Last night I invited myself along to the opening party for Godiva’s new Chocolate Café at Harrods. It was a star-studded event with ambassadors and celebrities and more importantly, plenty of chocolate.

The café, on the second floor of Harrods’ famous Knightsbridge store has a stylish, but fairly minimal theme, and looks like it could be a pleasant place to spend an afternoon, when not packed with party goers and journalists. Godiva describe the decor as a blend of modern and Belgian art nouveau and who am I to argue.

The centrepiece of the café is the large marble bar, where you can sit and watch the chefs prepare desserts and dip strawberries while you nibble on your patisserie.

And that patisserie is something special. We were given bite-size versions of a couple of the pieces on offer, including an amazing chocolate hazelnut delice made with whole hazelnuts, chocolate ganache and a crunchy, chewy base. I think I managed to down five of these little beauties, and could probably have managed a few more.

The quality is no surprise when they’ve hired top pastry chefs, including Raquel, formerly of Melt, who was responsible for the amazing sea salt mud pie that I reviewed last year.

I’m not a fan of Godiva’s truffles, so if you’re planning a visit, I’d recommend skipping those and going straight for the fresh patisserie. I’ll certainly be going back to try more when I get the chance. I’m told the Sin Cake is particularly good.

Café Godiva, Second Floor, Harrords
Open: Monday to Saturday 11am – 8pm, Sunday 11.30am – 6pm
Phone: 020 7730 1234

Time for another of Askinosie’s “CollaBARation” bars, a range produced in collaboration with other artisan food producers. This particular bar is made with Swedish liquorice maker Lakritsfabriken.

The front of the bar follows the standard Askinosie format, with the name of the company spelled out on each large chunk of chocolate. But the back of this bar is a little different.

As you can see, it’s littered with pieces of organic, gluten-free salted black liquorice and anise seed. There’s also fleur de sel and goats milk in the chocolate, so as you might expect, it’s not subtle.

Even if you try to get a sense of the chocolate by placing a piece liquorice-side-up on your tongue, your mouth is still immediately filled by that intense flavour and aroma. This may be a hefty 62% milk chocolate, but it still quickly fades into the background.

I do think it’s a good choice of chocolate for this bar though, as it does have a certain creaminess that goes well with the liquorice, and it’s neither too sweet nor too bitter.

In the end, how much you like this bar comes down to whether or not you like liquorice, as that’s the predominant flavour by far.

What I love about it is that it’s just so different from other chocolate I’ve had recently. Askinosie are of course, a top bean-to-bar chocolate maker, and it always makes me happy when real artisans make fun, non-traditional flavours like this. It may be more high-end confectionery than than it is fine chocolate, but I still like it.

I have written before about a few in the selection of Mikado chocolate from Croatia. As seems to be the way of these things, I’ve kept the best until last. Of course this was carefully planned.

This Mikado Menta is a 72% chocolate with mint. As I’ve written before (many times… feel like a broken record), mint in chocolate takes me back to the 70’s when the height of sophistication here in the land down under, was “Red Tulip After Dinner Mints”*. About the same time there was a Crime Drama series on TV (was it Hazell?) where one of the characters was known as “Choc Minty”. Sigh.

I never quite understood the appeal of After Dinner Mints: chocolate and sweet minty goo just puts me off; it’s not very appealing. So I’m very hard to please. The other participants in the weekly meeting are, perhaps, not so fussy.

After all this waffle, the inevitable question must be asked: what’s the chocolate like?

As usual with this selection of Croatian chocolates, it was broken up, tasted, and photographed in the weekly progress meeting. I certainly get some strange looks for doing that but hey, it’s worth it!

And the chocolate is actually pretty good, it has a pleasant richness, in both taste and aroma. There is no goo – the mint is just part of the chocolate; it is quite pleasant and certainly not overpowering.

The collective criticisms of the tasting panel were that the chocolate has a gritty appearance, and the mint leaves a slightly harsh after-taste. Neither of these are offensive. The gritty look is only in appearance, it has no effect on taste or texture. The mint after-taste is more of a concern, however you do need to be fairly fussy to detect it. Even the dark-chocolate-hater thought this was OK. Her normal reaction to anything darkish is that it is too bitter. This time, however, even she could go back for more.

The general view was that this is the best of the Mikado range we tried. If mint chocolate is your thing, see if you can find one of these.

Cadbury & Fry Through Time is a new book by Paul Chrystal that chronicles the history of two of the biggest names in British chocolate. The book covers the complete history of both companies from inception to present day, but concentrates on the early period.

It’s a 96 page paperback book, but the most striking thing about it is the illustrations. It’s packed with around 180 wonderful advertising images, photos and documents, some of which may be familiar, but the vast majority are new to me.

With so many beautiful images, there isn’t a lot of room for text, but there’s enough to tell the story. Cadbury and Fry merged after the First World War, but the book looks at each brand separately and is divided into two chapters, one for each company. The format works well, but I found the images too distracting to read it from cover to cover, and had to keep flicking through the book, stopping to examine familiar images, brightly coloured advertising posters and fascinating photos.

This book is all about the illustrations, so don’t expect a detailed textual history of Cadbury or Fry. What you will get is a glimpse into the past and the humble beginnings of what became giants of the chocolate industry. Of course, both Cadbury & Fry exist only as brands of American food giant Kraft now, so for me the nostalgia is tinged with sadness, and a sense that we’ve lost this piece of our history forever.

Cadbury & Fry Through Time by Paul Chrystal is published by Amerbley Publishing. RRP £14.99

“Greetings, Milk Chocolate Almond Toffee. How are you today?” No answer. “And how is your cousin, White Chocolate Macadamia Nut?” Blank stares from both. “Is that so? Well, I’m afraid I can’t sympathize with your fears: I am one of those people planning to eat you. Oh, no, no, don’t be frightened: I promise I’ll make it quick, though I can’t say it won’t be messy…”

Excuse my conversing with inanimate objects.

These two victims of mine are from Pioneer Candy Company, which hails from Colorado. Hence, the mountains and the covered wagon – although, I admit, I don’t usually think of Colorado as pioneer territory. I’m rather a bit intrigued, though, by the brown boxes in which the toffee dwells: while simple, they have a small amount of sparkle that gives an established touch. Lifting off the lids reveals a further layer beneath which the victims try and hide. There are two brown flaps to cover the toffee, the edge of the top flap being also an outline of mountains; when you raise it, there stands a grand Colorado mountain range. Love it.

The pieces of toffee, which are handmade in small batches inside copper kettles, come in varying sizes. The smaller pieces have the most to fear from me since they are easier to snatch up and munch away on. It turns out that the larger pieces are more deadly to me: breaking them up might knock off some of the toppings, so I just bite in. And once I’ve started on a piece, how can I stop? I don’t understand why toffee should be one of my weaknesses; that’s just the way the world works.

As you can see, this toffee is fairly thick and generously coated. It’s difficult to get a grasp on Victim A’s milk chocolate other than to say that it adds a creamy flavor to the mix. The toffee is of a slightly harder, more orange variety than some; in honesty, I think I prefer the toffees that border closer to delicate. However, this style is fitting for the pioneer theme. Because of the toffee’s thickness and the amount of almonds, there is as much crunchy texture as you could wish for and enough sweetness that you do need all those almonds for balance.

Victim B doesn’t have any chocolate. The white chocolate is more like a sweet cream keeping the macadamia nuts in place. The large, triangular shape of the pieces and the white and yellow colors makes them look like peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I suppose you could say they taste like that, too. I think it’s fair at least to say that this bunch is sweeter and less salty than the first. But that might just make it easier to absentmindedly nibble. I must point out, though, that the toffee in this box did feel too thick: a tad thinner would be better.

In case you prefer drawing out your toffee-torturing, you can store it for three weeks in the refrigerator or six months in the freezer. It’s pleasant toffee, if you find yourself in Colorado with a confection craving. Of if you find yourself at home with two boxes of it that somehow never make it to the safety of the refrigerator because you’re too busy snacking on it.

Did you know that this Sunday 20th May, is World Baking Day?

Well no, either did I. But apparently it is, and they got in touch a couple of days ago to tell us about it. And they also sent this big box of ingredients to bake with along with some recipe cards.

So now I guess I really have no choice but to bake something now!

If you’re interested in taking part yourself, then follow World Baking Day on Twitter and don’t forget to tweet photos of your creations. Assuming my efforts don’t go disastrously wrong, I’ll be doing a follow up post to let you know how I got on.

But what to bake? I could of course just go for something on the recipe cards they sent. But it’s also my birthday weekend and I have a lot of leftover chocolate to use up. Suggestions gratefully received!

I hadn’t heard of the Lallapolosa Baking Company before, but I’m never one to refuse brownies, so when they offered to send some of their pecan & salted caramel brownies, I bit their hand off – figuratively speaking.

Lallapolosa make an extensive range of brownies, cakes, cookies & confections, but if I had to pick any one item, this would probably be it. For one thing, they come in huge boxes of 12 (1kg) or 18 (1.5kg) that look beautiful. Tied with a ribbon and wrapped in tissue paper, they just feel like a quality, handmade gift.

But the wow factor doesn’t really hit you until you lift the lid and peel back the paper inside. Rather than individually packaged brownies, you’re presented with a large slab of brownie which has been cut into slices before being shoehorned into the box. It’s quite an impressive sight.

The surface of the brownie is loaded with pecans and smothered in caramel. It’s crunchy and gooey and delightfully difficult to pick up a single slice without making a complete mess.

After I’d finally managed to free a single slice, I managed to get some onto a plate for closer examination. The bulk of the top layer is made up of nuts, chocolate and caramel, with more of the actual brownie towards the bottom.

When I bit into it, one word came to mind: Snickers.

It has that same nutty, caramel flavour and chewy texture, but of course is much richer, fresher and tastier. To be honest, the actual brownie is really just a carrying mechanism for all these other delicious ingredients. It’s there, but it’s not the star of the show.

After a single slice I had to have a sit down and a bit of a rest. While these aren’t as purely rich as a brownie like Paul A Young makes, they’re still very dense and sweet. They’re quite a different take on the concept of what a brownie should be, but I still love them.

I love the fact that they’re so beautifully presented and come in a box so big that you just have to share it. They’re a bit different from other brownies I’ve tried lately and while they might appeal less to brownie purists (if there is such a thing!), they’re a delicious and indulgent snack.

And now I just have the other 11 slices to get through…

Club Chocolat Français is, as you might have guessed, a French chocolate club. It operates along the same lines as Hotel Chocolat’s Chocolate Tasting Club. They’ve recently launched in the UK and they sent us a box to try.

The club offers 3 month, 6 month and annual subscriptions at £19.95 per month. At least I assume that’s the “per month” price, as the website lists all subscription options for the same price, rather than giving the total cost of the subscription. For your money, you get a 320g box of assorted chocolates delivered every month.

The first thing I noticed about my box was that it didn’t look very French. I usually associate French chocolates with style and sophistication, but these are presented in a very ordinary looking purple and blue box. Inside, the purple plastic insert that holds the chocolates is made from a very cheap, thin plastic.

Of course, packaging isn’t everything, but first impressions do count and frankly these look cheap. There’s also some scuffing and a hint of blooming on some of the chocolates, which doesn’t help with the appearance.

The label on the bottom of the box tells me that the dark chocolates are 70% cocoa solids and the milk chocolates are 36%, which is pretty good. There’s a few solid chocolate pieces to try, so I started off trying to get a feel for the chocolate. The milk chocolate is passable, but the 70% dark has no real flavour at all. It’s bitter and dry and has very little going for it.

Many of the chocolates have praline fillings, which do at least add some texture and flavour to the chocolate, but they’re not really my thing.

I picked up a white chocolate heart, and noticed it had leaked red goo into the plastic tray below, but I took a bite anyway. Inside the thin white chocolate shell was a rather cheap strawberry that immediately flowed out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a chocolate simply filled with jam before. And now I know why.

I had higher hopes for the dark chocolate framboise, but again, this turned out simply to be filled with jam. It was a little better though, not being quite as sweet and working better with the dark chocolate.

The square chocolate pralines decorated with sugar coated candies in the centre of the box did turn out to be quite pleasant, but they were the highlight of a selection that is at best uninteresting.

Unfortunately then, I can’t recommend these. If you have £20 a month to spend on chocolates, there are much, much better options available, and unless Club Chocolat Français seriously up their game, I can’t see it catching on over here.

Shockingly, I’m back on the Lindt. This bar was one of a small selection given to us at the end of Lindt’s recent event at The Pearl restuarant, and the main reason I’m reviewing it is because it says “New” on it, and I want to see how it compares to that other new bar, the Lindt Wasabi which Simon reviewed last week.

As you can see, the format of the bar is exactly the same as the rest of the Excellence range. It’s a simple, thin, 100g bar divided into ten squares.

A quick glance at the back reveals that this bar uses the same, rather disappointing 47% cocoa solids chocolate as the Wasabi bar, so I was expecting it to be sweet – especially when combined with caramel.

The caramel comes in the form of hard, crunchy pieces scattered throughout the chocolate. Also scattered through the bar is a small amount of sea salt, but for me it’s not really enough to lift the flavour.

As you’d expect, the chocolate is very sweet, but the surprise is the caramel, which has a very burnt flavour, reminiscent of a crème brûlée. It’s a very distinctive flavour and probably won’t be to everyone’s taste, but for this particular bar, I think it’s a fairly good counterpart to the sweetness of the chocolate.

I wasn’t entirely sure the sea salt added much to the flavour. A small piece often contains no salt at all, but a second piece might contain a couple of large crystals of salt. I would rather have had smaller, more regular crystals, as I think they would have had a bigger impact on the overall flavour, without the slightly strange sensation of going from very sweet to very salty.

This is clearly confectionery rather than fine chocolate, and that’s something that’s reflected in the very reasonable £1.25 price tag. I managed to make my way through the bar (something I can rarely do with sweet confectionery chocolate these days), but I would still rather see the cocoa content bumped up to at least 60%. As it is, it’s too sweet for my tastes, but it’s an interesting take on the caramel & chocolate combination that’s worth trying if you have a sweeter tooth.

Kopali Organics fits well in stores like Whole Foods based on all the eco-empowerment type phrases on the package. They have both Fair Trade and USDA Organic certification and heavily emphasize working with farmers and the environment, ultimately to produce a nutritious and conscious produce. The name Kopali comes from the Nahuatl word for incense, usually associated specifically with tree resins; the tree, of course, takes on all of its symbolic meaning. All good and admirable so far.

You’ll notice that these individual pieces don’t have a shiny finish. For the banana element, both dried banana and rice flour are added in. So a medium thickness of chocolate surrounds small pieces of chewy banana. No crunch, but it isn’t gummy, either. As far as the chocolate I praised, its sweetener is evaporated cane juice and its flavor earthy. It isn’t too dark, does have a light sweet effect, and has enough flavor complexity to keep me interested. Of course, the banana infuses itself into even the solid chocolate, causing part of that complexity.

Kopali Organics has scored on many important levels with this product. They have given me the elusive banana pairing in a way that is neither false nor sticky-sweet nor overly pretentious. It’s a product that tastes good apart from its healthy, eco-friendly tenets. And I think the world is growing more and more appreciative of such tenets. Kopali also makes chocolate covered espresso beans, goji berries, mulberries and cacao nibs if you need more variety. The banana’s worthiness, at least, as a chocolate snack I can vouch for.

The video above is an example of what has happened to every call I’ve received so far on my iPhone 4. From three bars to “call failed” in 20 seconds flat.

Actually, that’s not entire true. I managed to receive one brief call by holding the phone by the tips of my fingers, but nearly dropped the phone in the process. But I can consistently replicate the effect shown in the video above simply by lying the phone on the table and touching the outer rim with my fingertip.

Yet Apple refuses to admit this is a hardware issue. Instead, they’re planning on releasing a ‘software fix’, which will do nothing more than lower the number of bars shown on screen in the first place.

Will it stop the phone from dropping calls? I’m not convinced.

I’ve already tried to get a refund on my iPhone, but Carphone Warehouse have outright refused. They are willing to admit the hardware may be faulty, but simply will not give a refund, as the phone is tied to a non-refundable two year Vodafone contract. So it looks like I’ll be stuck with a phone that doesn’t work as a phone for the next two years.

I could of course spend £25 on a “bumper” case. But that’s not the point. You wouldn’t buy a luxury car, then expect to have to pay extra for a special ‘steering wheel adaptor’ if you don’t want it to automatically drive into walls. The point is that this is a phone that simply does not function as a phone.

Interestingly, in the same press release where Apple offers a software fix ‘within a few weeks’, they also offer to refund the full price for anyone who wants to return their phone. That’s a luxury I’ve been denied.

I may not be able to do anything much to improve things for me, but I can at least offer some useful buying advice:

1. Do not buy an iPhone 4, unless and until Apple releases a fix that’s proven to work and/or recalls the phone.
The problem appears to be a design flaw in the phone and affects pretty much everyone to some extent. People in areas that have particularly good coverage may not notice it, but the problem is still there.

2. Never, ever, ever buy anything from Carphone Warehouse.
Once they have your money, they’re simply not interested in helping you in any way. I learned the hard way.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’m not some mindless Apple hater. This is my second iPhone, I have three Macs and several iPods. I don’t hate Apple – I just want a phone that works.

I know these little printers have been around a couple of years now, but I just received one for my birthday and thought I’d write a few words about it,

If you’ve never seen one, the Pogo printer is a pocket sized Bluetooth photo printer with a rechargable battery. It takes special packs of 10 2″x3″ paper which contain heat activated inks in the paper itself. This means that it doesn’t require any ink cartridges and lets you print out photos instantly from your mobile phone or camera (there’s also a PictBridge USB interface).

Most people will use the Bluetooth functionality though, which just requires a mobile phone that can send files over a Bluetooth connection. Unfortunately, that’s the one thing that the iPhone doesn’t allow, so if you’re a stock iPhone user, this printer just isn’t going to work for you.

If however, like me, you jailbreak your iPhone, then you’re in luck. A little app in Cydia called “Bluenova” will allow you to send files to your printer, and after a bit of poking to get set up worked perfectly for me. It’s not a free app, but there’s a demo period so you can check it out and see if it works for you.

I was also able to get my iMac and Ubuntu laptop to print to this thing, and in the end, that turned out to be what I used the most.

(Click to view full sized images)

Unedited iPhone 3G Photo

Scanned Print

The main reason for this is that the quality of the prints is quite poor. As you can see from the example scans on this page, photos lack contrast, colours are off and pictures sometimes contain thin lines where the paper has passed through the print head. Couple that with my poor iPhone camera, and it’s often just not worth taking the printer with me.

The printer also automatically scales and crops photos to fill the 2×3 paper, so for best results you will probably want to crop your photos manually to that aspect ratio before printing. I found an iPhone app called Photogene that works perfectly for this purpose, and is also great for doing simple colour correction and effects.

Compact Camera Photo

Scanned Print

But this printer does have a secret weapon. Every print it makes is a sticker!

That feature alone transforms it from a poor quality photo printer into an awesome toy. Kids (and teens with phones) in particular will love being able to make stickers of all their latest snaps, and even for us semi-grownups, sticker printing is where the Pogo excels. Because the printer works better with solid, garish colours than with photos, it’s perfect for spending two minutes knocking up fun designs in Photoshop before spitting them out as stickers and plastering them to everything. The back of my laptop is proof of this:

So if you want the perfect gift for a kid with a mobile phone, or just love printing out stickers, the Pogo is ideal. Don’t go expecting wonderful photos that you’ll want to keep forever. Treat it as a toy and you’ll love it.

The Pogo is availabe on Amazon.com (US) for $39 and Amazon.co.uk (UK) for £20.40, which I think is great value.

Having completely failed to find a Google Chrome theme that looked how I wanted with the new Ubuntu 10.04 look, I decided to create my own. All I wanted was something simple and minimal that looked good with the default dark title bar when maximised, as that’s the way I normally browse on my netbook.

As it turns out, this is very easy to do and only took a few minutes. This is what it looks like:

If you want to use the theme yourself, click here to install it.

If you want to tweak the theme, you can download the unpacked files here. To edit the colours, simply tweak the manifest.json file and the images in the ‘i’ folder. The “ntp_” entries refer to the browser home screen – everything else should be fairly self explanatory if you’ve ever edited a basic CSS file.

You can install your theme by going entering chrome:extensions in the address bar, enabling developer mode and selecting “load unpacked extension”.

Feel free to play, edit, redistribute, sell this, if you so desire.

I’ve been meeting a lot of bloggers at various events lately, and one thing I’ve noticed is that their seems to be more and more ‘affiliate marketing bloggers’ around. You know the kind of person – they usually blog about products in a specific niche and their posts come packed with (often disguised) affiliate links. The blogger makes money when you, the reader, clicks through and buys the product they’re writing about.

The problem with this should be obvious. It’s in the blogger’s interest to talk up the product and make a sale, even if they’re not that into it. Even the most honest writer is going to find it difficult to resist saying something nice about a product when there’s money to be made. No sale, no payment.

And make no mistake, there’s big money to be made in affiliate blogging. There are many people making thousands of dollars a month from very little work. Sounds great, huh?

Well no. In the vast majority of cases, affiliate links on blogs aren’t marked as such. After all, why would you tell your readers that the whole point of your blog post was to try to sell them something? So most of the time, readers don’t even realise they’re just reading one giant ad. It’s a questionable practice at best. In some cases, it may even be illegal with new FTC rules in the US requiring all ads to be clearly marked as such.

Merchants, of course, love affiliate marketing. It’s an absolutely risk free way to sell more product. You let someone else do the selling for you, and you only have to pay them if they make a sale. But for us, the publishers, it can be an altogether more frustrating experience. Inexperienced bloggers often find themselves making no money at all, unless they’re prepared to really get their hands dirty. Experienced marketers can make big money, but it’s a shady, underground practice. There are plenty of ‘secret’ ‘underground’ exclusive clubs where you can find the best way to promote products, but the more you get into it, the shadier and more blackhat it becomes.

One particularly annoying offender is Darren Rowse of Problogger fame. Darren gives advice on how to make money blogging. He will regularly mix useful, interesting content with posts that ‘review’ a particular product. Embedded in these posts are links to buy the product. Affiliate links, of course. Rather than being actual reviews, the posts are simply unmarked ads, and the average reader has no idea. Here’s one example of that, and here’s another. My issue with this is that Darren does not disclose these affiliate links, and the one thing he never talks about on his own blog is that he makes a significant percentage of his revenue from tricking his readers like this.

And people wonder why bloggers are rarely taken seriously as journalists.

Most bloggers never take things that far though. Even I use affiliate links on Chocablog to some extent. But I don’t like doing it. Even when a staff writer has written a post and has no idea what ads will appear around it, there’s still that nagging feeling that it looks as though we’re trying to sell them something. We’re not – we just want to provide a link to the source, and if we happen to be able to make some money from that, then all the better.

But can you imagine a mainstream media source using affiliate advertising to generate revenue? A newspaper? Magazine? Maybe a film review TV show, perhaps, that only made money from people who actually went to see the film after seeing it? They would quickly learn never either to lie or simply never review anything bad. Even if the reviews are accurate and honest, the audience loses out, because they’re not getting the complete picture. But in the long run, the producers lose too. Advertisers have a greater influence on the range of content that can be produced profitably, and often the best, less-profitable content, gets left behind.

The same is true with blogs. Most of us want to make a bit of money from blogging, but if you’re using affiliate ads on your site and not telling your readers, you’re misleading them. You might not care. It’s your blog, not theirs. But if you do happen to care about your audience, you’ll think twice before doing it.

Picture Credit

Today I was banned and removed from Fotothing – the photo sharing site I founded nearly 5 years ago and late sold to ADVFN.

The reason for my ban?

After someone posted saying they wished someone who cared about the site would buy it from ADVFN, I replied with:

I just found 57p down the back of the sofa. I’m in!

And that it seems is all it takes to get you banned from the site. At some point in the last few years it has changed from a fun photo sharing site into a strange communist state where any form of criticism is unacceptable and punishable by “permanent deletion”.

This makes me very sad. And what makes me even more sad is that ADVFN are now systematically deleting any and all criticism from the forums.

Last time I ruffled ADVFN’s feathers, they threatened to sue me. But being removed from the site I founded – by people who neither understand the community or care about it – feels worse than that.

Fotothing took up a fairly big chunk of my life for a long time and I made a lot of good friends there. I find it utterly baffling how a company could deliberately run the site into the ground, squander opportunities and censor the community that made the site such an exciting and vibrant place.

Oh well. Luckily I have another photo site to work on. Anyone who wants to is welcome to join me there, but if you’re a Fotothing user, then personally I think you should stay and fight. Make yourself heard in the forums and with your own photos. It’s your site, not ADVFN’s.

The main area of discussion in this show revolves around what constitutes a ‘photograph’. Stephen believes that as soon as you alter a photo in any way it ceases to be a photograph, but becomes a form of digital artwork. An equally valid, but completely different art form.

The whole show is included below, or you can download it in different formats from the Revision3 web site.

The picture is all the more impressive seeing as Lowryn’s main camera broke and she apparently spent most of the week drowning her sorrows with donuts.

Recently, the creator of the Beanpod, Mark Woods, got in touch with me apologising for my experience and let me know that he had since changed manufacturer.  Would I like a newer model free of charge in exchange for a re-review?  I gladly agreed.

So, time to take the latest Beanpod for a test drive…

Comparison

As you can see from the photograph (the Beanpod from the original review is on the left, the replacement is on the right), the new one has a much more professional finish. 

It’s puffier and a smoother shape despite lots of squashing around on its test drive, and has the advertised dimensions of 8in x 5in x 2in, weighing 50g. 

What you can’t see from the photograph is the stitching is much neater and more robust – I don’t feel like it’s going to split apart with a little light use.  It also has a much springier filling, keeping its shape better and giving more support to your camera and/or lens.

So a side-by-side comparison is encouraging.  What’s it like to use?

Test Drive

One of the main reasons I wanted a tripod alternative is for my fascination for small things on the ground. 

Snails, leaves, slugs, random floor debris are all excellent targets for my macro lens (I don’t have any hope capturing any creepy crawly faster than a snail… they run off before I’ve set up). 

The problem is, a tripod doesn’t go that low, if you lay the camera flat on the floor you never get the right angle and I’m worried about scratching the body or getting it wet on the ground.

With the new-improved Beanpod you still have the problems that the viewfinder is impossible to see through, so it’s not a perfect solution (I must remember to bring a bin liner to lie on while sprawled across the floor in future).

However, with the extra padding and springiness of the replacement, it does protect the camera better and gives more flexibility to fine tune the composition. 

Overall though, I’m still on the lookout for a more practical solution to this situation.

Where the Beanpod REALLY comes into its own though, is when you have no tripod, you have a low light situation and a raised surface available. 

Lying it flat on the raised surface would give you totally the wrong angle. 

Enter the Beanpod – squish it, squash it, turn it on its side to create a great lens support for just the right angle and you are away. 

It’s cheap, it’s cheerful, it fits in a pocket. 

Great for an evening out at a restaurant or anywhere that you don’t want to lug a whole load of gear with you.

(Incidentally, as an aside.  Don’t do what I did and let go of your camera on a wobbly surface supported only by the Beanpod.  At least keep the camera strap on.  It was fairly secure and well supported… but just don’t.  Cameras are expensive, ’nuff said.

Also, another tip for macro or low light photography with a Beanpod, normal beanbag or tripod – use a shutter release or the timer function on your camera to avoid blurring the picture as you press the shutter button.)

Conclusion

Overall, I think the replacement Beanpod has resolved a lot of my previous reservations about the product.  It’s much more professionally made and far more robust.  The different interior makes the Beanpod more pliable and gives more support which makes me far more comfortable using it.

At some point I’d still like a full-sized camera beanbag where you can add or remove beans according to situation but that’s obviously not the market Beanpod is aiming for.  For the cost of a tenner, you can have something that you can slip in a pocket and be pretty darn useful.  I’d chucked the old one in the back of a cupboard.  This replacement is in my camera rucksack ready to go (and it’s great as extra cushioning for the camera in the bag too) – I think I’ll end up using it quite a bit.

The Beanpod can be bought from http://www.beanpods.co.uk/ and costs £9.99 including postage.

This is part of a set of stunning lake shots, so be sure to check out the rest of her archive.

It just goes to show, it’s not the equipment that counts, it’s how you use it!

This is just one of many great shots from Kamilla. Take a browse through her archive for loads more.

I just love the colours and details in this one. I think one of the main reasons it caught my eye is because it reminded me of the jigsaw puzzles I used to do as a child. In fact, I’m tempted to take a sharp knife to my monitor and cut this out right now…

This is DGM’s entry in June’s Fotonomy Challenge. The subject is transportation, so why not get on your bike and see if you can do better?

First, a little background.

Geekbrief has a video podcast hosted by Neal’s wife Luria Petrucci (aka Cali Lewis). It comes out roughly three times a week, and it’s a short, fun look at the latest gadget news. It’s well put together, but retains an amateur feel, which is something that appeals to me. Cali is a pretty good host – she knows her stuff, she’s very attractive, and most importantly of all, she never stops smiling.

Geekbrief has been on my subscription list for nearly two years, and I’ve donated money to the show to help out on more than one occasion.

I love my “Shiny, Happy Tech News”, but earlier this year, Cali announced that they were going to buy an RV and spend a year driving around the US, visiting every state.

This immediately didn’t sit quite right with me. My initial reaction was to wonder how they could afford to do this when they were apparently making the show on a shoestring and quite happy to take a few dollars here and there from fans.

Then I saw this video of them looking at RVs:

For this little jaunt, they’re looking at buying a vehicle that costs at least 6 figures – possibly as much as half a million dollars. I started to question not just where my money had gone, but the environmental impact of driving a “house” that does 5-10 miles per gallon around the US for an entire year.

I posted the simple question on a blog post about the trip:

I’m interested to know what you’re doing to offset the carbon emissions from this “trip”.

I had expected a simple response along the lines of “we’re looking into it” – but all I got was Neal’s jokey response “We’re going to eat more cows!”.

After trying to make my views a little clearer, Neal responded with:

The Big Trip is about celebrating American exceptionalism, not about politics. It’s perfectly okay for you not to celebrate with us. Here’s what I think about environmental fascism: http://www.nealcampbell.com/2008/04/20/not-easy-not-being-green/

I don’t know if I’m getting old, but I find the use of the word ‘fascism’ to be a little tasteless. And while Neal didn’t directly call me a fascist personally, he certainly implied that’s how he felt about my views.

I will admit that the phrase “American exceptionalism” did make me laugh though.

But I do want to get one thing straight. I’m in no way a “rabid environmentalist”. But excessive waste does annoy me. And making even the tiniest concession to the environmental impact of driving such a huge vehicle around the country isn’t so much about global warming as it is about cleaning up yourself. Common courtesy.

But there are many other reasons why this “Big Trip” doesn’t sit right with me:

• The fact that they’re happy to take money off viewers on the basis that they have to scrape together the cash to produce Geekbrief. Yet they don’t seem to bat an eyelid at spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a shiny RV.
• The fact that they’re taking donations from fans for the trip, but haven’t said what will be happening to the RV and equipment after they get home. Presumably they’ll be keeping the RV for their own use whenever they want to go away. Nice.
• The fact that it doesn’t seem to have crossed their mind how “insular” it looks to consider your own country to be the be all and end all of technical innovation.
• The fact that the utter extravagance of it all has apparently not occurred to Neal and Cali.

To me, the “Big Trip” sums up everything that’s wrong with America. It refuses to acknowledge the world outside the USA. It’s a display of rampant consumerism that flies in the face of fans who have donated to get this small, amateur tech show off the ground. The lack of any notion of the environmental impact is just the tip of the iceberg.

It seems the whole trip is aimed at fulfilling Neal & Cali’s personal ambitions to drive around their country in total luxury. I don’t know where my personal donations ended up, but it feels like they’re being used to give the show’s producers the holiday of a lifetime. I find that a bit of a slap in the face when I have to scrape together enough money just to pay the rent every month.

I’m not asking them to cancel their trip. All I’m asking is that they be a little more open to the issues.

Google are clearly scared by the very notion of Microsoft being in control of Yahoo! This sentence in particular made me fall off my chair:

“While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies — and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets.”

This, coming from the company that has a total monopoly on web search at the moment and frequently abuses that position. And let’s not forget that all these “open technologies” that Google so thoughtfully invests in are really just more ways to get access to your personal data, so it can show you more ads. Every last one of them.

Sometimes I think that Google has become so self obsessed that it’s losing track of reality.

Having said that…

I can’t think of two worse companies to be involved in right now than Microsoft and Yahoo. MS have failed to make the web work for them time and again, and Yahoo, while having wonderful intentions, have absolutely no sense of direction and just can’t seem to get their act together.

Yahoo constantly launch new products that never quite work with their existing products, yet manage to replicate 50% of the functionality of other parts of their network. They still make a fair amount of money from advertising, but I’m quite sure that’s simply because nobody can ever find what they’re looking for on Yahoo and end up just clicking an ad to get away from all the madness.

If MS and Y! do get together, you can be fairly certain that the result will be chaos. Whether or not the resulting company will survive long enough to take on Google remains to be seen. But I really don’t think Google have anything to worry about for the next couple of years.

Just a quick note that I’m giving away my very own iPod Nano (8Gb, 3rd Gen) in a competition over on Money Blogger.

If you want to enter, all you need to is blog about Money Blogger. The competition ends a week on Friday and full details are available here. Good luck!

As you can see, it looks fantastic. But unfortunately, Apple have seriously compromised on functionality – and more bafflingly, they’ve done it for no apparent reason. The only benefit of the MacBook Air is that it’s a bit thinner than a standard MacBook.

I have a simple question: Why?

For those of us looking for an ultraportable, ‘thinness’ is not one of the requirements that comes high on the list. The other dimensions are far more important! I want to be able to slip a laptop easily into pretty much any bag and go. I don’t care how pretty it looks or that people will say “Ooooh” and “Aaaaah” when I take it out. I just want to get stuff done on the go.

Here’s some more of the MacBook Air’s shortcomings:

• The battery is not user replaceable. But that’s Ok, right? I mean, I’m never likely to want a bit more battery life when I’m on the go, am I? And it’s not as though laptop batteries are have a tendency to explode and need to be recalled? That could never happen….

  This laptop is apparently designed to be ultra portable – i.e. it’s easy to take with you anywhere… like far away from a power socket, for instance. In Apple’s entire range of laptops, this is the one that most needs a replaceable battery. Yet that’s simply not an option, and if something goes wrong, you’ll just have to send it back to Apple.

• That 1.8″ hard drive. Not only is it impossibly slow, but it’s straight out of the iPod, and is known for being fairly unreliable. I can guarantee you that it will die at some point during the lifetime of the computer. And as for the 64Gb solid state drive… $1299 extra? Seriously, Apple…
• Mono speaker (under the keyboard). Yup… all that beautiful design, and it still sounds like crap. Yes, I know you can get stereo through the headphone socket, but it seems to have escaped Apple’s notice that it’s the 21st century, and we’ve had stereo sound for quite a while now.
• 1 USB socket, no firewire. This is going to be the killer for many people. Apple have taken away all that clutter with one hand, yet made it necessary to buy a raft of external accessories with the other.
• The price. $1,799 (£1,199!) is too much. Way too much. Apple have made this laptop smaller by stripping out a huge amount of useful stuff (like the optical drive!). This should be cheaper than a basic MacBook, not the same price as a MacBook Pro!

Unfortunately, the MacBook Air is a case of Apple taking it’s current “form over function” philosophy way too far. It’s over priced, under spec’d and will almost certainly snap in half if you sit on it.

A genuinely small sub-notebook seems to be beyond Apple’s capability right now – despite the fact that they’re already more than half way there with the iPhone. Sigh.

Of course it’s completely true with any technology and particularly true of Apple products. The moment you buy it, it’s out of date. Having said that, MacWorld is coming very soon… and I really could do with a new laptop…

Dance more.

Losing weight is a question of changing your lifestyle and there’s no question that I’ve become much more sedentary as time goes on.

I like to boogie when no one can see me although it’s not something I have ever thought of as “exercise”. But why not? I mean, a good track (especially something from my teen years) can have me bouncing all over the room and panting for breath at the end of it.

So I’m making myself a play-list of songs, called BOUNCE, which I’m filling up with tunes that make me want to dance. I was planning to borrow my son’s ipod to play the songs while I’m doing the housekeeping or cooking, although he’s just informed me that dancing to the B52s “Loveshack” while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil is not motherly behaviour, so maybe that’s out. I can always use the laptop, anyway.

Help me out! Recommend songs that are guaranteed to get these toes tapping and I, uh… well, I promise to update Endiet with my dancing escapades. What a deal

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you… The Chocolate Anus.

This (apparently real) product could be yours in time for Christmas. But I don’t think we’ll be putting this on our Christmas list.

Luckily, the web site doesn’t say if it has a soft centre. Or if it contains nuts. Because I don’t want to know.

We all tend to have turkey meat left over after Christmas/Thanksgiving, but there’s so much more you can do with it than making sandwiches.

Here’s a few ideas:

• Turkey & Lentil Soup
• Turkey Tikka Kebabs
• Oriental Turkey Stir Fry
• Turkey & Parsnip Curry
• Turkey & Spinach Lasagne
• Thai Turkey Salad
• Turkey Meatballs and Spaghetti
• Warm Turkey & Pasta Salad
• Low Fat Turkey Soup
• Perkey Turkey Soup

That should be enough to get you started!

Pumpkin is a great source of vitamins and minerals, and as Alanna at A Veggie Venture points out, cooking it couldn’t be simpler. Throw it in the oven.

But if you’re looking for a few more ideas, try these for size:

• Spicy sweet pumpkin seeds
• Low carb pumpkin pie
• Low carb pumpkin cheesecake
• Pumpkin ravioli
• Pumpkin risotto with crispy sage
• Swiss chard tart with roasted pumpkin and basil
• Caramelised pumpkin and orange pie
• Pumpkin soup
• Pumpkin curry
• Pumpkin pancakes

My favourite food in the whole world is in season right now: mushrooms! I had chanterelles at almost every meal during a recent trip to Germany, if you can find these small wild mushrooms, I highly recommend them. iVillage has posted ‘Shroom 101: The shopper’s guide to mushrooms with three pages of helpful tips and tricks, followed by a set of mushroom recipes. Go get inspired.

And then there is another favourite of mine: artichokes. Steam them gently and then just serve, letting everyone dip the leaves in home-made mayonaisse or just plain melted butter for a good and fun starter.

Fennel is an oft overlooked autumn vegetable: slice it thin and serve it in salads, cut it into chunks and add it to your soups, braise it whole or even roast it alongsie the root vegetables: it’s very versatile and gives a lovely accent to any meal. Squashes are starting to appear which you can roast or mash or even grill. Leeks and onions are in season now too and late season sweet corn is, in my opinion, at its sweetest and juiciest right now. Don’t get the shrink-wrapped stuff, find it fresh, still in the husk. I love to eat this off the barbecue: pull of the husk and remove all the strings, then wrap the cobs back up in the husks and put them on the coals (or under the grill) for 10 minutes. Yum!

My least favourite food is in season this month too, just to balance things out: parsnips. These are commonly roasted and sometimes cut into squares to allow the unsuspecting guest to believe they are roast potato. Cruel practice, and I recommend none of you do such a thing. I’ll concede they aren’t bad in a stew, but that’s all.

This is also a great time to go out and pick your own: blackberries, damnsons, elderberries and greengages are all ready for picking and often you can find them there for the taking in the English countryside.

This is also the time to stock up on apples. Leave them lying around as a tasty and healthy snack. As the weather starts to get a bit chillier you might find yourself inspired to make hot apple pie – especially if you take a look at this American site about making the perfect apple pie.

My boyfriend and his mother suddenly came down with summer colds, coughing and spluttering all around the house. I went off in search of something simple yet filling to offer them for dinner, using various search terms, including “healing”. It was a good search, I ended up on a site I probably would not have paid attention to normally: Karina’s Kitchen – “recipes from a gluten-free goddess.”

No one in our household needs a gluten-free diet but the dish, A Healing Curry, sounded just right: vegetables and garbanzos (chick peas) and lots of broth, just the thing for my unhappy patients. I don’t have a crock pot but cooked it at a very low simmer on the stove, which worked just fine. The only other change I made is to use home-made chicken broth instead of vegan broth, hoping for some more goodness to combat the evil viruses around the house.

The curry was a hit, even my carnivore boyfriend asked for more. And from my point of view, it was great to be able to prep everything in the morning and then just throw in in the pot. I cooked it for just over 3 hours, stirring it now and again during the evening. The next day I reheated it again and it was just as good, so the next time I’ll make a double batch so I have a pot full to freeze.

This was a timely reminder that “restricted diet” doesn’t have to be a dirty word and specialist sites can have some wonderful recipes too. I’ll be spending more time on Karina’s site!

Probably the most useful one is not to obsess over the numbers. Concentrating on making small changes to your lifestyle that change the way you feel is far more effective than worrying about what the bathroom scales are telling you.

Hands up: how many of you have never had fresh peas. Although frozen peas are very convenient, you really should try them straight from the garden! This is the time to buy fresh peas and cook them only briefly – fry them up quickly with a bit of bacon or boil them for just one minute — you will know they are ready when they turn a brighter green.

Meanwhile, get your fill of peppers: chopped in salads, roasted for a sweet side dish or stuffed to make a full meal! Tomatos and aubergines/eggplants should still be readily available — if you are dreaming of holidays in the sun, maybe you should try some Greek recipes.

You might also consider heading out to a Pick-Your-Own farm for the summer berries — seasonal and a fun day out for all ages!

Once a month not often enough? Get a tip for a seasonal food every week from www.eattheseasons.co.uk

Fennel comes into season and I recommend trying this as a for a wonderful salad on its own: sliced very thinly and served with parmesan shavings and just a touch of olive oil. Or if you find the anise flavour too strong, mix thin slices in with your green salads to add extra bite and a touch of coolness. Then head over to GoodFood for six pages of recipes, both with fennel as the star and in a subsidiary role.

Tomatos are deep red and juicy now. We could eat them all week: served in salad, sliced with garlic and oil, pureed into gaspacho, chopped up into a light sauce for pasta. We love them although sadly it’s quite clear that not everyone agrees.

You can still go mediterranean this month though — with a focus on the beautiful purple vegetable. Whether you know it as aubergine or eggplant, you will find it a tasty and versatile addition to your meals. Simply brush slices with oil and grill for a quick and healthy side dish or try one of the 3000+ recipes over at Ashbury’s Aubergines.

For afters, you are spoilt for choice with berries: strawberries and raspberries are naturally sweet this time of year: eat them on their own or with just a touch of double-cream. Red currants are lovely added to fruit salads or made into a sauce. Cherries are juicy and lush and will bring smiles just by putting out a bowl full of them for people to grab.

Get the family involved. The Woodcraft Folk have written up an activity called Eating seasons with worksheets for the UK to test your knowlege of local foods and seasons.

But advertising watchdogs were having none of it. They have banned the egg industry from showing the ads on TV because they “fail to promote a varied diet”.

The ads feature legendary comedian Tony Hancock and the slogan “Go to work on an egg” – promoting eggs for breakfast.

Now, we’re all for promoting a varied diet, but banning these fun, nostalgic ads is probably going a bit far. After all, nobody’s suggesting you only eat eggs. And nobody’s banning ads for sugary breakfast cereals.

Until the advertising watchdogs change their minds, you can watch them all here. There’s even a petition you can sign if you want to have your say.

We are told that we should eat ’5 portions’ to prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease. If there really is a dose-response whereby 4 portions, say, aren’t good enough, then surely the size of the portion and the number of portions would be important. It is odd, therefore, that both the numbers of portions and their quantity vary widely across the Atlantic. Other scientists must have thought so as well, because over the last few years several studies into the 5-a-day claim have been conducted to test the advice – with disappointing results.

The prestigious CARDIO2000 study published its results in 2003.^[i] This study was looking at intakes of fruit and vegetables specifically in relation to acute heart disease. They found that vegetables did reduce the risk of heart disease. But, significantly, it didn’t need ’5 portions a day’ for the maximum effect. In their conclusions the researchers say:

‘Our findings support that even low consumption of fruits and vegetables (1-2 servings per week) is associated with about 45% lower coronary risk. Consumption of 2 or more servings per week is associated with about 70% reduction in relative risk.’

The Daily Mail reported the study’s results.^[ii] The Mail interviewed Professor Sir Charles George, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, about the obvious conflict with the 5-a-day guidelines. Sir Charles answered ‘There is some argument about how much you need; I think five may be an arbitrary figure’ – and, by so doing, admitted that this was yet another example of dietary advice which was based on nothing more than guesswork or wishful thinking. So we don’t need to eat anything like 5 a day to derive benefits in terms of heart disease.

But is there a benefit in terms of cancer the other major disease it is aimed at? This was considered in another study of over 100,000 people published in 2004. This study, conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, showed that, ‘Increased fruit and vegetable consumption was associated with a modest although not statistically significant reduction in the development of major chronic disease’. They continued: ‘The benefits appeared to be primarily for cardiovascular disease and not for cancer.’ ^[iii] And concluded: ‘Consumption of five or more servings of fruits and vegetables has been recommended . . . but the protective effect of fruit and vegetable intake may have been overstated.’

Not surprisingly, supporters of the ’5-a-day’ campaign were outraged by the findings, repeating their mantra that eating the recommended number of fruit and vegetables has numerous health benefits – without specifying what those benefits might be.

So you won’t be surprised to learn that a very large study found no benefit in breast cancer from eating ’5 portions’. In this study, 20 named researchers investigated 7,377 incident invasive breast cancer cases and a wide variety of fruit and vegetable intakes among 351,825 women at 17 cancer research centres in the USA, Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden. They found no association for green leafy vegetables, 8 botanical groups, and 17 specific fruits and vegetables. They concluded:

“These results suggest that fruit and vegetable consumption during adulthood is not significantly associated with reduced breast cancer risk”.^[iv]

Whenever studies such as these are reported, the diet police repeat their dogma that eating the recommended number of fruit and vegetables has numerous health benefits; they say that the evidence is ‘overwhelming’. But they never seem able to quote any of that evidence or to specify exactly what the benefits are. In view of the above studies, that will probably come as no real surprise. The point is that, just like almost all the health advice we have had forced down our throats and come to believe over the last few decades, there is practically no basis for ’5 portions’ advice in science.

Dr Barnett Kramer, of the National Institutes of Health in the US, said of the healthy eat­ing message: ‘A lot of the public is completely unaware that the strength of the message is not matched by the strength of the evidence.’ That we are still kept unaware of it demonstrates just how strong an influence the diet dictocrats have on our minds and the news media.

References
[i]. Panagiotakos DB, Pitsavos C, Kokkinos P, et al. Consumption of fruits and vegetables in relation to the risk of developing acute coronary syndromes; the CARDIO2000 case-control study. Nutr J 2003; 2: 2.
[ii]. ‘Three fruit and veg are still healthy.’ Daily Mail, 2 September 2003, p 8.
[iii]. Hung H-C, Joshipura KJ, Jiang R, et al. Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Risk of Major Chronic Disease. J Nat Canc Inst 2004; 96: 1577-1584
[iv]. Smith-Warner SA, et al. Intake of Fruits and Vegetables and Risk of Breast Cancer: A Pooled Analysis of Cohort Studies. JAMA 2001; 285: 769-776.