Men's Lifestyle

Did Someone Say Hygge?! 😉

For so long now I have needed to buy a new duvet for my bed, and I wanted to buy a good one. For the past year or two I have talked myself out of getting a new one, my (now old) feather and down duvet was still pretty OK, but had lost it’s “fluffiness” and was quite flat. I had to decide not only which duvet I wanted to get, but also what tog rating I wanted. The TOG rating is pretty simple to understand, the bigger the number the more warm it’s supposed to be; So 4.5 for the summer, and 13+ for the Winter. The fill is also important, there’s natural fill like feathers and down, and synthetic too.

I wanted to get a natural filling one again, so that took one of the options out of the equation. But then it goes further; There’s different qualities of natural fillings too. These are such things like standard goose feather & down, Hungarian, Canadian, Siberian…All different qualities and all at different price points of course. Since this is somewhat of an investment (I don’t buy quits everyday!), I decided to go for something a bit expensive, and got myself a Hungarian Goose Down Duvet.

I could not remember what the tog rating was on my original duvet, I think 13.5, and I was torn between a 10.5 and 13.5 version, than I found a 4.5+9 tog duvet, which is actually two duvets you can clip together to make one. The good points is that it is supposed to keep you warm in the Winter, then in the summer you can put the heavier one away and use the lighter one; It’s like 3 in 1! But you do pay more money for this pleasure, this cost £190 which is pretty expensive, a similar standard goose feather & down only costs £68 for the same 4.5+9 tog set.

I have to say though…This duvet is so warm! It’s been really cold in the past couple of nights, and it’s kept me really toasty. It’s pretty lightweight, but the quality of the fill means it keeps you warm while being light.

The two quilts are easy to put together, and are fixed using 12 clips. Once the duvet is in a cover, it does not move around at all, which is something I was worried would happen.

Overall I am happy with this, and look forward to the hot summer and using the thinner one when we get our amazing hot Summer of course 😉

The two duvets clip together at the corners and all around the edges of the duvet like this.

I think that last year we saw so much good TV. I have always loved watching TV shows, I do enjoy watching a film every now and then, but TV shows have always played a far bigger role in my life. In 2016 there were so many great shows, some were new, others new to me and more classics which I’ve loved.

Plenty are back for 2017, here’s what I am looking forward to on the telly this year.

RELATED: The Best Box Sets To Binge Watch Right Now

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What a year 2016 was!

For me personally, 2016 was a great year, it did feel like it at least. We did have a lot of sadness with so many celebrity deaths, lots of controversy and bad things going on in the world which just seems to be the norm now, everyone in the country got political with the UK leaving the EU and Brexit, then everyone in the world got political when Donald Trump won the U.S. election. For one reason or another, it was memorable, but I look back on a couple of the highlights positively and think it was a good year for me.

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Let the Santa, see the milk and cookies!

Take Me Out is back for a celebrity special! It will see 30 girls from the older series come back to get a chance to go out with one of the celebrities and jet off to the isle of Fernandos! Previous celebrity guests include Jo Swash and Keith Lemon, and this year Paddy will be looking to get one of the celebs a date with someone from the flirty thirty.

The celebrities looking for a date are model and former rugby international Thom Evans, presenter Roman Kemp and Ritchie Neville from the boyband 5ive. You can watch the show on ITV1 at 8PM on  Saturday 31st December 2016.

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It’s time for Fenwick Christmas Window! 2016 see’s this year the window theme is 150 years of Beatrix Potter, and takes inspiration from the classic books and characters within them. The window includes The Tale Of Peter Rabbit, MRS Tiggy Winkle, Two Bad Mice, Kitty In Boots, Jeremy Fisher, Samuel Whiskers and The Tailor Of Gloucester.

Check out the images below, and you can also find the previous Fenwick Windows which I have covered here on the blog 🙂

Fenwick Christmas Window Through The Years

2015 | 2014 |  2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010

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It’s Christmas Jumper Day today! If you’ve been reading my blog over the past couple of weeks you’ll have already seen the best Christmas Jumpers for men this year, so hopefully you’ll already have yours 😉

I have got quite a collection going now, here’s a couple of my favourites. You  can find out more information on the reasons to wear one today on the official site here, and you can donate to Save The Children on there too.

Among my favourites are my Santa Claws jumper, the Happy Birthday Jesus design, a smarter knit and the latest which is the DJ JC design. All I have worn all week has been these jumpers, I am really getting my wear out of them 😛

Have fun!

How time flies!

I can’t believe that it’s exactly a year ago when I visited Copenhagen for the first time! I’ve always wanted to go, and it did not let me down, it was great. It is of course Christmas time, with Christmas markets and the city was so Christmassy, definitely the place to be and probably the best time to go with so much to see and do. I thought about doing another Christmas Market this year, and looked at Munich, but decided not to go. Munich could be cool, but it’s not a place where I’ve always wanted to visit, not that I’d never go, but it’s not high on my list of places I want to go to, so decided to not bother.

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Christmas is upon us, so if you’re looking for presents for any men, or just yourself, I have put together a small list of different gifts you could either ask people to buy for yourself, buy for others, or just buy for yourself! 😀

If you are buying for men it can be tough, or expensive depending on your taste or budget, but actually it’s not too difficult. I have split up this guide into separate parts, so if you’re looking for tech, grooming, food and drink or stocking fillers. If you’re looking for fashion, I have my Winter Coat Guide as well as a Jumper and Knitwear guide specially for the season,  men’s aftershave for Christmas guide and who can forget a good old fashioned novelty jumper, check out the best Christmas Jumpers for 2016.

Find out all about these and get all the details below

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When Midori told me about their Moshi Moshi campaign I was pretty excited! Combining alcoholic cocktails with a Japanese theme sounds pretty sweet to me! For a few years now I have wanted to go to Japan, in particular Tokyo, but there’s a couple of issues; Other than the cost, it’s so far, and I’ve never been on a plane for more than 5 or 6 hours, and a flight to Tokyo…Around 12 hours!

Maybe I will (eventually) get there, but until then, I had some fun with the Moshi Moshi Midori campaign, and making some funky and fresh cocktails, I have to say the taste is so good! Midori has always intrigued me, I know a few people who drink it, with them usually mixing it with lemonade or Coke, but this drink is something you’ll want to definitely try yourself, it is that good.

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Hey guys,

I hope that you had a great bonfire night last night! When we were kids we always used to do something for bonfire night; It was always bigger than Halloween, and even though we went Halloween-ing when we were kids, bonfire night was a much bigger deal. We had drinks and food like soup, burgers, hotdogs and things like that, with a bonfire and plenty of fireworks of course. We’d either have fireworks at our place or go to families houses and set them off there, and sometimes neighbours had bonfires and we’d all go, it was the usual thing to do. Now it seems we’ve got a bit “Americanized” and Halloween is a bigger deal, as it has been there for a while, and they don’t have Guy Fawkes Night.

I did not really do anything, but saw some fireworks close by, and it was a chance to take a couple of photos, and give firework photography a try. I’ve never done it before, and had not planned on it, so I had to get my camera set up really quickly, and could not really experiment with settings since it was all over pretty quick. I did get a couple of interesting shots which look pretty cool, and I wrote my initial in a sparkler of course

Check out some more below…

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