Please contact me if you would like me to review an event, product, venue... or anything else for that matter.

La Cosa Nostra, Lattimore Road, St. Albans

This converted house is warm and cozy, with a home cooked feel.

If you're after a table on a Friday or Saturday night you will need to book in advance, there are only a few tables and these are usually full by 8pm.

The wide menu is all cooked freshly in the open plan kitchen.  Every meal I've had there has been equally tasty, this is real hearty food rather than anything fancy.

This is a charming place to take someone on a date, your pocket will agree.  Quality with great value.

Gold Diggers by Tasmina Perry

A tragic tale of the shallow world of London's most successful gold diggers and the men making the most of their wealth and power.

Sex, lies and betrayal.  Fidelity seems to be out of fashion, replaced instead by contrived liaisons lacking in love.  Who cares about trust, when you can have fists full of cash?

Only Erin, the lowley assistant/author, perhaps a characterisation of the author herself, seems to have any moral code.  She is almost pulled into the seedy but fabulous world and yet she teeters on the outside and manages to escape despite various heart breaks.

Dexter

A killer combination of murder, detective work, and suburban life that will have you biting your lip with nerves and watching through spread fingers.

Dexter is the murderer next door, the good guy on the surface with a darkness within.  He makes Miami safer by killing off the murderers and rapists, following his code instilled by his foster father, in order to satisfy his need for blood.  Only occasionally does he get it wrong and kill someone undeserving.

Dexter is Miami Metro's blood analyst, when he isn't creating crime scenes of his own.  He works alongside his foster sister, Detective Debra Morgan, in the same department their father had previously.

Dexter is a family man with a wife, two step children, and a son of his own.  Since having married, Dexter's need to kill has been combined with his need to protect his family, both from his own dark secret and from the evil lurking elsewhere in Miami.

Nip Tuck

The trashy epitome of the phrase "sex sells".

A mixture of plastic surgery, sex and endless drama that makes you wonder what they can possibly do next.  Just when you think there is no lower level they can sink to, you are shown how wrong you can be.

You can't help but be hooked whilst at the same time wanting to avert your eyes.

Whilst starting out as the happy family man, Sean MacNamara is at heart as tawdry as his narcissistic business partner Christian Troy.  Sean veers to the mildly more moral level than his bad mannered colleague but neither can be said to be all bad beneath their outward behaviour.  They are fatally flawed and at the same time gifted with tragic backgrounds making their actions almost excusable.

Online Shopping - deals and discounts


One of the benefits of shopping online over shopping on the high street is the many opportunities for discounts and deals.  The ideal way to find these is to first decide what to buy, once you have made this decision, you can look for discount codes for the site you are browsing, or you can do a price comparison and find the products' cheapest distributor.

If you are just trying to find out what deals are out there, there are sites that put together selections of the latest deals, many offer newsletters you can sign up for.  One of the most useful newsletters is from Martin Lewis (MoneySavingExpert*).

Many discounts available are for free postage and packaging, which means even if you're paying the same price you would in the high street, you've saved yourself from having to leave the comfort of your home.

Sites listing discount codes*



Price comparison sites*



Sites listing deals*



Other useful websites*


blahdvd - cheap dvds.

BookBrain - cheap books.

download.com - free software.

Quidco - money back on purchases made through clicking links from their site.

StudentFreeStuff - free stuff.

The Shoe Lounge - cheap clear shoe boxes.

* None of the websites within this article are listed for promotional purposes; these are intended as resources for the reader and are all free of charge at the time of writing. I have not yet tried all of these sites.