Apparently having a large white background consumes more power as your computer needs energy to light up every single dot (pixel) on your screen. Here’s a new site called Blackle that effectively restyles google so that you can get the same power and be more energy efficient.
A UK version exists as well for all those out there. Save some watt hours now!
Did you know that the Royal Mail allows you to buy postage for your packages online and print it out yourself? You don’t even have to go into a post office to drop your packages off. Simply enter the details to work out the price, pay for it via several mechanisms including debit or credit card, print and tag your parcel and you’re set.
The only caveat are those packages that you want tracking for will still need to be dropped off at a post office (since they need to scan it to start the tracking from some point). For some reason I was really surprised to hear about this service, and I think it’s a great idea. Next time I don’t need tracking for something I need to send, I’ll definitely be using it.
This week I’ve been to a couple of pubs for some leaving drinks and heard used for the first time the phrase “And One For Yourself”. After reading Watching The English, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it in action until Wednesday last week, one of those things that is quintessentially English.
Tipping in the form of cash seems to be frowned upon even though in London most bar people will no doubt appreciate it (probably because most of the bar people don’t tend to be English). The alternative to the cash tip is to instead buy the bartender a drink, hence the term “And One For Yourself”.
Photo from MyKuh’s Flickr stream under the Creative Commons Licence.
I’ve been tagged by the 8 things about me meme thanks to Gerrod. The rules start something like this:
Not one for rules (and because this meme’s been going around for a while) not to mention that most people haven’t been following the last one, consider yourself tagged if you’re reading this and blog about it if you want to participate.
After using a deal from the AllInLondon site, I recently ate at the Thai restaurant Lemongrass found in Hackney. I can’t say that it was terribly easy to get to, first requiring a tube ride to either Angel or Highbury Islington and then a bus ride. The restaurant itself is quite spacious, with a skylight-lit dining room accommodating quite a large number of tables. During our evening it was surprisingly quiet, which is why I guess they offer a deal for dining during weekdays. I imagine it could be quite busy during the weekend.
Lemongrass’ menu offers an extensive range of your typical Thai dishes, split into two sections – for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. In addition to their standard range of dishes they offer quite a number of very unique dishes including a number of Ostrich dishes and House Speciality ones. They also offer a number of very unique alcoholic and non-alcoholic cocktails and blended ice drinks that are well worth trying (the melon was was especially good).
Given that the deal was effectively 50% off the main meals, we tried a wide variety of their dishes including Hoi Joi (dumpling-crab meat minced chicken wrapped in delicate bean curd pastry served with dumpling sauce on top), an Ostrich Green Curry, their Chef Special Tiger Cry (a traditional Thai dish of char grilled beef steak, sliced and served with chilli sauce) and their Chef Special Tornado Scallop (stir fried win a special mild curry paste, with asparagus, pepper & spring onions.)
Out of the dishes that we had, I would definitely recommend the Ostrich Green Curry or the Scallop dish and stay far away from their Tiger Cry dish. The ostrich dish, though slightly gamey had the difference it needed to make it your out of the ordinary green curry. The scallop dish had at least twenty or so scallops in it, and although the curry mixture was very subtle suited the dish quite well. The Chef Special Tiger Cry was hugely disappointing, served on a sizzling plate though wasn’t sizzling when it arrived and though asked to be served medium had been cooked to over well done. More than that, it simply had nothing going for it like very bland strips of excessively toughened beef.
Details: Lemongrass Thai Restaurant
Found on: 58 Stoke Newington Church Street, London. N16 0NB
Contactable on: 020 7254 2473 or info@lemongrassuk.com
Highlights: Bright airy dining room, extensive menu with unique dishes including many unique drinks at reasonable prices
Room for improvement: Very disappointing chef special and considering how empty the restaurant was, lacking in reasonable service.
The Kua Rating: 6.5 out of 10
British festivals typically mean lots of music, lots of camping and of course, generally lots of rain. Considering how “summery” the last few months had been, I was a little worried that this last weekend was going to be washed out because I was going along to Bestival 2007. We were all banking on good weather, taking Friday off to drive down to the three-day festival and Monday to have a bit more of a leisurely pace back to London.
It turned out that we had fantastic festival weather, and the entire Bestival experience was thoroughly enjoyable. Music highlights had to be The Chemical Brothers who put on their typically awesome act accompanied by a spectacular light show, the ever energetic The Gossip and then The Foals, a new Indie band who put out a great set in the BBC Introducing. On the disappointing side, The Beastie Boys who I’d seen perform a brilliant set back at Big Day Out, managed to cause the crowd to thin out quite well during their Saturday night set. We also caught the end of Carl Craig’s rather dull and low key set which didn’t seem to match the energetic mood everyone was in at 4 in the morning.
Although there were plenty of music acts, many of them were I didn’t rate on the “must see” list. The upside is that there wasn’t as much pressure to go to all the stages, and I could indulge in the company of other festival goers, chill out in the sun and just generally meander throughout the rest of the festival. There’s plenty of alternative entertainment, including glitter wrestling, an inflatable castle with almost hourly marriage services (Ben and Polly’s one on Sunday was a stunner), a burlesque tea tent, a comedy tent and just plenty of places to lounge around and soak up the atmosphere.
Another big draw card, quite unique to this festival is it’s fancy dress theme. Even though it’s based on a poem, all of it is optional, and so here’s what I went as. It was amazing at how much some people really got into their costumes, with many of them hand crafted to superb detail, especially those that co-ordinated an entire group costume.
It was a great taste of what British festivals should be like when it’s not raining and full of mud and could definitely go back another year.
One of the benefits of living near Smithfields is access to a wonderful range of butchers offering fantastic cuts of meats at very affordable prices. If you get up early enough, you can find any sort of cut of most types, as well as plenty of other products made from them including black puddings and various smoked meats.
Tonight I got to finally try some sticky maple ribs that looked fantastic. Here it is served with honey spiced squash, mashed potatoes and romaine heart leaves.
This weekend the Truman Brewery played host to the Tiger beer sponsored Signapore Chilli Crab Festival. What looks like a yearly event, this one celebrates one of the Singaporean most famous dishes with a small amount of entertainment and food available for purchase. We turned up at about 4 in the afternoon, which was probably much too late with a line extending all the way out of the Truman Brewery, around the corner down Brick Lane and what looked like a couple of blocks (and that was just for the food).
At some point even later in the afternoon, they stopped people joining the food queue as they had apparently run out of food for the day. All of the food looked like it was sponsored by a restaurant in Bayswater called Kiasu and apparently you could order the crab there instead. Although Tiger sponsored the event and had set up a number of stalls serving their beer, I was surprised to find that their “special” of 4 beers at £12 was so expensively priced.
Although entertainment lacked any real bite (we caught a small glimpse of a Chinese magician and a lone Chinese Dragon dance) and we did not end up tasting their famous crab, we still had a pretty nice time enjoying the last vestiges of summer. Here’s the small number of photos from the day.
