NECKER ISLAND_BRITISH VIRGIN ISLAND

Necker Island is a 74 acre island in the British Virgin Islands just north of Virgin Gorda. All of the land on the island is owned by Sir Richard Branson, famous for his Virgin brandThe entire island operates like a resort and can accommodate up to 28 guests.

 Necker Island is located 1,100 miles southeast of Miami, Florida, 60 miles due east of Puerto Rico and, about 120 miles northeast of St. Barts.

When Branson bought the 74-acre (300,000 m²) island, it was uninhabited. He purchased the island at the age of 28, just six years after starting Virgin Group. It took 3 years and approximately US$10 million to turn it into a private island retreat. Using local stone, Brazilian hardwoods, antiques, art pieces and fabrics and bamboo furniture from Bali the architects and designers created a 10 bedroom Balinese-style villa crowning a hill above the beach. Each of the 10 bedrooms has open walls giving a 360-degree view and cooling winds from any direction in the house. The island has accommodation for 28 people and rents out at US$53,000 to $54,000 a day. All that includes two "private" beaches, private pools, tennis courts, breathtaking views, a personal chef, a team of about 60 staff and a wide array of water sports equipment.

The island is available for weddings, relaxation breaks, sports vacations, and even complete rentals for any purpose. One of the high profile recent guests is Larry Page, Google's billionaire co-founder, who married his girlfriend, Lucy Southworth, on the island in early December 2007. Page rented a majority of Virgin Gorda as well, as Necker was far too small to fit his 600+ guest party.

Privacy

Although the land on the island is entirely privately owned, under British Virgin Islands law, all beaches up to the high water mark are Crown land, and are open to the public. In practice, the security personnel which accompany guests to Necker Island are known for making it difficult for ordinary members of the public to enjoy the beaches, particularly when high profile guests are in residence. On one of the occasions when Diana, Princess of Wales stayed at the resort, security personnel kept a 150 metre perimeter around the island, within which the public were excluded.

When the island was being purchased, environmentalists expressed concerns that Necker Island was one of the relatively few places in the world that a rare species of gecko, the Virgin Islands dwarf gecko, lives and breeds. When Branson was granted an alien land-holder's licence to enable him to purchase the island, it was made conditional upon Branson's agreement that any legitimate scientific expedition to study the geckos should have full and unfettered access to the island.

Sir Richard Branson's official residency and tax status is reliant on his declaration that he lives on this island.

Necker Island, Sir Richard Branson's private retreat in the British Virgin Islands. Necker Island lies between Tortola and Anegada. This delightful hideaway is one of the most idyllic places in all the Caribbean. Add caption Sir Richard Branson purchased Necker Island (around 74 acres) more than 25 years ago. Previously uninhabited, Necker has now been developed into a superb private hideaway, now with several buildings including the Great House, five Balinese villas, a spa, several fine beaches and a beach pavilion. Necker Island has an extensive private staff providing a luxury service for movie and rock stars as well as the very wealthy. Necker can accommodate up to 28 guests and can be booked as a complete private package, or for certain weeks of the year the villas and rooms can be rented individually.

Interesting Facts about English Part II

1. The dot over the letter "i" and the letter "j" is called a "superscript dot".
2. In normal usage, the # symbol has several names, for example: hash, pound sign, number sign.
3. In English, the @ symbol is usually called "the at sign" or "the at symbol".
4. If we place a comma before the word "and" at the end of a list, this is known as an "Oxford comma" or a "serial comma". For example: "I drink coffee, tea, and wine."
5. Some words exist only in plural form, for example: glasses (spectacles), binoculars, scissors, shears, tongs, gallows, trousers, jeans, pants, pyjamas (but note that clothing words often become singular when we use them as modifiers, as in "trouser pocket").
6. The shortest complete sentence in English is the following. "I am."
7. The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat" meaning "the king is helpless".
8. We pronounce the combination "ough" in 9 different ways, as in the following sentence which contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
9. The longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is "rhythm".
10. The only planet not named after a god is our own, Earth. The others are, in order from the Sun, Mercury, Venus, [Earth,] Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
11. There are only 4 English words in common use ending in "-dous": hazardous, horrendous, stupendous, and tremendous.
12. We can find 10 words in the 7-letter word "therein" without rearranging any of its letters: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
13. A sentence with a similar pattern, which may help to unravel the above, is:
    It is true, despite everything you say, that this word which this word refers to is not the same word which this word refers to.
    Or, if you insist on being really correct:
    It is true, despite everything you say, that this word to which this word refers is not the same word to which this word refers.
14. The "QWERTY keyboard" gains its name from the fact that its first 6 letter keys are Q, W, E, R, T and Y. On early typewriters the keys were arranged in such a way as to minimize the clashing of the mechanical rods that carried the letters.