The Spoon Drawer

It would seem that the news today has great pleasure in telling everyone that if they do not have a house now, they never will. The property market seems doomed for anyone that isn’t already in it. With the mortgage being labelled the ‘most dangerous financial product in the world’ [i] , many have been put off the whole process and are not prepared to take one out at all. But, if you think of it this way: for anyone renting at the moment, it is almost certain that your monthly rent packet goes towards paying someone else’s mortgage off, while steadily chipping away at your home owning dream fund. With the whole ‘if you can’t beat them, join them!’ philosophy in mind, it is definitely an aspiring idea worth thinking about that could make taking the scary mortgage route worth it in the long-term. Be a landlord! This may seem like a pretty far-fetched idea when you do not have a chance of buying even your first property yet, but hear me out. On average a four bed house in

The Star Wars franchise is undoubtedly one of the biggest in the entire world, indeed perhaps the universe. There are very few people who haven’t seen the films multiple times, often from childhood to adulthood.  Its part of the culture of multiple generations of children, with so many toys and games constantly produced to keep them happy. Over the years there have been some mad, and some amazing, toys and gadgets released. So, let’s explore some of the best star wars gadgets of recent memory. Millennium Falcon Bed Undoubtedly the coolest spaceship of all time, perhaps rivalled only by the Starship Enterprise, is Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon. The adventures she has seen is something any Star Wars fan will remember fondly, and will perhaps dream of taking part in somewhere somehow. Well, a great way to do that would be to hit the sack in this Millennium Falcon bed. It’s an awesome design, it looks kind of like a big bean bag but it has the firmness of a bed. It even

Hands up who loves street art? O.K, even if at first you don’t think you do, here’s betting at some point in your life you will definitely have seen street art that you really took a fancy to. And no, street art is not just about graffiti. There are oodles of different types of creative projects that come under the urban ‘street’ umbrella so let’s get started and explore some of the street art trends that are causing a stir across the globe. Graffiti Let’s start with the most obvious. Graffiti. Love it or hate it you have to admit that there are some talented graffiti artists out there leaving their mark on the world. Literally. I mean, if you haven’t heard of ‘ Banksy ’ then you must have been living in a coal cellar for the last 20 years. The Bristol based artist’s humorous yet political stencil street art quickly sprung up in all corners of the globe. Without a shadow of a doubt, Banksy’s work helped to put graffiti firmly on the map of the art world. In fact, some of hi

‘Europe by Rail’ sounds brilliant doesn't it? A kind of romantic introduction to a film that everyone wants to watch because you are sure to see a lot of amazing things, hear some hilarious jokes and experience a thrilling adventure. It kind of is but it will be the single most expensive way of watching several really good films in one sitting. My best friend and I took on this mammoth adventure; we planned a round trip using our 1 month continuous global youth InterRailPass and we planned to visit over ten cities in six different countries. This sounds awesome, right? And in all fairness, we had some incredible times. But all in all, this trip cost us over £1000, and realistically, we probably only saw about 8% of Europe. The constant moving, checking-in, checking-out, running along platforms, reserving tickets and looking for toilets (with huge rucksacks!) took over the majority of the trip that had cost us so much. For the amount of money and time, we should have b

For a long time now I have been considering running for charity; I remember my father doing it when I was young and I thought he was a hero. Working in a bar just about covers my rent and I am still saving to go to university so I always feel bad that I can’t do more charity fundraising . So, recently I felt compelled to use my athletic self to do some good and began searching for charities I could support. As I scrolled through the numerous articles I noticed that a lot of people were raving about extreme sports. My male pride and ego may have come into play a little here but just running seemed a bit too tame once I began looking into the vast array of fundraising ideas for extreme sports enthusiasts but as I felt the adrenaline rush to my head, I began to feel uncomfortable. Albeit a noble act, is it just me or has charity fundraising become a great excuse to try something new? Should we be doing something selfish when it comes to charitable fund raising and is there a way to b