Mr Kipling French Fancies

Exceedingly good…

3 flavours of fancy, 8 fancies in a box. Maths tells me that 3 into 8 doesn’t go… well it does, but only if two fancies are some kind of weird mish mash flavour.

Anyway. The best one is the Lemon one.

If you disagree you are wrong. Here is the incontrovertible truth…

5 fancies remain.

I ate one of each. The Lemon one was nicest.

CASE CLOSED.

Although the Orange Hallowe’en ones aren’t bad either.

Cadbury Dairy Miarrrghhlllarrrggghhhhh

That is basically the noise I make each time I try and say the words Dairy Milk out loud… especially when there is one in my hand. Even more so when it’s unwrapped and melting into my sweaty palm as I try to imagine what it must have been like the first time I held one of these wonderous solid brown bars of amazing in my hand. On a pound for pound basis, if Cadbury’s chocolate isn’t more expensive than gold then to be honest, I don’t know why any of us bother.

Cadbury’s chocolate and Dairy Milk in particular doesn’t change much. It is a sacrosanct part of British life and that purple wrapper draws me in every time I see it. Despite the fact Cadbury has been taken over by Kraft, the giant American confectionery and general crap food manufacturer, our cherished bar has until now remained untouched. (Thank god; have you tried that Hershey’s crap they try and pass off as chocolate?)

BUT SOMETHING HAS CHANGED!

The wrapper still looks the same… There’s still a glass and a half of milk pouring in (even though the European Union disagrees with it). But a cursory glance at the front of the bar will provide you with 2 clues. The first is a big pink banner in the corner advertising a new shape. The second is the picture of the beloved chocolate…

THEY HAVE ROUNDED OFF THE CORNERS!

Yup. Remember when Galaxy tried to pretend that when the chocolate is a bit rounder it tastes better, well Cadbury are in on the act. They have butchered my lovely bar of chocolate and they are pretending it is prettier.

TAKE A LOOK…

What in blue moses is going on here?

Yes, see, look…DIFFERENT!

Ok, so it’s not that bad.

…

So why am I shouting so much?

THEY HAVE F**KING STOLEN SOME OF MY VALUABLE CHOCOLATE!

Cadbury, in these days of austerity, have decided that they are going to reduce the size of my chocolate bar from 49g to 45g. Then, instead of admitting it and saying they are very sorry but stuffs are more expensive now, they have decided to try and dress it up as a good thing by making the chocolate more round. Well we all know when you cut the corners off something there is less of it. Now as we know Cadbury chocolate is clearly more valuable than gold and as of this second Gold is trading at a spot price of $1708.70/oz. And using some mathematical wizardry (thank me later) this means that today, when I bought the chocolate bar above Cadbury stole at least £151.26 from me. And each and every time I buy a Dairy Milk bar from now on they will be stealing a similar amount. I am not happy. And possibly the only way I can get over this is if someone out there decides to send me more Dairy Milk bars (one a week will be about right) to replace the chocolate I will inevitably be losing each and every time I buy chocolate in future.

Summary

Come on Cadbury/Kraft, man up and explain yourselves… or give me back my damn chocolate!

Old Dairy Milk Rating: 5/5

New Dairy Milk Rating: GIVE ME BACK MY CHOCOLATE!

The Copthorne Hotel – Plymouth

The Copthorne Hotel. Don’t be fooled by the palm tree, it’s definitely in Plymouth.

So, I was down in Plymouth this weekend and a lack of available bed space at my other half’s mum’s house (I think that’s the right grammar), meant that we would be staying at a hotel in the centre of Plymouth. Nic comes from Plymouth and it was an opportunity for her to see all of her friends and family for a birthday night out.

I am going to do away with the normal structure I stick to for this sort of thing because I can’t be bothered, this place doesn’t really deserve it. I also began writing a story of my weekend, well forget that too. The key points are as follows: –

• Plymouth is a pain to drive around. The road network makes little sense, the speed limits are 30/40mph regardless of where you are and the level of danger to pedestrians and speed cameras are liberally dotted around the city.
• The Copthorne hotel is not attractive from the outside, although the location is excellent.
• Inside the hotel it is pretty typical of a place decorated in the 90s and it has the usual amenities. Certain rooms have a minibar, but they only contain soft drinks and there’s no price list.
• The room was pretty spacious and the bed was large and quite nice.

That’s pretty much all the relevant facts. At £50 per night it’s not bad value. However, some of my own experiences, which may or may or may not be repeated should you visit were not great.

• Customer service at the hotel is pretty poor. One lady on reception looked after us quite well, but other than that the service and attention to detail is atrocious.
• Cheryl, a receptionist, is possibly in the least suited job imaginable for her skill set. I say this because receptionists almost exclusively deal with the public. Cheryl is not a people person.
• Parking is a movable feast. The likelihood of obtaining one of the hotel’s parking spaces appears to depend on a number of factors none of which relate to whether the hotel is willing to take your money for a parking space.
• Your room may, or may not have the used dishes of the previous occupants left right in front of the door for a period of no less than 24 hours.
• Room Service will typically arrive in the mid afternoon and when finding that your partner has had to get out of the shower to answer the door, will subsequently stand there, having a good look, before eventually being told that ‘no, now isn’t a good time, I am wearing a towel’. They will then offer to come back later and ultimately fail to do-so.

I was eventually lucky enough to get a parking space. Although this was after I had to pay to park at Sainsbury’s (getting up at 9:30am to do so). I then sought a refund for my parking only to find that Cheryl had already added my refund to the computer without having actually given me the cash, so the poor girl the next day had to sort that one out. Finally I learned later on Saturday that 3 car parking spaces had appeared and I eventually managed to park before seeing Spurs’ pretty poor result against Chelsea.

I will give a score, but to be honest if all you care about is a place to put your head overnight, this hotel is fine. If you want to park your car or deal with people who have any interest in looking after you or your room maybe pay a few extra quid and stay somewhere else.

Star Rating ***

Location 4.5/5

First Impressions 2/5

Amenities 3.5/5

The Room 3.5/5

Costs 4.5/5

Customer Service 0.5/5

Overall 2/5

The rather impressive lovechild of the Samsung Galaxy Note and Galaxy SIII

Samsung Galaxy Note II

So I am doing something a little unusual for this blog, not so much a review, as a preview! Although the fact I had a rare night out on Saturday means I haven’t managed to post this before the Note II made it into the shops. When I got to play with this thing there were apparently only 6 in the country and they were being guarded for secrecy. I would venture to guess that there are rather more of them now!

Anyway, this must be a pretty special phone given that they asked me and a handful of other bloggers to come up to London and have a poke around with it. Samsung also sent one of their trainers to talk us through all of the different aspects of the phone, which puts me in the unusual position of actually being relatively well qualified to write about something!

First of all, looks. Well it’s big like a Galaxy Note, but has the styling of the Galaxy SIII. That pretty much covers it and in case you want to know how all that pans out, I have a picture… This is the grey version and the phone is also available in white: –

Galaxy SIII and Galaxy Note II, side by side. As I was using my own SIII to take the picture you’ll have to excuse the phone with the cracked screen! Not my doing!

Now if you want to be bored with facts and figures about the Note 2 I am sure there are a million techie websites, phone shops and the like which will provide you with all the minutiae regarding the exact size of the camera aperture the manufacturing process used to create the sim card holder. However, I can offer a few little comparisons, I will use the Galaxy SIII, Galaxy Note and iPhone 5 for this purpose…

	Galaxy Note II	Galaxy SIII	Galaxy Note	iPhone 5
Size	80.5 x 151.1 x 9.4mm	70.6 x 136.6 x 8.6mm	82.95 x 146.85 x 9.65mm	58.6 x 123.8 x 7.6 mm
Weight	182.5g	133g	178g	112g
OS	Android 4.1 (Jellybean)	Android 4.0 (ICS)	Android 2.3 (Gingerbread)	iOS 6
Processor	1.6GHz Quad	1.4GHz Quad	1.4GHz Dual	1.2GHz Dual
Display	140.9mm (5.56”) HD Super AMOLED (1,280 x 720)	127mm (4.8”) HD Super AMOLED (1,280 x 720)	132mm (5.29″) HD Super AMOLED (1,280 x 800)	102mm (4”) Retina Display (1,136 x 640)
Network	3G HSPA+ 4G LTE	3G HSPA+	3G HSPA+	3G HSPA+ 4G LTE
Camera	8MP rear 1.9MP front	8MP rear 1.9MP front	8MP rear 2MP front	8MP rear 1.2MP front

As you can see, at first glance other than the difference in Operating System and any preferences there, the Galaxy Note II roundly trounces the competition in almost every area.

But stepping quickly away from the boring facts which I promised I wouldn’t dwell on, it’s probably better to focus on the Note II’s unique selling points or ‘usp’s.

The main distinguishing feature about the Galaxy Note range (whether it’s the Note II or the other recent addition to the range the Note 10.1 Tablet) is that it comes with a stylus (called the S Pen by Samsung). The stylus is nothing new, with palm-tops of old sporting a the exact same, but in today’s world where the touchscreen is common and on-screen keyboards are second nature, the stylus has disappeared.

Using the ‘S Pen’.

Samsung think that this is a bad thing and that productivity can be increased with the inclusion of a little electronic pen. It’s actually no bad thing.

First of all, you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to. Secondly, it’s pretty intuitive. For example, the phone/stylus can recognise when they are in close proximity even if they don’t touch. This opens up features such as the ability to scroll simply by hovering the stylus at the top or bottom of a page.

The real function of the pen has never changed though and that is to write notes and such like using your own writing rather than having to fiddle around with an on-screen keyboard.

There is an obvious downside to the Note II for some. Its size. It’s a big phone, or a very small tablet depending on how you look at it. Samsung are desperate to bridge the phone/tablet divide with this device and its massive screen is fantastic for everyday tasks. The downside is that it is a pocket/handbag filler. In reality I see this device as a great tool as a business/business-person’s phone. It will increase productivity and make life very easy. It will also do a fantastic job of whiling away the time on the train, with its big screen allowing you to watch films in HD quality.

Samsung are also very into Gesture controls lately and have been pretty innovative. The new top end TVs allow you to use voice and gestures, while the Galaxy SIII has a range of these which help out. A personal favourite is the ability to put a phone to your head when looking at a text and automatically calling that person. It gently eases the process between reading a text saying ‘I slept with your best friend’ and phoning your mum and asking what the hell she’s playing at! (My mum didn’t do that by the way, in case you’re wondering). There’s all the things you’re used to from the Galaxy SIII, but in terms of features unique to the Note II there are the following gesture controls and the like which make using this phone a more enjoyable experience: –

• Air View – Hovering the stylus over a video will give you a ‘pop out’ enlarged version of the video which will play allowing you to decide if it’s really the one you want to click on. The same feature allows you to see the content in a text or e-mail before opening or scroll to the right place in a video.
• Popup Note – Taking the S Pen out during a call will allow you to make a quick note.
• Quick Command – A cross between S voice and writing! Just write @dave to send Dave an e-mail. There are a number of little commands like this for those who feel like a bit of a pleb talking to their phone!
• Alarm control – Hover your hand over your phone when the alarm goes off and it will beep at you and snooze.
• You can also do all the normal handwriting of notes and creative bits like drawing which a stylus makes possible.

The Note II is a powerful piece of kit and a phone I’d love to get my hands on. I don’t know if I’d replace my SIII with it, purely because of size, but for work and on the go, or if I am feeling more creative it’s a great solution, particularly if you don’t want to be carrying around a phone and a tablet.

I am a Samsung Mob!ler. Details of what this means can be found on the ‘Mob!ler’ website.