Reaction To Penman And Sommerlad's Opinion

I would like to thank my old friends Penman and Sommerlad for kindly drawing the public's attention to my blog in their article today and hopefully this will result in many more people reading my observations and opinions.

Anyone who has previously read this blog will know that I do not "bleat" about what Pennman & Sommerlad have written about me, as they claim in today's article, but I do take the opportunity to clearly and lucidly put the record straight. Putting the record straight is something that one is obliged to do when dealing with the likes of Penman and Sommerlad as they seem to rarely stick to the facts when concocting their exposé's.

For instance, today they say "On Garry's blog the comments are closed". This is not true, not all of my articles have had 'No Comments' activated - but small details like the facts rarely get between Penman, Sommerlad and a story - however useless the story is.

However, I promise in return for the very good publicity they've given to my Blog that from now on I will make a 'comments button' available. And that's being reasonable.

While we're on the subject of Comments, I would also like to draw their attention to the fact, that whenever we have posted reasonable and rational comments on the P & S Daily Mirror Blog in answer to the articles that they write about us, they mysteriously get deleted when they don't tow the Mirror News Today line - even when the comments are perfectly legal and in keeping with public opinion.

The untimely and unfortunate death of Michael Jackson is a case in point. Blog entries seemed to be deleted faster than people could post them - because the public was horrified at how the Mirror handled this issue and what they alleged to be an invasion of privacy of Michael Jackson's children.

Anyone can make comments available to the public - but is the Mirror - and Penman and Sommerlad in particular, brave enough to read what people have to say about them - without deletion?

I suspect the answer is no.

The remainder of their article this morning is all innuendo - as usual. It's what we've come to expect from these two.

The Office of Fair Trading, who, apparently co-ordinated the visits to some of my offices last week are quoted by the Mirror as saying that their investigation is at an 'early stage' and there are 'no assumptions' offences have been committed.

We were very surprised by these visits, especially as we have continually sought open and co-operative dialogue with all of the Trading Standards offices in our areas since the unfortunate court case earlier this year.

I am confident that their investigations will only show the lengths that my company has gone to, to ensure consumer protection compliance and to treat all of our customers courteously and fairly in every respect and to document evidence of this commitment.



I am determined to build a global travel business and my goal, as it is now, will be 100% customer satisfaction. I care about my customers, as was evidenced during the collapse of Excel Airlines in September 2008, when every single one of my affected clients was repatriated, refunded, or rebooked on new holidays at our expense.

There are still many thousands of people who are seriously out of pocket as a result of this debacle and many of the major operators disgracefully turned their backs on their customers to protect their balance sheets. Many clients wrote to me personally to thank me for taking the decision to "do the right thing" in disastrous circumstances.

Of course Penman and Sommerlad would never balance an article written about me or my companies with these kinds of facts.