The Bluebeards Revenge Grooming Deluxe Gift Box; Review

We’ve covered a fair amount of style and grooming on the blog recently, from a review of the Secret Scent Box and Philips OneBlade to top tips covering office style and personal grooming; what we haven’t covered up until this point however is the more giftable element of the market, often a minefield of mass-market brands lobbing together their standard stodgy product in fancy cardboard packaging (often combining socks or a mug?) and charging a premium for the privilege.

Nobody – repeat nobody – wants the Lynx Africa gift set from Asda; this is where the good folks at The Bluebeards Revenge save the day.

Motorbikes and me. Can I live the Motorbike Dream?

When you write a blog like TwoMenAboutTown, after a while companies sometimes ask you to talk about their stuff. Over the past 5 years of blogging, I’ve had the odd nice dinner out here, perhaps a drink or two there, maybe even some surprisingly nice socks. But never in my most cheese fuelled dreams did I think I would be writing  about motorbikes with BikeBandit.com. To be fair, I’m not even supposed be writing this post, BikeBandit originally got in touch with SuburbanGent who leapt at the chance to talk bikes but subsequently due to circumstances outside of his control, wasn’t able to pick it up again and so he asked me to catch it for him. No problem buddy. I’ve got your back and I’m all over it like a Tramp on chips. Motorbikes? Me? What could possibly go wrong?

City Stay Apartments, Milton Keynes review; the best combination of hotel and house?

Whether you’re a young professional attending a corporate event or client visit in Milton Keynes, a cool and hip (yes, hip) socialite going out to soak up the sights and sounds of our town or perhaps something in between, at some point you are likely to want overnight accommodation. Life on the road with business isn’t much fun and crashing somewhere unfamiliar without home comforts and space isn’t much better either. Let’s be frank… that Travelodge can be a bit grim.

Sure, the hotel market in Milton Keynes covers everything from budget hotels to the dizzying heights of luxury (that’s the Holiday Inn to you and I… *eye roll*) – and yes, such a thing as Airbnb does exist – but you’re likely to end up either be very disappointed, struggle to feel at ease in somebody else’s home, contract some form of mattress-based disease or spend a small fortune on a pretty mediocre overnight stay. And you are better and more demanding than that.

You can imagine then our interest when the people at City Stay Apartments got in touch, offering us the opportunity to come and try out one of their two-bedroom executive managed apartments located in central Milton Keynes. We’d been looking for a location for our #UltimateNightIn (more on that in a future post), so we jumped at the chance to see what an executive apartment could offer us.

Kua’Aina, Goodge Street London Review; A taste of Hawaiian paradise?

I’ve written time and time again about London’s Fitzrovia neighbourhood, blessed with hundreds of great restaurants, cafes, cocktail bars, bakeries and bistros; bigger players such as Bang Bang Canteen, Wahaca, Dim t, Franco Manca and countless great little indies means that this part of London is bursting at the seams for lunchtime retreats. It’s my favourite part of London.

Today’s trip between meetings was to Kua’Ania on Goodge Street, an Americana-inspired (well, Hawaiian) cafe with beach shack-style decor; the chilled-out vibe, menu full of meaty classics and tasty looking shakes/cocktails is right up my street, so I’d been looking forward to this one for a while…

Drinks By The Dram – Whisky Advent Calendar

When I was a kid, the two best things about Christmas were the food, anticipation and the presents. Wait that’s three. Can I say the anticipation of the food and presents? Does that count? Let’s hope so because that perfectly selected lead-in brings me neatly to the memory and joy of Advent Calendars; a perfect combination of anticipation, presents and chocolate. Of course, everything about Christmas, even the Advent Calendars have evolved since I was a kid; big ones, small ones, you can even get ones with proper chocolate in them these days. But, time goes on and I’ve grown up *sigh*. No longer will I feel the unadulterated joy of the Advent Calendar, or so I thought…

Then I got an email from Drinks By The Dram.

Top (simple) Grooming and Skincare Tips That Make a Difference

You may have seen my recent post on style tips for the workplace; well, next up in my series of posts focusing on men’s style, grooming and body confidence is a piece sharing top grooming and skincare tips, this one in collaboration with Panasonic.

So, without further trepidation, here is my top male skincare and grooming tips…

Antep Kitchen – Wolverton; Review

What price can you put on enthusiasm?

Take for example, the Antep Kitchen. It opened on the corner at the end of the Highstreet opposite Tesco a few months ago. It replaced a very dodgy curry house, which had, in turn, replaced several equally dodgy establishments serving up dull, unexciting takeaways with an atmosphere to match. To make their mark, and somehow having taken inspiration from Wolverton’s hardly burgeoning Turkish population, someone thought it would be a great idea to open a restaurant demonstrating just how toss the British idea of a kebab actually is. On the face of it, it’s clearly a staggeringly insane plan born from the mind of an utter lunatic, but wait. Something very odd is happening in Wolverton. Small, independent restaurants that create and serve with passion, skill and authenticity are thriving. Suddenly tapping into the British love for a good grilled shish that you don’t have to eat out of a factory molded pitta bread isn’t quite as crazy after all and so we found as we walked through the doors and into one of the busiest restaurants I’ve visited in a long time.

Dressing for Success: boosting confidence and rocking the 9-5.

Body image, self-confidence and insecurities. We all have them in some form; men certainly have hangups, way more than what is widely recognised and acknowledged, particularly amongst other men.

Positively, there has been a recent surge of male bloggers such as Charlie at Modish Male, Arran at Halo of Thoughts and Adam over at The Male Stylist sharing their experiences of body-image. Their reflections are honest, they’re raw and they’re a realistic account of the inner-demons that plague a lot of us gents in an attempt to live up to societal ‘norms’ and projected manly-man images.