A guide for the modern gent who likes good living. You'll find tech, travel, cars, TV, music and everything else all us guys are interested in. Whether it's watches, the best TV and films or tech, if it's to do with life and it's popular, it's here.
Today is one of my favourite days of the year, it’s pancake day! You can obviously eat them any day of the year, but today’s the day, and I only ever eat them on this day, and since I love them, that makes it pretty special.
It’s what I call fat week, because tomorrow is Valentines Michael Day which is a tradition of eating lots of terrible food and drinks, usually chocolate, champagne truffles and champagne. Both days are usually close together, but I seem to recall that last year shrove Tuesday was near the end of February, and this year it’s pretty early.
This was round 1 of pancakes, which I had for lunch. I always make my own from scratch for lunch, then come supper time (soon!) I will use a premix and eat those too. I can hardly wait for them! They did not come out too great, I’ve definitely made better looking ones, but they tasted so good 😀
As for the topping if you’re a regular reader then you’ll know there’s only one… H.P. Sauce! I know so many people who have their pancakes sweet, I don’t know how people can. Ever since I was a kid I have ate my savoury, and always had H.P. brown sauce with them.
What’s your go to topping?
Have a great pancake night 🙂
UPDATE
My supper pancakes were so good! They also turned out a lot better, so here’s a pic 😛
If you’re a stereotypical lad then you’ve probably not got a thing sorted for Valentines Day. You should have your outfit sorted after reading the What To Wear On A Valentines Date, now the clothing is sorted you need something to do.
If you have a date then what do you do? Where do you take her? Should you go for something traditional, cheap, extravagant, adventurous, cute? It could be anything, depending on the type of guy you are and the type of girl she is, and what you’ve already done, like and dislike.
Some of these ideas will depend on where you live and if they’re available in your local area, but well worth exploring to see if you’re able to do these.
Life is so busy these days! We have our personal life, work life and then there’s the online world and social media which can take up so much of your time it’s crazy.
At times it can feel like there’s not enough hours in the day to do everything we need to, and everything we want to.
Getting stuff done on the move is becoming increasingly important and increasingly popular for us to do, and I have partnered with Virgin Trains on the East Coast in their get stuff done challenge on a journey from Newcastle to London.
I love trying new vodkas, and I heard about AU Vodka a while ago, and since it’s Christmas, I got a bottle. Over the past year or so I’ve tried a lot of plain vodkas, and reviewed them on the blog.
The biggest draw to this one is the gold bottle, which really does look the part. AU is the symbol for gold, so it all ties in with the branding. It’s a standard 70ml bottle size, is a higher than many other vodkas at 40% vol, and 5 times distilled.
The vodka is a premium vodka and tastes as such. It is quite smooth, but not the smoothest vodka which I’ve ever tasted, but I have tried quite a few premium bottles in my time, it is quite pleasant to drink.
It has a sharpness to it, you can really get a taste of the vodka with that warm, alcohol kind of kick to it.
Drinking this in a cocktail or just using one mixer it goes down very easily. I tested it out with Red Bull as I do with most plain vodkas and it tasted very nice, easily drinkable and enjoyable.
It comes in at around £32-£35 which is at the higher end, which is around the same as Crystal Head or Absolut Elyx vodka, but slightly more than something like Ciroc, Grey Goose or Belvedere.
If you’re looking for a nice vodka and a bottle to do the talking for you, this is definitely a contender.
You can check out more in the men’s lifestyle blog with updated guides on vodka and other men’s interests.
It’s back in it’s usual place for January 2018, a New Year means a new Take Me Out, Paddy is up to series 10 now, so it’s time to…
Bring on the girls!
There will be two special episodes of Take Me Out this year. One will see the script flipped and the ladies will be picking the lads, so it will be a first ever, Bring on the boys. For the celebrity special this year it will be Chloe Sims from TOWIE and gold medal winning gymnast and Strictly Come Dancing semi finalist Claudia Fragapane choosing one of the boys.
Another special will see the older generation have their chance, with lucky gents coming down the love lift.
Take Me out is back on Saturday 6th January 2018 and you’re favourite men’s blog, Michael 84 is covering it.
But you want to see photos and know more about the 30 girls who’ll be gracing your TV screen every Saturday night? Here they come…
So if you read my blog a few months back, you’ll remember that Cîroc announced French Vanilla, and if you’ve been reading for a long time you’ll know I love vanilla vodka, and I’ve tried and tested quite a few (read my which vanilla vodka is best post).
When I heard about this back in August I wanted to get some, but it took them quite a while to bring it over to our shores, well they finally did, and I got myself a bottle.
It’s tradition in Newcastle to go and see Fenwick Christmas Window, they’ve been decorating it and dressing it for years. I’ve featured it on the blog for a number of years, and it’s been Alice In Wonderland, a traditional Christmas scene, fairy tale forest and a whole lot more. This year the window theme is none other than Paddington! Who doesn’t love Paddington Bear, and this year sees the story of Paddington, from the train station to marmalade, it’s all featured.
Check out the images below, and you can also find the previous Fenwick Windows which I have covered here on the blog 🙂
The Grand Tour is back for a new season on Amazon. I watched the last season and thought it was really good, one of the episodes was pretty poor and dragged on a bit, but overall it’s a very enjoyable show.
If you’ve been living under a rock and don’t know what it is, it’s Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond doing what they love, cars. It came after their Top Gear show, if you don’t know what happened there then Google it 😉
At one time or another we all need a bag for modern life today. Whether it’s something for travel, or something you’re going to be using daily, with modern tech these days a bag is almost certainly a must have item for guys. I recently featured Incase on the blog, and I’ve had the chance to have a better look at one of their pieces, this is the Incase City Backpack.
We all need a bag or some accessories to carry our things around today; Whether it’s for day to day activities for work, going away for the weekend or going on holiday, we need something to carry our goods and technology around. Incase has the answer, with a large selection of products to enable us to carry our essential things.
Incase designs are simplistic but stylish, and offer intuitive functionality to provide users with a fully integrated mobile experience, and promise a better experience though good design. The products which they have cover every aspect of modern life, with a range of bags including back packs, active bags and camera bags, to travel luggage and protective cases for Macbooks, iPhones and iPads.
