A few months ago what used to be the Cafe (I’m not messing about with silly French letters) Rouge in Leeds became a Cattle Grid. For those of you who don’t know what a Cattle Grid Restaurant is, it is an American style meat house without Americans Imagine an episode of Man v’s Food in a posher restaurant with really friendly people. There you have it… Cattle Grid.

So, the boxes.

Good Food – Check

So far I have had the Pulled Pork, the Pulled Beef (probably not called that) and the Ribs. The ribs are stupidly good. Messy, meaty and mammoth. The beef is nice and capable of filling any lunchtime void. The pork however is the daddy. A high quality bun (yes I know it is hard to get excited about bread), tomato (I don’t thanks), greenary (enough but not too much) and marinated pork.

Meat – Check

It’s all about the money, money, money MEAT. Meat is what Cattle Grid is about. Damn good meat.

Value – Check

Cattle Grid do a lunch time deal where you get either the pork or the beef with a Coke and chips for £6. Bargain. Simple, well balanced perfect lunch food. I know, I go sometimes twice a week, and Dom seems to live there.

Friendliness – Check

All the staff at Cattle Grid Leeds are really friendly from the owner to the staff. I have even met the owner of the Cattle Grid brand and he is a great guy to.

Pudding – No Sure

I know they do ice-cream but I haven’t had pudding yet because the lunchtime deal is so well balanced. I am planning in visiting this weekend (see below) so pudding is very likely on the cards.

All in all the Leed Cattle Grid and I dare say Cattle Grid as a whole is amazing. A 5 out of 5.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

As from this weekend (all being well), Cattle Grid Leeds will be doing a Sunday Roast. I have heard it will be a traditional Sunday Roast and will be £7.50 a head or 2 for £10. I will update this post on Sunday after we have been

Hopefully I will see you there!

Note

None of the prices etc. here are legally binding. I was told about the Sunday Roast today in a chat so may have got it wrong. I am in no way affiliated with Cattle Grid. I have simply been there lots and the food and people really are nice.

I like Dave am using the massive Google Love Juice of B.A.D. to try it. Although if I did win I would struggle to get the wife to let me go! Anyhow time for another random instance of a4uexpobavarianbeerandsausageonstand50 (in italics) to keep the relevance up. Hell yeah let’s bold it now A4UEXPOBAVARIANBEERANDSAUSAGEONSTAND50.

So, about the A4U Expo and how to make the most of it as a delegate.

Yes, as with most things on B.A.D. this post is a bit of fun. But the A4U expo isn’t. People can make a lot of money out of being an affiliate and A4U is the place to meet this people and learn a little some some from them. I have literally today added some affiliate stuff to B.A.D. I doubt it will make me a millionarre but if it makes the lovely Ellaine some money then it’s all good by me.

My top 5 tips for attending A4U in London.

1. Talk to people on Twitter. Follow the #a4uexpo hashtag. Chat, make contact. Anything you can do to break the ice before the event will pay dividends.
2. Know you audience / content before you go. Talking to the right people, be they affiliates or merchants will help you get the info you need and hopefully help you make some money.
3. Don’t be afraid of anyone. Talk to anyone. Be nice and people will be nice back. If they aren’t then fook them. They are probably knobheads anyway.
4. Plan you day before you arrive. Work out where you can get the answers you need. Take a pen and paper
5. The conference doesn’t stop when the talks end!

* Bonus!!!

• Follow Paul Madden or Dom Hodgson around. Them boyz is trouble

So, I hope this helps you at A4U Expo if you go. And if you do go, be sure to try some Bavarian Beer and Sausage on Stand 50.

Who knows, God willing I will see you there   Jebus I wonder if this will even get close or will Dom come along and use QDF to screw us all!

Big love to Becky Naylor for helping me actually meet the competition requirements.

Stay tuned Diddy Dom fans, for more wacky Dom doings and inappropriate language from Heather.

***BREAKING NEWS*** Richard Lawrence (@richlawre) was also there! Sorry Rich

Now I have always had a good time at all the ThinkVis conferences I have attended as can be seen at http://www.beingadad.co.uk/random-rants/good-rants/think-visibility-20-creme-eggs-and-my-birthday-part-2/. So I both had high expectations of ThinkVis 6 and was willing to give something back (under some duress).

OK, first things first.  I am not going to talk about the sessions that I attended here.  This will most likely come under a more formal post on the Epiphany blog once the 4 of use have had a proper debrief.  This post is more to get across the social and fun side of ThinkVis 6.  The bits you might not read in other write-ups but definitely go towards what makes ThinkVis great.

So here are my top  10 things from ThinkVis 6!

1) Breakfast.

Saturday mornings can be difficult for many, not least those people who went to the pre-party on Friday night. Breakfast at ThinkVis 6 was designed specifically to counter this with bacon and egg baps and coffee on tap. Om Nom Nom!

2) The Pre-party.

Yes I didn’t get to go but I have heard great things about the pre-party (once it got rolling). Sponsored by the lovely people over at Koozai (more on which comes later), Dom took the Mint hotel to the limits. Lots of drink and INDOOR CRAZY GOLF!!!

3) The Swag Bag.

Over the years ThinkVis swag bags gave come on leaps and bounds with last year featuring a rubber duck. Well this year again Dom went one step further and added a ThinkVis Lego minifigure. Mine looks like Jodie McDonnell which is pretty darn funny.

4) Lunchtime Entertainment.

Last year I seem to recall taking part in some lunchtime madness entitled Play Your SERPs Right. I was robbed. As the scars still haven’t healed I chose to not partake in the ThinkVis 6 doings and the Koozai crew of Anna, Andy and Tara took on the guys from OMD. This years quiz show theme was Family Fortunes and much hilarity ensued peeking with Andy saying the now immortal line..

Are dogs allergic to dog food!

Even with the hindrance of Andy, the Koozai team somehow managed to fend of OMD and Anna plus a box on her head made a valiant effort to smash the crap out of a piñata. Awesome fun!

5) Pete (Not Quite A Ninja) Wailes.

Need I say more!

6) Nichola Stott.

I have seen Nichola speak a couple of times now and bar Avinash and Jim Boykin she is my favourite speaker adding the right amount of comedy, authority and confidence into her subject matter. Her talk also chilled me out a bit for what was to come…

7) Your Time To Shine!

Dom added a new style of session to ThinkVis 6. Your Time To Shine was a chance for people who don’t normally speak on stage to have a crack at it. 6, five-minute talks on anything you like. I kinda had my arm twisted on this one by both Dom and Paul Martin but like I said previously I was up for giving something back. So I made my first venture on to stage.

I was pretty nervous (as was Anna from Koozai who was also making her first venture) prior to going on stage but luckily Ben from Koozai and Pete Wailes were on the ball with lots of calming banter etc. When it came time to start I even managed to end up going up first which as it happened proved a good move as I had all the time in the world…. lol

I’m not going to go on about how I did but I actually really enjoyed myself. Yes I was supposed to talk for 5 minutes but whats 12 minutes between friends. Eventually I was wrestled free of the microphone having funded @shanejones’s Lego addiction and was amazed to see this >

Which leads me to 8.

The Community.

That should be an 8 but it is apt! ThinkVis really does bring together a large number of intelligent, kind and fun people. They are all up for a chat and are very supportive of all the speakers. I have spoken at previous events to the likes of Joost, Dixon Jones and Pete Young. This ThinkVis I got to speak with the guys and girls from Koozai, the lovely Zoe Piper, Kelvin Newman, Pete Wailes and loads more people. As it happens I didn’t know there was a camera set up and ended up pretty much sat in front of it for the whole after party ;P

9) The After Party.

Robot Wars!!! Really!!! Oh yes!!! 4 man Robot Wars, Rock Band on the stage, a bloody funny domain auction, free drinks, a magician (at least I think he was scripted) and it’s in a darn casino!!! Truly worthy of all these exclamation marks.

10) Dom Hodgson.

Dom is the life and soul of ThinkVis. Not only does he come up with the concepts and runs himself into the ground getting everything spot on, he also puts his neck on the line and hosts each event. I am genuinely honoured to consider Dom a friend.

**Bonus**

11) The Koozai Crew

Kudos to the Koozai crew for sponsoring and supporting ThinkVis 6, but beyond this serious kudos for being such nice people. I had a right laugh chatting with Ben, Andy, Anna and Tara throughout the event and look forward to bumping in to them in the future.

And now to the lesson! How to say Koozai.

1. Firstly say “Koo” as in Koo ee it’s only me!!!  ”Koo”
2. Now make the sound of a “Z”. Not zeeee of zed but the sound “Z”
3. Put them together and say “Kooz”. “Kooz”
4. Now simply add “Eye” and bam!!! KoozEye….. Koozai

Even I can say it now and trust me I really genuinely struggled on Saturday. I wasn’t trying to be a dick but for some reason (probably alchohal) I kept saying random words. Sorry guys, I hope this makes up for it!

Links

I give links freely

Koozai

@nicholastott

Think Visibility

Al Carlton (what a bloody legend!)

Awesome photos by @sk8geek

I stole all images on this post from either @sk8geek, Koozai or Social Enhancer. If this causes any problems please let me know and I will remove them.

Apologies to @koozai_mike for mixing him up with @koozai_andy

When I moved to Leeds the clothes shopping scene was a tad overwhelming.

“Some guy in a hat just opened the door for me! What do I do? What do I do?”

But I got by although I get upsold a lot by women. Anyhow, I recent went outside of my comfort zone (ASDA George) and paid a visit to the shop of one of my clients, Accent Clothing in Leeds and enjoyed clothes shopping for probably the first time.

The first thing you notice when near Accent is the location.

The Queens Arcade is nice and Accent have their store split into 2 with ladies’ on one side and men’s on the other. Both stores have great shop fronts and a very welcoming exterior. When you enter the store (men’s obviously) it is really well presented but for me (wearing mainly ASDA George), a little intimidating.

The first thing I noticed when entering the store, was that

“Everyone is really good looking in here.”

I’m more than comfortable in my sexuality so I’m fine with saying that I would not hang out with the guys from Accent if I was single. I would be the 5 (a modest 5) amoungst the 9′s and that never ends well for the 5

Once you get over the reality shock that you are in fact not the most beautiful person in the world, you soon realise that “the beautiful people” are in fact really friendly. They will happily let you browse but if you need some advice, they are more than accommodating.

I knew roughly that I wanted a smart casual jumper or top and had a few ideas. I asked for some help from one of the Accent staff who introduced himself as Ryan. 

Ryan was  amazingly helpful, letting me try on several items in various sizes and pretty much acting as my personal shopper. The guy was an absolute legend and knew everything about the Accent stock, sizing and fashion. At no time did I feel like I was being rushed or that I was testing Ryan’s patience and trust me, I am not the easiest shopper to appease.

I ended up with a pretty nifty hoodie from Penguin called a Scapeman. It is a great fit and the material is kind of grided. I also really like the Penguin logo and detailing. I wear it all the time as it looks great and covers all weather types.

You can buy it from Accent via clicking here.

Here is a photo of me wearing it at Think Visibility. 

Accent Clothing did a great job of sorting me out and making me feel welcome. I really can’t fault the whole experience and can highly recommend visiting.

For me it’s the full 5 stars :

[Not A Disclaimer] I have a working relationship with Accent Clothing and yes this does mean that I wouldn’t write anything bad about them. But if I didn’t like Accent, I simply would write nothing rather than being swayed by my relationship. I’m an honest guy and I hope this comes across in my writing and life in general. [/Not A Disclaimer]

So at lunch I rushed across to Marks and Spencer in Leeds City Centre and…. found none :’(

But don’t worry, Noah is ill, Fiona is at home looking after him, I’m getting the train home, there is an M&S Food at both ends of my journey, GET IN!!!

So upon my arrival at home I was furnished with……

I am a firm believer that 1 sample is not a true test (and I’m a greedy bstrd). So once Noah was in bed (lets face it if they were the most amazing thing that ever touched your palate you too would not want your kids finding out!), I cracked them open and my first though was…

Oh my God! They are diddy! Why the fook do they come in such a moohasive box? 

So you can get a true understanding of the size I have compared the Percy Pig Ice Cream with a common or garden FAB lolly. As you can see they are shorter but way fatter, and yes I ate the FAB as well.

So, on to taste. The first thing and really the only thing to say is….

Ficken Heck they taste like Percy Pigs!

They really do. I’m not sure how they have done it but they have infused Ice Cream with Percy Pig flavour and done a really good job of it. Yes it does take a moment to get used to as it tastes a bit fake when applied to Ice Cream but blimey they are nice. Having now eaten 1 2 I can honestly say they don’t need to be any bigger. FABS are basically ice so they can be any size and get away with it. The Percy Pig Ice Cream would be pretty sickly if it was any bigger.

So, down to the important bit, the sticks!

I like the curvyness of the Percy Pig Ice Cream stick, but then I also like the novelty value of the FAB Lolly stick. Hmmm which ones better? There’s only one way to find out…. FIGHT!!!!

No, actually they each have a place in your freezer. Mum and Dad can have a Percy Pig Ice Cream and the kids can make do with the crappy FAB

Percy Pig Ice Creams are absolutely amazing. Go buy them! Great work yet again M&S and thanks for opening a shop 500 metres from my house in Cross Gates

Now, who wants to challenge me to a Percy Pig Ice Cream eating contest? 20 in 20 minutes? Om Nom Nom Nom….

Drinking more water is easy. It comes out of a tap. Getting my 5-a-day is a little harder but thanks to Mr Shaw I have the answer. THE GREEN SMOOTHIE. I took Rob’s idea and put my own spin on it (I cheated). Here’s how to make my quick cheat green (sometimes) smoothie.

1… Whack a good handful of Spinach or Curly Kale (alternate) into a blender.
2… Drop a Banana in on top.

3… Top off with Innocents Green Smoothie (that’s the cheat part).

4… Blend the bejebus out of it.

5… Drink!!!

Om Nom Nom. It’s delicious, it’s nutricious! Don’t add Beetroot though, BEETROOT SMOOTHIES SUCK!

Malcolm x        (Not Malcolm X. It’s a kiss) (Not that I want to kiss everyone who reads this, it just seemed the right thing to do)

The Red Hot World Buffet and Bar Leeds

When my nextdoor neighbour Mr Mick Zanetti came up with the idea of going out for lunch at The Red Hot World Buffet in Leeds, I thought “Mick, that’s a crackin idea!” and even though my darling wife was feeling under the weather, The Slades, The Zanettis and a few random Aspreys trotted of to Leeds to experience what one Peter Gould (@petergould83) had once called “The most amazing place on Earth!!!”.

The Honest Review

The Decor

When you first arrive at The Red Hot World Buffet the first thing you notice is the grandure of the whole place. The relatively long walk from being first greated to seated takes you down several ornate corridors and through an aeroplane. The interior of the eating area is massive, well furnished and the staff our well dressed and groomed.

Decor – 8/10

The Main Courses

The food served at The Red Hot World Buffet is as you might have guessed… A moohasive buffet. Food available varies from Pizza, to Curry, to Chinese, to Thai, to Salad, to Chips and beyond. Again everything is present very well and kept this way through via a dedicate staff.

Once however you actually start to chow down the shine starts to wear of. In honesty the food is pretty MEH. Nothing particularly stands out as “OMG you have to try the..” or “That … was the best … I have ever had”. It’s all just a bit average.

Main Food – 4/10

So after 2 plates of average, I moved on to The Puddings!

The Puddings

Like the main courses, their is a vast array of puddings on offer all in bite size portions. Several cheesecakes, mooses, fruit dishes, jellies and cakes are all laid out before you.

As you all probably know by now, I am a bit of a pudding lover. So I made a point of trying everything… twice. I even had 6 different flavours of icecream (bubblegum, tropical, mint, blueberry, strawberry and coconut). And yet again I can report they were all a bit well… MEH. I didn’t help that I had made probably the most amazing cheesecake the day before but other than the icecream (which was actually very good) the puddings were pretty underwelming.

Puddings – 6/10 (4 of these are the icecream)

Closing Comment

Yes it is only a £8.99 AYCE Buffet but I reckon only die hard power eaters would actually be able to consume £8.99 worth of the food. I would say The Red Hot  World Buffet is a classy establishment designed to cater for the “We have already had McDonalds 6 times this week, let’s go someone posh for lunch” clientelle, rather than lovers of fine dining.

Overall Score – 18/30

That being said, if everyone lived by blog reviews alone, we would all probably be dead, so go try it for yourself. If you do, please stop by and let me (and my 1,000,000 followers) know what you thought. 

The Red Hot World Buffet and Bar Leeds

44 The Headrow (in the Light)
Leeds, West Yorkshire LS1 8TL
0113 244 0400

http://www.redhot-worldbuffet.com/

Time for a Spinach Smoothie.

Malcolm

When I found out that David Thorne (the author of 27bslash6) was publishing a book I immediately pre-ordered it. This had nothing to do with the fact I could win an Ipad 2! (is it iPad,Ipad or IPad?). Even though the book isn’t released until tomorrow (28th) I was lucky enough to get my copy yesterday (26th) and have therefore finished reading it already. It isn’t a short book! I was up till midnight reading it at which point my wife verbally assaulted me for laughing out loud and waking her up again. I would have finished it earlier today but arrived home from work to find my wife had purchased this….

That was 2 hours of my life gone!

Anyhooow I’m done now so feel obliged to write a review.

Ooh I could use microformats. 1 sec!

Cooooool.

Right I have nothing to do now so I am going to spam @27bslash7 in the hope of getting him to Retweet me, thus raising my Klout score so I can compete with @iamgaz and @petegould83 82, no 83 hmmm.

On top of all this craziness I also got one of the best birthday presents ever EVER. The Lego Death Star 10188. 3803 pieces of engineered gold that all fit together to make a marvel of the modern world. To people not familiar with Lego and specifically Lego designed for a single purpose, 3803 pieces may not seem a lot. But creating a single model from 2 instruction manuals each about A3 in size with 60+ double sided pages, is actually a pretty epic undertaking, especially if you do it my way

My Way

Ask any pro Lego building what they do at the start of a build and they will probably say something along the lines of “preparation is key”. Sorting into piles of size, shape, function etc. can all lead to a simplified build. I know @dannysullivan and I think Mr Graywolf both sort Lego into bags labelled appropriately. THIS IS NOT MY WAY.

My way is a way of purity. A way of challenge, of conviction, of endless stress trying to find 1 single piece out of 3803. My way involves (yes you guessed it) finding a tub (a moohasive tub in this case) and tipping it all in. That’s it. No gimmicks. No need for expensive plastic bags and Sharpie pens. Just you, a Lego Bible and a tub full of bricks. Bring it….

So, that was how I spent 20+ hours of my life. I can highly recommend it and anyone who says the Lego Death Star 10188 isn’t worth £275 is talking utter tosh. WORTH EVERY PENNY!!!!

Just put it out of the way if you have a 3 year old.