20 things you didn't know about Valentines Day

20 things you didn’t know about Valentine's Day

1. In some countries, a young woman may receive a gift of clothing from a prospective suitor. If the gift is kept, then it means she has accepted his proposal of marriage
2. The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare's lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine's Day
3. Women purchase 85% of all valentines
4. In order of popularity, Valentine's Day cards are given to teachers, children, mothers, wives, sweethearts and pets
5. Parents receive 1 out of every 5 valentines
6. Valentine's Day and Mother's Day are the biggest holidays for giving flowers
7. Men buy most of the millions of boxes of chocolates and bouquets of flowers given on Valentine's Day
8. Valentine's Day Superstitions - It is said that the kind bird a girl watches on Valentine's Day predicts her future husband. For instance:
1. Sparrow: a poor man
2. Owl: remain spinster
3. Bluebird: a happy man
4. Blackbird: a religious man
5. Crossbill: an argumentative man
6. About 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged in US each year. That's the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas
7. Worldwide, over 50 million roses are given for Valentine's Day each year.
8. The oldest surviving love poem till date is written in a clay tablet from the times of the Sumerians, inventors of writing, around 3500 B.C.
9. If an individual thinks of five or six names considered to be suitable marriage partners and twists the stem of an apple while the names are being recited, then it is believed the eventual spouse will be the one whose name was recited at the moment the stem broke
10. In Medieval times, girls ate unusual foods on St Valentine's Day to make them dream of their future husband
11. In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling
12. If an apple is cut in half, the number of seeds found inside the fruit will indicate the number of children that individual will have
13. To be awoken by a kiss on Valentine's Day is considered lucky
14. Cupid, another symbol of Valentines Day, became associated with it because he was the son of Venus, the Roman god of love and beauty. Cupid often appears on Valentine cards holding a bow and arrows because he is believed to use magical arrows to inspire feelings of love
15. Only the U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, Australia and the U.K. celebrate Valentine's Day
16. The oldest known Valentines were sent in 1415 A.D. by the Duke of Orleans to his French wife while he was imprisoned in the Tower of London. It is still on display in a museum in England
17. In Wales the trend is of gifting love spoons on the Valentines Day with splendid carvings on it  
    

    
    

    
    

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Stillorgan Park Hotel Sponsors UCD Mens Hockey Team

We are delighted to annouce that the Stillorgan Park Hotel are the Offical 2011 Sponsor of the UCD Mens Hockey Team. The team has a great mix of players from all over Ireland & has improved consistently, season after season.

The Stillorgan Park Hotel would like to wish the UCD Mens Hockey Team the best of luck in 2011 and look forward to them winning the league this year!!

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And the Oscar Goes To...

This year we are adding some glitz & glamour to our Christmas Party Night’s. The theme is “A Night at the Oscar’s” featuring entertainment from Motown Big Band “The Jewelettes”. To co-incide with the theme of our Christmas Parties here is a little history about the most anticipated film industry event each year...

Each January, the entertainment community and film fans around the world turn their attention to the Academy Awards. Interest and anticipation builds to a fevered pitch leading up to the Oscar telecast in February, when hundreds of millions of movie lovers tune in to watch the glamorous ceremony and learn who will receive the highest honors in filmmaking.

The Oscars reward the previous year’s greatest cinema achievements as determined by some of the world’s most accomplished motion picture artists and professionals. The Academy’s roughly 6,000 members vote for the Oscars using secret ballots, which are tabulated by the international auditing firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers. The auditors maintain absolute secrecy until the moment the show’s presenters open the envelopes and reveal the winners on live television.

Far from the eagerly anticipated and globally televised event it is today, the first Academy Awards ceremony took place out of the public eye during an Academy banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Two hundred seventy people attended the May 16, 1929 dinner in the hotel’s Blossom Room; guest tickets cost $5. It was a long affair filled with speeches, but Academy President Douglas Fairbanks made quick work of handing out the statuettes.

There was little suspense when the awards were presented that night: the recipients had already been announced three months earlier. That all changed the following year, however, when the Academy decided to keep the results secret until the ceremony but gave a list in advance to newspapers for publication at 11 p.m. on the night of the Awards. This policy continued until 1940 when, much to the Academy’s consternation, the Los Angeles Times broke the embargo and published the names of the winners in its evening edition – which was readily available to guests arriving for the ceremony. That prompted the Academy in 1941 to adopt the sealed-envelope system still in use today.

Fifteen statuettes were awarded at the first ceremony for cinematic achievements in 1927 and 1928. The first Best Actor winner was acclaimed German tragedian Emil Jannings, who had to return to Europe before the ceremony. The Academy granted his request to receive the trophy early, making his statuette the very first Academy Award ever presented.

The first presentation was the only one to escape a media audience; by the second year, enthusiasm for the Awards was such that a Los Angeles radio station produced a live one-hour broadcast of the event. The ceremony has been broadcast ever since.

The Academy continued to hand out the awards at banquets – held at the Ambassador and Biltmore hotels – until 1942, when increased attendance made these dinner ceremonies impractical. Starting with the 16th Oscar ceremony, which was held at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, the event has always been held at a theater.

In 1953, the first televised Oscar ceremony enabled millions throughout the United States and Canada to watch the proceedings. Broadcasting in color began in 1966, affording home viewers a chance to fully experience the dazzling allure of the event. Since 1969, the Oscar show has been broadcast internationally, now reaching movie fans in over 200 countries.

Click here for more information on our Christmas Party Nights 2010