Tag: review

  • Happy 14th birthday, Elizabeth

    Happy 14th birthday, Elizabeth

    Today is New Year’s Eve for everyone else but for us it’s Elizabeth’s birthday. She was born on this day 14 years ago. We took her to her favourite restaurant for dinner with her oldest friend Dione who she’s known since her first year of school. We don’t eat out much these days and it…

  • One pot, pan, planet cookbook

    One pot, pan, planet cookbook

    We’ve been fairly house-bound of late as Daniel has been studying for his GCSE exams which started last week. He’s been studying so hard we’ve had to encourage him to relax and try not to worry about them so much. He’s coping tremendously well because I can remember how stressed I got about exams and…

  • Bad science

    Bad science

    I’ve just finished reading Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. It was published in 2008 but is still relevant today. Indeed I think it should be compulsory reading for high school students and all journalism undergraduates. There’s a fascinating chapter on the placebo effect, an eerily familiar chapter about the denial by some that HIV causes…

  • But where do you get your protein?

    But where do you get your protein?

    We tried to go and see The Game Changers at the cinema last weekend: we bought tickets, we bought popcorn, but at the last moment we got stopped because the documentary is rated 15+ and Daniel and Elizabeth are not 15. They gave us our money back but I was very disappointed and I felt…

  • Tern GSD – electric cargo bike review

    Tern GSD – electric cargo bike review

    I’ve had the very great pleasure of testing a Tern GSD – an electric cargo bike – for a couple of days. I picked it up from Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative on Thursday evening and then flew home like I’ve never done before. Indeed on the way home I cycled up to some traffic lights where…

  • The Last Kingdom

    The Last Kingdom

    Men fight over women, money, and land and have been doing so since the beginning of time. I suppose money and land are essentially the same thing and we can simply say men fight over women and money. This is exactly how season 2 of The Last Kingdom panned out. The two Viking brothers, Erik…

  • Bonobo Café

    Bonobo Café

    A couple of weeks ago Aberdeen welcomed its very first vegan café, Bonobo, and today I got to check it out. It’s the result of a kick-starter campaign which I, along with hundreds of others, donated to. All our names are on the wall inside. The food was delicious and the service, perfect. They have done…

  • Okja – Film Review

    A soulless multinational company develops a giant pig which poops less and eats less than regular pigs while providing a greater volume of meat. The company sends a number of these super pigs to farmers all over the world to raise for ten years. One of them is sent to South Korea where the farmer’s…

  • Film review: Local Hero

    We watched a 1983 movie called Local Hero this afternoon because we’re planning to go up to Pennan, where it was filmed, in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait. I find myself longing for the natural world and for peace and tranquility and so we decided to plan a weekend away to a remote…

  • The Herb Garden, Newcastle

    The Herb Garden, Newcastle

    We’re in Newcastle! We’ve come down for the DanTDM concert as a treat for the kids. I tried to get tickets to the show in Edinburgh but they sold out in less than one  hour. DanTDM is a 20-something British fellow with a YouTube channel about Minecraft which is supremely popular wth 6-13 year-olds. Daniel…

  • Sherlock Holmes

    Sherlock Holmes

    I was stopped in the middle of the street today by a lovely lady who wanted to introduce herself and tell me she read my blog. See, I really am famous. Tomorrow there’ll be paparazzi camping outside my front door hoping to get a photo of me tripping and flashing my knickers as I fall down the front…

  • Bakfiets vs Butchers and Bicycles cargo bikes

    Bakfiets vs Butchers and Bicycles cargo bikes

    I rode the kids to school in Busby today for the first time since March this year. Since then I’ve been cycling Harald each day. Here’s a photo of Busby followed by a photo of Harald so everyone knows what I’m talking about when I say Busby and Harald. Busby: Harald:   Busby got sick in…

  • Ready Player One

    Ready Player One

    I’m going to review this terrific book I just finished but I must digress a bit first to explain how I came to acquire it. It arrived mysteriously in the post in a parcel addressed to me about a month ago. I thought it was an early birthday present but didn’t know who from so Ben…

  • The Hövding invisible helmet – a review

    I’ve been using the Hövding – the invisible helmet – for a week now and I thought I’d write about the experience so far. I’m wearing it in this next photo (NB: the helmet is the black collar around my neck. It’s an airbag which deploys in the event of a crash): When I first put…