Tag Archives: history

Prep your sweet tooth its going to be a fine chocolaty Christmas with #beechsfinechocolates

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How well do you know the chocolates that you eat? Well some of our fine festive treats have a little history behind them, for example, Beech’s Fine Chocolates comes from Preston, it opened its doors to customers  in 1920 and has been supplying treats from its original factory in the town centre ever since, all made using only natural ingredients and traditional methods.Screen Shot 2013-12-12 at 10.09.32

In the last four years, the company has become a major supplier of Marks & Spencer for its own brand Chocolate Brazils, After Dinner Mints, and Rose and Violet Creams, among other products – yummy!

And now, these chocolate treats are experiencing a bumper Christmas rush, so is taking a next step into its own history in the making and going online!

The Beech’s brand has recently launched a new website featuring special deals and its customers’ favourites, all available to purchase online.  The website offers multi-buy discounts and there is a special section dedicated to vegans.

So forget trawling through the Christmas chaos of Oxford Street and the like, and sit down with some festive tunes on your iPod and buy some loved ones a treat they’ll treasure!

Here’s our pick of the bunch!! 

It’s a Chocolate Premier Assortment Oval Box 290g is always a popular choice at Christmas.

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Priced at £12.99 it features a fine selection of delicious milk, dark and white chocolates in a beautiful oval shaped two piece presentation box. A quality gift for someone special.

This box of surprises contains some of the highest quality chocolates that Beech’s offer, made using only natural ingredients and a lot of experience and expertise.

The Beech’s Premier Collection is the top of the range in our chocolate assortments. Each one of these fine chocolates is carefully inspected to ensure it is perfect.

For decades, since 1920, Beech’s has named it’s most luxurious range “Premier” with good reason. These chocolate are rich and glorious in their appearance and taste. They should be nibbled and left to melt in the mouth to experience the delicious, natural flavours of apricot, honey, hazelnut, nougat, almond and coffee. A truly sumptuous sensation of supreme deliciousness, enrobed in our milk, dark and white chocolate.

For more information visit the Beech’s website www.beechsfinechocolates.com

 

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Love Game of Thrones? Then this might be right up your street… #HammeroftheGods #film

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We sent one of our fabulous film critics Andrew Jones (@ethanrunt) off to check out Nick Love’s brand new film offering Hammer of the Gods.  With all this blood, gore and action we thought it was a perfect “boys film” and here’s what he thought of it…

Historical settings are back in a big way thanks to TV’s Spartacus and Game Of Thrones, and with new Brit actioner Hammer Of The Gods we get to see a lot more of it on the big screen. A group of vikings in 800’s AD Britain venture forth through a dangerous land to find the king’s long-lost son, the future leader of the invading forces, and on the journey the viking lads do their fair bit of slicing and dicing through the British.

Screen Shot 2013-07-29 at 08.47.09As Hammer Of The Gods opens, we see leader of the pack Steiner scream charging towards a group of aggressive farmers like the leader of a firm on the terraces. In no small manner, the film is happy to be The Football Factory meets Game Of Thrones and 300, gloriously violent and laddish without weighing itself down in too much plot or dialogue between the big action scenes. Steiner’s father, the rightful king, is dying, and he has to lead the charge in finding the next king, lest his rat younger brother take the crown and destroy the vikings for Saxon gold. On the journey to find his long-lost brother, Steiner and his crew face up to a large boy-loving monster, a religious group using fear as a weapon and a cult around a supposedly immortal god. Steiner and his viking friends knock down everyone, reminding all they oppose that true power comes from the swords and hammers they possess. And if these people don’t believe that, they learn the hard way.

Hammer Of The Gods isn’t exactly historically accurate, noticeably in one action sequence the score becomes very dubstep, which I’m ninety-five percent certain wasn’t a genre back then, and the language is both foul and modern. The film is much more interested in entertaining the audience than being accurate or real in any way, and for that it works wonders. Blissfully short and simple, every dialogue scene finds its way to an important action beat, and all the action is exciting and violent, it’s just what you want from a viking film. Bloody, brutal, silly fun.Screen Shot 2013-07-29 at 08.46.58

That’s not to say the film’s perfect, it does threaten to become a very odd arthouse film in the final act, as a lot of characters disappear and the long-lost brother arc becomes something out of a Twin Peaks nightmare, but even that finds its way to nasty bloody violence, so it’s not all bad. Perhaps the film has a bit too much of a Lord Of The Rings fetish because there are about two or three walking/riding sequences that feel like they’d rather show off the British country rather than continue the plot, and whilst it’s a good advert for VisitBritain.com, it’s not as exciting as seeing a man smash another man’s head in with a hammer.

Hammer Of The Gods is executive produced by Nick Love of The Firm and The Sweeney fame, and you can feel his filmmaking style all over here, a Gladiator for Nuts readers, but it’s undemanding stuff and good fun whilst you’re watching it, even if you don’t recall half of it once the lights come up at the end. Fun fluff with a brutal edge, Hammer Of The Gods is recommended for those needing a bit of blood of an evening, or if you want to watch a film with the lads that’s a little different than usual.

Hammer of the Gods is coming to cinemas in August after a debut at Film4 FrightFest.

3 Stars.

Need a guide to Bee-auty? Then @beeconomics_org can help you! #beauty #bees #crowdfunding

As you may have seen from their first post, Heather and Dom Ridout have upped sticks and swapped their London lives for a brand new venture in Brazil with a few bees called Beeconomics! Firstly they told us why they’re going, and now they’ve kindly written a fantastic piece on the benefits of bees and beauty! 

They’ve started up Beeconomics, and if you like what you read from their very first post for us, then good news! There’ll be more updates in the coming weeks! Also, if you feel inclined to support the cause, you can find out all you can follow them on Facebook andTwitter

Most importantly, they’ve just launched a crowd funding campaign called Show me the Honey! to help their cause, so if you want to support it, then click here!

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Back to the Beauty bit!  

Honey has incredible skin and hair care properties. It has been revered throughout history for this purpose – the Egyptians used it in mummification (the ultimate anti-ager!), Cleopatra bathed in it, the Romans used it on battle wounds, whilst the wife of the Roman Emperor Nero, Poppea, formulated a honey based moisturiser. Queen Anne of England used it to condition her hair and Madame du Barry (famous for her beauty and for being Louis XV’s final mistress) may have been the first to make a homemade honey face-mask, a practice continued by modern starlets such as Scarlett Johansson who attributes her healthy glow to a manuka mask (just honey, nothing added).

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This remarkable substance is rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. It soothes and moisturises and is a humectant meaning that it draws moisture towards it and seals it onto the skin, prolonging its moisturising effect. It contains phytochemicals which make it antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory. It is also self preserving (due to its anti-microbial constituents, low PH, moisture content and water activity) as famously illustrated by archeologists who found 2,000 year-old jars of honey in Egyptian tombs!

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Honey can be applied neat to the skin or combined with other complementary ingredients. We’re sure you will be keen to get some on your skin – so here are some ideas for a homemade face mask using honey and things you might find in the fridge:

* Make a simple Cleopatra-esque mask using plain yogurt/cream (we find milk doesn’t stay on so well!) and honey to moisturise and soothe (recommended for sensitive skin)

* Mix honey, oats (best if ground first to avoid clumpiness) and a little lemon/lime (rich in AHAs and vitamin C) to moisturise and exfoliate

* Blend some enzyme-rich papaya (also contains vitamin A) and honey together to brighten and banish dead skin cells without scrubbing

 TAHDAAAHHH!!!! You’ll be looking like a goddess in no time!

Happy Bee-autifying!!

Fancy a Flutter? – betting on the history of the #grandnational with @ladbrokes

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Its here once again – The world’s greatest steeplechase. The most challenging and often deadly test for both man and horse, some people love it and some people loathe it, yet since 1839 The Grand National has been THE horse racing event of the sporting calendar.

With a course covering almost 2 ¼ miles with 16 fences, the horses have to complete two full circuits and jump 30 fences (two fences are only jumped once).

 But where did it all begin?

Although officially The Grand National began in 1839, in the mid 1820’s innkeeper and entrepreneur William Lynn, sponsored a hare coursing event called the Waterloo Cup. This became very successful and on the back of this, Lynn looked into possibility of leasing some land at Aintree and began to hold race meetings. On the 7th July 1829 racing officially began with three meetings per year. Over time and following increasing success, William Lynn added a steeplechase and by 1839 The Grand National was officially born.

In the late 1800’s one of the greatest horses to ever win the Grand National ran, it was called Manifesto and held the record for the highest weight carried by a winning horse of 12st 7ils. It also held the record for the most number of runs in a race – 8 times.

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The 1920’s saw radio bring The Grand National to its biggest audience yet, and between 1941 and 1945 the races were put on hold due to Aintree being used for military purposes during WW2.

Moving forward in history, in 1960 the BBC showed The Grand National live on television for the first time and have been covering the race ever since.

The most famous horse ever to race was Red Rum. In 1973, the young pretender won its first race and followed that up with an unprecedented two more wins in 1974 and 1977.

The 2003 Grand National was the turn of Monty’s Pass to win the race but his win was overshadowed by one of his owners who had bets on the horse to win a total of over £800,000.

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And speaking of money…

Now you know the rough history of this most famous of horse races, then the next logical step would be to bet on the next big winner right? So what are the odds…

Well, Sunnyhillboy came incredibly close to winning the Grand National last season, so everyone has their eye on him this year to take the title. But hot on his heels as another keen favourite, is SeaBass and came in third last year too.

So if you fancy a flutter, why not head to Ladbrokes to place your bets, and fingers crossed you could be a big winner too!

Happy Horse racing everyone!