SPACED is amazing!!! I am currently liveblogging, something I have only just heard of but basically it’s blogging while doing something else!

Well, I am currently watching SPACED for the first time. I am now on the fourth episode, and also my fourth beer. What a great way to spend a friday night!!

I can see where the inspiration for Shaun of the Dead came from, and also “I’m a Lady” from Little Britan! If you don’t know what I mean, watch episode 3 of SPACED! It rox!

{eform}
{title Got something to say?  Breaking news?  Change of contact info?  Let us know!}
{input email=paul@accessdesigns.org.uk}
{input subject=Update from Lombardclan}
{input Name}
{input Email Address}
{select State Your Bidness=Just Saying Hi,Contact Info,Question}
{break line}

{textarea message}

{/eform}

Yesterday was the first day of giving up Caffeinated dinks, and it was horrible!

The morning was fine, although I was slightly more drowsy usual! However, at around 3pm a strange thing started to happen, my brain started to hurt! Caffeine headaches! Noooo!
I very nearly slipped up on the first day, I bought a drink of coke with lunch. I was so thirsty and as I lifted the drink to take a sip… I remembered what I was doing and threw it away, grrr!

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday which makes today the first day of lent, Ash Wednesday.
I spoke last Saturday at Intension on Lent. I was interested where the name came from, as I couldn’t see any biblical reference. I turns out the name Lent is a derivative of two Anglo-Saxon words, Lenct - meaning March, and Lecten meaning spring.

The original name for Lent was quadragesima, a Latin word meaning forty-hours, used in the early church because they fasted for forty hours leading up to Easter day. Easter Eve was also the day on which the early church baptised new believers, however forty hours of preparation was considered insufficient to give them enough training, so it was extended to six days, and later six weeks.

This year I thought I’d try a challenging fast for lent, so I’m going to try to give up
coffee, tea and generally caffeinated drinks!

What are you giving up?

I drink a lot of Coffee. I will often get a takeout coffee from one of the big-three coffee houses in the UK, Costa, Caffe Nero and Starbucks. I’m a big fan of the macchiato and lattes.

When I buy coffee beans from the supermarket I will generally try to buy fairly traded ones, however when I get a takeout, I just get what is on the board, so I thought I’d take a look at them and see who is the most ethical.

Costa coffee is my least favorite of the three brands. I often find their coffee is extremely bitter, perhaps caused by the machines not being kept well, as the bitterness changes from store to store. Costa uses what they call a mocha bean which is 6 parts arabica and 1 part robusta. Arabica is generally considered the best bean but harder to grow, and therefore more expensive, where as robusta is easier to grow but has less flavor. If you ask for any coffee in Costa you will get this blend, however Costa do offer a fairtrade option at no extra cost, all you have to do is ask for it. This blend is made from six different bean varieties, but they do not mention which. I have yet to try asking for the fair trade option, however this is defiantly a bonus if you can get all their drinks but in an ethical variety!

Caffe Nero is in close contention for my favorite coffee company. Every cup they serve contains two shots of espresso, compared to the one found in both of the other companies I’m reviewing. The price of their coffee is also lower, however they do allow smoking in some of their coffee houses which is a big negative. The blend used by Nero is a combination of arabica beans from Southern America and Africa. The beans Nero server however are not “Fairtrade” in the sense they are not endorsed but the Fairtrade organisation. Nero claims they pay above the standard rate for beans compared to high volume robusta beans often used in instant coffee. However, the high quality, arabica beans used in Nero are bound to be more expensive. Their corporate policy does acknowledge that for sustainable coffee farming, the growers must be paid a fair rate, but they will not try to meet Oxfam’s key action guideline: “Roaster coffee companies to buy increasing volumes of their coffee under Fairtrade conditions (starting with 2% of their volumes in the first year)”. This suggests they are more interested in profits than ethics.

Starbucks is most probably my favorite coffee company. Their variety of drinks is good, and more often than not, the coffee tastes good. Their staff appear to be very well trained and I like that they try to build community with their book drives and community boards. Starbucks offers a range of coffees beans for sale in store, however they generally only use three varieties at a time; their standard bean, a fairtrade variety and a specialty variety. When you ask for a coffee you will always get their standard bean. If you want fairtrade you will normally have the option of drip coffee, however this means you can’t have any of the nice tasting drinks like the latte (yum). All of Starbucks beans are of the arabica variety. Starbucks claims to have an ethical an sustainable policy in regards to buying beans. In FY 2004, the paid on average $1.20 per pound, which is 74% above average. ON a side note, thats 25 cents for a 100 grams, or around 12p which you pay £3.99 for in Starbucks. They also have loads of information about how they are nice to farmers at: http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/origins.asp . Starbucks cups appear to be the only ones on the market which are in part recycled which is an added bonus.

In Conclusion…
Baically, none of the three are perfect. Nero appears to be doing the least to support fairly traded coffee, with Costa providing the easiest way to get a nice cup of fairtrade. If you can settle for nearly fairtrade, then Starbucks is your best taste/ethic ratio. However if we want these stores to get better, we need to start going for the fairtrade options, unlucky for Nero as they don’t have one!

I thought it was about time the theme for this website was update, and finally today I got round to doing it.

I always intended writing my own style for wordpress, but didn’t get round to actually doing it until today. Hopfully this one is nicer and easier to read!

enjoy… hopefully!

I was just checking out my Blog on Alexa, a website which tracks traffic on the web. I was checking my stats and my new web rank is 6,102,662.

Accoring to my actual stats I have gone had an extra 1000 unique people visiting my site this month than last month. I wonder what I’m doing wrong? Maybe I just annoyed the people at Alexa!

Today, Greater Manchester Police raided a house in fallowfield which was reported to be a Cannabis Factory.

Cannabis factories have apparently been springing up all over the country, where drug growers rent houses and turn them into a glorified greenhouse.

The house in Fallowfield which is just behind Sainsbury’s  was surrounded by police vehicles for most of today. The police were seen taking plastic bags full of equipment out of the house, some of which were reported to contain lights, batteries and some sort of oil.

I’m not sure if anybody was arrested, but I’m sure somebody will be! I suppose the next thing to do is catch the Ice-Cream man!