Tuesday, 12 August 2014

Early morning coffee rituals can make your day

Pic: josh renouf design
Josh Renouf is a young designer who understands the value of ritual in daily life. He also has a feeling for the importance of punctuating one's routine with these rituals thereby sending clear signals to the brain and preparing it for the next period of one's day. So when you prepare your Bariseuer just before you ease between the sheets at night and settle down with a good book your brain knows it's time to relax, and when gently awoken next morning by the gentle sound of ball bearings moving and the smell of delicious freshly brewed coffee it also knows that there's no need to get hectic. The coffee is ready and waiting and you can ease into the day.
You may be familiar with the cartoon contraptions full of springs, weights, tracks and such which eventually after much whirring, popping and dropping of weights pop up a burnt slice of toast and half fill / half spill a dark liquid posing as coffee. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang springs to mind. Well Josh Renouf's Barisieur is nothing like that. It's lab like elements atop the dark wood-housed alarm clock make for a warm functional presence on your bedside locker. It exudes class, wakes you up gently on time and makes a perfectly good coffee. It does away with the harried, impatient, irritable drive to your closest Applegreen for that first coffee shot of the day. Now you can make that drive fully relaxed, primed, enjoying the ride and look forward to the second great ritual of the day.

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Friday, 8 August 2014

Green green grass - does what it says on the tin


Picture : Gardek

Just when I thought I'd seen it all this not exactly new but rapidly spreading practice caught my attention. You are no doubt familiar with the term 'painting the town red' well how about painting the lawn green? In California and other areas in the USA where lawn watering is strictly controlled they've started to literally paint the lawn green. Now when you're relaxing in your garden you can not only watch the grass grow but also watch the paint dry, all at the same time. Seemingly, as it's an eco friendly spray it doesn't pose any danger to people or pets. I notice however that this doesn't include wildlife in general. The result lasts for up to 6 months, and when it rains it washes away and the grass starts to grow again. That's the story. I'm guessing we are not far away from houses with matching coloured lawns. 

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Monday, 4 August 2014

Cool retro means two wheels good - looking

otocycles.com
If you're a fan of the bicycle then you have some exciting times ahead. Not only is the 'two wheels good' movement gaining in popularity on the health front, it's also inspiring some very cool design work as engineers begin to fill the void between the scooter and the bicycle with both eyes fixed firmly on the inevitable future greening of personal transport.

Auto manufacturers have long begun to develop electric vehicles with more urgency and the recharging problem is disappearing as better innovative viable solutions are floated.

Two really stunning arrivals will thrill the retro fans among you with the Barcelona based Otocycles and the American company Icon. We choose the Spanish bike to show you because it really is a stunner and the customisation possibilities are truly impressive. Ticking all the hip trend boxes, 50's nostalgia, understatement, being handmade means no two are identical and a range of top quality parts and accessories are available to allow for even more personalisation. We love them.


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Saturday, 26 July 2014

Why should carrots conform to shallow beauty standards


If the carrots you're eating these days, all look toned to perfection right down their tapered bodies to their snappy thin points, then you've probably helped to create a lot of waste.

These days with looks weighing in heavily as the largest part of a product's (or indeed a person's) selling power there is no end to our discriminatory decision making based on whether something conforms to totally cosmetic standards or not.

Ever hear the old saying - Beauty doesn't flavour the stew?
Ok, I admit I just made that up but you get the point. French supermarket chain Intermarche have decided "enough is enough"

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Monday, 21 July 2014

How one tree could be your orchard

Yes indeed, how one tree can give you an orchard. Read about the tree of forty fruits. The artist describes it as tree sculpting, we say it's practical and convenient. What do you think?

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Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Applegreen customers and staff play second quarter blinder.


It's that time of year again when the Applegreen Charitable Fund hand over the fund's quarterly contribution plus the fruits of a myriad of sponsored site events, collections boxes and individual staff efforts  to their chosen Charity Partners, Crumlin's Children Hospital and Anam Cara. And what a quarter it's been. Very well done to all.

Crumlin has received €19,763.55, with an additional €8,183.72 from Site Events and Collection Boxes, in total €27,947.27. Anam Cara has recieved €19,763.55 , with an additional €8,015.87 from Site Events and Collection Boxes, in total €27,779.42. 

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Sunday, 13 July 2014

These German ladies don't believe in covering things up.

   These two ladies are responsible for opening Original Unverpackt the first no packaging supermarket in Berlin. Imagine it - you come home from shopping and you have no packaging waste. You've bought only the quantity you really needed and there's no more need to buy a pig in a poke. What you see is what you get. So far the story is that business is excellent with the store clocking up twice the expected footfall but also noting that customers are spending half as much as they had projected. I can see the shopping list now - 8 potatoes, 3 onions, 4 portions of beans (from the bean dispenser), drop of milk for the breakfast, 6 ladles of crisps and 12 wine gums.

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