Came from Simon Wellinga in the Netherlands. He has a list of a number of other species if any of you are interested. To quote him:
"The name of the plant is Aechmea filicaulis, a plant from the north of Venezuela where it inhabits cloud forests at higher altitudes. In contrast with its origins, the seedlings of the batch I was selling in London, do remarkably well as house plants. I have couple of them hanging above a radiator of the central heating, and the plants do not seem to mind the dry air which stirs their leaves at all. They soon form a clump of side growths and regularly flower with inflorescences of some 60 to 100 cm. Plants from another batch of seedlings I have, have proven to be much more sensitive to less than ideal conditions, and can only be grown satisfactorily in the greenhouse! Probably the latter come from a higher altitude which makes them less resilient...sown back in 1998"