The food facts

Let’s take a look at some of the facts. On average, a large slice of pizza from the big chain restaurants contains around 300 calories (a meat lovers’ slice can push 480!). Now consider that you get about eight slices and the calorie count hits four figures. Ever ordered a takeaway and found it slopping around in the cardboard box? That’ll be the high levels of fat. Ever felt incredibly thirsty after devouring a takeaway pizza? That’ll be the high levels of salt. So, you can easily eat most of your daily calories in one sitting and fall the wrong side of your daily salt intake. Not good for health.

The big culprits are cheese, the oils used for cooking, meat toppings (particularly pepperoni which is 80% fat) and the dough base. While the dough contains carbohydrates, which play a role in digestion, it’s typically made with unhealthy high gluten flour and the carbs from the bread and crust turn into sugar and eventually into fat.

Hopefully you’re starting to realise how too much of bad thing is…well, bad. But there’s no need to deny yourself one of life’s pleasures, you just need to “takeaway” a different approach. And as one of the great Clapham takeaways, ‘ECO’ ticks all the right boxes.

The healthy option

So how can you get a healthy munch on with a slice of your favourite flat-bread? Health experts say the base needs to be light and contain whole wheat flour to keep your digestive system healthy. ECO produce the lightest and healthiest base in Clapham (and for that matter, all of London and the UK). Ingredients need to be fresh, especially the tomatoes used in the sauce, and cheese should be low-fat.

A recent survey of more than 8,000 Italians by Milan’s Institute of Pharmacology found that people who had healthy pizza several times in a week lowered their risk of disease compared to those who had never eaten it. According to the results, the risk of developing throat cancer was reduced by 60%, colon cancer by 26% and oral cancer by 30%.

Scientists put this down to the ingredients – tomatoes, olive oil, vegetables, garlic, herbs and spices – which contain antioxidants such as ‘lycopene’ that are believed to help prevent chronic diseases such as cancer. Another study by Manchester University scientists suggests that pizza can also cut the risk of skin cancer.

Guilt free eating

Next time you fancy ordering pizza in, or perhaps dining out Italian style, seek out a restaurant like ECO in Clapham who make the effort to ensure the food you eat not only tastes great, but is also made with ingredients that are good for your health.

Often business are seeing opportunities, but with banks increasingly tough to crack, and overdrafts hardly the best way of purchasing new equipment over a long term period, Shire Leasing business assets makes much more sense. Indeed, it may be the only viable way forward for many companies, and the only alternative to remaining stationery in a volatile market – which is never good practice.

Whether you’re looking into options such as Shire Leasing of gym equipment or Shire Leasing of IT equipment, the opportunity to lease is one that presents a range of very real benefits, helping businesses to not only move forwards, but to do so in a way that make much more financial sense than purchasing equipment outright.

If you’re aiming to provide your clients with the opportunity to take advantage of leasing equipment then Shire Leasing Finance is able to provide a range of financial packages to help your clients’ businesses move quickly, without resulting in expensive fees or complex paperwork. Transfer of payment through BACS and transparent paperwork and contracts make Shire Leasing business assets a quick and easy way to help people expand in a market that’s strangling many companies trying to pursue alternatives.

One of the problems for many people looking at supplying equipment to clients is that there is increasing pressure on offering discounted prices. Leasing through a company such as Shire Leasing Finance means that such discounts are no longer necessary, because the financial package being offered is far more manageable, and preferable to committing a large financial package in one go up front for many companies.

Of course leasing equipment such as Shire Leasing of gym equipment and Shire Leasing of IT equipment means that companies don’t find that they’re suddenly taking on tax liability for the assets gained. Tax liability will only come in to play for equipment actually owned, and leased equipment will significantly assist in improving cash flow.

By taking advantage of Shire Leasing business assets it is possible for you to be able to offer a package to your clients which helps them avoid the difficulties being faced in the markets today, lowering tax liability and improving cash flow whilst letting you avoid having to commit to offering discounts or handling reams of paperwork. Shire Leasing finance is the key to helping you help businesses move forwards, whatever direction the tide is turning.

But if you mention the idea of biker jackets or leather coats of any kind to people they generally think of heavy leather made from cow hide that’s thick, less flexible and can make you feel too warm. After all, it’s summer, not winter, and leather jackets should be flexible enough to cope with the cooler days as well as the frozen days.

Can leather be lightweight, comfortable, flexible and yet still provide enough protection? What is the best type of leather for the variable British summer?

The answer is something called either nappa leather or napa leather. It’s unmistakable, because nappa leather is considerably thinner than the heavy duty cow hide leather you see biker jackets made out of. Nappa leather is warm, soft and comfortable, as well as looking extremely stylish.

The difference is all down to where nappa leather comes from. Unlike most high street leather jackets nappa leather jackets are made from unsplit sheep skin, lamb skin or even kid skin. This type of leather is very soft, very flexible and is used to make a range of luxury items from furniture coverings to luxury car interior upholstery.

If you’re looking for a leather jacket for the summer, and well into the autumn, then look out for nappa leather – it’s the best way of combining comfort with style, whilst not losing out on the practical benefits of having a real, genuine leather coat.

But a quick word of warning, because you might have noticed the word ‘unsplit’ used just now. What does that mean?

Basically you may find that some manufacturers of leather jackets cheat a little, trying to make cow hide into something more like nappa leather. The way they do this is to use a laser to slice through the cow hide, peeling layers away to create a much thinner form of leather.

But although his method is sophisticated, it can never achieve the same level of comfort, style, feel or look as real nappa leather. It’s simply a cheaper alternative, and as with anything – you get what you pay for.

Colours and coverings

Selecting the most appropriate colours can help make the entrance to your home as light and attractive as possible. Dark hallways can be a bad idea in smaller homes so heavy and strong colours on the wall need to be avoided. On the other hand, should you live in a period property that has far more space, then classic colours that are in keeping with the general décor (like greens and reds) can enrich the look. For narrow spaces, select neutral colours on the wall.

Changing the colour on the walls will make a significant impact on the sense of space. Some people like to continue the colour scheme used in connecting rooms while others select a colour that complements and gives a different look. Wallpaper has undergone a huge design revolution recently and wallcoverings with neutral colours and embossed designs look fantastic. If you’d rather paint but need a cool feel, wall stickers can bring some interest to the walls.

Adding to the walls

With many hallways being narrow and long there’s usually a premium on floor space so utilise the walls to create your design statement. A properly placed mirror reflects light and helps to make your hallway look bigger – given the space is the entrance/exit point of the home, a mirror also allows everyone to check how they look when coming or going.

Photos are also a great idea to give your home an individual touch. Black and white prints offer a real chic appearance while a selection of different sized photo frames give your hallway a gallery feel. If you’re going to add a piece of art to the walls, make sure it will be lit correctly to benefit from the full effect – a long, narrow picture light will provide you with the right look.

Get the right light

As with other spaces in your house, natural light is always preferable so if possible use glazing in interior doors to permit light to enter the hallway from other rooms. For artificial light you’ll want to consider the height of your ceilings. For people with low ceilings, wall uplighters will give the impression of height while for taller hallways you can install feature lighting like pendant lights or a luxurious chandelier.

Storage space

As you enter and exit the home you will need a place to hang up your coat, pick up your keys and grab your shoes and bags so a few hallway storage pieces can make life easier, keep everything tidy and look great too.

For your hats and coats, wall hooks are ideal for compact spaces while a coat stand looks great if you have more floor space to play with. Keep all your keys, letters and small items to hand with a wall storage unit and prevent people tripping over discarded shoes with a shoe storage unit

Agas are among the easiest and most versatile cookers on the market with a range of features that will help you prepare great food for family and friends. There is a wide range of models to choose from to suit the needs of any home and lifestyle. The latest models come in a variety of fuel options including gas, oil, electric and duel-fuel. Depending on the size of your kitchen you’ll also find an oven that will fit the space available from the larger six-burner, four-oven range cookers to the compact four-burner, 2-oven cooker.

Discovering exactly what an Aga oven can do is time well spent particularly if you’ve yet to invest in one. These famous cookers are likely to last you a lifetime but the initial financial outlay is high so it’s prudent to find out what you can expect from it. Seeing one in a showroom will give you some basic operational knowledge but to a get a true indication of all the benefits it’s best to see one in action.

Aga demonstrations are usually free and can be booked through a local supplier. The session itself will be taken by an experienced and authorised demonstrator either at a showroom near you or at a local cookery school or private house. You’ll learn how to use the basic functions of the oven as well as the ideal cookware and cooking techniques that will make the most of your cooker. If you’re already an owner, a demonstration will help you pick up a few tips to improve your cooking experience as well as giving you an opportunity to learn new recipe ideas and some shortcuts that can make life easier.

During the session you can expect to learn how timing is more important than temperature control and the demonstrator will take you through the art of using specific ovens to determine when your meal will be ready. They will also illustrate how the Aga is capable of cooking any type of meal and not just roasts or casseroles. Audience participation is encouraged to give you an opportunity to be ‘hands-on’.

If you’re an experienced owner then you might want to consider booking a place on a themed demonstration. These sessions concentrate on specific cooking techniques such as dinner parties, world cuisine, puddings or preparing Christmas dinners. Whether you’re a newcomer or a seasoned cook, it’s well worth getting involved so you can build your confidence and your cooking repertoire.

From the highest quality leather shooting accessories such as cartridge cases and gun slips to a gorgeous desk blotter or stationery tray, the words ‘England’, ‘craftsmen’ and ‘leather’ seem to evoke an innate sense of quality.

We almost expect to discover the kind of quality that makes you proud to own the luxury goods, to run your finger along the seams, to smell the leather and admire the way it looks.

If you have a beautiful wooden writing desk then a luxury leather desk blotter not only provides a very practical solution, protecting the surface of your desk and providing a convenient surface for writing or signing letters and documents, but by choosing a luxury leather desk blotter that’s
handmade in England by real craftsmen, then you know that the way it looks and feels is every bit as important and appreciated as how it works.

Hip flasks have long proven popular, whether by those setting off for a long country walk, a highland hike or a day shooting. But hip flasks serve a greater purpose than simply being a portable container for a refreshing drink, or a wee drop of the special Scottish water!

Hip flasks are stylish accessories, beautiful items in themselves, providing convenience, luxury and style all in an elegant, lightweight, durable package that can be carried or worn easily.

Luxury English leather goods can include a range of hip flasks, or containers for hip flasks, enabling you to face nature with a bracing determination and a beautiful hip flask of which you’ll be as pleased with the exterior as much as the interior! Plastic bottles are for students. For the perfect English gentleman, luxury leather hip flasks are the order of the day.

When it comes to choosing gun slips and cartridge cases, leather shooting accessories are head and shoulders above plastic alternatives, providing both the look and style that is the mark of quality. But it’s more than that, because leather is soft, malleable and durable, providing protection from the elements, and ensuring your shooting equipment remains in excellent condition, removing any possible excuse for missing that brace on Sunday!

From Crystal reports training to Microsoft SharePoint there are more opportunities available today than ever before for making technology work to turn raw, meaningless data into information that’s relevant to the questions you need to be asking.

Today businesses have the opportunity to take advantage of Microsoft Business Intelligence training to turn maths into meaning, data into displays and information into something that can really inform you in order to help identify what the business’s needs really are, how it’s doing, who it’s reaching, how effectively it’s performing and where it needs to focus in order to maximise its effectiveness.

As with anything, if you don’t know where your target is, there’s little point in even pretending to aim, let alone hoping you’ll have any kind of success. Through effective business intelligence training it is possible to turn the wealth of data which technology has almost certainly already helped you compile, and start making it work for your business in order to assess where you stand, and where you need to take the next step in order to keep moving forwards.

Collating, compiling, storing and managing data can often seem to be simply more work, but it is possible to turn that work into something that works for you for a change, using any one of the various options available to you. Crystal reports training can demonstrate how easy and how effective it is to create and use a solution which enables your data to be displayed and manipulated quickly and easily across a whole range of technologies and platforms, providing you with the opportunity to view and share relevant data in a way that gives you the edge.

In today’s fiercely competitive and highly volatile market there is only one way to stay ahead of the game, and that’s to keep ahead of the game. Making technology work for you through opportunities such as SharePoint and Microsoft Business Intelligence is one of the most important ways to achieve this.

But whilst business intelligence training may sound confusing or complex, the reality is that it isn’t. Business intelligence training isn’t about adding to your workload, making things more difficult or more complex. Quite the reverse, Microsoft Business Intelligence, business intelligence training and Crystal Reports training is all about taking what you already have and working with it in a way that significantly speeds up the process of being able to make sense of your business’s statistics.

In this way you become able to analyse the current market and the performance and effectiveness of your business more quickly, more accurately and more easily, empowering you with the ability to make more accurate and reliable decisions based on that data, and giving your business the advantage through the use of technology. Business intelligence training doesn’t just help you find the target, it helps you hit it more accurately, and before your competitors.

Aga maintenance

The maintenance required for an Aga is not as difficult as you may think and a bit of common sense will keep it operating with few problems. One of the main causes of damage can come from small spillages while cooking. Some Aga models work as heat storage units which means they are always on. This provides a great way to slow cook food and keep the flavours in but any spillages that haven’t been wiped away immediately dry and stain the surfaces very quickly.

Always clean up any mess before this can happen and ensure you use Aga approved cleaning products or you could damage the appearance of your oven. Be careful when cleaning the hotplates though as you could scold yourself. Any substance that spills onto the hotplate will eventually carbonise so you can simply brush it away.

As with the home, an Aga range cooker can get a bit grimy over time with grease, fat and other substances accumulating in the nooks and crannies. Make sure you give your Aga a bit of spring clean every so often but don’t tackle it all at once as it will soon become tiresome and you won’t do the best job possible. Take on a specific area each day until you’ve got it gleaming again.

Aga servicing

When it comes to servicing, think of your Aga as you would your car and have a regular service booked in. Most people choose to service their Aga cooker every couple of years but a yearly service is prudent. An Aga stove that burns oil definitely needs regular servicing due to the way pipes feed oil into the burners. Small carbon deposits can build up inside causing a drop in performance and efficiency and the potential for total malfunction.

A gas burning Aga should have a yearly service while a solid fuel burner converted oven will need a good sweep down every six months with the main chimney swept out annually. Whatever type of energy source you use to power your Aga, a regular service will keep your oven and stove running smoothly and reduce the likelihood of an expensive repair bill should something go wrong.

An Aga is for life…

With these simple maintenance tips, proper cleaning plus regular servicing you’ll be able to keep your Aga running smoothing and enjoy worry-free cooking for life. Speak to an Aga dealer to ensure you get the right products and servicing plan.

Video production: Get creative

The film production company you use can help you come up with creative ways of communicating your product or message, however there are a few simple tips that will give you a head start:

Inform and educate – In your film you need to tell the viewer about your product, service or message by providing details about all the features, benefits and reasons. Cover as much as you can but keep it concise.

Q&A – You’re probably already aware of the common questions that are asked about your organisation or product so put these into your film and then answer them. You can use different techniques to do so such as a caption on screen for the question and then a talking head giving the answer.

Blow your own trumpet – Nobody else is going to, so make sure in the film that you tell everyone about your achievements with clients, customers or social groups. Use case studies and then show the viewer how you can do the same for them.

Be a storyteller – A compelling story is a great way to relate to people so weave one into your film – perhaps use a past event that has shaped the way your business or organisation has developed.

Mythbuster – Every industry or social project will have myths attached to it and most are either unfounded or misinterpreted facts. Speak about those myths and then show the real story giving plenty of facts to leave the viewer with no doubts.

Behind the scenes – There is always an interest in knowing what goes on behind the scenes of any business or organisation so take your viewer to the places they would normally not be able to see. Introduce your workforce, your premises and show how you operate.

Online video marketing

Once your video is ready for release you’ll want to make sure that the widest possible audience will have a chance to view it. Posting a video online is an inexpensive way to reach large numbers and once on the internet, chances are it will stay there for years so your only real outlay is in the initial production. Here are a few more strategies for online marketing:

Come up with a great title – A title serves two purposes when online. Firstly, it will get the viewer’s attention so they’ll want to find out more. Secondly, search engines look for keywords in titles so if someone searches using those keywords your video has a better chance of being listed.

Snappy content – Your video may have a long running time but before you post it online consider an edit specifically for the internet. A recent report suggested that the average online video is around 4 minutes in length so if you can focus your content into that time-frame without losing your message all the better.

Display your web address – No doubt you have a website so include the URL within your video to drive traffic to your site.

Brand your video – Display your company logo in a prominent position during the key moments of your film.

These are just some of the basics to cover when producing and marketing a video. A creative communications agency such as Silverfish Media will take your project from the ideas stage to final broadcast and promotion on TV, DVD, Cinema or the web. Collaborating with professionals is the best way to make the biggest impact.

If you conduct an online search, you will be presented with the best variety of jackets to choose from. The selection will show a range of colour choices and classic styles. One of the advantages of shopping online for clothing items such as leather jackets and blazers is that you can often pick up a bargain or sale item. The prices that are available online are usually much cheaper than those you will find in a regular store due to the fact that having an online presence means less overheads and companies can pass these substantial savings onto their customers.

There are some reputable online stores that also have a physical store as well, and by expanding their business to include online shopping, allows them to spread the news about their leather products and offer them to potential customers that may have otherwise missed out.

When you are searching for the right leather jacket for you, have a look at some of the classic zip jackets and designer jackets that are available. You will find that they are available in many sizes, catering for the small, medium, large and extra-large man with a classic look that is also comfortable. Some stores also carry a range of men’s leather jackets and blazers in 3XL and 4XL sizes, so finding a jacket that fits you perfectly is definitely achievable, even if you are shopping online.

You will want to ensure that the leather jacket you choose is made from the highest quality leather, and a determining factor of this is the softness of the skin and where the skin has come from. The softer the leather, the more comfortable the jacket or blazer will be to wear, and the more stylish it will look. A soft leather will also provide you with a jacket that is lightweight, and this is handy when the weather changes and you need to remove the jacket and carry it.

If you have had a favourite leather jacket in the past, you will know that as you wear them, they just get better and better. They will mould to fit your body were and if needed and require little maintenance to keep clean. As this is not an item that you would be purchasing every day and because a classic leather jacket will last you a really long time, you will want to make sure you get it right the first time.