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Mr. Stuart Bruce "DonQuibeats" (Cardiff, UK)
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Bonsoy Milk 1 Litre (Pack of 6)
Bonsoy Milk 1 Litre (Pack of 6)
Price: £15.54

4.0 out of 5 stars Rich and creamy, and just very slightly tastier than UK alternatives, 15 Jun 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
The other milk substitutes I've tried, such as Alpro, have all been quite thin and equivalent to very skimmed, watery milk. By comparison, I found Bonsoy surprisingly thick and creamy, and it behaved as much like cream as like milk. It was excellent in a coffee, and when I added chocolate powder to it, it made a very tasty proper-tasting milkshake. I found it a bit too creamy for a breakfast cereal.

There is, as Ms J Bedford said, a 'UHT aftertaste'. In a blind taste test you'd be able to tell this apart from milk, but it's not far off. I do think it has the edge taste-wise compared to other milk alternatives, but not by a great distance.

The carton is a little bit flimsy for my tastes. I'm accustomed to easy-to-open plastic tops on milk cartons now, so reverting to having to use scissors to cut a corner off the carton so that the first bit of milk can spill onto the work surface felt a bit like I was back in the 1980's.

There are so many decent soya milk brands on the UK market now, and while Bonsoy really does taste good and surprisingly creamy, I'm not sure the quality increase really justifies the air miles involved in getting it shipped all the way around the world. It depends on what your motivation is, I guess.

I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: Volume 15 (Audio Go)
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue: Volume 15 (Audio Go)
by Iain Pattinson
Edition: Audio CD
Price: £7.95

5.0 out of 5 stars Still funny, still going strong, 22 May 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
The epitome of Radio 4 comedy for decades, "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" sticks to what it does best- continue to roll out gags that are equal measures of witty, corny, sharp, and harmless, with a massive dose of funny on top. It's hard to fault, and easy to understand why it continues to have such a cult following.

The guest stars for volume 15 don't really provide any great surprises. Rob Brydon is always good value, especially when he gets into arguments with the Welsh audience about pronounciation. Ross Noble is good, but he seems to be happy to take more of a back seat in this particular appearance. Jeremy Hardy and Victoria Wood are both good contributors without being attention-grabbers.

These are extended versions of each episode, with a total running time of just over two and a half hours, meaning that even if you are an avid listener on the radio, there's 25% here you haven't heard. I can't think which bits it would be though, as there are so few duff lines throughout that it's hard to imagine what they'd have cut for the radio.

Be wary of listening to this in your car- excessive laughter might impair your steering.

Breville VKJ670 Polished Stainless Steel Jug Kettle
Breville VKJ670 Polished Stainless Steel Jug Kettle
Offered by Premier Products
Price: £39.99

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Well designed and a definite improvement, 21 May 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
After being a bit critical of the Breville kettle I bought last year (the VKJ666), I'm pleased to report that the VKJ670 is almost exactly the same, except that Breville have sorted out all of the little niggles I had with the previous model.

Firstly the water level window is much bigger, and more sensibly placed on both sides of the kettle. I'm nonplussed about the blue light effect, but our young daughter seems quite entertained by it (in a look-but-don't-touch way, obviously!). Secondly it seems a bit quieter, and also a bit quicker, than I had gotten used to. The fit onto the power base is a bit more reasonable and easy to manage one-handed as well.

So that ticks off all the quibbles I had with our previous kettle, and leaves me as one happy tea-drinking bunny.

Obviously it's not going to revolutionise your kitchen, and the look of it is standard rather than stunning, but if you want a kettle that works well without any fuss, and you like the look of the Amazon picture, then this is what you need.

Sugru - White (Pack of 3)
Sugru - White (Pack of 3)
Price: £6.18

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Great idea, but I couldn't get it to work miracles, 6 May 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Sugru is simple to use, easy to apply, and great in principle- not quite a miracle in practice, but good.

The pack was more crumbly than I expected- more like a clay than a dough. It wasn't a brand new packet- each packet has both a 'sell by' and 'use by' date- but it wasn't near it's date either, so I'm not sure that it was really meant to be like that, or if I got a faulty batch, or I was just doing it wrong.

Trying it on shoes, as the packaging suggests that you can. It cured nicely and fixed nicely to the textiles and to porous fabrics, but then it dried rather hard, and the shoe ended up still rubbing as a result- so it didn't really fix the problem.

Trying it to fix a broken part in a flask wasn't too successful either. It proved quite difficult to mould into a very precise shape- it's easy to mould something blobby and bulbous, but more precise carving is a pain. It didn't bond well to the plastic and again, didn't really fix the problem. I couldn't find any information, positive or negative, about whether it being in contact with food or drink would ever be a problem, either to the Sugru or to the food.

We had a 'white' pack. The white itself is more of a light vanilla cream colour than being pure white- something to bear in mind if your use for it is related to a sparkly white device, like a white iPhone etc.

I'm sure there will be many people who'll love Sugru for a hundred different reasons, and the web site in particular makes it look like an absolute must-have for every single household task, but I couldn't quite get it to be miraculous for me.

Hello Kitty Nursery Bedding Set
Hello Kitty Nursery Bedding Set
Price: £56.64

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty in pink, pity about the plasticky polyester, 6 May 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This quilt and bumper set was an immediate hit with our daughter. We were a tiny bit underwhelmed by it, but she's very happy with it and naturally it's her opinion that counts.

As other reviewers have said, it's very pink- but I don't imagine many people buy "Hello Kitty" products in order to add an air of sombre masculinity to proceedings. It's "Hello Kitty"- you know what you're getting, and you know what colour it is! If you don't want something that's bright pink, don't buy this.

Both parts have a very polyester feel to them. Obviously that's very practical to clean in the event of little accidents, but unfortunately it does give it a slightly plasticky feel instead of a homely cotton feel. That little criticism aside, it is clearly a good quality product- not exquisite, but to a high standard.

I think the inclusion of a quilt and a cot bumper in one pack is an odd choice, because many children will grow out of one at pretty much the same time as they're ready for the other. Cot bumpers aren't recommended once children can sit unaided, but quilts are not suitable for children under 12 months, and it's generally not long after 12 months or earlier that they can sit unaided... so what will happen is that the cot bumper will get used instead as decoration for the bedhead, as in the current Amazon picture, or as some other general bedroom decoration.

Apart from the slightly plasticky feel, I'd highly recommend this for your daughter. Or your son, of course, providing he's very in touch with his feminine side.

Conflict of Laws in Intellectual Property: The CLIP Principles and Commentary
Conflict of Laws in Intellectual Property: The CLIP Principles and Commentary
by European Max Planck Group on Conflict of Laws in Intellectual Property
Edition: Hardcover
Price: £125.00

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkably clear and with wide relevance, 6 May 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
There is a full list of the CLIP principles available on their web site- I'm not permitted to post a direct link, but Googling "Max Planck CLIP" brings it up as the first result- click on the "Final Text, December 1 2011" link. Effectively this list of principles forms a thorough 'contents list' for what you will find in this book, and will give you a clear idea of the extent to which this book is applicable to your needs. That should inform your purchase far more than any review.

Each article listed in the principles is expanded upon, normally for around four pages, occasionally by up to twenty pages. It is, as you would expect, very thorough, with a plethora of references to relevant existing judgements in each section. Thankfully almost all of these references are catalogued in footnotes (referring back to a Table Of Legislation and a Table Of Cases) instead of clogging up the clarity of the core text. The research spanned from 2004 to 2011, and it's conceivable that some of it has been superceded already, but fair to expect that the vast majority of it is still up-to-date, and certainly relevant.

The core text is remarkably understandable in its simplicity, and by use of a reasonable number of examples and illustrations (fictional ones) the relevant material should be easily comprehensible to anyone with a 'business head'. To be honest I was expecting a large amount of cryptic text only decipherable by lawyers, but as an 'end user' myself (with a particular interest in international software sales) I was able to learn some information of great value without having to open my dictionary even once- a remarkable success in the writing.

Naturally, for most people, certain parts of this book will not be applicable. However for some very common cases- online stores that sell internationally, the selling of copyright material across countries where the various trademarks do and don't exist- the main bulk of this text will be relevant, and potentially important. There are doubtless thousands of companies to whom the law behind these principles does (or at least should) apply.

Anyone whose online or international trade has the potential to get them into complicated IP issues should have a look at this book in relation to their business plan- ideally early on in their planning, instead of just before the court case...

Swissvoice BTouch Cordless DECT Telephone with Answer Machine/Bluetooth and Touchpanel - Black/Silver
Swissvoice BTouch Cordless DECT Telephone with Answer Machine/Bluetooth and Touchpanel - Black/Silver
Offered by SW1 DIGITAL
Price: £99.95

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars A high quality bit of home office kit, 29 April 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This is a classy, high-quality but not-quite-perfect bit of kit.

It comes boxes as a shiny, premium-quality product. The gloss black finish is very impressive and it even comes with a Swissvoice-embossed cleaning cloth- very swanky. It's got that Scandinavian design feel to it, sharp simple lines.

The operational use is just as good:
The sound quality is excellent, and the range from the base station to the handset is as good as I could test (it covers our entire house).
The handsfree options- on both the base unit and the handset- sound excellent.
The way in which your mobile's address book can be downloaded to it's memory so that all the names will show up via caller display if they call your landline is a great feature.
The sound quality on the answering machine is decent.
The handset display is bright and clear, without the unnecessary always-on clock that I've seen other phones have.
Some parts of the functionality work very well indeed- the way in which two mobile phones and the landline become neatly interchangeable is very neat, but I'm not sure how useful most people will find it. There's a definite convenience element to it and you may prefer holding the handset to holding your phone.

There are a few little issues which stop it being a total joy though:
For example, scrolling through the address book on the base unit is a tedious experience.
The manual is less intuitive than the phone, and makes using the phone look like it's going to be much more complicated than it actually is- you're better off just pressing buttons until the thing that you want to happen happens.
The handset itself is a shape that's slightly hard to get used to, as it just feels slightly too long- any phone that's that big should bend at least a little bit, to acknowledge that very few people's faces are absolute squares.
The handset's touch-sensitive panel (no actual buttons) is not quite as responsive as I would have liked.

Overall this will make a great product for your home office, and it certainly looks the business. For sheer techno-joy though it doesn't quite score 100%.

Chicco I-Move Autofix Car Seat (Black)
Chicco I-Move Autofix Car Seat (Black)
Price: £169.99

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Stylish, sturdy and safe., 27 April 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
This is the baby car seat equivalent of a mid-range Ford Focus. It's very sturdy, it's safe, it's very widely used. It has a decent range of features, but not a lot of frills or fun. You know what you'll be getting, and it won't be winning many innovation awards.

The styling is nicely Italian. Although the shades-of-grey colour scheme is a bit dull compared to some others (though it suits the interior of our car rather well), the smooth lines and very sensible and easy-to-maneouvre handle have clearly been given some thought. The exception to this is the base unit, which is not quite in keeping. It's difficult to explain but somehow the base unit does feel just a tiny bit too Poundland and not quite enough Armani, but other than that it's very good.

Everything slots into place like you'd want it to. The seat attaches to the base unit easily but reassuringly, the straps are easy enough to get around a child's arms. I've not found any cause for complaint.

The current product description is potentially a little bit confusing (but probably not)- suffice it to say that this car seat does not come with the pushchair, which has to be bought separately. It's invaluable to have a pushchair and car seat that are compatible, so that you can for example get a sleeping baby out of the car and into the pram without waking them up, or lift them out of the pram and into your house, with one hand if you're strong enough. I've previously used a Britax car seat with a BabyStyle Oyster buggy, which had compatible connections, and it made life so much easier. We don't have the compatible pushchair for this but I imagine it works the same way. At time of writing, I must point out that the Britax-and-Oyster solution would work out a fair bit cheaper than the I-Move and do the same job.

It's also not immediately obvious from the Amazon listing, but this seat DOES have an Isofix base- so as long as your car has Isofix fittings, which most cars made in the last five or ten years do, then you can connect the plastic base directly to a metal frame within your car, which will give your baby much better protection if there's an impact (the alternative is that the base is strapped in place just using the seatbelt). Having done a bit of research about it, because (obviously) I care about my child's safety, there's no way I would use anything other than an Isofix base. In fact personally I'd rather go one step safer than this, and go for an Isofix base that had either a foot pole (providing another sturdy connection with the base of the car) or the Isofix top tether system (which is effectively a seatbelt attached to the rear of the child seat, helping to prevent forward motion in a high-speed crash). So in short, safety-wise this seat is good, maybe about a 9-out-of-10 good. If you haven't got an Isofix car, you can use this base with seatbelts.

Up to 13kgs should take you up to approximately 15-18 months, give or take, but obviously babies vary a lot. A piece of important advice we were given is that it's not just about a weight limit- if your baby's head is reaching even a millimetre over the top line of the seat, it's time to change it for safety reasons, even if your child's not quite at 13kg- worth knowing if you have a tall thin baby, I suppose.

This car seat isn't fun and it won't make you go "wow!", but it does it's number one job very well and will not disappoint.

Vigilante
Vigilante
by Kerry Wilkinson
Edition: Audio CD
Price: £11.40

4.0 out of 5 stars 8-disc audiobook: strong story, slightly flawed reading, 23 April 2013
This review is from: Vigilante (Audio CD)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
I'm reviewing the 8-disc audiobook, read by Becky Hindley- reviews seem to be getting merged for the audiobook, paper and Kindle editions.

I felt the story of this second Jessica Daniel novel was stronger than its predecessor "Locked In", yet the audiobook was weaker.

Story-wise, it is a couple of degrees more complicated and unpredictable, contains several unexpected twists, and really does leave you guessing whereas the solution in the first novel could be easily guessed halfway through. It doesn't have so many of the laboured procedural "I've done my research, this is how police work happens" exposition parts, and rattles along at a decent pace.

Even more so here than in "Locked In", you are left struggling to believe that the lead character Jessica Daniel is a realistic DSI. She's what you get if you spliced Chuck Norris and Bridget Jones in the Rover's Return. I'm all for characters having a complexity and not being one-dimensional, but there are a few over-the-top moments here on that front.

Reading-wise, Becky Hindley's performance is just not quite as good. There are a slightly more challenging range of accents to take on, and only half of them are successful- voicing the Welshness of DCI Carrie Jones is particularly embarrassing. Hindley can't seem to decide for certain whether to put in a full-on acting shift or just flatly read the words, so some of the characters' exclamations and emotions are really performed, yet some other parts- including some of the most shocking and grief-ridden parts of the story- are performed flat, with all the intonation you'd get from reading a microwave's instruction manual out loud. It's good in parts, but very inconsistent.

A solid story, but a slightly disappointing audiobook overall.

Philips Perfect Care Aqua Steam Generator Iron, 2400 Watt, Navy
Philips Perfect Care Aqua Steam Generator Iron, 2400 Watt, Navy
Price: £199.99

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars It's a state-of-the-art super-iron with some minor quibbles, 21 April 2013
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)
Obviously this is a top-of-the-range, state-of-the-art steam-generating iron. If you do ironing on a regular basis and want to make your life easier, quite simply you need one of these. I have a few very minor quibbles with it, but don't let that detract from my main point- that this is a very impressive super-iron that can turn a Sunday night chore into almost (but not quite) a joy.

Most of the features are extremely good and well thought-out. The auto-off feature is important and sensible. It handles all kinds of fabrics, and doesn't burn clothes if left sitting on them too long (I accidentally put this to the test). It's got a sleek design, and with its slightly 1950s rocket shape and sci-fi-like blue indicator light, men who don't like ironing can pretend it's some sort of high-tech laser weapon they're wielding if it makes them feel better (I haven't tried this approach, honest). The sharp point design is very convenient for ironing corners. It's very, very smooth. Most importantly of all, it's great at ironing, and does make the whole process easier.

So, the minor quibbles that mean that it's only four stars instead of five include things such as the following. The steam generator makes a very brief and intermittent whirring sound, which is fine but VERY loud- 'wake the baby up in the next room' loud, which was a problem for us. The blue indicator light is too faint to see in a bright room, so you can't tell whether it's ready or not. You can't empty the unused water out of the base unit without lifting the whole base unit upside down over a sink, which could be inconvenient.

The base unit has too big a footprint and is too heavy to fit comfortably on a small ironing board, but the iron itself won't stand independently and has to be put back on the base unit every time you want to put it down, which is quite inconvenient. The cord lengths are odd- the power cord (wall socket to steam base unit) is less than two metres long, when it clearly should be longer (if you want to iron any distance away from a plug socket, you'll need an extension lead)- yet the cord from the base unit to the iron is over a metre and a half long, which is needlessly long since you have to put the iron back on the base unit every time so the two things are never going to be that far apart. As other reviewers have mentioned, you may find storage an issue- this is a hefty piece of equipment.

It takes quite a lot of practice to get used to picking it up and putting it down again without accidentally pulling the steam trigger- which potentially could even be dangerous until you get the hang of how to hold it.

As I said first though, these are minor issues which shouldn't take away from the fact that this is an incredibly good iron, that will bring a smile to the face of regular ironers for sure.

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