B-Factor

The burger recipe competition closes in a few days and I'm still in the lead by 4%, there were thousands of entries. If you haven't voted (many thanks if you have), forget the veggie burger in 2nd place and vote for me. Whose heard of a burger without meat anyway? I'm sure it's only in there for diversity reasons. I'm surprised the blue cheese burger was allowed in without having other burgers representing the spectrum of colours. The winner gets £500 worth of shopping so tins and crisps for family Xmas presents this year. GO VOTE FOR ME NOW, TELL YOUR FRIENDS, TELL THE WORLD

The little burga made it

Exciting burger times. My sundried tomato and pine nut burger has made the last 5 in a competition. So if you are reading this and would like to vote, please click here and select the 'Vote for this twist' button for Ian's sundried tomato and pine nut burger. Thanks for voting, will blog the results.

Forget the IPhone, get an IPlate

No the IPlate is not a piece of crockery that sings while you eat your dinner, but could really improve your internet performance. If you want to increase your broadband speed then take a look at the IPlate from BT. If you have a master BT socket, you can fit this in seconds and it could make a big difference. It did with me, my speed was 3.9MB average before fitting it and now it's gone up to 4.8MB average. I've regularly used SpeedTest to check my broadband performance (every man should check their performance once in a while) so I know that this has worked. This is well worth a pop, I got mine from the BT Shop for £6.

Manly burger

Hey I've got one of my burgers on the Sainsbury's web site. I could win a prize. Take a look, it might still be there. I could talk all day about burgers. I've made a few different ones in my time and love to get the BBQ out, along with the pinny and tools that make you feel manly. The one I submitted is made with sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts, so go and get your hands in that bowl and mould a few shapes. That means you Andy...

Tynemouthing off

Another birthday celebration (the mother) took us to a restaurant in the up and coming area of Tynemouth, my home town. It used to be the renowned AA rosette winning Sydney's, it's been re-invented now and called Brasserie 1883 (that's some bra size). The chef is the award winning Alan O'Kane, who appears to be back in the kitchen cooking excellent food. If the food we had is anything to go by, the awards might be coming their way again. A duck pate and a pork belly, that was my food choice, not my physique. Great tasting food. That's the manager in that photo, not me with a different head on.

There's also a newly managed pub (used to be called The Percy Arms) and eating place called The Priory which is definitely worth a visit. It's got a modern feel and makes you want to take your shoes off and put your feet up. We called in for late drinks and there was live music on. The girl singing playing keyboards, backed by a guitarist had a pure voice and did some unusual twists on some popular songs. I nearly swung my pants on 2 occasions. A good atmosphere but I suppose after a few beers it always seems that way.

Count 40 rings on his forehead if you don't believe me

I have some friends (real ones, not those on facebook), some have just got to the mid-life crisis age of 40 where they think they can still wear muscle vests in the summer. He's pictured here to the right of Harry Potter, looks like a cross between the camp singer from Right Said Fred and a fat Phil Collins. He's holding some money (his favourite subject), as we've all just give him some to get a hair transplant and a personality assessment. We celebrated his 40th at Red Mezze, a turkish restaurant in Newcastle. There's all sorts of small little plates of food you can have, ideal for the birthday boy as he's only 4 foot 2. I had vine leaves, meatballs and the hard-to-refuse pudding, baklava. It was a great night, the lightweight 40 year old even managed a teeny sip of ouzo at the end of the night. He was off to a surprise break in Barcelona the next morning with his woman. The spanish will love him prancing around in his vests eating tapas. I hear they call him "CALVA"....

It's not just camels that have humps

Cow’s are such show offs. All I did was point my camera to take a nice pleasant picture of the curious cows as I went over to their field. But what happened? Well the exhibitionist cow looked me in the eye then mounted the other one right in front of me. It felt like it did when someone reminds you that your parents still do stuff in the bedroom. It was as if the cow was laughing while doing it, with its condescending eyes. I had to walk away in the end, frightened to turn round incase it winked at me (I've spell checked that).


It was good to get a away for the weekend despite the p0rn cows. We stayed at a big farmhouse near the Lake District. There's an outdoor pool 3 mile along the road in a place called Shap. I didn't go in as my posing trunks were left at home and I didn't want to alarm the animals (even though they had alarmed me as I've said). The girlfriend went in though until she couldn't take any more and had to attend to her frozen assets. On the Saturday night, I did the manly thing and cooked on the BBQ. This time it was my turn to wink at those cows as I flipped the meat.