Articles from November 2018

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Paris with Dior

It’s truly any girl’s wildest dream come true to visit Paris with Dior. A breath-taking city full of history, romance and culture; and a world-famous fashion house who has helped shape the sartorial world as we know it. Last month I got to live a Cinderella fairy tale come true and travel to Paris with the DiorBeauty team to attend the Addict event in celebration of the launch of their new lip product, Dior Addict Lip Fluid.

Upon arriving in Paris (hello 15-hour flight) we were greeted with a major Dior care package and a beautiful room in the heart of the city. I rushed over (dirty airplane outfit and all) to make it to my fitting at the Dior headquarters. I can’t imagine any place where I’d hope to be looking my most put together, but they accepted me anyway.  Begging for the forgiveness of my dishevelled look “I just got off the plane”, the fabulous Dior team whisked me away into a white room full of beautiful dresses, mirrors, windows and views of the whole city.

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“Pick what you want to wear.” Usually opting for black- I found myself in a room full of femininity, colour, and glamour. I tried on a myriad of dresses and ultimately opted for a simple, classic, elegant electrifying red.

Exhausted but full of excitement I forced myself to attend the dinner at the fabulous Hotel Costes. The place to see and be seen- if you can get a reservation, but when you are with Dior, it seems like nothing in Paris is a problem. We laughed, drank wine, had escargot and beef tartar–things you couldn’t have paid me enough to eat when I was younger, but in Paris, it feels so right. Dior dress, Dior makeup and Dior sunglasses, just incredible!

The next day after spending the morning shopping around the city I had to arrive early to the event for hair and makeup. I never expected I would be getting my makeup done by one of the best makeup artists in the world. Usually the beachy, no make-up type, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and went for an “old Hollywood glam look.” After it was all complete I barely recognized myself. I felt like a true vision of elegance and glamour.

As if that all weren’t enough, next we were presented with a maze of photoshoot sets, the creations of different artists whose works of art were projected onto different backgrounds to create the photos you see above. Hope you enjoy them!

My experience with Dior in Paris was truly a once in a lifetime moment and a memory I will cherish forever. A million miles away from the small town girl who grew up in a city with not even one clothing store. Thank you to everyone, and especially the whole Dior team who made it such a memorable event!

Always leave room for dessert

Eating out in an Italian Restaurant in Dublin like https://www.forno500.ie/ is always a treat. With some many different pasta, risotto and pizza dishes to choose from you could almost eat out every day for a month and never taste the same dish twice. Many people are aware of the delicious main course that this cuisine has to offer, although fewer have tried some of the delights that are available for dessert. Here are some ideas for when you next visit that Italian restaurant.

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Ice cream or Gelato is incredibly popular in Italian cuisine and with some many different varieties to try a visit to Italy can see you in ice cream heaven. If you prefer a fruiter flavour then sorbets are also incredibly popular.

Struffoli – this is almost a snack style treat and is dough balls that are deep fried. They are usually covered in a honey and cinnamon glaze with orange rind and sometime even a few hundreds and thousands on top.

Granita – is another frozen light and is a halfway house between a sorbet, gelato and ice. It is usually flavoured with berries, mint and sometime lemon or citrus fruits. It is a crunchy ice style dessert that packs a punch of flavour.

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Tiramisu is a quintessential Italian dessert and probably one of the most well-known with many supermarkets offering both fresh and frozen options for you to enjoy whenever the urge to taste the delights of coffee-soaked sponge fingers layered between mascarpone cheese and chocolate arises. Tiramisu is one of the easier desserts to make and is a popular choice for dinner parties and as celebration desserts. It was particularly popular here during the 1970s and 1980s.

Cannoli are a delicious pastry that is rolled into a tube and deep fried, when it has cooled, they are usually filled with ricotta cheese with cherries and pistachios added for decoration.

Crostata – is a bit like a treacle tart or a fruit tart that you might find here in the UK. In Italy these are usually filled with a variety of fruit options or even ricotta cheese.

Biscotti – is a biscuit that anyone who frequents a classic coffee shop or makes the occasional trip to costa or starbucks will have heard of. These baked biscuits are best enjoyed with a nice warm cup of coffee or perhaps even a hot chocolate. They come in a variety of flavours from all kinds of buts through to chocolate.

All hail the Ditch Warrior. Or Metro as it was officially called.

There are many cars of which you could say, cometh the hour cometh the car. The E type Jaguar launched just when the country was starting to want a car that was bit more modern and a bit stylish or the most famous being the Mini, a car that was interesting, cool and debonair despite its size and power. They were perfect for the time and in the late 70’s and early eighties British Leyland MG needed a car like that. It had to be good to keep the ailing car manufacturing industry in the country alive. Therefore, it needed to be economical capture the public’s imagination and most importantly their pound notes plus those foreigners too. It was asking a lot of the designers, but they were going to give it a go and they even looked back to the Mini for a little bit of inspiration.

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So, with sweat, toil and hope they created the car that was going to save them all. They came up with the Metro. It may not be the first choice that you would put on a Car lap tray, which are great little items by the way and make great gifts, but you can be safe in the knowledge that there are plenty of choices out there for you to choose from just have a look at https://personalisedlaptrays.co.uk/ for a few ideas.

The Metro was launched to great acclaim and a very high-profile advertising campaign, this involved a fleet of the colorful fun cars driving pell-mell towards the White cliffs of Dover. Leyland were desperate, their cars from the nineteen seventies were ugly, shoddy, poorly made and badly received. They badly need a success to continue Government funding and to get something that could compete with the cheaper and better models coming in from the continent.

The initial reaction from the public was one of great interest for this relatively cheap and affordable car. This finally looked like this was a car that Leyland MG had made that could work. Reviews were mainly positive. It was noted that the engine was an A or at least A+ series even after all these years but this was forgiven as it was pointed out this made repairs and maintenance work easier.

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Lamentably this was not to last. It soon became clear after a few years ownership that some corners had been cut. The car collected water with ease and rusted, especially the wings remarkable easily. The distributor cap was pointed down low so that any degree of collected water could see it cut out. The manual choke was also twitchy and difficult to deal with. As the years rolled by it became clear that despite up grades and turbo versions the car was just not good enough to maintain the industry and provide the shot it needed when compared to the success of the Fiesta, or the Renault 5.

Why was it called a ditch warrior? No matter what it always pulled to the left a little bit so that the ditch was never far away.

For the love of the Sun.

When we talk about Sun worshippers nowadays we are generally referring to those of us who like to lounge around on a beach or by a pool getting a tan on holiday. However, if you go back to Neolithic times it seems that Sun Worshippers is quite a literal thing as opposed to the figurative now. Whatever your views are on the Sun its much better to view it though Windows Dublin or Cardiff or London or Torremolinos wherever you are as there provide some protection from its rays. A quick visit to https://www.keanewindows.ie/windows-dublin/ can help you if you need some new ones.

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Our ancestors were very keen on praising the Sun. They held it in high regard. Its easy to understand why this was. With very little understanding of science and nature its quite natural to want to thank the big hot shiny thing that turns up every morning without fail making the dark go away and the plants grow. They liked it so much in UK that they built several stone circles to track its progress the biggest one being Stonehenge an incredible achievement considering the technology at the time which was basically humans, rope and wood logs.

This praising of the Sun carries on into some of the first ancient civilisation such as the Egyptians who saw a lot of Sun where they lived and needed to be respectful of it. Amun was thought to be the God that lived in the Sun providing it’s light but as mentioned it was very important to them and they also had Bast, Nut and Menhit as well.

Greeks noticed that the Sun moved across the sky which led them to have a Helios. The Sun was his Chariot that he drove through the day. It does show some beginnings of understanding astronomy, but they made up for that by deducing that Helios was the son of Hyperion God of light and Theia the Goddess of Light and blue sky also something they get a lot of in Greece.

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The Roman Empire was never one to not steal other peoples Gods and the Greeks were one they did it from quite regularly. They had Sol and he was the main source of their religion for decades until a small Jewish sect started to make some big waves throughout the Empire. The biggest celebration was Saturnalia in the middle of winter as it was a big call for Sol to return in the Spring and heat up the world again. It’s the reason why we have Christmas, the birth of Jesus, in December. The Christian religion and the Sol religion were going to cause a major civil war, so the Emperor Constantine chose one but kept some traditions in place.

But that’s never entered you head when the factor 50 is being applied.

Let the gift buyer take the strain.

If you’re like me then you might have a bit of problem when it comes to buying presents for people. It’s a horrible task to some as you um and ah in the shop over what to get people. Most embarrassingly if you turn up with a rubbish gift it makes it look like you don’t care about them and they will think that you don’t understand them. So, no pressure then to make sure you pic out that totally perfect gift that will make them squeal with delight and give you a massive hug and a thank you. Or not some people are just born to be underwhelmed with what you give them or, so it seems. It does work both ways. I’d rather like a nice pair of Farah Shirts, but I feel that I’m probably going to get socks and a book about the War again. All they need to do is look on www.ejmenswear.com/men/farah/ they’ll see loads of options that I might like.

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Still I think that I might have found the answer to our prayers. It’s come in the shape of a personal shopper. Now not only do you have some else to blame when it all crashed and burns and they say they really don’t like it or you just get a silent response or even worse “meh” you can swear blind that the personal shopper swore it was the in thing and that everybody was going to have one at Christmas, for their birthday or whatever the occasion might be.

Its quite a nice little day out. You get a drink and pleasant room to sit in and the Personal Shopper introduces themselves to you and you begin. In some ways it’s a bit like trying to build up a psychological profile of the person so that the personal shopper can get an idea as to what they are dealing with. When they have enough to go on they will then take you out on to the shop floor and your quest begins. Well, I say quest its more the personal shopper’s quest really as they have elected themselves as the fall guys in this little adventure. Using the profile, they have gained from you they can then start to compile a load of options that the prospective person receiving the gift might like.

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There is one little thing that I think I mentioned there they are getting a list and building a profile from you. If you don’t give them much to work on, then they won’t come up with the goods. Might be better to buy a session with the personal shopper for the person that’s getting the gift. Might be quicker and easier.

Interesting facts about the metal Bronze

Bronze is a metal that is used for a variety of different uses including piping and even Bronze Wildlife Sculptures like the ones you can see at www.gillparker.com In the past items of jewellery would have been made from Bronze especially during the Roman era. You can still see many Bronze artefacts if you visit any of the larger Roman sites including places like Chedworth Roman Villa in the Cotswolds.

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Here is some information about Bronze that you may not have heard of before.

Bronze is amongst one of the first alloy metals that was developed and is a mixture of copper and tin with copper being the predominant metal. Combining the two metals makes Bronze stronger than either of copper of tin on their own. Other metals can also be added to the mix and include aluminium, nickel, zinc and various other materials.

Bronze is thought to have been used as far back as Egyptian times and some of the earliest Bronze artefacts have been found in the areas of China and the Middle East. The metal’s name was attributed to the Bronze Age era due to the wide spread use of the metal in items that were used throughout all of society. This was then replaced by iron as a metal and thus we entered into the Iron Age.

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As a metal is has many different characteristics:

  • It has a low friction level when moved alongside other metals which means that it does not produce heat and the potential for sparks.
  • Bronze expands slightly when it converts from a liquid to a solid which is why it is a metal that is preferred by sculptors. It is thought that the first instance of Bronze being used in a sculpture in 706 BC by the Assyrian King Sennacherib
  • Bronze oxidises when it comes into contact with oxygen, but this tends to only impact the outer layers of the metal.
  • Bronze is often used for items that may come into contact with flammable or even explosive materials as when it you strike it against other metals it does not create sparks.

Bronze is still used in many items today including architectural structures, bearings, musical instruments, ships propellers and even in electrical items. Bronze is also used to make coins – even thought they appear to look like they have been made from a copper type metal.