Card Factory

Advantages: Great products at low prices
Disadvantages: Long queues and some products a little tacky

...29p a card, what a bargain! Again though, unlike other shops even the 29p cards don't have a really cheap look to them. They also do accessories such as wrapping paper and tags, christening gifts, pens, money boxes, photo frames, banners, balloons and little personalised gifts for moms and grandmas etc. I really like their range of christening and wedding gifts. These mostly consist of a range of photo frames as well as keep-sake silver gifts such as scrolls and money boxes. The photo frames are really stylish and of a good quality and I regularly buy items from this section when the occasion arises. The only gripe I have with Card Factory is the queues. I have never once been in the shop without having to queue for long periods of time and I have found that the staff in Card Factory are not generally as helpful or pleasant as...

bexx0907 14.12.2009 · Read review
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Review of Card Factory

Make tracks to Bear Factory

Advantages: good staff
Disadvantages: A bit pricey

...This is a new brand of shops (well i haven't seen any before). I first heard about Bear factory from my local radio station. I acutally won a competition for a free bear and outfit. So basicly the bear factory is about making and customising your own teddy bear, or cat, dog, rabbit, tiger and many other animals. They are quite expensive though, the bear is £14.99, which includes the stuffing, a heart, and a birth certificate. What you do is pick a bear from the many selections. This bear will only be stuffed in the head, the rest is flat. There is a hole in the back for the stuffing to be put in. So you have chosen your teddy, next you will need to find the stuffing machine, the member of staff will ask you how soft or firm you would like it (the bear that is, nothing else). You can have as much or little as you like...

iamthebest 25.06.2001 · Read review
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Review of Bear Factory (Shop)

bear factory

Advantages: get to choose exactly what you want
Disadvantages: can get expensive

...the bear factory is a great place to go to buy a present for that special someone in your life. my boyfriend took me and bought me a monkey. fair enough it isn?t a bear but it is made in the same way. this shop in some respects can be compared to subway sandwiches in the fact that you can pick and choose what you want. the process of buy a bear is easy once you have got over the difficult part of deciding what cuddly toy you want. once you have made that decision, then a member of staff will stuff it depending on how squishy you want it to be. after that you are then required to choose a heart out of a pot and to make a wish on it. if you want a voice box then this is inserted and you can even record you own for that special extra effect. you then have to kiss it and place the heart in to you toy. whilst this is happening you are...

kaz_muffin 12.08.2004 · Read review
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Review of Bear Factory (Shop)

chocolate factory

Advantages: great film
Disadvantages: n/a

...I love the original story and read it many times as a child and the original film was great, but it was becoming a little dated so when I heard there was going to be a remake I was so excited, this should be great especially with the great Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka and I was not disappointed. The story is about five children that are given the chance to visit Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, the only catch is that they have to buy chocolate bars in order to find a golden ticket and win the trip of a lifetime. A lot of children that were trying to find the golden tickets were spoilt rich children, their parent paid people to open the bars for them, or brought bars of chocolate in bulk to try and find one of the winning tickets. Charlie Bucket, a boy whose family lives near the factory, with both sets of grandparents and his mother...

jo_field26 18.11.2008 · Read review
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Review of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (DVD)

Format in your factory at home

Advantages: User friendly, vast format options and FREE
Disadvantages: some trouble with 3GP conversion for me??

...I have used many different formatting programs in my time on the old PC, many costing a few pennies and not worth the packaging they came in. I have been using two certain 3GP converters for some time, one to convert TO 3GP and one to convert FROM 3GP, both programs doing a fine job. I have also had several other programs which convert MPG to AVI, or MP4 to WMV, MP3 to WMA and many more, but after a certain person told me about a certain program which does it all in one I had to give it a go. And that program in question is Format Factory, which you can get for free from www.download.com and other places. ** WHAT IS IT THEN..? It is a Free program which will easily convert most formats into almost any other format. The download is just over 16MB and comes in a zipped folder. Once installed it will sit on your PC, taking...

blissman70 04.05.2009 · Read review
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Review of Format Factory

Welcome to the fun factory!

Advantages: great family film
Disadvantages: none

...I have just been watching the children's classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with my two daughters and we have all really enjoyed it. I had seen it years ago but had forgotten just waht a good film it is, and watching it as an adult has been just enjoyable. The film was made in 1971 and is based on the wonderful book by Roald Dahl. It tells the story of Charlie Buckett, a small boy who lives in almost penniless conditions in a rundown cottage with his mother and his four bedridden grandparents. He is a very uncomplaining boy and all of his family wish they could provide more for him. One day, everybody all over the world becomes very excited when Willy Wonka, who runs a big chocolate factory announces that he has placed five golden tickets in chocolate bars. The recipients of these tickets will win all the chocolate that can...

kingfisher111 03.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (DVD)

Deconstructing Frank in The Wasp Factory

Advantages: Dark, thought provoking page turner - exceedingly well written
Disadvantages: Dark. Very dark. Disturbing. Scenes of animal and child cruelty

...Seventeen year old Frank is a killer. He kills birds, mice and other small animals. Fortunately, he doesn't kill people any more - it was just a passing phase, when he killed Blythe, Paul and Esmeralda (not all at once, mind you). Frank's brother Eric is also deeply unhinged, with a penchant for burning dogs, and his father isn't entirely playing with a full deck either. The Wasp Factory is a strange book. The plot, such as it is, follows Frank on his isolated Scottish Island as he prepares for the imminent arrival of his half-brother Eric, who has escaped from a secure mental institution. However, that's not really the main point of this rather short novel (I read it in around a day). The book is narrated by Frank, who is a deeply unreliable narrator. Indeed, every 'fact' we learn should be treated with suspicion, since everyone has...

mattygroves 31.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

Daphne and her Paper Factory

Advantages: Educational visit
Disadvantages: It's not exactly Disney Land

.... They scooped water onto the frames, swooshed it back and forth until the bulk of the water drained and then turned the sediment out onto a large block of wet paper sheets. From the block, the sheets were transferred onto hot near-vertical plates for drying. The ladies were sitting close to these plates - clearly they not only dried the paper but kept the ladies warm too. We saw bowls of nasturtium petals which were added to some of the paper for decoration and then moved into the small factory shop where we could see the fuller range of products available. The shop was selling sheets of paper - of the size of a sheet of wrapping paper - for about £4 a go. They had notebooks in various sizes, writing paper and envelopes, even lampshades. Some paper contained flower petals, others leaves and pieces of fern. Nothing was cheap but all was...

koshkha 15.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Jungshi Handmade Paper Factory, Thimphu

Welcome To Kells' Chocolate Factory

Advantages: Lots of big tunes
Disadvantages: A couple of weaker tunes

...In 2003 came the fifth solo offering from R. Kelly as the R&B star dropped ?Chocolate Factory?. It was seen as a significant release from the artist as he had gone through a full transition from his nineties work to what you see now as he had complexly made the transition to create the ?R&B Thug? which had been present since his broke through New Jack Swinging with Public Announcement in 1991. 1. ?Chocolate Factory? The album begins in a strong way as you see that in it he gets down to one where he introduces the album and explains what he?s about to do here in this album with a nice little groover to warm you up with a light little tune which gets you up to a gradual start before the album progresses towards bigger and better things. Non-fans are bound to criticise the lack of melody in the verses, but I felt that it did its job...

XICripZ 05.09.2009 · Read review
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Review of Chocolate Factory [PA] - R. Kelly

Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory

Advantages: Family entertainment, fun, easy-going, available on DVD!
Disadvantages: Doesn't stick to the original story. May lead to eating large amounts of chocolate.

...Opening with a bowl of melting chocolate is most definitely the way to get people (or chocoholics, at least) hooked onto a film. Charlie, a little boy from a poor family, finds a Golden Ticket in his chocolate bar, which means he and an accompanying adult can go on a tour of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory along with other winners. The factory employs all-singing and all-dancing Oompa-Loompas, who sing about each of the children and their faults. The story shows us a little bit about each winner, but focuses mainly on flashbacks had by Willy Wonka (owner of the factory and candy-maker extraordinaire) about his lonely childhood and his dentist father. I saw the original film once when I was small, and my opinion of this one is very much influeced by having seen both films. As a children's movie, it is quite good, though the other film...

Moretta 19.01.2009 (11.08.2009) · Read review
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Review of Charlie and the chocolate Factory