Posts by Ben Austin
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I have yet to find a cafe or tea rooms that makes a good range of tea from leaves rather than bags. Kind of sad, but I think it will be getting better back home anyway, with the rise of the tea culture through those little speciality shops that have opened in the last few years.
Re Starbucks - for all that they do badly they were the best place to get a Chai Latte for a long time. It wasn't till about 2002-03 I was able to ask for one at a normal cafe and have a good chance of people not staring at me blankly.
So far as small town espresso - Oamaru had it's first proper such cafe in the mid 1990s (iirc), name of Emma's. We used to pop down there during school, feeling rather sophisticated (very hard to do in an all gray uniform). It recently closed down (several owners on), but Oamaru now has several good cafes (Steam, Short Black) and every other food place will do an espresso of variable quality.
In London there are the big chains - Starbucks, Caffe Nero and Costa. All are rather average but the latter two are better than nothing and it still is really hard to find good local small cafe espresso on the outskirts so one must do what one must do. If you are in London proper the best places I've found are Coffee Plant on Portobello Road, Monmouths in Covent Garden/Borough, Flat White/Milk Bar in Soho and Sacred in Carnaby St area. Espresso machines are everywhere though, so I have got hope that this is the forerunner of a wider explosion of quality
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I was in Berlin the day after Obama spoke and I can confirm that the newspapers/chatter (at least those who deigned to speak Anglais to me) was all about Obama.
But when you actually stand at the Brandenburger Tor and look down towards that Prussian War Memorial you can really see that this has to be one of the best places to make a speech that captures a/the zeitgeist. Being a politician and speaking to a crowd of that size there, that hangs on your every word must be a pretty good reminder of why its nice to be powerful and charismatic
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Then factor in the growing trend for criminal record checks for many jobs. You want a job working with children or vulnerable adults in the UK and you've been investigated (not even charged or convicted) by the Police or the like for an offence like listed in the OP and you may not even get past the check and there isn't much you can do about it. No idea if that is the same in NZ though
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So what do we all think about the "Nudge Theory" and Libertarian Paternalism? Seems to be all the rage at present and much discussed in the papers
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I saw Ladyhawke in a small Hoxton club about three or so weeks back and I had a pretty good time. They started off a little slow but soon the audience was well into them. I would definately recommend them as a live act.
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There are no excuses for not having a good camera in the 2nd gen iPhone. If half a dozen other manufacturers have managed to get 3.5-5MP cameras with very satisfactory still or video image output for at least the last 12-24 months Apple should be able to as well.
I think most people could actually throw away their digital cameras and replace them with cell phone cameras if they wanted to, given the quality and quantity of good models on the market now.
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I think my current data plan costs me about $15-16 on top of my regular plan here in the UK, which apparently gets me unlimited (fairuselol). The total cost of the plan is about 70$.
What has really driven my use of the mobile net is Google's mobile applications. They've turned an average net access experience into something quite useful. Who needs an A-Z when you have Google Maps?
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All day I've been waiting to get home from work to see exactly why a story about Allan Bollard got 16 points on the company naughty word index.
It was worth the wait
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Russell - Yes. I was just having a quiet sample of some of the Laugavulin 16 year single malt I picked up from the attached shop. It has totally made me re-evaluate what smooth means
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I was in the original Oban a few weeks back and was commenting on the beautiful islands/ferry rides around that way when both of us (Kiwis) realised neither of us had actually been to Stewart Island. But with the sales job done above I'll have to make the effort