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.
So I am now back from Barcelona, here are some of my pics. Newcastle airport was the first port of call, and then on the flight and on to Barcelona aiport, El Prat.
The flight was delayed because there was an unidentified bag in the hold so they had to check each one…Not the greatest thing to hear or a great start! :p But the flight time was just under 2 hours which was really quick.
The new champagne bar in Newcastle airport.
The now standard “shot of the wing” which everyone seems to do on Instagram when they fly It does look pretty cool up in the air tho.
So as you may know I got the rare Smirnoff Root Beer Float Vodka the other day, and it smells pretty nice! But how does it taste? What can you make with it? Well if you are a kid you will know that a float is usually means one thing…Ice cream!
I remember as a kid having ice-cream floaters which consisted of Coke or Lemonade with a scoop of ice cream.
This is the same thing, but an adult-alcohol version of a childhood favourite. I saw a recipe which included this vodka with Baileys, I have added Ice Cream into the mix too.
You Need:
Smirnoff Root Beer Float
Baileys
Coke
Ice Cream
Your Favourite Glass Tumbler
Pour a shot of Baileys into the glass, then a shot of Smirnoff. Pour the Coke over them both slowly, that will cause the Baileys to foam up so do it slowly. Then add a large scoop of vanilla ice cream. Serve with a straw.
The first time I made it I think I used a bit too much of the alcohol (I used almost 2 shots of each) so I would recommend using only 1 shot of each. If you don’t want the foamy top you can shake the cocktail up and get a more consistent texture. Remember when you are shaking up Coke it is already fizzy so be careful!
The taste? Really nice!
You can check out my other Smirnoff vodka bottles, which includes:
Yes, I got another flavour of Smirnoff, this time it’s Root Beer Float. It’s the forth of the hard to find flavours which I have, I previously got Fluffed Marshmallow, Kissed Caramel and Whipped Cream. This one sounded so nice I had to get it to try.
I have not tried it yet, but I can’t wait to. Root Beer is an American drink, I got a can of some once before, it tastes like Dandelion And Burdock if I remember correctly which I like so this could be great.
I have seen that many people mix this with Coke and Baileys, that sounds really good. I might do that, and maybe add in some vanilla ice cream too, to make it a proper float
So yesterday we were out in Durham and ended up back in Newcastle. We went to a few places in Durham like the Slug & Lettuce, Osbournes, The Boathouse and others, and went to a few bars in Newcastle. It was a good night, apart from trying to get a Taxi in the pouring rain when I was only wearing a t-shirt…Not good!!!
We also had to wait for the train back to Newcastle which was delayed by 45 minutes! 🙁
One of the bars in Durham had this sign on their jukebox…
Not my type of bar 😉
Inside the Slug and Lettuce…Why is it that people look up when I am taking a photo?!
You have heard me talking about this for a little bit, but yes, I finally got my Sony SRS-BTX500, and could not be happier 😀
First of all the look; It looks fashionable, trendy, premium, high end, and it’s all of these. The brushed aluminium on the sides, the lovely front grill and glowing blue light on the front to the rubber feet on the base to ensure it doesn’t slip around, everything about it is really nice and well put together.
Sound
Well it sounds like you may expect, it’s great 😀 Obviously far better than the Beats Pill I had. It is loud, crisp, plenty of bass, and works well quiet or loud. I have tried this in my bedroom and living room, and the sound more than fills the room. Outside in the garden it’s plenty loud enough for a usual situation.
Connectivity
It does have NFC, but since I have no NFC devices I can’t talk about that. It has a USB port on the back which you can use to charge your phone, no need to hunt around for the adapter just plug your phone in here and it will charge.
The biggest draw is obviously the Bluetooth. I connected my iPhone effortlessly, and I love this idea of having my phone control all the music or volume without being anywhere near the speaker.
I wanted something to connect to my PC too. I have lots of music and videos on my computer so I wanted to play from there as well as having the choice of using my iPhone. So I bought a Bluetooth dongle for it to connect. In all honesty, I thought it would be a pain to set up, so much so that I bought a wired AUX in cable, just in case I could not get the Bluetooth setup.
Once again it was easy! Connect the Bluetooth dongle to my PC, install the software/drivers and then discover the BTX500; Start playing music through my PC and it comes out the speaker 😀
As mentioned above there is an AUX in port (3.5mm) so you can connect through that if you have something which does not have Bluetooth.
Portability & Battery Life
It actually seems smaller than when I first saw it online. It comes with a softcase to take it places, and it is not so hard to transport around. It’s probably too big and heavy if you want to take this abroad or if you plan on travelling around, but it’s perfectly capable of being taken to a friends house or party, or some other place.
Since I have just got it I have not had a chance to test the battery life, it’s only quoted at 6 hours which is not so good.
The downsides
If you want to hunt around for downsides to this speaker I can come up with a couple, but it’s being really picky.
No supplied 3.5mm cable – You don’t get much in the way of accessories; Only the speaker, power adapter and softcase as a matter of fact.
Power adapter is big and bulky – In the age of small plugs with USB connectors this has quite a big adapter/plug to go in the wall. It can be impractical if you are using a 2-way adapter socker for example.
Battery life not the best – Even though I have not had a chance to use the battery fully, the quoted 6 hours is not very long, there are other speakers such as the Bose which quote a much better battery life, in fact the little brother of this (The BTX300) quotes 8 hours.
Conclusion
The downsides are really quite small, and really don’t make much difference if any for me. This is a great speaker, it does everything I want it to do, sounds great and looks the part.
I have been on Pinterest for a while now, which has been really successful in the U.S. and is one of the most favoured social media sites for fashion bloggers, because of the ease of sharing pictures. Recently it has launched in the UK, and I am proud to say that Michael 84 is part of the launch! 🙂 But what exactly is it and why should you use it?
It differs from Facebook and Twitter, the other two big social media and sharing sites because this is more aimed at sharing images, pictures or other types of art. The idea is you can create collections of things you love, called boards (think mood board or more appropriately, pin board) and share them with the world. You can be creative and share your own photos or images, or share what you have found on the world wide web. Follow your friends and favourite boards you find, and re-pin cool things you find on others pin boards on your own.
You can create as many boards as you want, so you can organise your favourite things really easily; Add a fashion board for all your fashion related photos, add a gadgets board for cool gadgets, and whatever else takes your fancy.
Pin your amazing finds on the go!
There is of course an iPhone app, which means you can save your pictures and pin them on your Pinterest board on the go, so if you are on a holiday it’s the perfect way to share your holiday snaps with your friends.
If you are looking for some inspiration and want to know some other boards to follow on Pinterest then you could try looking at Jenny’s bake board here. You will find over 200 pins with some mouth watering cakes, biscuits and other baked goodness.
So I saw that the Renford Rejects was on TV again 😀 Not a new series, but the old ones. It got me to thinking it would be fun to edit Football Manager 2013 and put them in the game, just for fun.
It was actually quite a bit of work. I tried to make it as “real” as possible, for example using the real DOB of the actors when I could find them (not the year because the show is 13 years old! 😛 ), where they were born etc.
Today is one of my favourite days of the year, Shrove Tuesday, aka Pancake day 😀 I really love pancakes, and do not really eat them at any other time because they are so unhealthy 😛 So one day a year I can have them and go crazy and eat lots
What topping do you have? Most people eat them sweet, i.e. with lemon or sugar or syrup, I have even heard of people putting ice cream on them! I could not eat them sweet, I prefer them savoury, and I LOVE to put HP Brown Sauce on mine, and always have done since I was a kid; Some people think that’s weird so each to their own I guess 😛
I used to make them all the time, so I don’t really measure things out, I do use 2 eggs and a good bit of plain flour and milk. I’ll use the quantities from another site.
110g Pain sifted flour
2 Eggs
200ml milk
Sift the flour into the bowl and add the eggs and whisk, then slowly add the milk and continue to whisk until there are no more lumps. Oil the pan and make sure it is really hot, and pour in some of the batter mixture. Spread it around the pan so it covers the base, it does not take long to cook. You can lift up the edges of the pancake to see how the other side is doing, then flip it.
A couple of minutes on each side and it’s done. Serve on a plate with your choice of topping and continue to make more until the batter is finished.
My finished pancake is at the top, complete with HP Brown Sauce 🙂
After a good Take Me Out series 4 and a festive celeb Christmas edition, Take Me Out is back on our screens with thirty new girls. You can see the new beauties above, and you will be able to see them on your TV screen on ITV1 this Saturday 5th January at 20:45
30 Single girls aka the flirty thirty get their pick of single guys…Who will be going to the isle of Fernandos this series?
Paddy is back of course, so let the monkey, see the nuts
It has been a tradition for, I don’t know how long. This is Fenwick on Northumberland Street in Newcastle, where every Christmas they decorate the windows of their store for the festive season. It’s been going on for years, I remember it when I was a little kid, and the tradition which everyone talks about is still strong today.
I took these pics the other day, and these days they come with the almost customary reflection of Greggs the bakers in the window 😉
I was lucky to take this so early in the morning, walking past an hour later the shot would have had many people in it 😛
