Coffee at home to rival any café

Advantages: Robust engineering, excellent performance, beautiful styling
Disadvantages: Heavy, hard to keep clean, very expensive

...Have you ever wondered why coffee in the coffee shop is better than coffee at home? Coffee shops use freshly ground and roasted coffee, and machines that can extract the full flavour from that coffee. If you want to replicate this quality of coffee at home, you need a machine that's up to the task. La Pavoni produced the Europiccola in 1961 and, some tweaking aside, they haven't changed the design significantly since then. The machine consists of a boiling chamber sitting on a base, with a glass level on one side and some curvaceous pipe-work on the other side. It truly is a thing of beauty, available (in ascending order of price) in chrome and black, straight chrome, chrome with wooden trim, gold, or gold with wooden trim. Go to www.lapavoni.com (domestic line, lever machines) to convince yourself that this is no ordinary machine...

summi335 31.08.2005 · Read review
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Review of La Pavoni Eurobar

The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots

Advantages: Mad, colourful rock electronica from the Lips
Disadvantages: Not for the faint-hearted

...inadvertently halting at random points and incoherent lyrics lead to a climactic pair of choruses. Truly psychedelic! 8. It's Summertime: A hazy ballad of epic proportions. The midrange tempo, lazy bass and sunny guitar picking make for a gorgeous mellow, and yes, very summery tune. A highlight. 9. Do You Realize??: Easily the most upbeat tune on here after Yoshimi Pt.2, Do You Realize?? is a heartwarming singalong telling us to live before we die. The only backing singing to outdo Magicians' Pokemon choir, and a worthy chart hit. 10. All We Have Is Now: A sombre affair in which Coyne is visited by a man from the future, telling him that he will not be there. Wispy voices and swelling strings create a calm, drifting song. 11. Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia): Wow. If this is the soundtrack to Pavonis Mons, it must be...

Aufwiedersehen 18.01.2006 · Read review
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Review of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots - Flaming Lips (The)

Sometimes you need a little something warm

Advantages: REALLY warm, skin feels great during and after, saves many a ruined day
Disadvantages: maybe not for extremely sensitive skins

...Well, in my life there are "days", "super days" and then the "one of those days"... "Days" are fairly ok. Nothing special happens, no major hiccups at work and after a fun after-work beer I come home to a nice meal prepared by Honey. And for dessert, there is a good book on my bedside table. On "Super days" life is simply divine. I feel refreshed when waking up, the tram arrives just as I get to the station, there is a good atmosphere at work, no problems remain unsolved, I've got loads of ideas for new ciao ops and Honey is a honey On "one of those days", however, everything that can go wrong, will. My Pavoni, instead of producing a nice foam-covered espresso, is spitting coffee grounds all over the kitchen. The strap on my last pair of 'good' shoes rips, because of which I miss my tram. I get out the bicycle and, of course...

garlicpress 09.01.2002 · Read review
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Review of The Body Shop Warming Mineral Mask

Not quite the Gold Blend.

Advantages: Looks Good, Cheap....
Disadvantages: It is cheap!

...I do love a good cuppa coffee. In fact, I am willing to pay quite silly money for a machine that will do my discerning taste justice. For those of you who are unconvinced, please see my review on the Gaggia Classic. This was the second coffee machine that I have owned, but sadly not one of the better ones. I had mine for a period of about 3 months before I returned it, exasperated with its flaws. Appearance. It does look good, ill give it that. As an interesting aside, the design is actually a copy of a very expensive prosumer coffee machine by (I think) La Pavoni. The chic retro styling is pretty unique, and is the machine's biggest asset. Its matt metal body adds to the effect. No cheap plastic here. The small touches in the design really do set this machine off, such as the slide out drip tray with a handle, or the temperature...

rickyshah 24.10.2004 · Read review
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Review of Kenwood ES547 Espresso/Cappuccino Maker

CD#3 - WORMHOLE

Advantages: Episode 3 in the all-singing, all-powerful series that's loved by literally ones of people...
Disadvantages: You might not be amongst those ones of people...

...and finally was sick in a bucket containing seaweed and lemons, for some strange reason. To make matters worse, despite all of Zero-bit's efforts, the air-conditioning just couldn't cope with trying to keep that smell out.... Captain Disaster and Zero-bit did receive an invitation to Megamorphic city for their troubles. They didn't, as they'd hoped, receive any money, but they were turned into dung beetles for a day, free of charge. When asked about their experiences as dung beetles, they said that it had been a day full of "interesting and varied challenges." Quite how they turned a computer into a dung beetle and back again is something we won't go into here, but Bill Gates, eat your heart out. Meanwhile, there was a distress call being sent out from a ship somewhere close to Delta Pavonis. In our next exciting episode, Captain Disaster...

CaptainDisaster 19.05.2005 · Read review
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Review of Everything that starts with W ...

The test begins...

Advantages: Eleven of them
Disadvantages: Hardly any

...on strike and refusing to say anything more about it, apart from the fact a decent and very honest and respectful dance mix is on one of the Yoshimi single CDs. Track Ten - All We Have is Now, wherein a traveller comes from the future to tell us we are not contained therein, so we better jolly well start living now. And so you should - starting with a copy of this CD. If you haven't got the gist of it so far, theediscerning likes this stuff. Key instrument - all of them, again. Track Eleven - Approaching Pavonis Mons By Balloon (Utopia Planitia). Well you were warned about the titles. At first it seems odd and a bit cheap to end a great album with an instrumental, but this is no throw-away track. The Flaming Lips have experience of instrumentals, with many a B-side being vocal-less. This one successfully creates a staring...

theediscerning 27.01.2003 · Read review
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Review of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots - Flaming Lips (The)

CD #1- The Planet Eater of Acturus

Advantages: It's by me?
Disadvantages: It's by me...

...could call them people? almost) of Delta Pavonis that said that. And that was only because of a long-standing feud between the two systems, all about a canister of unused fish oil... but that isn't important right now. Personally, I think that the monstrously monstrous monster munched momentuously, moreover making his way into the record books, only to be disappointed by the fact that he/it had only a very small speaking part in this story, the first of a series which is set to establish an all-time low in wit and ingenuity. Still, you've got to start somewhere. Captain Disaster, meanwhile, got a new set of wheels. His conversation with the claims department of "Don't Blame Us When It All Goes Pear-Shaped" went like this: "I have a claim to make. For a new set of wheels." "Okay. Who were the other party insured with...

CaptainDisaster 29.04.2005 · Read review
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Review of Fiction

The Design Museum (London)

Advantages: Good collection
Disadvantages: Admission expensive

...and designers, as a founding father of Italian modernism. His vast portfolio of work was well represented from his architectural works such as Milan?s Pirelli building to his product designs such as the La Pavoni coffee machine. I have never really been a big fan of Gio Ponti, but I think this is because I have never seen his work in Real life before. It amazing to think how little the camera can capture of an artists work, I have found that photographs can only give you the faintest impression of a sculpture or object, when you see them in the flesh it is a whole new experience. With any piece of design you need to touch and feel the materials, pick it up and hold it, or if it is a chair sit in it to appreciate the real qualities of the design. That is one good thing about the chair gallery, I mentioned earlier, these exhibits are not roped off...

jouk04 02.04.2004 · Read review
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Review of Design Museum (London)