With 2008 just around the corner, we wanted to squeeze one more blog post into 2007 by saying a big Christmassy congratulations to the winners of our Facebook fan competition.

A few weeks ago we set up a Facebook fan page for Qype and offered a a free month’s worth of London travel to one out of every hundred people who signed up. We got a great response and, so far, we’ve amassed 300 virtual Qype groupies, so on Christmas day we took five minutes away from the turkey and Quality Streets and picked three names to send an extra festive present to.

So congratulations to Annabel, Madeleine and Sonia! You’ll be receiving your recharged Oyster cards very soon. Use them wisely.

And if you haven’t signed up to become a Facebook Fan yet, get over to our page and click the relevant buttons, there’ll be more competitions coming in 2008.

We know how tough the Christmas period can be on the wallet, so in order to help our UK Qypers throughout the first few weeks of 2008, we’ve teamed up with Virgin Wines to bring you a special offer.

All you have to do is add the tag virginwines to your next Qype review and we’ll send you a voucher worth £40 off your next purchase of premium plonk. It’s as easy as that!

And while we’re on the subject of giving things away… we should remind all our London Qypers that you have just one more day to get in the running to win a month’s worth of free travel in the capital. If you sign up to be fan of Qype via our Facebook page then your name will go into the festive hat for our Chistmas Day draw to win your Oyster card paid off for the whole of January.

So that’s all the presents under the Qype tree doled out for this year. All that remains is for us to wish all our reviewers a very merry Christmas and a happy new year, and we’ll see you in 2008!

Earlier this month we invited our London-based Qypers to take a trip down to the South Bank with us to sample the delights of the Slow Food Christmas Market, and last night a small group of hardy (and well-insulated) reviewers met up to see what Slow Food was all about.

The Slow Food organisation is an international movement that believes our food should taste good, be fair (i.e. the producers should not be exploited) and also be clean without any negative effects on the environment. The Christmas market was just one of the initiatives the organisation has organised to promote their message, and it was a great opportunity to see just how great ’slow food’ can be as well as pick up a few last minute presents.

Of course, Qype users are well versed in sampling local products so our group wasted no time at all in getting stuck in to the various stalls, which included a fantastic (and spicy!) selection of Indian chutneys; enough cheese to give you funny dreams for a week; plenty of cider, beer and wine; and even some traditional Italian lardo (thick slices of fat cured with herbs and salt which you spread on toast!).

We were also treated to some much needed warm, spiced cider and fantastically tasty spit roast pork sandwiches by nearby restaurant Canteen, all of which was consumed while listening to one of Slow Food’s UK ambassador’s explain why retaining the heritage of regional food is so important in theses days of globalisation.

All in all it was a great evening and we’d like to thank everyone who braved the cold to come down and share it with us. We’ll definitely be putting on some similar events in the new year so keep an eye on this blog to see what we’ve got planned.

Here’s a few more photographs of the evening, courtesy of Chris Osburn, food and drink editor for the Londonist blog:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Remember Bushgirl, the poor Qype user who had her hair ruined by Tony and Guy, only to be offered a lifeline by Covent Garden salon Rose and Crown?

Well Bushgirl recently took Rose and Crown up on their generous offer and we’re happy to say that this little Christmas story ended very happily with a new ‘do’ and a smiling Qype user.

Here’s what Bushgirl had to say about her Rose and Crown experience:

“The small, independently run salon was a breath of fresh air from the faceless anonymity of the big chain salons I’ve patronised in the past. It was obvious from the outset that Rick knows about hair and he took a good look at mine and had good chat with me before whipping out the scissors.

The result is that I’m now delighted that my hair no longer makes me look like Tina Turner circa 1990 and is very pretty, and I’m ever so pleased. Moreover I feel confident that should I ever have any further hair disasters or even small queries; I know exactly where to go.”

You can read her full review here.

Sometimes it’s easy to take tags for granted.

At this time of year they’re great for finding the best places to go present shopping, the perfect party venue, or maybe locating some festive booze.

But let’s not forget the slightly less seasonal, but just as interesting tags, who deserve a good home too.

What about the dinosaurs, you wouldn’t want to make them angry would you? Or the pirhanas. In fact let’s pay a bit more attention to all the carnivores out there.

And would it hurt to look at the less cute members of the tag litter? The sweaty ones, the ones covered in spit and sawdust, and even the downright villainous ones.

Let’s face it, even the pointless tags deserve a little bit of love.

And to anyone who says this post was just a thinly-veiled excuse to show a picture of The Fonz, we have only one thing to say: Aaaayhh!

Have you ever had a hairdresser nightmare? You know the kind of thing we’re talking about: some scissor-wielding maniac decides to experiment on your lovely locks, turns you into something resembling the mum from the Addams Family, and you have to pay for the privilege?!

If you read our featured London Review last week, you’ll remember that Qype user BushGirl had her very own hairmare at the Toni and Guy Academy on Oxford Street:

The bits of my hair that tumbled over my face and slumped forlornly on my lap were longer than the bits left stuck in my head. They collected around me like beautiful autumn leaves, except they looked up at me with big sad curls asking me ‘why? why? We did so much for you! Remember when you put those ribbons in us? You’ll never be able to do that with what you’ve decided to keep!’…

…It is the ugliest haircut I have ever been the sorry recipient of. And it is so short I can only wait for it to grow out. I left the hairdresser’s and stepped out onto New Oxford Street and bawled. I tried to tie it back but it’s too short to do so and I bawled again. I went home weeping and sobbing each time I caught my hideous reflection.

The lovely Qype community comforted poor BushGirl, but there was nothing we could do to put right what those scissors had put so very very wrong… or was there?

A few days ago we got a phone call from Rick Stonell at the Rose and Crown hairdressing salon (no, it’s not a boozer, they’re on Rose Street in Covent Garden, geddit?). Rick had read BushGirl’s tale of woe and was offering his considerable expertise to try and sort out her locks for free!

This makes us very very happy indeed. Not only does BushGirl get the hair she deserves in time for the Christmas party season, but we feel great because Qype was able to make a little bit of a difference in the real word. And, even better, it was a local, independent outfit that came to our user’s aid!

So we’d just like to say thank you Rose and Crown Hairdressing. We’re going to write a lovely 5 star Qype review for your salon right now!

From the 20th of December the South Bank in London will be hosting the city’s first ever slow food market.

Organised by Slow Food UK to promote clean, sustainable and fabulous tasting food (which is how we like our food here at Qype), the market will contain 25 stalls including Mark Gilchrist of Game for Everything, a special Christmas range from Patchwork Pâtés, specially prepared rare-bree pork and Somerset Cider Brandy stuffing and sausages courtesy of Sillfield Farm, the Somerset Cider Brandy Company, and Montgomery Cheddar and Stitchelton Blue Cheese from the famous Neal’s Yard Dairy.

Hungry yet?

Well if you fancy getting your taste buds on this fantastic selection of festive foodstuffs then we might be able to help.

The lovely people at the South Bank Employers Group have invited Qype to the opening day of the market and have very kindly extended the invitation to the Qype community.

Welll be visiting the market on the afternoon of Thursday 20th December (we haven’t confirmed a time yet but it will probably around 4ish) where we’ll take a tour of the stalls before retiring to a nearby bar for a bit of VIP Qype treatment.

Unfortunately there’s a limited number of places available for the trip so if you’d like to come along then please send us an email and we’ll put your name down on the list.

And if you can’t make it on the 20th or you’re not in London, then don’t worry because we’ll be holding a lot more events in 2008. Watch this space!

Dear fellow Qypers,

The “official launch” of Qype.fr will be in January, but we are extremely happy to announce that the first version works!

You can now find all the addresses of all those lovely little cafés, hidden corners of Montmartre, and where to eat near the Eiffel Tower.

Now if you want to check out Paris in English, use this link.
If you prefer to experience Paris in the language of love, then go here.

A very happy Qype Team.