Christmas Present Ideas Leeds

This is pure genius Christmas present idea - pub gift vouchers for Christmas presents and it going on my Christmas list for definite:

Read the Sky News story here


By pub gift vouchers here

Stop the Racists marching on Leeds

Keep the Far Right English Defence League out of Leeds

On Saturday October 31st the far right is marching on Leeds just as they did on Birmingham a few weeks ago when the English Defence League protested outside the Bullring shopping centre: racist violence in Birmingham

We really don't want this coming to Leeds. There has been terrible trouble and violence with their other marches. Please take a moment to sign the letter - then maybe the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, will intervene and Leeds City Council and West Yorkshire Police will have the power to stop it.

I've tried to have 'political conversations' with people of this right-wing bent twice in the past - once I got punched and the other time I got hit over the head with a pint glass. They have nothing to do with politics they are just thugs and extremists, and we don't want them here.

This is not an undemocratic stopping of protest but our democratic right to stop violent extremists trying to tell us how to live and who to live with (and beating the sh!te out of anyone they don't like or agree with)

You can use the link here to appeal to the Council and West Yorkshire Police to prevent this march from happening before it is too late: Hope not Hate

Sam's Chop House South Parade Leeds

We tried out Sam's Chop House for dinner this Friday for the first time in years, and I have to admit that it was a pretty good dining experience, and about as close to a simple traditional British menu as you can get in Leeds; something greatly appreciated by my Chinese dinner guests.

Every one was particularly impressed with the Colcannon potatoes with crispy bacon and poached egg, which scored very high for us all on taste texture and presentation. The salmon entrée was a little dry and flavourless though, as was the pork chop, which leads me to suspect that they were cooked from frozen, a surefire way to kill your food twice over. A chop should be juicy guys, not dry and compacted. This said, Sam's Chop House's take on the good old beef burger was very good indeed, with properly ground beef of the sort that fills you up even after eating only a small quantity. The dish came with two medium sized burgers rather than one huge one, making it very manageable to eat without them disintegrating, and offering scope for good presentation.

Aside from a few issues with the dishes, the staff were helpful and prompt and overall this was a more than acceptable dining experience at a decent price. Well done guys

Honey Monster is coming to Leeds

Hide the Sugar Puffs! Honey Monster is coming to town! The huge furry yellow fella is visiting the White Rose and St Johns in Leeds where fans will be able to meet the big guy himself and try his new cereal, Honey Waffles.

Honey Monster will be at White Rose with his Honey Waffle Factory between 9 am and 7 pm on the 30th of May and 11am and 5pm on the 31st of May, and he will be at St Johns on the 6th of June between 8am and 6pm and 7th of June between 11am and 5pm where kids and fans will be able to meet everyone’s favourite TV monster. They will even be able to have professionally taken photos with him.

You can find Honey Monster and his helpers by looking for the giant Honey Waffle Factory which will be churning out samples of the new cereal all day, and while the factory is busy there will be fun games running and even the chance to win breakfast with the Honey Monster at your house!

Honey Monster's team of helpers will be on hand to make sure everyone gets their free box of Honey Waffles, a multigrain cereal glazed with just the right amount of sugar and honey to add a tasty start to your day, so for more information and a full schedule of Honey Monster appearances go to

http://www.honeymonster.co.uk.

Carol Ann Duffy - Poet Laureate NOOOOOOOOOO!

Please God, please it can't be true, please tell me that Carol Ann Duffy isn't the new poet laureate. It can't be true can it?

I fed Alphabetti Spaghetti

To Pete Doherty,

And he pooed better poetry

into the lavatory

A slicker motion than Andrew ever dreamed of

Okay, so my hopes weren't that high. I didn't mind previous laureate, Andrew Motion so much, but Simon Armitage as Millennium Poet was painful. His intonation grates and his voice saws up and down like he's trying to cut poetry out of diction that is just plain unpoetic. Anyway, there were plenty of amazingly talented female poets around to choose for laureate this time - personally I'd have gone for Grace Nichols. Grrrrr.

Leeds Dating

Find singles and meet the perfect partner in Leeds with online dating

If you are looking to find a partner in Leeds and surrounding areas and have tried the bar and club scene, or approaches such as speed dating, blind dates and so forth and it hasn't worked out then it might be time to check out some popular online dating sites. Every year thousands of people find love, ideal partners or just casual friends through online dating services.

Find love in Leeds

So, why not shop around online for the partner of your dreams, someone who shares interests with you, and who is looking to find someone just like yourself. With online dating sites you have the advantage of being able to screen likely candidates and select only those who interest you the most. With many sites you can introduce yourself with a simple wink, chat through instant messaging and email, and learn about prospective partners before arranging to meet them.

Online dating Leeds - setting up your profile

When setting up your profile on an online dating site, it is important to remember to be as thorough as you can in describing yourself, your interests and hobbies and what you are looking for in an ideal partner. You should also include recent pictures of yourself so that people can get an idea what you look like. The more information you include in your online dating profile, the more interest you are likely to attract and the more chance you stand of meeting someone. Also, if you are a man, make sure that you take the trouble to email girls that you like the look of - on many dating sites girls are bombarded by winks and other automated pokes, so they are much more likely to get in touch with you if you take the trouble to email them with something that shows that you have paid special attention to them.

Online dating Leeds - searching your dating site

Once you have your dating profile completed its time to start searching the website - you should be able to search by region and also by the type of person you are looking for in some detail including hair and eye colour, marital status, whether or not they have children, ethnicity, hobbies and habits and much more. More often than not though, the online dating game all boils down to chemistry, and the person you find that turns out to be perfect for you, might not be the person you originally envisaged meeting.

Online dating Leeds - dating site scams

You should also be aware of online dating scams. Even on the best dating sites out there you will find some bogus profiles, fake Russian brides and numerous other types of dodgy scammers. Remember that if someone looks too good to be true they probably are. This said, meeting people on online dating sites can be really fun, and you should enjoy getting to know the people on there, even the ones who aren't quite right for you.

So get out there and have some fun finding your perfect partner with an online dating service!

If you are looking for a niche dating website then FriendFinder has plenty to choose from, including Christian dating, Asian dating, Russian dating, dating sites for swingers and fetishs, and there are also plenty of Jewish matchmaking sites to choose from as well, many of which are run by Spark Networks.

Lunch at Brown's Headrow Leeds

I always find lunch at Browns an interesting experience from a demographic perspective at least. This is a restaurant that tends to be primarily frequented by upper working class patrons with lower middle class aspirations who have put a little more thought into where's right to go than they have into the question 'where's good to eat?'. In fact, this is a set who haven't quite made it to the top of Douglas Adam's culinary scale of evolution summed up as:

How do we eat?

What shall we eat?

Where shall we have lunch?


Okay so on to the food. I would sum it up in one word - 'acceptable'. This is not somewhere you go for flair, high dining or top-quality food, but it is functional, adequate and has flavour and taste. The grilled chicken needs a little more thought maybe. The current offering is a little too dry, which is exactly what happens to chicken when you grill it and top it with bacon and cheese - maybe some lemon would do the trick, or a little ali oli or even just a squirt of olive oil - make it juicy as well guys.

The service is worth a mention since the dining staff are helpful and friendly and noticeably made an effort to make sure we had a good experience. So they get my thanks. Let's put some pizazz in that menu though in order to take it to the next level.

Let the Right One In - Leeds Vue (The Lights Headrow)

Well a few of us went to see 'Let the Right One In' at Leeds Vue at the Lights last night' - and I'm just not sure a vampire movie is meant to traumatise you in quite that way. I'm going to be having nightmares about 1970s knitwear, woolly Jerseys, rollnecks and the like for months. It took us all about 40 minutes to guess whether the film was set in the 70s or whether there were just some particularly badly dressed Swede's having their blood drained to feed the appetite of that archetypally liminal and borderline menstrual twelve year old vampire girl. You could spend hours mulling over the symbolism, and at least from that point of view its not you're average salacious slashing, biting and shagging vampire fayre.

Anyway, the girl's henchman (father/ brother figure) is getting on a bit and keeps botching it when hunting for her dinner so she finds herself a substitute to groom in the form of a wet twelve year old boy who lives next door, and wins his affection by helping him to stand up to some bullies who have obviously seen Deliverance about a 1000 times - the opening words of the film are 'Squeal like a pig' according to the subtitles at least.

I suppose the demographic of the theatre was probably Swedish folk, knitwear fetishists, vampire movie lovers and the odd person who should probably be on the sex offenders register. If you think this is you, then go and see it and find out how it all pans out.

Valentines Day Leeds

If you're struggling for ideas where to take your loved one for Valentines Day in Leeds this year or what to do on Valentines day, then we have a few ideas for you here that might help.

Leeds Meals out on Valentines Day

Finding a Leeds restaurant with the right atmosphere for a romantic meal can be harder than it seems. Salvos in Headingley might be a good place to think about for dinner but it will be packed as usual; although the Salvos Valentines day menu does look mouthwatering. Maybe also look into Little Tokyo for a Valentines Day meal in Leeds. Reviews suggest the place is not what it once was, but its definitely still an excellent place to go on for a romantic date. If you're into your Japanese and have a bigger budget then Teppanyaki is probably a better option. Possibly also consider the Cafe Rouge down by the Corn Exchange, but not the one in the Lights or any other restaurant in there as they will all be packed, and queuing to be served is a real passion killer.

Valentines Presents and Gifts

If you are looking to buy your loved one something more adventurous than flowers, chocolates or underwear, then check out some of the experience days available from Gizoo which include makeovers, massages, pamper days and so forth as 'gifts for her' and microlighting, powerboating and rally driving as 'gifts for him'. There's even plenty that you can both enjoy including cruises, his and hers massages, hot air ballooning and London day trips. Find out more here: http://www.gizoo.co.uk/Products/ExperienceDays/

Or, if you just want to keep it simple, say it with flowers:

Sham 69 playing in Leeds

Veteran punk legends, Sham 69 will be playing at Carpe Diem in Leeds on the 1st of March 2009. Tickets cost £6.00 and are available from the bar.

I love the Sham and I can't wait for this one! I wonder if they'd be interested in my Borstall Breakout parody? It starts off in Chester Zoo, and has UN zoo keepers involved in a high speed chase all the way to Betty's Tea Rooms, with the refrain: Can I get a bagel takeout? Its nearly as good as my parody 'God feed the Queen - the fascist baked bean'.

Unfortunately, I have it on good good authority that none of the original band members are in the lineup - shucks!

Anyway get your tickets for Sham 69, and I'll see you in the pit. Let's hope for some classics, like 'Angels with Dirty Face', 'Hurry up Harry', 'Hersham Boys', 'If the Kids are United' e.t.c. e.t.c. It would even be nice to get the sombre and ever so sinister 'Dead Nazi March'. Bring it on (Watch Sham 69 live at the Reading festival in 1978 below)

Leeds Indian Restaurants - Sheesh Mahal Kirkstall Road

If you are looking for a great Indian Restaurant in Leeds, you could do a lot worse than visiting the Sheesh Mahal on Kirkstall Road. I am a great curry lover, and luckily Leeds has some fabulous curry houses to satisfy my passion for spicy food. The Sheesh Mahal really stands out among these as somewhere where the traditional curry dishes have real flavour, and the staff really go the extra mile to ensure you have a positive dining experience, from giving you good information about the dishes and making recommendation right through to packing up anything you can't eat to take home and even calling a cab for you. The guys at the Sheesh Mahal manage to do this, moreover, without being intrusive. Fabulous!

For other great curries in Leeds, the following also come highly recommended: Curry Corner, Hansas, Nawaab and Akbars Restaurant

The Wardrobe Leeds - Dining Out in Leeds

It's really hard to get a bad meal out in Leeds, but if you want to be disappointed the Wardrobe seems to have all bases covered. On a recent dinner date, everything started off okay, with a very welcome brandy, but then the menu came. As menus go it was short and to the point, lacklustre and not something that gives much scope for regret over what you didn't order. I plumped for the rib-eyed steak and my date went for the liver and mashed potato. I'm willing to admit that it tasted okay, and the pepper sauce was ok as pepper sauces go, but with a choice of just a garlic sauce or a pepper sauce, this wasn't really much more than £4.99 Brewers Fayre pub grub at three times the price. The portions were tiny - I went through my meal in two minutes flat, and the rib-eyed steak tasted almost exactly the same as the burger meat served at Burger King, and the fries did nothing but compound the similarity.

To top it all off, around five minutes after finishing this god-awful excuse for a dining experience, a bouncer asked us to leave, because we were, eh hem, kissing. Well so sorry to have offended your sensibilities, and you know, well, after having spent more than £70.00 in the Wardrobe in about 45 minutes, I was expecting a little more tolerance. I will evacuate what I ate at your establishment with about as much pleasure as I evacuated the establishment itself. The sense of humour I had when I walked into the Wardrobe was possibly the only positive thing that I took out with me.

I eat out in Leeds at least twice a week and Leeds city centre boasts some excellent restaurants, and I'm barely ever disappointed, but this was just a joke.

I suppose at the end of the day the lesson is that if you want a romantic meal out in Leeds, or even just a decent meal out in Leeds, then stick with what you know and places that are reliably good such as Restaurant Bar and Grill, The Reliance, Hansas, Teppanyaki, Little Tokyo, Salvos, La Tasca, The Millrace or Dos Amigos or even the Slug and Lettuce, Cafe Rouge or Ha Has at a push, and many many more.

Steve Coogan at Grand Theatre Leeds

Steve Coogan will be bringing his 'Steve Coogan is Alan Partridge and Other Less Successful Characters' comedy tour to the Grand Theatre in Leeds on the 13th and 14th of December

Tickets cost £36.00

The Grand Theatre

46 New Briggate

Leeds

LS1 6NZ

tel.: 01132226222

Christmas Events in Leeds

Whether you are looking to book an office Christmas party in Leeds, or looking for Christmas events in Leeds now is the time to think about making your bookings and finding the best Christmas venues for some festive fun in Leeds this year.

Office Christmas.co.uk has a great list of venues where you can book office parties in Leeds: http://www.officechristmas.co.uk/shared-christmas-parties-leeds
, or you could try looking around the Festive Leeds website (www.festiveleeds.com) for events, shows, pantomines, Santas grottoes, Christmas meals out and much more in Leeds this Christmas. You can also find more Christmas venues on the Skiddle website (http://www.skiddle.com/christmas-events/Leeds/)

See the links below for a few online Christmas shopping ideas.

German Christmas Market Leeds | Christkindelmarkt Leeds

The German Christmas market in Leeds (Christkindelmarkt) is now well underway. The Christmas market is now a well-established and popular Christmas venue in Leeds where you can buy traditional German food such as bratwurst, soups and stollen as well as warm yourself up with a lovely gluhwein or try authentic German beers in one of the many bier kellers. German Xmas decorations, ornaments and nicknacks are also to be found. The Christmas market has a real festive feel to it so why not break off from your Christmas shopping in Leeds city centre and head off for the Christkindelmarkt in Millenium Square for a little taste of a German Christmas.