Archive for August, 2011

Here Comes the Rain Again

Friday, August 26th, 2011

If there’s anything you’ve been saving for a rainy day… well hasn’t it been rainy enough for you? British summertime is in full swing folks. My condolences to you if your chips are going soggy on Brighton pier but congratulations if you’re a competitive vegetable gardener; those marrows are going to be massive. I managed to get halfway to Gadget HQ and moderately drenched this morning before it dawned on me that I had a battered umbrella in the bottom of my bag.

Puddles

Puddles en route to Gadget HQ

Well it may be miserable out there but it’s not ruining our mood. It is almost the weekend after all and with the prospect of persistent precipitation over the weekend, I’ve been ruminating on some classic rainy-day remedies (besides the obvious towel etc). Here’s some ideas for making the best of grey days.

  1. The cup of tea
    The Great British remedy for coming in from Great British weather. Tea is scientifically engineered to make you feel better when you’re all damp and miserable (probably). You might want to use a self-stirring mug if your hands are too cold to hold a spoon.
  2. Crack out the slippers
    If you know you’re not going out then you can use the slippers you got for Christmas. Mine are very manly of course and look like Yeti feet but there are toasty microwavable boots for the girls. You can’t get cosier than that.
  3. Stick a film on
    You can’t possibly do anything productive, it’s raining! It’s time for an oldie. Singin’ in the Rain will do it… or One Rainy Afternoon… maybe Rain Man? All right I’ll stop there.
  4. Classic games
    Well you’re all stuck indoors together so you might as well make the most of it. Dust off the Scrabble and switch off the games console. The rainy day classic is your foosball table of course so you can imagine you’re outdoors having a kick-about.
  5. Get out there
    It’s all very well staying warm and dry but if it’s really chucking it down then it’s just more fun to go out in it. Go on, be British. It’s only a bit of water after all.

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Don’t ice when warm!

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

If like me you’re into baking then I’m sure you’ll be aware that the new series of the Great British Bake Off started recently. Watching the first episode last week made me finish the cake stand I’d started to make a few weeks ago. Then last night’s episode spurred me on to finally start testing out some of the baking gifts we sell.

No sooner had it finished I was in the kitchen rummaging around the cupboard looking for one of the many items I’d stashed away a few months earlier due to a broken cooker. The first item that came to hand was the PAC-Man cookie cutters.  I’m more of a cake than cookie person so I found it very helpful to have a basic recipe on the back of the packaging. It saved me from having to look one up on the internet or consult one of my many recipe books. The ingredients needed were all from the store cupboard so I didn’t need to rush out to the shops which was handy as it was getting late into the evening.

Having followed the easy instructions within minutes I had a bowl of yummy cookie dough ready to go into the fridge to rest. After half an hour of resting I set about using the cutters to make my pac-man characters. The cutters worked well and I found the recipe provided enough dough to make a whole army of ghosts. After only 10 mins in the oven they were done.

Now at this point it was late and I was feeling tired, I should have left them to cool and finished them off today. However me being me I wanted to get the job done right then so I set about icing them while still warm. This was a bad move! The icing ran everywhere and the choc chips I used for eyes started to melt. I quickly put them in the fridge to try and cool them however this didn’t really help much. Here is a picture of the few I managed to rescue, the others weren’t so lucky.

 

I think this is a great set for a beginner cook or for cooking with kids. I’ll certainly be using it again with my nephews when they visit in a couple of week’s time!

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A Jumbo Birthday Present

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

Hello ladies and gents, I hope you’re enjoying our great British summer with it’s (occasionally) glorious weather. This time of year is always particularly exciting for me as my birthday is in August and last weekend I celebrated the fact that I’ve managed to survive another year and am now 23. No, no, don’t worry if you missed it, I do accept belated gifts. I’ve got my eye on these MP3 player sunglasses if you need any ideas.

Some people take the anniversary of their birth as an opportunity for drinking as much as their liver will allow, I’ve got to admit I’m more of a big birthday eater. I must have consumed at least my own weight in pizza and I was presented with two monstrously decadent birthday cakes. Mum’s own recipe Lemon cake is always a winner and I was pleasantly surprised when a good friend of mine turned up on the doorstep struggling under the weight of some kind of chocolate behemoth almost entirely covered with Oreo biscuits. Take a look at these babies in all their cakey glory:

Birthday Cakes

What I really wanted to share with you though is one of the most unusual presents I’ve ever received. In the past year or so, my pal Tom has fancied himself as some kind of budding Buddhist monk and has been seeking Zen relaxation in the ancient art of Origami. This basically means that every time we leave the pub, a bemused bar lady has to clear away a flock of tiny crane birds made from of crisp packets and receipts.

 He must be quite skilled however (can you become a black belt in origami?) because my gift this year was a huge paper elephant! Well all right it wasn’t quite the size of a real elephant but the fact that it’s about the size of a small dog makes it very impressive. It was folded from two sheets of A0 size paper (I hope he re-forested when he’d finished) and fortified on the inside with all manner of paper-clips, duct tape and the like to prevent my paper pachyderm from collapsing. Here he is in Tom’s kitchen:

Origami Elephant

So I’m thinking this week I’ll have a go at folding some paper animals and if they’re not too embarrassing then I’ll show you all my handy-work. Why not have a go at making some yourself and email some pictures of your creations to sam@gadgets.co.uk. We’ll pick our favourites and their creator will win some of these neat little origami sticky notes so that you can put your skills to good use. I know what I’ll be getting Tom next time his birthday rolls around.

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Technology looks good with John Lewis

Monday, August 15th, 2011

For many people these days, it’s not enough for our technological gizmo’s to be functional and unfathomably intricate in design; they’ve got to look good too of course. We gadget-enthusiasts are highly fashionable people, we can’t be seen lugging some ancient grey laptop into a trendy coffee shop.

Luckily the folks at John Lewis understand our need for classy contraptions and they’ve given us a rather dapper red 500GB hard drive worth over £69 to give away to one of our lucky blog readers. You’ll even get a cool case to keep it safe.

And you can’t get much more stylish than the new Dell Switch laptops with interchangeable lids. John Lewis are also offering fans the chance to win a Dell Switch and a Design Studio lid of their choice until 17th August to celebrate Dell’s search for a new lid design.

Competition Prize

Win this smart red hard drive and trendy travel case.

With all this sleek modern technology on offer, we started thinking about how different computers were thirty-odd years ago and wondering what on earth we did before they could access the internet? Did people go to each other’s houses and write their names in each other’s photo albums before Facebook? Did anyone know what Stephen Fry was eating for breakfast pre-Twitter? How did we ever prove anyone wrong before Google!?

All you have to do to be in with the chance of winning our prize is to tell us about the first time you ever used a computer; whether you were illuminated in the green glow of a monochrome monitor or sitting amongst the wrapping paper with a shiny new laptop on a Christmas morning. Do you remember your first ever search on the World Wide Web? (Bet it was your own name right? Yeah we thought so.)

Just leave your comment in the box below, we’ll choose an entrant at random and announce the winner at the end of the month on the 31st of August. Best of luck and we hope you enjoy reminiscing.

John Lewis sell a wide range of laptops and laptop accessories, as well as other gadgets such as iPods and the iPad 2.

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