Modern life is rubbish

All the stuff that make today’s lifestyles so convenient can easily be distracting, especially in the bedroom. The very first stage of making your beautiful boudoir is to get rid of any traces of technology and practicality. Ban the TV and relocate the hair-straighteners since there’s no glamour in gizmos and gadgets. Hide as much of the clutter as possible with bedroom storage that will go in drawers or cupboards but display your most prized perfumes and place your rings and necklaces on show with a jewellery tree.

The essence of boudoir

This style evokes an opulent, sensual and rich lifestyle so colours such as purple, pink, gold and black give the perfect look. Your room can be as flamboyant as you desire, but wall coverings will give the most striking change so use pink and purple wallpaper with a strong pattern. Using bold floral prints and stunning damask will give your room a feeling of femininity and extravagance.

Materials play an significant role in the boudoir bedroom. Diverse textures and finishes produce an intimate feel so incorporate plenty of colourful cushions with mixed fabrics created from rich and heavy materials. For an air of sensuality, floaty materials like silks and organza can be draped throughout the room.

If you like the Moulin Rouge style of boudoir, opt for bohemian elegance by including vintage furniture pieces and elegant swagging around the windows. Dress your bed in silk and satin and place candles round the room to spark the romance. Colours to go for include scarlet, gold and black. For a 60s style boudoir, synthetic animal skins with deep pile carpets and fun cartoon’ish furnishings will establish a naughty, fantasy themed room. Choose a blend of black, white and red colours throughout the room.

Lighting the passion

Light plays an important role in creating a sultry ambiance. The boudoir look embraces extravagance and so should your lighting fixtures. Vintage crystal-drop chandeliers are perfect for the dramatic centre piece while antique brass and crystal wall lights controlled by dimmer switch will create the right mood.

Beanbags

Still consider beanbags as overblown floor cushions that are manufactured from cheap material and difficult to get out of? Obviously you have not been introduced to the Fatboy range.

Beanbags aren’t just additional seating options for the living room, they can be used as a sofa replacement in student digs, a chill-out chair for a teenager’s bedroom or even a spare bed if you want to put up your mate overnight. Have one or two of these cool seating options convenient for impromptu events or any time you’ve got more visitors than your permanent seating can cope with.

Hammocks

The simple mention of the word conjures up images of hazy summer days, swinging between two trees beneath the shade of branches while enjoying a long, cool drink. Yet isn’t a hammock just for the warmer months? In fact, it’s not. And before you ask, no you won’t need two trees to tie it to either – at least not with modern hammock technology because a steel-frame manages things.

A hammock can easily be placed in the house as out and should you be short of furniture in your conservatory it’s ideal. When you do need to take it easy in the great outdoors, or when you need something a bit more comfortable than the standard bistro chair and table set in your garden, then a hammock is a good substitute.

Gaming seat

Okay, this one may appear like it’s simply for the gamers and geeks but as a substitute seating choice it’s as adaptable as they come. Should you be of the Playstation or Xbox generation then you may be all too familiar with sitting forward on the sofa, straining to get nearer to the action. Instead of attempting to drag your sofa a couple of inches closer to the box, pull up a gaming seat.

Not only will a gaming chair take care of your comfort while challenging the latest level of Halo, it’s versatile enough to turn into a footstool or an occasional seat for social events if you require further places for friends to park their bums.

While researching which model to buy – whether it be a heat storage gas range cooker or a a duel-fuel – you’ll find plenty of positive reviews, but also a few negative ones. The fact is, not everyone will extol the virtues of an Aga but a lot of the opinions you’ll read are based on misinformation or from poor operation of the appliance. Many myths can be dispelled by learning how to operate the cooker correctly and the best way to learn is to book yourself on an Aga demonstration.

Some of the common misconceptions about Agas are listed, and answered, below.

“They’re dangerous if you’ve got kids. The hotplates are always on and give no indication or warning so horrible burns can occur.”

It’s true they’re always on but you’re aware of that because it gives off heat. The same goes for the hotplate so if a child lifts the lid they will feel the heat from it. If your child is tall enough to lift the lid, chances are they’re at an age when they know hot things can burn.

“You’ll have to throw out all your old pots and pans. Agas need flat-bottomed, thick base cookware and will ruin anything that isn’t.”

This isn’t true. Aluminium and stainless steel pans work fine and don’t have to have a thick base. Most pans these days are flat-bottomed anyway but if yours aren’t they’ll still be okay. Of course, if you’re buying a quality oven it’s a good idea to include some quality Aga cookware.

“The hotplates are so large but you can only really get one pan on satisfactorily. What if you need to put more pans on?”

Owning an Aga does require you to learn new ways of cooking and that includes relying less on the hotplates and more on the ovens. An Aga cookery demonstration will teach you how to do this. However, if you prefer cooking with pans there are other models available that will provide up to six gas burners.

“You can’t control the temperature so all your old cookbooks become redundant. You have to buy Aga cookery books.”

Not at all. You’ll learn where to find the different temperatures of the ovens. For example, slow cooking is done in the simmering oven, pie crusts are best on the floor of the top oven and the roasting oven changes temperature from top to bottom. Once you know where to put things, you can use your old cookbooks as well as your new ones.

“There’s no timer. What if you want to have something ready for when you return home?”

That’s true about the timer, but you can slow cook your dinner so it’s ready when you get in. And don’t forget, the oven will already be up to temperature so when you come in from work there’s no pre-heat waiting times and you can start cooking immediately.

During the early 1800’s, the very first Siamese cats began to make their way to England, when they were presented as gifts to a British general.  Following that, they eventually made their way over to America.  Nowadays, Siamese cats are one of the most recognized of the breed.  Siamese cats are without a doubt the most popular short haired cat and among the top 3 in the entire breed of cats.

Even though there are several different colours to this breed, some question what makes a cat a true Siamese cat.  These cats have always been known for their bodies which are lighter in colour, with darker areas throughout.  The more darker areas found on their bodies are normally around the feet, tail, legs, or face.  They can weight anywhere between 6 – 16 lbs, with bright eyes that are normally slanted – which is another clue that the cat is a true Siamese.

Traditionally, Siamese cats are robust, with round heads and a truly muscular build.  They are well known throughout the world for their colour points and unique personalities.  Unlike other breeds, Siamese breeds have a talent for communicating with people.  If you are looking for a cat that is nice and quiet, you wouldn’t want a Siamese cat.  These cats love to play, love to make noise, plus they also happen to be the most social breed of cats out there.

Siamese cats demand a lot of attention, because in their minds, they believe that the world revolves around them.  For this very reason, they can tend be quite dependant on their owners.  They love to play, and crave interaction.  If you leave them alone for too long, they won’t like it.  They like to get attention, love to play, and hate to be left by themselves.

Even though Siamese cats are emotionally high maintenance, they don’t need lots of maintenance They need a minimal amount of grooming, which involves bathing every once in a while, and brushing maybe once or twice a month.  If you like cats with minimal maintenance, Siamese cats are perfect.  Their hair is short to their skin, so a gentle brushing is all you need.  They can get sick however, which is to be expected with any breed of cat.

Siamese cats have a life span that is similar to other breeds, which is normally around 15 – 20 years, sometimes even longer. As long as you feed him on a daily basis and take him to the vet for his regular checkups and shots, he will be around for a long time to come.  Most people who have their Siamese cat for over 10 years, find the cat to be more like a child than a pet.

No matter how you look at it, a Siamese cat is a great pet.  Although the Siamese breed does require a lot of attention, they are outstanding pets that you can spend a lot of time with.  They are great for kids as well, simply because kids can spend a lot of time with them.  So long as you give your pet the attention he demands – he will be your life long friend for as long as you have him.

Looking for pet products online? Try www.petproducts.me, the UK’s leading online pet supplies shop

Of course, one of the first things to think about is whether to head off to the shops, or buy online. Obviously if you’re in the shops you can get to try on a variety of leather jackets to see what you look like in them. On the other hand you will probably face a very limited range, and often the choice is either between reasonably priced poor quality leather jackets which feel like wearing reinforced cardboard, and high priced leather jackets which look good, and feel good, but lighten your wallet a little too much for you to be able to afford to ever go out in your jacket anywhere.

Buying leather jackets for your autumn wardrobe is certainly a lot quicker and easier online, and you generally have much more choice. Because online retailers have very few overheads the price is usually very much lower too, meaning that you needn’t compromise on quality. This is important because with the British weather generally damp and very changeable it’s important to have leather jackets and coats which can cope.

Cheap leather coats made from cow hide is usually pretty waterproof, but then so is wearing a very large bucket, and it’s about as flexible and comfortable. Some manufacturers of leather coats split cow hide into thinner slices, improving the feel, but the quality is very suspect, and a lot is lost in the process, including warmth and durability.

Leather coats and jackets made from sheep, kid or lamb hide are very soft and supple, very warm, and very waterproof, providing a much better range of benefits. There’s also generally a better range of colours and styles because you can do so much more with softer leather, which is why it’s used to make so many other things such as the seats in luxury cars, wallets, handbags and such like.

For an autumn wardrobe you could consider some of the brighter colours available such as purples, reds or creams, perfect ladies leather jackets, or for the men perhaps a choice of timber or chestnut jackets.

Of course for anyone there are always the classic and timeless colours of black, brown and tab, and with finishes ranging from soft natural sheen, matt, brushed, semi-glaze, washed, crushed and textured finishes, you could find that you’re spoilt for choice.

Still, by the time you’ve browsed the range available and made your choices for your autumn wardrobe it will be just in time to start thinking about choosing leather jackets for winter, when the weather will rapidly lurch into being bleak, unpredictable and generally damp.

The real problem is that businesses today are torn between two completely opposing forces. On the one hand, there’s the rock – the huge mountain of pressure that eats away at time, creating more and more pressure, taking up every spare minute you thought you had, and then finding a few more spare minutes to devour after that.

On the other hand there’s the hard place – the need to develop, expand, manoeuvre into new markets, flex the business muscles and take advantage of fresh opportunities.

The need to do more, versus the need to find an extra thirty or forty hours in a day. The pressure to move forwards versus the strain already being experienced just treading water. The rock, and the hard place.

Yet the truth is that as Crystal Reports training can show, these two forces aren’t entirely opposite, because there’s a single factor that can make them both work to your advantage.

By taking advantage of a few Crystal Reports classes and learning more about initially daunting subjects such as Business Objects Crystal Reports it is possible to discover that the solution to the problems being experienced is, well, crystal clear.

Because as Crystal reports training will show, it is possible to take the hard place, and make it a foundation, and place the rock on top of it, and get up on the rock, and discover that the view is crystal clear. Crystal Reports training can show you how to take the reams of data you’re already struggling to catalogue, store, filter, sort and manipulate, and automatically feed it into a system that provides you with the ability to see not just data, but information, displayed in ways which make it visually relevant. Suddenly you’re able to make sense of the meaningless numbers staring you in the face before, and develop reports that make sense.

Crystal Reports classes can show anyone how to take the workload that’s currently causing so much pressure and which is preventing you from finding the time to step back away from the trees, and take time to see the wood. Crystal Reports allow businesses to explore data visually, rather than crunching data in the hope that they will one day find time to actually do something with it.

Stop battling the data, and make it start to work for you for a change. Crystal Reports training is not the hard place, or the rock, but the way in which intelligent businesses can start to move forwards, fully confident that they’re also moving forwards in the right direction.

For many people hip flasks are one of the more popular luxury corporate gifts, and certainly they’re a welcome change from watches, gift vouchers or clocks. Professional leather products today are manufactured from soft, high quality leather that’s not split, but sourced from lambs and goats, giving them a beautiful soft, supple and smooth feel that makes them every bit as inviting to touch and hold as to look at and admire.

Hip flasks may be a display item, but they’re also very handy when out and about on a hunt or a walk. Whether you enjoy a strong coffee, liquor or a little of Scotland’s finest oak matured water, hip flasks are available in a wide range of styles, sizes and appearances.

From 4oz hip flasks to 6oz and even 8oz hip flasks, the choice is often available to have a decanter, cup, or glass incorporated into the design, making them perfect for sharing. Of course, luxury leather goods are not the preserve of men, with hip flasks continuing to prove very popular with ladies too, and today there are several beautiful designs available, giving ladies the chance to warm their cockles on a cold winter’s hunt.

If you’re looking for luxury corporate gifts then you may be considering traditional items such as portfolios, desk blotters and travel bags, but hip flasks could prove to be a much appreciated alternative, and certainly one likely to receive good use.

But don’t assume that all hip flasks advertised as being ideal luxury leather goods are the same. Hip flasks made from soft, supple leather, especially kid, goat or sheep leather is likely to provide years of use without cracking or wearing, as well as being warm to the touch – useful on a typical British day. With soft, warm leather wrapped lovingly around a decanter of your favourite invigorating tipple, you’ll be ready for anything this green and pleasant land can throw at you!

It’s worth bearing in mind that issues such as business broadband and website hosting are likely to have dramatic long term implications for the success, or otherwise, of your business. Unreliable website hosting means a shaky presence on the web, and overloaded servers that result in slow loading websites can result in the search engines penalising you.

Less than perfect email hosting and you could be looking at a whole vista of problems, from inadequate security to outages that could result in your business failing to receive or deliver communications which could be vital to securing a deal.

Without doubt, choosing where to go for email hosting and website hosting, as well as selecting business broadband packages all makes a massive difference. So with this in mind, how many months should you set aside to go through all of the companies, all of the packages and all of the options so that you can make an informed choice?

The best advice is to choose a web hosting company which is based in your own country. For UK businesses having a UK based email hosting and website hosting company makes a big difference. UK based servers will mean that search engines will reward you for localisation, and of course having a call centre you can ring on a national rate or local rate number during the sort of hours you keep yourself makes it much more convenient to run your business.

If you’re looking for email hosting one of the things you should definitely bear in mind is a spam filtering service. These days, with billions of spam emails circulating the globe every day, it’s vital. It really is amazing how quickly spam can choke a business to death, wasting time and resources. Akin to this is security, with virus protection, backup protection and secure control panel access essential.

But there’s one trick I have always used when looking around for business broadband suppliers, and website hosting companies. It’s a simple trick, but it can make the whole process of choosing email hosting companies and web companies so much easier. The trick is this – before you commit to any contract, before you sign up for any package and before you part with a single penny, call them.

Or email them. Just get in touch. See how quickly they respond, and how helpful they are. If they’re on the ball, keen to help and as enthusiastic about protecting, developing and supporting your business as you are, then you’ll find sorting everything else out suddenly becomes a good deal simpler.

The food facts

Let’s take a look at some of the facts. On average, a large slice of pizza from the big chain restaurants contains around 300 calories (a meat lovers’ slice can push 480!). Now consider that you get about eight slices and the calorie count hits four figures. Ever ordered a takeaway and found it slopping around in the cardboard box? That’ll be the high levels of fat. Ever felt incredibly thirsty after devouring a takeaway pizza? That’ll be the high levels of salt. So, you can easily eat most of your daily calories in one sitting and fall the wrong side of your daily salt intake. Not good for health.

The big culprits are cheese, the oils used for cooking, meat toppings (particularly pepperoni which is 80% fat) and the dough base. While the dough contains carbohydrates, which play a role in digestion, it’s typically made with unhealthy high gluten flour and the carbs from the bread and crust turn into sugar and eventually into fat.

Hopefully you’re starting to realise how too much of bad thing is…well, bad. But there’s no need to deny yourself one of life’s pleasures, you just need to “takeaway” a different approach. And as one of the great Clapham takeaways, ‘ECO’ ticks all the right boxes.

The healthy option

So how can you get a healthy munch on with a slice of your favourite flat-bread? Health experts say the base needs to be light and contain whole wheat flour to keep your digestive system healthy. ECO produce the lightest and healthiest base in Clapham (and for that matter, all of London and the UK). Ingredients need to be fresh, especially the tomatoes used in the sauce, and cheese should be low-fat.

A recent survey of more than 8,000 Italians by Milan’s Institute of Pharmacology found that people who had healthy pizza several times in a week lowered their risk of disease compared to those who had never eaten it. According to the results, the risk of developing throat cancer was reduced by 60%, colon cancer by 26% and oral cancer by 30%.

Scientists put this down to the ingredients – tomatoes, olive oil, vegetables, garlic, herbs and spices – which contain antioxidants such as ‘lycopene’ that are believed to help prevent chronic diseases such as cancer. Another study by Manchester University scientists suggests that pizza can also cut the risk of skin cancer.

Guilt free eating

Next time you fancy ordering pizza in, or perhaps dining out Italian style, seek out a restaurant like ECO in Clapham who make the effort to ensure the food you eat not only tastes great, but is also made with ingredients that are good for your health.

Many people approach buying leather jackets by looking at the style and way the jacket looks, and by the price tag. Often it may be hard to understand why two apparently similar jackets have such widely different price tags. Isn’t it always better to go for the cheaper one if they both look much the same? After all, leather is leather – it can’t make that much difference?

In fact if you read the description you’ll discover that both jackets are made from 100% genuine leather, and they may both look very nice. But once you wear them, feel the leather and move around in them you’ll start to notice a real difference.

This is because whilst both leather jackets may have labels stating that they are both leather, the truth is that there are all different kinds of leather, and this makes a huge difference to both the comfort and feel of the jacket as well as the way it looks, hangs, moves and protects.

Most traditional biker jackets are made from cow hide. This leather is thick, tough and highly suited to the task, since the word is protection. Biker jackets are often bought for the visual look and style as much as anything, but the real reason why biker jackets are made from cow hide is because it’s about the toughest leather around, and will offer a great deal of protection if you happen to be riding a motorbike and having to protect yourself should you fall off at high speed onto a rather unforgiving surface.

But if you aren’t planning on wearing your leather jacket on a bike and are instead simply looking for a designer leather jacket which will provide you with comfort and protection whilst looking good and feeling great then cow hide isn’t the answer. Some manufacturers have tried to make cow hide leather jackets thinner and less rigid and heavy by using a laser to slice layers off the leather.

However, all you’re really left with is a thin bit of cow hide – it’s still not exactly supple, lightweight or soft. This is when your attention may turn to the other jacket. Perhaps the price tag is a little more expensive, but one touch demonstrates a real difference.

It doesn’t feel like armour, it feels smooth and supple, folding and hanging in a way that looks and feels much more comfortable, especially if you’re planning on wearing it throughout the summer and autumn. So what’s the real difference?

Some leather jacket labels may say that they’re made of genuine leather, but what you need to notice is the lack of the word ‘nappa’. Because genuine nappa leather is something quite different from cow hide leather. To start with it doesn’t have anything to do with cows.

Instead nappa leather comes from sheepskin, or in some cases goatskin. This is beautifully lightweight, and much, much softer and more supple to the touch. In fact it’s the same kind of leather used in highest quality upholstery, because it is so malleable and flexible. Stiff leather protects, but if what you want is comfort and style then soft leather simple has to be nappa leather.