adidas evil eye halfrim pro launch

For those that don't know me, I wouldn't say that cycling is my forte (check out my previous cycling experience that involves the Golden Gate Bridge here). But, for those that do know me, I'm always up for giving things a go! My client adidas eyewear are launching a new mountain bike frame called the 'evil eye halfrim pro' so we went to test it out on a glorious day (btw, that comment is dripping in sarcasm) which involved, me, warm clothes, a helmet, the evil eye and a mountain bike. An award winning combination it must be said. We went to Cannock Chase in Stafford for the full 'off-road' experience and I must say that I enjoyed it a hell of a lot more that I'd initially thought! We rode loads of trails and learnt the art of using our peripheral vision and maintaining our focus straight ahead instead of looking at the ground in front of us. The instructors from Cycle Active were amazing and very patient (mostly patient with me as I started off not being able to get in the right gear....) but the trails were really fun, very tight with plenty of logs and trees in VERY close proximity but I'm proud to say that I survived! The lenses in the evil eye were absolutely incredible - you couldn't even tell you were wearing sunglasses and they filtered the light beautifully. As you can see from the pics above, I was pretty much all the gear, no idea (as per usual!). There are three pics of the pro's showing you how it's done, then one of me taking a gentle peddle through the countryside....I don't look very hardcore do I?? Oh well, the day ended with a lovely group shot and we literally just missed the snow by about 5 mins. I was extremely relieved to be in doors afterwards....oh AND I managed to give my £3000 bike a puncture......

Eastpak Antidote Tour Comes to London

Friday 29th October was definitely a night to remember for me. The Eastpak Antidote Tour came to London at the HMV Forum and the build up to the show was amazing. When I arrived at the venue there was girls that had been queueing since 6am (pictured above - still smiling!) and the next pair in the queue had come all the way from Spain for the show! We did tell them that the tour was coming to Spain but they said that London was best (who can blame them!). The line to get in was going right around the building which was incredible to see. The show went without a hitch and all of the bands were really well received. First up were Veara and I was pleased to see a huge crowd ready to cheer them on. Next was The Riverboat Gamblers who again rocked out hard and put on a very energetic show. For me, the highlight was The Black Pacific (ex-Pennywise front man Jim Lindberg's new venture) and he showed the same spark and natural frontmanship (made up word but it works!) that he did in his Pennywise days. He had the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand and they definitely gained a legion of new fans after their performance. Headliners Sum 41 appeared on stage last and it's safe to say that the crowd were thrilled to see them. Deryck did the usual by bringing some lucky fans up onto the stage to give them a night they'll never forget! I couldn't stay long to see them as I had to head to the after show to make sure it was all set up and beautiful before our guests arrived. And I must say, I was very pleased with how it looked. We had the tour logo's on vinyl stickers all over the venue (the red mouth's you can see above) and it was then a case of waiting for the red London buses to arrive with all of our guests! My good friend Leigh Shorter hit the decks first and proved invaluable throughout the night and even had to help Cone from Sum 41 as he was unsure of how to DJ through his ipod (bless!). Photo's above show The Black Pacific and Sum 41 being interviewed at the after show and I had my pic taken with the lovely Jim Lindberg (I was pretty happy at this point!). It was an absolutely awesome night which I enjoyed thoroughly (til way gone 4am) and I hope the rest of the tour continues to please fans up until the last show in Germany...

Vintage Seekers Launches

This month saw the launch of Vintage Seekers, the first premium online platform to sell 20th Century design and collectibles in a unique lifestyle context. With the mantra ‘desirable, stylish, authentic, often iconic and always original’, Vintage Seekers curates the finest examples of design, fashion, motoring, memorabilia, watches and wine and celebrates the enduring appeal of the most covetable objects of the last century. Even though the items they sell are a pipe dream for someone like me, I have to admire the beauty of what is on offer and I can aspire to own a timeless piece of fashion one day.


Items for sale at launch include collector’s quality Ossie Clark and Biba, prices ranging from £575 to £1200 within the Fashion section, a 1978 Rolex Daytona at £25,000 in Watches and Edith Head’s original sketches of Audrey Hepburn’s costumes for the film Sabrina, at £15,000 within Memorabilia.


Go admire the collections at www.vintageseekers.com

Niagra Falls - We Found a Moose!

We've heard that if you're going to see Niagara Falls, then you must view it from the Canadian side. Now, we were told this by a Canadian, but, I feel it was a justified statement. I'm not too sure what I was expecting but it was breathe taking. We starred in amazement at it for a while and when you're stood at the part where the water drops off the end its strangely beautiful. We went to the gift shop and there was loads of great Niagara/Canada memorabilia - most of which was perfect for my good friend Helen who is a Moose collector!! There were moose's everywhere!! Now, I don't want to make Helen out to sound like a crazy lady who has a weird obsession with moose's....but someone bought her a moose cuddly toy one day and it's stemmed from there....so we had a bit of fun with all the moose toys for her benefit (resulting in the pic of Paige and I above!). Moving swiftly on, I decided to take a picture of a nice rose (don't you agree that it's nice?) and then we decided to drive over to Niagara on the Lake which was a really pretty town not too far from the falls. It was very quaint and we walked down by the lake and just took in the view. You could see the skyline of Toronto in the far off distance which was pretty cool. It was like looking out into the last scene of The Trueman Show as the view just seemed to end where the sky met the sea. It was really bizarre and looked so fake! We chilled out there for a while before heading back to Toronto for our last night out on the tiles! So we proceeded to have a few too many and collapsed in the early hours. It's safe to say that the day we left Andy in Toronto we were too hungover to move but had to undertake our mammoth journey to Chicago regardless......

We Made it to Canada!

So Paige and I embarked on our 12 hour train mission to Toronto from New York. Being totally truthful, it wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to be and time went by really quickly. Obviously there were some annoying people sat near us i.e. young children but we managed to survive the sound of computer games and a couple of Italian men who had their headphones in, whilst playing computer games AND having a very loud conversation all at the same time!! And people say men can't multitask! We made it to Toronto by 8pm where our good friend Andy was waiting to meet us as we are staying with him for our time in Canada. Andy lives in Cabbagetown which I think is the best area name ever. We had a low key first night as we were knackered from the train journey so the following day we went down to the waterfront (which I kept calling the sea but Andy assures me it's a lake). The weather was glorious and there were loads of people out in their boats because of it. In the evening we went to see a Toronto band called Young Empires and they were really great. The venue was cool and they put on a great show. After a few glasses of wine followed by a few smirnoff ices (they had no cider so I panic ordered!), we went to a place called Sneaky Dees where they serve the best nachos ever! The ones pictured above were called the Kind Nachos and they were exactly what our alcohol soaked bodies needed! Was a great introduction into Toronto life!

Lord of the Penguins

We went down to the waterfront to go to the aquarium in Boston as they had loads and loads of penguins 'on display'. Paige was beside herself with excitement over this as she spent 3 months looking after penguins in South Africa last year so she was looking forward to being reunited with her feathered friends. I will admit that they were very cute but the smell wasn't so great! I can see why Paige loved working with them though, some of them, especially the rockhopper ones had great personalities! Very cheeky. The aquarium also had tropical fish, a giant turtle, sharks and jellyfish - to name but a few! We then saw some seals being trained which was very sweet. We had a bit of fun in the gift shop (as you can see above) then pottered about before heading over to Haaaaaarvard to see where Paige's Dad went to school. It was really beautiful around there and you could just sense the intelligence in the air! We had a little guide book to Boston and it told us about The Comedy Studio in Harvard so we went along. The comedians were really funny and some of them had been on Comedy Central, The Letterman Show and on Ellen De...Ellen Degener....you know Ellen's show! The following day we wanted to go and see what a Boston beach was like so that we did but there was no sunshine whatsoever! So we lay on the beach fully clothed! But it was very relaxing anyway. As it was our last night we were trying to come up with a plan for the evening so we headed back to Boston Common. We struck luck as they were showing a free production of Othello so we sat and watched and it was pretty good. The actors were amazing and there was a great atmosphere in the common. It rounded off the end of our time in Boston brilliantly.

Cheers to the Freedom Trail

Now, we had a big old list of places that Paige's parents had given us that they said we should visit (they used to live there years ago, hence it being where Paige was born and all) and I must say they came up trumps! It was a glorious day of sunshine so we headed off on the Freedom Trail so we could go and see all of the sights that we could possibly want to see. I even set foot inside a couple of church's which is unheard of for me but they were beautiful and one of them had the oldest pulpit in America! So there you go. As we were wondering along the red line through Boston, we hit a street which sounded familiar to Paige as she said the 'Cheers' bar was on there. So we took a little detour down a big hill (I didn't like the thought of going back up it in the heat - took me back to the days of San Fran!) and stumbled across it. Was pretty cool to be there and I wanted to buy some memorabilia for the folks but it was all a bit naff really! We then got back on the Freedom Trail until we hit Faneuil Hall which had a great buzz. We pottered around the market and found a massive piece of macaroni (as you do!) and Paige was extremely pleased as she's a huge fan (she is in the mac pic above - see if you can spot her!). We then found some cookies the size of our faces (literally) so all in all we were pretty glad we'd stopped there! We were then commandeered by some old bloke dressed up funny until he kindly told us that his name was Benjamin Franklin! What are the chances of bumping into him in Boston eh! So we got to chatting and it turns out he lives on the same street that Paige's Mum lives on in London so I think it was fate that the two of them were brought together like this! I had to cement this chance encounter with a photo (which cost me $2 but I figured he was saving up to get back to London) and was pretty pleased that we'd bumped into him. After a LOT more walking (I'm not complaining, I just wanted to emphasise that we'd walked a really long way that day!) we came to the U.S.S Constitution which is the oldest working Navy ship in the world to still be...er....working! So some very nice, jolly sailor gave us a grand tour and we got to see what life was like for the Navy guys back then, scurvy and all! I thought I could give Johnny Depp a good run for his money at the wheel!