freegle in the uk

If you have already suscribed to the free cycling online group please consider that in the U.K. most of the groups have divided off from the main freecyle group and are now calling themselves Freegle. It is still hosted by yahoo groups though. It was claimed that the main administrators had started claiming a salary instead of staying with the voluntary ethos of the group as a whole.

I have followed the freegle exit for my local group. Unfortunately there seems to be less items posted now but perhaps this is also because of the recession. Spread the word about it though........as we could all do with a hand through the hard times.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/freegle/

spice burgers........in the UK

It patented the recipe for spice burgers, which it describes as “a delicious blend of Irish beef, onions, cereals, herbs and spices coated with traditional outer crumb”.

These are really good.......i didnt even know they were Irish. Can they be bought in the uk?!!! doubt it as the family who patented them closed their factory recently, but may open back up due to demand from customers. They should sell them world wide!!! Makes a big difference in chippers.....from the usual tasteless burgers they have.

bars....and more....

The selection of bars here in Rio really has one for everyone. There are the chain type bars Devassa and Belmonte and Espalunca and many more independant places in between. We went to a new one the other night called G bar lounge restaurant. While it seems trendy it is actually a very nice well thought out bar in layout. There was no rule on who could come in or not which was good as apparently there were many wellknown people in there....not us!!

Other places we have visited restaurant wise are Le Ble Noir, Capriccosa, ZaZa, Bar Mineiro, Atlantico all which I will review separately. To it is hard to find up to date reviews of bars and restaurants in cities like this.

Rio clubs....

We did manage to make it to a club this weekend!!! It was called Galleria, a fun gay mainly club. It had good european pop mixes and welcome airconditioning. They had a novel way of paying to us where they mark a card you recieve at the entrance with all you drink and they you pay at the end. Handy though as you dont need to pay cash then. Good amount of clean toilets and friendly people inside. Not too expensive either. Its in Ipanema one block from the beach....cant remember the street name though. We were going to go to a place called 69 on rua Prudente de Moraes but the queue was soooo long and it didnt open before midnight. We had been waiting in the bar downstairs from it to go in but who wants to queue........not me. The crowd looked quite young anyway. We were happy with our choice.

oui oui, rio

This place has a really nice atmosphere. It is a sister restaurant to Miam Miam also in a beautiful Botafogo house. It is a little like tapas with small dishes for 20 to 30 reais. We tried almost all of them i think as we were six people and had 2 dishes each that we shared. The best for everyone was the filet with lemongrass. We also really liked the moqueca, the prawns with palm heart, the polvo, the trio d'arroz and the ribs with pumpkin. We did try the cheese, the cod, the pancake wraps and the baked potato too which were very good but not as good as the first list!! Highly recommended place. Not too many staff as a lot of restaurants seem to have but still good service. They had an international selection of wines too. Funnily they refridgerate the red wine! Like the sake in the Mok bar/ restaurant we went to on Sunday.

brasil..brasill...brasillll

Finally made it to brasil!! It is good to come in low season, and thankfully with British Airways.......it must be a very difficult time for the families of the Air France flight and my heart goes out to them.

We also managed to rent an apartment after a long trawl through various websites, with www.rioapartments.com . So far so great! I hate to say it but they do have some of the european efficiency that could help Brasil a little. There is so much potential here but also much relaxed attitude!

We found a great new restaurant at our friends suggestion called OUI OUI. Though its not actually French food exactly but i will do a separate review.

back to blog...........

Finally some time to get back to blogging. Still clearing the garden and ivy. Need to find some good gardening websites for tips on ivy control! I will just try to grow clippings of plants I already have for now, rosemary.......................! Another easy one is mint if you can get a good starter plant it will grow everywhere and looks nicer than weeds. Only if you are going for the wild garden effect though. Sage also grows well in the UK if you can get a good starter plant. Also these types stay each year and are great if you dont have too much time for maintenance.

Recycling

If you havent already, really do check out your local freecycle. I almost got some redcurrent bushes for the garden. Its is so popular it is actually hard to be the first to reply to someone's post. So if you are offering something it will almost definitely be gone really fast!! I just wish they would collect my garden clippings more often. Toooo much ivy everywhere.................

Recipes: best brown bread...!

This is actually brown soda bread Irish style. But if you are looking for a filling slice of bread thats easy to make, no kneading or fussing around.....this is it.
For one loaf tin

0.5 litres of milk full fat
25 ml olive oil
25 ml redwine vinegar
500g coarse brown flour
10g of bread soda
salt an sugar approx 10g each

Mix all the dry ingredients first. Then mix in the water and oil and the vinegar last. It is a wet mixture. Grease your tin or line with baking paper. Cook for an hour at 180 degrees celsius!! easy........leave it to cool after wrapped in a cloth. Cook a little longer out of the tin after an hour if needed. It is nice to use buttermilk instead of milk and vinegar if you can find it. Use the coarsest flour you can find. Also you can add wheat bran to taste.

Keeping the earth clean............

The post from the other day regarding the cause of the amazon Indians is not something new. I think this has been covered on the tv show on the Amazon river. I have posted this as a friend works out in Peru on projects to make sustainable living possible for people there. This reappropriation of land by whatever means, is also an issue for the Indians in Brazil where the forest is also under attack. This should concern us all as the use of other natural resources here affects the forest which as we all know sustains the vicious cycle of pollution of planet Earth. Even if you dont believe in climate change being a man made phenomenon, it is still worth considering keeping the planet as clean as possible.

http://fenamad-indigenas.blogspot.com/Tambien ver (also):
www.aidesep.org.pe
www.fenamad.org
www.servindi.org
www.cipiaci.org

Check out these sites and the blog!

re: The cause of the Peruvian Amazon indigenous groups

This is a note with information about a regional strike in which indigenous groups from the Peruvian Amazon region of Madre de Dios have taken to the streets to reclaim respect for their rights. The Peruvian government has been systematically putting in place measures which are directly related to the Free Trade agreements which they have signed with the USA, Chile and China. As a result the government is in the process of making amends or reforming existing laws to enable the open negotiations with these states. This means ensuring available land for logging purposes, to invite big scale gold mining initiatives, as well as secure the entrance of big multinational oil companies. The native communities have been fighting for the last 25 years to ensure recognition for their land rights to their ancestral territories with the help of the Native Federation of Madre de Dios (FENAMAD). Based on the fact that most of the 31 communities (30 out of the 31) havenow received titled deeds to their land, the government is looking for ways to divide the communities thus ensuring the open sale and exploitation of their lands. This regional strike coincides with a larger National Strike in the whole of the Peruvian Amazon region started on the 9th April 2009 and leadered by AIDESEP (Interethnic Association for the Development of the Amazon) who represent all of the indigenous groups in Peru. This follows National Strikes held last year in July and August 2008. The platform for the strike remains mostly unchanged as there has been no move by the government to implement the changes which the indigenous groups are proposing to ensure the health of their environments and ultimately their right to a life of dignity and a choice in the way in which they develop (auto determination).

Tips for good blogging.........

As I am relatively new to blogging I am avidly looking for good tip to improve my blog, in content, appearance and interest. If anyone had these for me even as a critique of what I already have on this blog please comment!
For me looking at magazines like

• Computer Arts www.computerarts.co.uk
• .net www.netmag.co.uk

are really good. Its not all directly about websites, but they both have different articles about good content websites. Especially the current issue 188 of .net. Have my copy of Computer Arts but havent got to read it yet!!

Magazines.........

Does anyone read Monocle magazine? The latest edition has an article about the guy behind Uniqlo. What he says about where the clothes are made is a little unbelievable or too diplomatic. It goes something like Japan does not have the capacity to sew large quantities of clothes so much of it is done in China?! Surely in a recession this is possible to change. If you don’t know the magazine is it a unique read but it has a slight bias towards all things Japanese! It’s a good magazine for aeroplane reading again as it had plenty of reading material in it.

Hayfever!!!!

It is definitely hay-fever season in London, at least for me. Pity they dont really start proper pollen counts in the UK later in the year. The BBC site has very vague pollen counts. It has not rained in London for a few days and is very still, so not good for those with allergies to the flowers at this time of year. My only cure I‘ve found is get your Opticrom eyedrops out as soon as you feel even a slight itch in your eyes. Most chemists and supermarkets now have generic brands of anti histamines like cetirizine hydrochloride which works best for me. Don’t buy the branded tablets they are such a rip off!!!!

Brazilian Portugese

I am trying to learn portugese at home with the help of websites, podcasts and general reading and watching tv. It must be possible to learn this way in this day and age. Luckily I have a good knowledge of French and have been to Brazil so thst helps a lot......There is it seems a site with free podcasts to learn from. When I have tried them out i will let you know how good it is. It is called brazilianportugesepod.com..........

Slumdog

Definitely watch it it you are at all interested in th movie. I was afraid it would be disappointing as it had been so hyped here in the UK. Its not a feel good movie..........don't want to give too much away but i thought the delivery of the story was unexpected that's all I will say.

self checkout!

So does anyone actually like these self checkouts at supermarkets. My local one to work has increased the number of them. Personally I would prefer to go to the regular ones but it seems so would everyone else and the queues are huge...............There is no line for these. People are running randomly to them and they take much longer to put your stuff through. Best stick to markets....

Designer

I just found a new design magazine called simply ‘designer’! I really love magazines as faster ways to catch up on what is going on especially for on the train, plane or in bars waiting for friends. Anyway this is quite a brief magazine with only a few ‘articles’ as such but still good ones. There are quite a lot of product reviews and ads but ultimately this is how we do find many new products to use in design.
The most interesting thing is an article on industrial designer Jaime Hayon, but the articles follow closely behind.

Books, Books on Colour

At the moment I am trying to review a book called Colour in Architecture. At first glance the book seems a fairly ordinary read, but now that I’ve started, I’ve realised it is quite technical and really interesting.
Worth a look if you are always wondering why so many new buildings are grey in some countries and not in others and other facts on colour use. I’m still on chapter two though, but don’t bother spending time with the introduction as it makes the book seem tedious.

Frugal living

Has anyone checked out this frugal website/blog? Well don’t follow their surveys moneymaking tip! It is all those offers where you have to sign up to dodgy looking credit cards an d so called free offers of make up and things.

Pimlico and good places

Pimlico is an area near where I work, in Victoria in London, which must have the most cafes and takeaways concentrated in about 0.5 square kilometres. You can definitely buy a very filling lunch for no more than five pounds. It has everything from KFC to Thai to Brazilian now. If often has a small market on too for fruit and a chip van.
Actually it would be a good place to wait for a train instead of in the station. Check out Ivano's and Spicy Food Plus (I think its called)

Start up

As a start up I would like to explain what I would like this blog to be. I will attempt for it to be about getting value from everyday life's necessary things we do. This means a lot may be about what I buy, but will also about where I travel and what I am currently doing. It may seem similar to reviews of many things.