This week sees OHO selected by the BBC to be one of its ‘BBC recommended’ websites. This is a huge honour for us as a BBC recommended site is not based on a nomination nor can it be applied for by the website designer or any of its visitors. Rather, the BBC visits sites independently and grades them on a very stringent ten-point basis (click here to see what they are) which includes requirements that the site must be ‘authoritative and accurate’, contain ‘a broad variety of information and services’ have ‘good design’ and ‘educate, inform and entertain’.

It then decides whether that site qualifies as one of only three ‘Recommended’ listings per search word, in our case, ‘open house(s)’.

We are delighted that our site has been chosen for this status and would like to thank everyone who has contributed articles to the site and therefore helped us and also the BBC for selecting us. Thank you all very much.

Also this week, our long-awaited interactive and downloadable maps were posted up. These maps contain listings for all AOH and Brighton Festival Fringe venues, making them the most comprehensive maps available. We could ramble on for pages describing all the wonderful features on them but it’s far better to just pop along and look at them yourself by clicking on ‘The Big Map’ button above.

Ever wondered what it’s like being a trail outside the central ‘hub’ of Brighton? This week, Newhaven Artists group tells us why it’s worth the - very - short trip along the coast to see them, instead of struggling to park your car in Brighton.

The brilliant paintings of our featured artist, Cecil Rice are a must-see on any Open House visit but hurry! - Cecil opens his home the first two weekends only as part of the newly-formed Seven Dials trail and you really shouldn’t miss out.

The Hanover trail also feature this week, with the beautiful work of Nettie Heron-Middleton, her husband, Colin and brother, Tom making it a family affair at The Blue House, 56 Albion Hill.

Christina has an axe to grind this week, too, in her Open House Virgin column. So, now you know what’s waiting for you, what are you doing reading this?

See you next week.

P.S. Note to Firefox users we noticed having posted up this weeks site that Firefox didn't seem to be loading CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) info and therefore isn't showing three pages properly. While we scratch our heads and try to work out why this should be, you can add an extension to Firefox which quickly switches to Internet Explorer, where our pages look their powder-blue best! You can download it from here.