Portland's Olympic Dreams

Advantages: Enjoyable location for outdoor walks and adventures
Disadvantages: Scary locals, and rough neighbourhoods

...The Blue Snapper this used to be the local supermarket, but it's owners both suffered in the flood and closed it down. After a massive sea defence was built the property was sold and turned into a café, it changed hands many times before taking on its current form. At the rear of The Blue Snapper is the fishing community of Portland, varying businesses operate from here, the area is best avoided if you don't like the smell of fish. And Art gallery sits at the end of the fishing area, which is a small gallery showing the talents of local artists. This gallery sits on the beach itself. Passing by the Blue Snapper on the main road and the left you have residential properties and on the right a continued stream of empty retail units all of whom have residential in the top halves. Two businesses sit at the early end of Chiswell a Hotel...

sghawken 02.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of Island of Portland

Portland Hotel, Skuba And Grill Resturant

Advantages: RIGHT IN THE HEART OF THE MUST SEE'S AND DO'S OF FOLKESTONE
Disadvantages: PARKING

...The Portland Hotel, Skuba Bar & Grill Restaurant. Owned by a gay couple called Lee & Tin, These guys have made a name for themselves in this establishment and the town. About 7 years ago this building was run down and dirty. They bought at auction with great prospects. Over the years the popularity of the bar has grown substantially. Started off as 'gay friendly' only gay people went to the bar and a handful of straight people or the hotel guests. Now homosexuality is more accepted, it is mixed and very busy especially in the summer. Bar and Beer Gardens & Terrace It has an outdoor drinking area with garden in front which greets all people from different walks of life. Pets are also too welcome in the garden and can grab a bowl whilst their owners grab a pint...

XFactorBoi 16.09.2007 (06.10.2008) · Read review
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Review of The Portland Hotel, Folkestone

Perfect Portland

Advantages: Good Prices
Disadvantages: Only Book Direct

...I would receommend Portalnd Holidays Direct to anyone who doesnt mind booking their holiday direct and anyone who likes a Thomson holiday as Portland is part of the Thomson/Tui group - so your getting the same as you would get travelling with Thomson. How to book ----------------- You can only book by telephone or internet. If you book online on the internet they normally give online discounts - look out for special online booking offers. Their website is completley secure so you can feel safe using your credit/debit card to pay. If you pay a deposit you can pay additional amounts by telephone to their dedicated after sales team. If you book by telephone there is a dedicated call centre waiting to take your call - in my experiences they have always been really friendly and helpful and give honest opinions. I have never...

carol_uk17 30.07.2006 · Read review
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Review of Portland Direct

Portlands complaint

Advantages: offered ad-free free hosting, CGI bins etc.
Disadvantages: server downtime, very slow service. ftp access always oversubscribed. Low bandwidth allowances.

...That malapropism will have eluded all but the most literary minded, but hey never mind! I saw this free ISP and webhosting site and was looking at it to host a small site for a friend, whilst I was having server troubles. I looked at the whole package and it didn't look bad, as they were offering a dial-up ISP service, pop accounts, domain registration, and for those wanting to run their own ISP, there were a variety of packages available, as well as the opportunity for server colocation and also the opportunity to buy servers through them. Seeing as their site shows them to be ISP of the month according to Internet Magazine for September 2000 and November 2000, I was expecting something pretty good, and the fact that at the present there are apparently in excess of 160,000 sites hosted at Portland looked impressive, and a sign...

Morgenhund 08.02.2001 · Read review
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Review of portland.co.uk

Buxton great, Portland Hotel not great

Advantages: Close to the Pavillion Gardens
Disadvantages: Below par food, below par rooms.

...Buxton is a picturesque town, clearly a place for holidays for the well-off in days gone by. The Portland Hotel is located near the Opera House, and opposite the Pavilion Gardens (but with a view of the car park, rather than the gardens), and may have been a decent hotel once, but not anymore. It's a medium sized, with 22 rooms, and it definitley looks like it may have seen more affluent times in years gone by. All rooms are en suite. However, our room had an extremely small en suite? erm, I can't call it a bathroom? toilet with a shower in. Our room was nicely decorated, but somehow felt like a very standard B & B room - possibly because of the smell of smoke which was lingering on everything in there. The publicity states that you have Sky TV - in our room that seemed to be restricted to one sports channel and 2 radio channels...

rsmith 16.10.2001 · Read review
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Review of Portland Hotel (Buxton - Derbyshire)

Oregon's Beautiful Capitol. Portlands Surprise.

Advantages: A lively modern town with beautiful mountain & rivers.
Disadvantages: 'Tis on "the far side"

...Portland in Oregon, a buzzing, friendly town, full of vitality, with a most beautiful river running through it. Just a few steps from the main thoroughfare, across a lawned area with fountains flowing, and you can picnic beside the river or cool off with the kids in the fountain. Modern buildings, shopping malls, town squares, all inviting you to buy. The main shopping mall in the centre, has the most amazing selection of stores, with clothing furniture gifts, all relating to the area, wood carvings, leather and skin, beautiful tiles for your home, incredibly modern home furnishings, pictures and ornaments, mostly made from local craftsmen. The local American Indians provide many artifacts, fashioning them from natural resourses, including lovely jewellery, made mostly from silver and torquoise. On one occassion we went to...

elinor.z 21.05.2005 (05.08.2005) · Read review
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Review of Portland

Maine Coon Cats -the Gentle Giant

Advantages: Amazing cats with so much love
Disadvantages: you will want to buy them all!

...Maine Coon -the "gentle giant" We, as a family have just proudly added a new member to our family -by the name of Weetabix. Weetabix is a beautiful brown tortie Maine coon cat with tiger stripe grey and white legs and paws. We received her last Saturday when she was 13 weeks old, and she has fit into our family so well. She is a really friendly cat, and gets on great with our three year old son. Her favourite past time is to climb all over me and sleep on me -so I am now an official climbing frame/ cat bed!! Maine Coons are a gorgeous breed of cat - I have done a lot of reading about them, and I wanted to share it with you, as I would recommend this breed of cat for any family! She is, without a doubt, the most gorgeous, friendly cat I have ever met. These cats are one of the largest breeds of the domestic cat. They are...

yummy.mummy 09.03.2008 (25.03.2008) · Read review
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Review of Maine Coon

A Thrilling, Inspirational Piece - Main Source's Breaking Atoms

Advantages: Groundbreaking, great concept songs; responsible for Nas' birth in hip hop
Disadvantages: A tad bit on the overrated side; does not age well

...Main Source was a hip hop super-group from the Great White North (Toronto, Canada) composed of Sir Scratch, K-Cut, and Large Professor. The majority of folks reading that will probably think "who?" to the first two, but instantly recognize Large Professor as one of the top producers in hip hop, crafting classic material with the likes of Nas, Mobb Deep, Common, and Cormega. Sir Scratch faded into obscurity but K-Cut actually went on to work with Big Punisher, Queen Latifah, and the greatest rapper of all time: Shaq. Still, there's no denying LP was the star. Ever since I got into this once-beautiful blend of music and poetry known as hip-hop, long time heads have always pushed to me that Main Source's Breaking Atoms, released in 1991, is an unarguable classic album and should be ranked in the top 20 or perhaps even top 10 to some, which...

bigdiship-hop 12.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Breaking Atoms - Main Source

State and Main can Stay

Advantages: classy, intelligent film, excellent cast
Disadvantages: few dvd extras, Rebecca Pidgeon

...obsessive wife, who completely redecorate their home in honour of their town's guests, and some of the best lines are almost thrown away in little asides between 'extras' after the main characters have left the scene. There's also a secondary story line involving a camera man's efforts to get the shot he wants without an old stained glass window getting in the way. ********Availability/Price This film is old enough to be cheap as chips. It's £6.97 from Amazon but they also have it 'new and used' from £1.95, which is cheaper than a rental. It's £6.99 at play.com. ********Overall If you liked Grosse Pointe Blank, Heist, Fargo and the Tao of Steve, you'll probably like this, although if I put those 5 films in a list, this would probably come below Heist and Fargo, and hence I'd give it 4 stars. My favourite line comes from a scene where...

dakota196 17.11.2005 (25.11.2005) · Read review
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Review of State And Main (DVD)

Portland Direct

Advantages: Quick booking
Disadvantages: None

...We have recently returned from our annual holiday in Majorca. For the first time we booked through Portland Direct which is affiliated to Thomsons. We made the booking by telephone, the staff being extremely helpful. The tickets arrived in good time for the holiday. On arrival at our hotel it was almost exactly as the brochure had described it and we were pleasantly surprised as it was better in real life then in the Portland Direct brochure. On advantage of booking with Portland is that if you take out their travel insurance it is possible to pay the balance of your holiday in up to ten monthly installments which is good because you do not need to find the entire balance 2 months before the holiday but can spread the payments over the ten months. We're going with Portland next year....

Wicksie 07.09.2000 · Read review
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Review of Portland Direct