A Travelling Lens

A sweet crowd-pleaser, this cake goes down well - and doesn't even need fresh raspberries. I've adapted a recipe by Lorraine Elliot which looks amazing - I've converted it into a  metric recipe. Ingredients For the cakes 215g caster sugar 100g brown sugar 340g butter, at room temp 5 eggs, at room temp 250 ml single cream (I used 1/2 lemon, juiced 400g self raising flour Pinch of salt 2 passion fruits 2 tbsp raspberry jam pink food colouring For the buttercream 250g unsalted butter (soft) 500g icing sugar 2 tbsp milk (or substitute) 2 passion fruits 3 tbsp raspberry jam Extra decor Fresh raspberries Method 1.  Preheat the oven to 130 ° C (not a typo). Grease two 20cm/8" round baking tins and line the bases. 2.  Cream together the butter and sugars until very pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until combined each time. In a separate bowl, lightly whisk the cream and lemon juice until slightly thicker. 3.  Fold ha...

I decided to go Interrailing with school friends in summer after finishing my A Levels. Once we'd worked out roughly when we wanted to go and who with, we were left with the seemingly impossible task of planning a trip that EIGHT people were happy with. Firstly, I think it is important to stress that backpacking with several people needs to be reasonably planned out - think about turning up at a hostel and hoping they have 8 beds to spare... Other than where we were going to spend specific nights, we went on our trip reasonably open minded of what we’d get up to. Travelling with a large group I'd definitely say that there were some disadvantages to backpacking as a large group: we didn't really socialise with others much - we tended to take up an entire hostel room and there were so many of us we didn't exactly feel the need to start to make new friends along the way. When we all wanted to go to the same place to eat, we did struggle to get a table (although ...

On the third leg of my Indonesian trip, we stayed just North of Ubud, Bali. It was such a different Bali to the one I expected – it was full of life, colour and tradition. One such tradition I witnessed was Ngaben , a Balinese Hindu cremation ceremony. The village of Gentong held a Banjar Cremation which is a mass cremation that only occurs every five years. The deceased of the village are temporary buried until the ceremony. Anticipating sombre atmosphere, I was amazed to see the excitement accompanied by the (repetitive-but-cheerful) tune of a food cart. As I later learnt, the ceremony is as much about life as it is death. This is because the cremation allows for the deceased spirit to be reincarnated. Getting ready for the cremation takes hours and one of the first steps is for the deceased bodies to be excavated.  I haven’t been particularly close to death before but, sitting at the kuburan (cremation grounds) surrounded by the stench of corpses and sim...

Next to Totland, a village on the Isle of Wight, is the beautiful beach: Totland Bay. I visited in August and stayed in the youth hostel in Totland. I witnessed a couple of breathtaking sunsets and those coupled with a crumbling pier lead to some excellent views:

Photo by  Rock'n Roll Monkey  on  Unsplash From replacing workers in factories to driving buses, there are many worries surrounding the advancements in the robotics industry. These concerns are not entirely unfounded as many processes are becoming more and more mechanised. There are even robot rock bands! The worries seem to stem from robots having the ability to carry progressively complex tasks; The Henn-na Hotel in Japan is the world’s first hotel to be staffed by robots. These robots speak many languages and aid in the checking in and out processes, they are able to store luggage and carry it to the guests’ room. Facial recognition software is also used as a room key replacement. Loss of jobs seems to be a large area of human concern. In fact the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) have recently warned that robots will replace a third of the UK’s jobs and a study conducted in 2013 by Oxford University estimated that “47 percent of total US is at risk...

After reading mixed reviews about the festival in Chiswick gardens, I was somewhat dubious about visiting yesterday and what to expect. Well I loved it. It was absolutely amazing, the displays were beautiful and of brilliant quality. To be honest I didn't know that such huge and intricate displays could be made out of lantern.  I liked the link to the theme: the Silk Road. This means I travelled the globe in an hour and a half- I particularly loved the displays of flowers, cacti and Aladdin's palace.  The Silk Road is an ancient trade route linking the East and the West. Coined because of the transportation of silks made in China to the Roman Empire. Silk production was so valuable in these times that the Chinese emperor tried (and failed) to keep the secrets of manufacturing the material, with the knowledge then spreading westward. These routes were now discovered and used to transport all sorts of goods for example precious stones, spices, other textiles and...