One Question

Answering Those Everyday Questions

Where’s the best place to eat in the Brecons?

Bobby is just back from a romantic weekend at The Fellin Fach Griffin, just a few miles north of Brecon. Here’s what she had to say…

When lover boy proposed that we trek out to mid-Wales for a couple of nights I wasn’t best impressed. Having had too many family holidays in North Wales I feel scarred by the experience of too many grumpy pubs, bad food and of course the rain. But not being one to look a gift horse..

We went on Sunday morning, nipping down the motorway with the car beeping its warnings of an unholy temperature outside, but happily getting there within 3 hours and not being distracted by any nice scenery as it was a foul freezing foggy day. My mood was low.

But change was in store; as we pulled in to the drive of this charming (yes, this gets our charm vote) my mood began to lift, and pretty much stayed high for the next two and a half days. Were it not for the very Welsh weather you could have been in France.

Our room had just been painted and could have done with a few days of open windows, but the smell wasn’t too obtrusive. We had a commode! But not for use other than as a chair, and a lovely headboard arrangement with book shelf and room for a bottle or two.

The bed was ginormourous! And perfect with a great quilt and soft sheets. Great big fluffy towels too.

The high point was the food though. Lunch, dinner x two, breakfast x two. All fab (if a tad salty). I could have stayed a week just to have everything on the menu, we all had food envy in the dining room every night. Quantities were just right too, I can be put off by too much food on my plate.

No wonder it has plaudits as regarded as the difficult Jay Rayner. Try it, for lunch, but ideally dinner and a good night’s sleep.

The slight low was the lack of hot water, but even though it was freezing weather this was a minor set back in the joy of the whole relaxed and beautiful place.

To cal it shabby chic would imply it’s a bit scruffy, it’s not, it’s just very comfortable. We don’t tend to go back anywhere, but I want to do this again.

BB.

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More Charm!

We were delighted by the responses we received to our little charm article, so we thought we’d extend the topic a little further and see where we get.

Thanks also to Chairman Peter who brought us a copy of a fabulous, if somewhat high brow, magazine called Monocle which has an article on charm this month. It seems like they travel the world rather more than us poor folk stuck here in Manchester, but nonetheless just because their examples span the globe, the basic principle matches ours.

Let’s say that it’s something very human that is broken down by every mechanical or computerised stage that comes between one human and another.

And that’s not to say that human to human interaction is necessarily charming. Far from it. It involves a deliberate or conscious consideration of what the other person’s needs or wants may be, and what might simply improve their day.

We will practice charm at One Question Towers in the hope that it will become our natural demeanour putting us in a stronger position for the human interactions we make today, next week, through life.

There’s a spiritual feel to the One Question office today and we like it. It’s banishing the grim cold and hail that’s threatening our chipper mood. Threatening, but it’ll not penetrate.

We all felt the beauty of charm last night at an Indian in town. While most of the staff there did their usual super polite thing, only one had charm. How she managed a degree of sincerity with her smile and well wishes remains a mystery, but its impact was so different to that of her colleagues. East 2 East. Try it if you’re in town.

I feel a charm page is needed to sit alongside this one. Shame I don’t know how to create it!

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Tea or coffee?

We love our random questions at the One Question offices and we were delighted this morning when one of you lovely readers sent a simple text asking just this.

Tea or coffee?

So we brewed up. Tea and coffee, and had a little debate.

There was no consensus.

KC likes tea first thing, then at least one coffee, but never more than two, then tea again later in the day. So traditional – morning coffee, afternoon tea.

Tracey just drinks tea.

Sean drinks whatever anyone’s making – that’s the student in him!

And me? I confuse the whole thing by drinking herbal teas, or lesbian teas as the oh so politically correct boss calls them.

We did agree though that coffee is for kicks and tea is more thirst quenching, but as both are diuretic I guess neither actually quench your thirst.

Drink water folks. It’s easy.

What about you?

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How much do we drink?

There has been coverage in the news over the last couple of days about recommended daily allowances for alcohol, reinforcing that a male should stay within 20 units a week, and a female just 14 units.

This has been expended recently to also recommend that we drink on no more than 5 days a week to give our bodies a chance to recover from the ravages of the demon booze.

We have never really stopped to think about what these suggestions actually mean until now. We’ve been looking on a few of the bottles that tell you what the contents equate to in alcohol units and it’s a bit scary.

A small beer – 330ml is about a unit and a half. That means that just three a night for five nights is too much for a man. Oh blimey!

A small wine at 12% alcohol is a unit and a half, so a large glass of wine at 250 ml would be 3 units, meaning that you girls could have one a day, provided you take two days off a week.

We quickly found that most of the drinks in our fridge don’t even tell us what their alcohol content is, which doesn’t help either.

This may sound OK to some, but at this office this whole topic has come as a bit of a surprise.

The unit itself is defined as 10ml of pure alcohol by volume.

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What does water weigh?

The answer to this is dead simple, but it’s useful to know for all sorts of reasons.

Metric volumes are based on the weight of water and so you have the easy to remember weight.

A litre of water weighs a kilo. To be more accurate the density of one litre of water is one kilo, or one millilitre of water is a gram. If you want to be super accurate you need to take account of temperature too, but let’s not worry about that today.

That’s so easy when compared to imperial measures where a galloon of water weighs about 3.8 kilos, and that depends on whether you’re using UK or American gallons etc.

Think of that then – two pints of water (or beer) weigh about a kilo – that’s why it’s hard work walking home from the pub!

And think of that when you’re at the beach on a stormy day, think of the weight of those waves crashing against teh cliffs.

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What is a hangover?

Woe is me!

Today’s One Question is born of the shakes, the dry mouth, headache and every other symptom. The light in the office is too bright, and I feel like I may have committed some dreadful deed last night, even though scanning every nook and cranny of my damaged memory can reveal no misdeed.

The trouble is with a hangover, the more you understand the more you regret doing it to yourself.

I think we all know that the main cause of a hangover is dehydration, but if we’re drinking beer like it’ll be extinct tomorrow, how on earth can we get dehydrated? Well this is the main scary bit. We get dehydrated because alcohol knocks out the creation of the antidiuretic hormone which results in the kidneys sending water directly to the bladder instead of reabsorbing it into the body. This is why once a drinker has “broken the seal” they have to keep going for a wee.

In fact it’s worse that than – you end up peeing out as much as four times as much liquid as you absorb, so no wonder you wake up feeling a tad thirsty.

Your poor old brain still isn’t wired for this after centuries of humans drinking and so it sends all its available liquid to your vital organs meaning that the brain actually shrinks. No wonder the headache kicks in.

All that peeing also means you decrease the salts your muscles need to function – so everything aches and finds it difficult to move.

Now here’s something else that’s worth knowing. Some booze definitely makes you feel worse that others. Red wine and dark spirits leave you feeling a lot worse than white wine and clear spirits like vodka.

So how come I always go for red and whiskey?

Take it easy out there folks and enjoy a drink – but be moderate, or you’ll feel like I do today, and you’ll screw yourself up in the longer term too.

 

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What’s the craziest name for a coffee?

Look, this could get very silly indeed.

We had some lovely American guests last week, they were over from LA (except it sounds like there are about ten syllables when they say it) and we were doing some work out in the wilds of Blackburn. Now I live here, but even I found it wild – cold, dark, not raining, yet still wet, kinda spooky, so what must they have thought?

Just as we were driving from grim place to more grim place suddenly a Starbucks Drive Through loomed up alongside us in the mist (I kid you not).

And they were over joyed!

So we went in and they ordered their usual drinks – and the girl stared at them as if they were aliens. She had no idea, I had no idea, they had no idea that we had no idea. Confusion.

Thinking about that I googled silly Starbucks orders and found this: Venti, sugar-free, non-fat, vanilla soy, double shot, decaf, no foam, extra hot, Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha with light whip and extra syrup. That’s a drink. Apparently.

What is all this about?

Well, my lovely American friends fell back onto what they considered to be safe ground and ordered a drip.

Ah, a filter you mean.

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Which is the best bar in Manchester?

Well we did promise that the posts on One Question would be subjective.

This is no exception, but we are taking support from the Manchester Food and Drink Awards as both of our suggestions here are nominees for best bar in the 2011 competition..

In town may we suggest the Port Street Beer House? No prizes for guessing that it’s on Port Street in the Northern Quarter / Piccadilly area, this new bar opened at the start of 2011 and fast gained a great reputation for its range of amazing beers, some of which cost £10 a bottle, and somehow seem worth it.

And in the ‘burbs?

Well any self respecting drinker should head to bohemian Chorlton for sheer range of drinking establishments – and the option of an amazing kebab to soak up the poison should things get out of hand.

Chorlton offers everything from rough pubs, through traditional pubs, posh pubs, coffee shops, tea shops and of course bars.

We recommend Electrik on Wilbraham Road for range, eclectic atmosphere and music, and single deck DJ nights that don’t get too loud. The burgers are just right, the range of guest beers always changing, and a crowd to keep every people watcher happy for days. They also do an interesting gastronomic evening once a month.

You really should live in Chorlton you know.

While you’re visiting though do take in The Parlour too. On Beech Road it’s a kind of laid back bar, restaurant thing that’s loved by its regulars and occasional visitors alike.

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