meemalee

The clip show. When a TV series wants to indulge in some onanistic nostalgia, they will often churn out an episode of greatest hits.

You start to watch, and you say to yourself, "God, have they completely run out of ideas? They're just dialling this in - I've seen this a million times", and you grab the remote to change the channel pronto.

But then you find yourself sinking back onto the sofa, as you think, "I don't think I've seen this one", or "That was funnier than I remember", and you give in and let the past wash over you.

This is a long-winded way of saying here's some stuff from my blog archives but for a very specific reason -I’ve been nominated by fellow blogger Gourmet Traveller to participate in Tripbase’s “My 7 Links" project. Her blog is beautiful by the way - go take a look.

The stated goal of Tripbase’s project is "to unite bloggers in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned (yes, I know) and create a bank of…

Japanese beer brand Kirin has launched a pop-up yatai aka street food stand with Yasuhiro Mineno (ex head chef of Nobu) and Shinya Ikeda, joint owners and Head Chef of London’s fabled Yashin Sushi restaurant.

Kirin Ichiban is being dished up with a menu of kushiage and other snacks to offer Londoners a taste of what will be served at the Yashin founders' full-blown kushiage restaurant set to launch in 2012 (learn more about my beloved kushiage here).



The Kirin Ichiban Yatai is around for just one week from 3-8 August in the open-air Dray Walk gallery near Brick Lane and is serving up a selection of the traditional Japanese pankoed and deep-fried skewer snacks.



The short menu offers three sticks for £5, six plus edamame for £10, or nine plus ice cream for £15, with a free bottle of Kirin Ichiban for every diner who has booked online.

Kirin Ichiban is a beer made by the unique “Ichiban Shibori" Process which translates as “first press”. Bottles of Kirin are £3 & a pint draught…

This is why I love Japan. Stuff like this.

SWITL (which stands for Special World Idea Technology Revolution - the Japanese transpose Ls and Rs) is described by its makers Furukawa Kiko as:
"a hand-held type of the SWITL for moving soft objects without collapsing their shape. It is a Robots hand for handling soft and jelly like objects which loose shape when gripped, cannot be gripped, or cannot be touched, etc.

Objects like Mayonnaise and Ketchup can be picked up without changing their shape and moved to a different location while retaining the shape".There isn't much other information about how it works (though someone has had a stab at how on Quora here), so right now let's go with MAGIC.



The main application I can think of for this is in bakeries, and indeed a test video on Furukawa Kiko's site shows this in action.

Each hand-held unit is priced at 70,000 yen, which is just under £600, and they're looking for distributors now.

I am tempted. Boy, am I tempted.

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