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.
I have been writing this blog for years now, and I rarely shoot photos on locations, which I should really start doing a lot more. I live in Newcastle, it’s an amazing city, it has so many great buildings and cityscapes, there’s plenty of cool backdrops for creating some amazing images, not to mention it’s close by to a couple of beaches too!
I hope you’ve all had an amazing weekend. If you follow me on Twitter and Instagram you’ll already know this, but I have been so busy with features on the blog I forgot to post this…
I was featured in Men’s Fitness Magazine in their October issue to give some advice on my men’s grooming tips. I recommended Dover MEN+Care post shave balm, something I really like and have featured on the blog before, such as in my men’s grooming day post as well as the Dove MEN+Care review.
If you are looking for a Sunday read then you can get the magazine, if you don’t like paper you can get it on the app I believe π
We went out in Newcastle on Saturday night, and it was good. The rugby World Cup is on, and even though I don’t like rugby there’s a good atmosphere in Newcastle when there’s a game on. Newcastle is hosting a few games in the rugby World Cup, the first was on Saturday afternoon with South Africa and Scotland, not only that, England were playing in the evening too. So I decided to pick a bar to meet which I knew didn’t have a TV, so we went to Browns. Then discovered that they do have a TV, but the place was not too busy It was a good atmosphere in the town, with plenty of South African fans, probably more than Scottish actually, but there were a few in kilts.
We have a fan park near St. James’ Park, but I noticed signs up that said ‘at capacity’ so I imagine there were a lot of people there. We have big screen at the Monument to watch the games too, it was quite busy, the security were not letting people access Grey Street so I had to walk around.
We went to a few places, a mix from Fitzgeralds, Grey Street No.1, Alvino, The Monkey Bar, The Old George and then tried Filthy McNasty’s for the first time. It’s a late style bar which has been open a few months and took over the space which was previously Blu Bambu. It’s a fairly decent bar which has 2 guys playing guitars singing random pop rock songs live which is something different from the pop/house music which gets played at most late bars. If you’ve ever been to Blu Bambu when it was open you’ll know that all the action was downstairs, they don’t have that open and there’s only the upstairs, but maybe they will in the future.
I did not know there was going to be a Super moon, or Super blood moon since it was all red/orange in the early hours of this morning until I stumbled across a few people talking about it. Earlier in the year in Newcastle we had a brilliant view of the Solar Eclipse, and I got some amazing shots, so I decided I had to see this rare event for myself again.
This time round however it was pitch black, and in the middle of the night…Well early hours of the morning, with it all starting at around 01:10 until around 4AM. I checked the timings and decided to go out for just before 3AM, where it was said it would be red and near the peak of the lunar eclipse. I just got out in time to see the end part of the eclipse, and them saw the super blood moon in all it’s glory. I then stayed out for an hour or so snapping pics, and taking it all in. It really is such a good sight.
The larger looking moon photos are cropped at 100%, and the others are cropped to fit the blog. The photos turned out OK, I think I should get better lenses if I am doing even more of this astronomy photography LOL π
For the camera geeks – These were shot on my Canon 600D with a 55-250mm lens; I used various settings, I found F5.6 (the widest the lens goes) at 100 ISO for upwards of 4 seconds was pretty decent.
Summer 2015 is over! We may still be in British Summer Time, but the start of September always signifies the end of summer for me. The days are getting shorter, and the nights are slowly getting longer, which means it will be starting to get dark at 5PM soon which I really hate! π
I can’t quite believe we’re 9 months into the year, the summer has somehow gone, and before you know it we’ll have Christmas and New Year, 2016 will be here and I’ll be taking about the summer again!
A while back I took these shots, probably the most summery ones I have….White jeans, nautical tee, linen jacket et al. Check out more of my Street Style here too.
With a focus on quality timepieces and craftsmanship, Page And Cooper are a watch specialist with a difference. Watches are carefully selected in both brand and style, and fulfil key points of criteria including bring well designed, beautifully made, rare, long lasting and importantly offer value for money.
One thing I like about a quality timepiece is exclusivity, I want luxury along with wearing something on my wrist that others will not be wearing. Page And Cooper find quality watches made by small, independent companies which you’ll not find on the high street, utilize traditional watchmakers workmanship.
I have picked out a few of my favourites from their casual collection, which have caught my eye.
Back in the mid 90’s fashion was all about sportswear, I was a teenager and lived in the stuff. The brand which was one of the most coveted was Kappa. They made football shirts for huge European teams such as Juventus and Barcelona, and general sportswear too.
Everyone was into Kappa, and it was pretty expensive for clothing when we were teens back in the mid 90’s. I remember owning a few pieces, a tracksuit being one, as well as a zipped sweatshirt being fond memories.
I heard that Kappa were making a comeback, and were selling some of their old retro style tracksuits, as well as bringing back the brand for the new generation. I actually got the tracksuit last year, and did a small feature about it on the blog.
Here I am styling it with some other 90’s and retro greats; Converse Chuck Taylor trainers, and the equally iconic Adidas Originals T Shirt. The tracksuit I previously owned as a teen was almost the same, but had the red background track pattern down the sleeves of the jacket and sides of the trousers. Still, this navy and white version was an absolute classic, and brings back a lot of good memories.
90’s style and trends are back, and I love 90’s nostalgia whether that’s fashion or pop culture, and Kappa was a bit of both. It is of course not for everyone, and probably cringe-worthy for those who think they are into high fashion because they’ve once bought something from [insert designer name here], but it brings back memories of a great era that’s what it’s all about π
So yesterday we went out, had a few games of bowling, pool and then ended up going for a few drinks in the town. I never go bowling, you can count how many times I’ve been bowling in my adult life on one hand We got 2 games & 2 drinks for Β£10, you can’t really argue with that!Β I have a great technique which is the “minimal looking effort” technique…No run up at all, just bowl the ball as accurate as I can. It sort of works, and in the first game on the very first ball I got a strike! That’s why I took this photo, it did not get much better. The 2nd game we had a few more people, and I wasn’t last, which was pretty surprising. (I am “X”, my friend entered my name as Xavi since I love Spain so much π )
When we went to the town we played some pool first which is more my game, then had a few drinks at a couple of bars. We went to Harry’s, Browns, Revolution and Metropolis, and ended up in Cosy Joes which is bizarrely where we’ve been a few times now as a last bar. There was no plan to stay out, but once we get to the town we inevitably end up staying out π
One of the biggest highlights of the NE1 Motor Show has to be that there was the Red Bull F1 car to be seen, and it looked so good. The only previous time I have seen an F1 car this close was in the Ferrari store in London; They were not welcoming, had horrible security and stopped anyone taking photos. However Red Bull are amazing and nice! You could get up close to the car and take photos too which is what part of the experience is all about. There were other racing cars there too, from Aston Martin and Lotus.
All of the cars and pictures from the NE1 Motor Show
One of the highlights of the NE1 Motor Show has got to have been the sports cars and super cars. They were out in force, with some of the best manufacturers and the best models being shown. I saw everything from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Porsche and Mercedes; With models such as the Aventador, SLS and Vanquish being there. You don’t need to here it from me, here’s all the pics π
All of the cars and pictures from the NE1 Motor Show