Alcohol - The Legal Drug

So it's Friday night and time to get absolutely wasted, but first let's recap your week:

Monday, you've seriously got a hangover
Tuesday, you're recovering from yesterdays hangover
Wednesday, is the recovery completion date of hangover
Thursday, you are now sober and can walk in a straight line . . . maybe
Friday, it's time to get hammered - drink, drink, drink til' 4 am
Saturday, you're still drunk from last night and decide to make it worse and go for more drinks
Sunday, you guessed it right, I am so pissed right now let me do the 'responsible' thing and spend the last bit of my wage on more alcohol. Later you find you have no money or idea to get home!

Billboards across town catch your eye with those striking blue bottles of WKD . . .  
The American Dream, brainwashing us to fly first class, pop champagne, live the life. . .
Party invites on Facebook for this Saturday night, free drinks . . . Jackpot!!!
Summer Festivals galore and beach side concerts - bottoms up!

In actual fact, the reality of alcohol is far from what these glamorous, Hollywood material adverts are telling us and the small print; 'Drink Responsibly', might as well not even be there.

In order to have fun we have to consume an unregulated amount of an intoxicating, life threatening and health damaging drink?

What is fun about a drunkard driving at 100 mph with teenagers in the back colliding into a 15 ton lorry killing everyone instantly?

What is fun about waking up in an unusual environment the following morning and realizing you are a victim or guilty of rape?

What is fun about waking up in a hospital with multiple injuries on your body, and being told you were mugged the night before?

What is so fun about having the worst hangover, an unbearable headache, memory loss, constant vomiting and smelling and looking foul?

Please don't give me that - "alcohol is an anti-depressant, it's good for you" excuse.
First of all anti-depressant basically means, run away from your problems and worries. How irresponsible? One must deal with their problems to overcome them and find a solution and anyway, majority of those problems are probably consequences of being drunk!

Popular songs about sex and drinking, constantly hit number one on the charts. Hollywood, teenage movies promote the idea of 'having sex and drinking is the only way to have fun'. Children as young as thirteen are influenced by this.

Okay so you don't care that you are excessively damaging your organs and health, because you can't see that. But, you can see being locked up in prison because you got too violent, you can see being beaten on the side street because you forgot your way home, you can see the diagnoses of serious STDs and you can see the pregnancy test reading positive, because you drank too much that night and decided to have unprotected sex.

So, you still choose to ignore all this for a couple of minutes of 'fun'?
Alcohol is a killer and it's legal. My life is so damn good without it!

One of the many anti - drinking advertisements

Red Hot World Buffet Cake Off (Manchester)

Red Hot World Buffet invited me to attend their brand new, artisan cake launch, after reading my review on the Manchester restaurant and asking me to give the branch "a second chance" - well if it's cakes, I can't say no!

After waiting for the masterclass to be set up and politely being offered tea and coffee, we were directed to the exotic and striking cake station and Darshan Choudhari - the head pastry chef himself. He introduced us to the cake launch and began his magic as he gloved his hands, lifted his utensils and threw together simple ingredients producing an extraordinary cheese cake.

It was then time for us to get decorating at the station with fluffy clouds of chocolate/strawberry mousses,endless colourful fruits - from passion fruit, blackberries and cranberries to mango, strawberries and kiwi - also dreamy chocolate ganache, chocolate shards and splooshes of brilliant, white whipped cream. I couldn't wait to get my hands in and messy!

I allowed my creativity to take over and did not know where exactly I was going with the decorating, but in the end (when head chef announced, only five minutes remaining) I decided to step back and admire my masterpiece, cleaning/touching up here and there.

So I went for the vanilla, genoise, sponge cake that I sandwiched with whipped cream and gorgeously red strawberry purée - going for the traditional Victoria Sponge theme. For the topping, beautifully aligned strawberries, and blackberries embedded in piped cream and a dripping of chocolate ganache. The chocolate shards were calling me to complete the cake as they sat happily filling the centre . . . what do you think?

It was judging time and as I looked over at the other well decorated cakes, I knew there was competition. So which cake do you think won?

Me of course! That's right, I went home with my work of art, an extra cake from the Red Hot World Buffet range (of my choice), a complimentary meal for two, a certificate and gold medal - Jessica Ennis watch out, here I come!

I have been informed by Red Hot World Buffet that the judges' decision was completely impartial. They were  unaware I was to review the event, and so were not influenced by this.

It was a great event with great talent and a great cheese cake by head chef. I cannot wait to try the other cakes - if they taste and look anything like the cheesecake, I would recommend you have a slice too.

Red Hot World Buffet Artisan Cake Range

View all photographs taken during the event.

The only thing that wasn't so great was the turn out. Besides me and my friend there were only two other families. Perhaps 9.30am was too early for a Cake Off during the summer holidays. However, the other branches across the UK witnessed a real Cake Off with a greater audience. See images