The Spoon Drawer

The way we live today dictates that businesses are open longer, more frequently and in more places at once in order to surpass competition. Even the companies previously considered more independent and bespoke are known to have up to, and often over, at least ten branches across different cities around the UK. Such fast-paced demand means that more traditional methods of bookkeeping, accounting, management and customer service have all had to be improved and updated as companies up their game. News has emerged that the popular café, EAT , has replaced its age old spreadsheets with cloud-based financial planning tools in order to keep up to speed with the pace of twenty-first century business. This conversion illustrates the need for much more sophisticated account management and financial reporting software that was previously reserved for the serious big time players in the finance industry. Now that high street companies are making this transition, chances are that much o...

Most of the first world uses the web but how many people know basic web design skills? Website design skills are now just as important as knowing basic mathematics or science. Almost every company has a website and most people now use social media daily. Basic coding and web skills can increase your job prospects and can even help you maintain your own blog.  http://mrg.bz/ohJ7O2 HTML (Hyper-Text Markup Language) is the language or code behind every website. It contains all the information about a site, such as the text, images and links on a webpage. A website would simply not exist without HTML. It is the ‘back office’ of every website you visit and one of the most important skills every web designer needs. The versatile HTML can be used to design websites of all varieties from huge eCommerce businesses such as Amazon to personal blogs such as my own. But HTML does not work alone, you might have the content but how do you want it to look? This is where CSS...

Source: Flickr I had always forgotten about essays during the summer when I was at university and it is probably the same for some other students. The first few weeks back are always slightly relaxed and the work load is not as bad as it will be the rest of the year. Fresher’s week will be great and you might start to forget why you are at university, I know I did. Essay deadlines will soon begin to stack up towards the end of the term. You might find yourself snowed under a lot of deadlines at any one time and the stress that comes with it will not be too far away. I remember feeling like my work load got too much towards the end of each year at university and I often considered paying someone to write my essay for me. It would have made life so much easier but I never went through with it. If you are anything like I was, your student loan will be spent on bulk buying beer at the beginning of every term and you might have to live off plain pasta for a few weeks bu...

I recently read up on a new concept in clubbing that's apparently been sweeping London and has now made it down to Brighton: early weekday morning club nights. No, I'm talking about wild after parties into the small hours, which have been popular in clubland for a long time now, but actual sessions set up to take place before revellers head off to work. This brave new concept is known as Morning Gloryville and as soon as I'd heard they were on their way to Brighton I knew I had to give it a go. Brighton's first pre-work club night/morning took place last Thursday, from 6:30am until 10:30am, in what's now called Shooshh , but will be better known to most under its previous guise of the Honey Club. With a strict no alcohol policy the event isn't billed as somewhere to carry on the shenanigans of the previous evening's debauchery, but rather an opportunity to start the day with some no holds barred dancefloor action. The organisers claim there is no more...

I've been reading this month about the popularity of Hot Tub Cinema , a unique experience whereby you can enjoy cult classic films whilst lounging in a hot tub atop a building, among friends and strangers. Hot Tub Cinema is currently taking place in trendy Shoreditch (where else) but will be upping sticks to Bristol next month to give the west country a taste of this fun new phenomenon. So what's it all about? The pop up events bandwagon has been growing in popularity to the point where it will surely soon become passe. I predict we are reaching pop up saturation point so there is a limited window to get involved before we are so inundated by pop up shops, restaurants, art exhibitions and happening wine bars that those of us who are genuinely cool will have to wash our hands of them, just like when Jeremy Clarkson ruined stonewashed denim for the rest of us. Still, for the time being, there's a little mileage left in the concept, and this watching a film in a jacuzz...

With the impending vote for Scottish independence almost upon us, those of us in favour of keeping the unity are becoming slightly concerned with what seems to be a final push for separation. Three weeks before the referendum and support for Scottish independence has grown 4% to a very worrying 47% ( see stats here ). While Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling battle it out with a selection of various politicians and celebrities publicly supporting both of them respectively, the rest of us with much less influence can only watch on. Personally, despite being a big advocate of liberality, freedom of speech and independence to be given wherever its wanted, I am against the bill. Of course there are serious economic advantages to union and resounding complications that can ensue from such as exclusion from the EU and the loss of various trading advantages. Yet my reasoning for opposing independence is simply the age old one of convenience and habit. Scotland has been unified...

Having not been lucky enough to visit the Edinburgh Festival myself this year, I thought I would take a look at what the critics had to say so I could bring you the low down of the best jokes from the Edinburgh Festival 2014.  Telling jokes in the pub is somewhat of a pastime for me and my mates and what better place to get inspiration for one-liners than the Edinburgh Festival? One-liners are a tricky beast, often resulting in a sort of “ah” sighing sound which is designed to signify that people are unimpressed. But the Edinburgh Fest is a comedy hub so I expected the crème de la crème when I heard that this year’s best one-liner had been voted for by a panel of experts from over 7,000 one-liners and then chosen from the panel’s short list by the public. The winning joke was from the 2010 winner Tim Vine, dubbed the king of one-liners for a reason! “I've decided to sell my Hoover... well, it was just collecting dust...