Valentine’s Day: a day to celebrate love and togetherness, whether you’re in a relationship or happily single.
It’s also a day for alcohol. So we’ve created 14 original cocktails for the occasion.
They’re perfect for parties, date night, or sipping alone in a dark room as you Instagram stalk your exes.
So go ahead. Pick up some alcohol, choose your drink of choice, and go forth and get happily hammered*. It’s Valentine’s Day. You’ve earned this.
It happens very rarely, but sometimes you come across the perfect situation when you miraculously get the whole place to yourself.
It could be that you’re too sick to go to work (strategical sickie), or that everyone else has gone on holiday, or perhaps all other occupants have swanned off on a group activity that you decided to opt out of.
But the concrete truth is that you have the whole place to yourself, and there are certain moments of happiness that… Read the full story
I used to work with someone who genuinely once said ‘all I want, is to be with someone who can afford to buy me an AGA’. True story. Love her as I do, she did highlight something to me. That people’s ‘relationship goals’ are often away with fairies.
I mean yeah, get me the fancy cooker but only if I know we’ve got something more solid than a kitchen appliance to base our love one.
Sometimes, the real life, down to earth relationship goals are the ones we need. And the one’s we’re overlooking.
1. Finding someone who will high five you for eating more than your fair share of chicken from the family bucket
Not side eye you for… Read the full story
When we’re caught up in the drama of our own relationships, it’s easy to forget that love’s been around much, much longer than we have.
Great love stories aren’t really told the way we see them on screens – all gorgeous twenty-somethings fighting and then making up with a big romantic gesture.
The truly great love stories are the ones that last – or break apart – over long stretches of time. And the only people that can share those stories are the people we all too often ignore.
To combat that problem and share the love… Read the full story
The latest trend taking hold around London’s cocktail scene is meat cocktails. Yep.
My first experiment into meat cocktails took place about 20 years ago. I’d just had my tongue pierced the day before and was happily cooking our traditional Sunday roast in the kitchen when it struck me, I can’t chew.
Well I wasn’t about to forsake my Sunday roast so into the blender it went, lamb, potatoes, mint sauce, peas, the lot, all lubricated with plenty of red wine gravy. Yeah it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t that bad either!
Luckily things have changed in the last couple of decades and meat cocktails are now taking progressive bars around the world by storm.
Several of London’s best bars have created some meaty cocktails you’ll not just want to try but keep on trying over and over again.
Well, this is rather perfect for anyone wanting some extra protein in their diet. Why settle for a steak when… Read the full story
There are massive differences between a normal bar and a trendy bar.
A normal bar is a nice establishment where you can get a regular G&T without any added pressure of adding in fancy lavender potions.
Your normal bar will serve you peanuts and pretzels, as opposed to overpriced fancy pant nuts that you approach with suspicion and caution.
Chances are that you have indeed frequented one of these trendy bars, and it has always been an interesting affair.
1. You get nervous
You cautiously waddle in to one of these trendy spaces and you’re unsure of how to feel about it all.
A third of the clientele are eerily casual, as though they… Read the full story
Joel Gazdar, chef at Wild Food Café, says he wants to ‘transform humanity’s relationship with food’ with delicious, biodiverse, creative and sometimes unusual plant ingredients.
One thing is for sure. He knows how to heat up a Valentine’s day menu.
I love to create innovative,… Read the full story
At the risk of sounding bitter and filled with seething resentment for other people’s happiness, we’re not too excited about seeing smug couples’ PDA plastered all over our Instagram feed this Valentine’s Day.
But you know what would make other people’s loved up happiness a thousand times more tolerable? If the cutesy romance wasn’t actually between two people.
By which we quite clearly mean: we’re not interested in seeing romantic moments unless they’re being recreated by dogs, thanks.
So thank the dog gods for DogVacay. They fulfilled our Valentine’s Day dreams (other than the half price chocolate, which we will be bulk-buying on… Read the full story
Valentine’s Day is a day where most people realise just what a poor shot cupid really is.
But sending roses, buying chocolates and writing anonymous cards is nothing compared to what our lovesick friends from around the globe get up to.
1. Dear boss, will you be my Valentine?
Most people would be a bit sick in their mouth thinking about giving their boss a Valentine’s gift but in Japan it’s quite the norm.
A tradition called ‘giri choco‘ or ‘obligation chocolate’ sees women buy chocolate for male co-workers.
2. Crying into your… Read the full story
Welcome to the rollercoaster of emotion, hearts and OTT expressions of affection that is Valentine’s Day.
Valentine’s Day is inevitable, no sooner have the Christmas proposal Facebook posts stopped, than the influx of red roses, or passive aggressive quotes on why single life is the way forward begin.
But no matter where you are, and what your situation is there are certain things that you’re bound to witness every single Valentine’s Day.
1. You either love it or hate it
Valentine’s Day may as well be sponsored by Marmite, because that is just how deeply it divides opinion.
There is no such as not really being bothered by it, because you either love it so much that you end up buying personalised chocolates for everyone you know, or you hate it so much that it makes your teeth clench in anger.
MORE: Here’s how to declare your love on Valentine’s Day with Marmite
2. Great… Read the full story
After years of searching I’ve finally found The One.
He’s 3ft 4, obsessed with dinosaurs and can’t write his own name.
I’m talking about the love of my life – my three-year-old nephew.
When you’re single, Valentine’s Day can seem the most heartless holiday, a whole day to think of what you lack.
It feels crass, insensitive and unnecessary – no different to, say, an annual Million Pound Day on which only those with a million pounds get to show off what they do with their money. You already have a million… Read the full story
Valentine’s Day – whether you’re having a relaxing, romantic night in or a fun get together with the girls, it’s definitely a day for cocktails.
Of course you’ll need a cocktail recipe or two that includes something pink or something fizzy, preferably with a sentimental or cheesy name.
These Valentine’s Day cocktails have that and more plus, of course, there’s gin.
So raise a glass to the liquor of l’amore.
Here’s 12 Valentine’s Day cocktail recipes because who doesn’t love booze?
Lavender And Rose Martini by Dirty Martini
In the future, rather than packing to go on holiday, we’ll be able to take our houses with us (including the kitchen sink), thanks to giant drones.
A new report by a group of academics, future architects and urbanists, which looks at what life might be like 100 years from now, has predicted that the huge drones will carry entire buildings wherever you want to go, without upsetting any of the soft furnishings.
And instead of building up, future city planners may well look the other way.
People will live in ‘earth-scrapers’, which will go up to 25 storeys underground. And ‘bubble cities’ will… Read the full story
The sky is actually twinkling.
Tiny ice crystals are sparkling in the sunshine just inches from my face as I slice through the snow 8,000ft up the Italian Alps.
‘Am I hallucinating or do you see that?’ I ask my guide Francesco, a 60-year-old in red ski pants, who has skied these slopes all his life.
‘That’s the polvere di diamanti,’ he tells me with a smile. ‘I think you call it diamond dust in England. It is beautiful.’
Morning just rolled around again, way too soon, and it’s a struggle.
You snoozed five times in a row, your train was delayed because of late engineering, leaving you standing on a freezing cold platform with crowds of others, and you don’t know how you’re going to make it through to 5pm.
We give you the emotional struggle of every workday morning, as illustrated by Kanye West’s Yeezy models.
When you know you have to get up but you sit on the bed for 10 minutes like this.
Do you remember the days before you’d had sex?
When your teenage self would sit down and watch a 15 rated film and be subjected to your first ever sex scene?
And in amongst being mortified that your parents were in the room, and being concerned about what the feeling in your pants really meant, you were struck with your first ever idea of what sex was like.
I defy anyone to not hold their hands up and say that, when they eventually got down to it, they weren’t a little disappointed it wasn’t how it was on the screen.
Sometimes even now in our… Read the full story
‘So I got down on one knee today,’ Brad Holmes wrote on Facebook yesterday, along with a short video clip.
So far, so romantic.
But, this Valentine’s Day proposal is definitely not what you expect. And Brad’s girlfriend Jenny Davies definitely struggles to see the funny side.
First, there’s an elaborate build up, where 24-year-old Brad, from Southampton, is seen hiding a small engagement ring sized box in his trousers.
As he beckons Jenny over and gets down on one knee, she covers her face in shock.
A woman who lost almost half her body weight in two years, has gained thousands of Instagram followers after documenting her transformation online.
But while fitness coach Conner Rensch, 26, from Nebraska now loves showing off her hard-won abs, she’s equally proud of her stretch marks, which show just how far she has come.
At 18-years-old, Conner weighed 271lb (19st) and was classified as morbidly obese. She struggled with body issues and was bullied throughout her time at school.
‘My over-eating and shame only led to more weight gain and unhappiness,’ she explains on her website.
At the… Read the full story
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