result of deliberate deception.'
The Sun
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
Tragedy as hillwalker dies climbing mountain on King's Scottish estate
A HILLWALKER has died on a mountain on the King's Scottish estate. The man, believed to be in his 50s, was climbing 3789 feet high Lochnagar on the Balmoral Estate at the weekend. 2 But he suffered a suspected heart attack on his ascent. Members of Braemar Mountain Rescue Team were sent on Saturday. Malcolm MacIntyre, operations manager of Braemar MRT said: 'Unfortunately, he had suffered a fatal heart attack about a third of the way up. 'The man was with a couple of friends but sadly he passed away. "We would like to pass on our condolences to his family and friends.' The mountain was immortalised by King Charles in his 1980s children's book, The Old Man of Lochnagar. It tells the story of an old man who leaves his cave in the cliffs for adventures in the surrounding countryside It was originally written by the prince to entertain Prince Andrew and Prince Edward as children. The book was later made into an animated short film by the BBC, with Robbie Coltrane providing the voice of the hermit and Charles narrating. King Charles became the patron of the mountain rescue team that covers his most beloved hill - taking over the role from his late father. The late Duke of Edinburgh was a particularly keen supporter of the patronage, having taken up the role in 1966. Queen Camilla also likes walking on Lochnagar.
Sydney Morning Herald
22-05-2025
- Sydney Morning Herald
On this great walk, my accommodation follows me along
At Gairlochy, the first lock north of Neptune's Staircase, we rendezvous with the barge after two hours of walking. With the locks along the canal closing each evening, halting all boat traffic, we moor below the gates in motionless wait for morning. The shores of Loch Lochy are just beyond, and the only sounds to reach us are from within – the movement of our six passengers and three crew, and the welcome clatter of Mike, the Fingal's chef, at work in the open galley. A pattern soon settles over the days, with walks each morning and afternoon, returning to the Fingal for lunches of soup and barge-baked bread and baguettes. As the barge squeezes into Gairlochy's locks after breakfast the next morning, its 180 tonnes rising on an elevator of water, we continue hiking along the GGW. Along the southern shores of Loch Lochy, the Way is at its most beautiful, framed by mountains and winding through forest so green even the light seems tinged with colour. It was on these shores that Allied troops trained for the D-Day landings in 1945, and here that Achnacarry, the ancestral estate of the Clan Cameron chiefs, sprawls across an isthmus between Loch Lochy and Loch Arkaig. The GGW marches blindly past Achnacarry, but we turn up a hidden path beside a village church to enter the estate. Looking over green fields and sheep to its Scottish Baronial castle, it's like we've stepped into every British period drama ever filmed. Alongside the castle there's a clan museum, but we're bound for the Dark Mile at the estate's far end. Though it sounds like something from a Stephen King novel, the Dark Mile looks more like something from a fairy tale – a mile-long country lane where the drystone walls and the roadside trees and earth are inches thick in moss. Through this cushioned landscape we return to the loch, where the barge's tender awaits us, one of our longest walking days done after just 11 kilometres. The presence of the barge allows us this kind of ease that's uncommon on long-distance trails. Along the canal, we simply step off the barge directly onto the paths. On the lochs, the tender ferries us to and from the shores. Once aboard, one half of the barge is a communal space of couches, an honesty bar of local whiskies and craft beers, an extensive library and a large dining table for meals – from ox-cheek broth to Balmoral chicken stuffed with haggis – that we share with the crew. At Laggan Locks, at the head of Loch Lochy, the Caledonian Canal performs its greatest trick. So much of the canal was built beside rivers, but here it needed to cross a low hill that rose as a watershed within the Great Glen. It was the final section of the canal to be constructed – a two-kilometre-long hurdle – but it took 500 workers seven years to complete. Known today as Laggan Avenue, it's a section that's wasted on walkers, with the canal obscured by trees, so we remain aboard as the Fingal motors on from the locks. For half an hour, it feels more like an Amazon cruise than a Scottish walking trip, with a jungle-like strip of forest reaching down to and over the canal. 'This is totally different to any canal I've ever been on,' says skipper Adam Evans. 'It's my favourite part of the canal.' Soon, the canal widens again into Loch Oich and finally Loch Ness, Scotland's most famous body of water. Its dimensions are as monstrous as its myths – containing more water than all the lakes and rivers in England and Wales combined, it's up to 300 metres deep, giving it a sense of mystery that fuelled the legend of Nessie. We continue to use the water as a diving board into a host of trails – walks to waterfalls, over low hills, through blueberry-carpeted forests and eventually to the Caledonian Canal's end at the Moray Firth. In Loch Ness, we moor by a pier in Foyers, on the loch's quieter and wilder eastern side, where we've watched goats grazing at the water's edge and been circled by a sea eagle – the largest bird in the UK. But the best comes in the calm of dawn as I take my coffee up onto the deck of the barge. Less than 100 metres ahead of us, a stream pours into the loch through a green glow of forest. As I watch, two deer step out of the trees and into Loch Ness. As they dip their heads to drink, not a single other thing around the loch seems to move. Loading Far across the water, on the path proper for the GGW, there will be hikers now stirring, packing up tents or already on the move. But here, I'm in no hurry. We will soon sail towards Inverness and the trip's end but, for the moment, I have the most beautiful and natural of company. THE DETAILS WALK UTracks' seven-day Scotland Coast to Coast Rambler Walk and Barge trip begins in Fort William and finishes in Inverness, and includes all meals and accommodation on the Fingal of Caledonia. Prices start from $3690 per person. See RIDE The Great Glen Way is a walking track that can also be sped up into a cycling trip. Cyclists largely follow the same path as hikers, riding flat and fast along the towpaths and then inching along single track and fire roads higher up slopes above the lochs. The trail requires a mountain bike and can be comfortably cycled in three days, as per the itinerary on UTrack's self-guided Great Glen Cycleway trip, where nights are spent in Invergarry (42 kilometres from Fort William) and beside Loch Ness in Drumnadrochit (48 kilometres from Invergarry).
