Men's Lifestyle

Do Not Go To The Botanist On A Saturday Night For A Drink

You have been warned. Don’t go to The Botanist on a Saturday night for a drink. We were out at the Weekend and met up with some friends who were already in The Botanist, so went to the bar for a drink.

The Botanist is a bar-restaurant which is fairly new in Newcastle. They take space in the old Monument Mall building, with the entrance a small side door next to Jamie’s Italian. Once you’re in, there’s stairs to climb (they also have a lift), and you’ll have to walk up a couple of flights of stairs to get to the bar. They’re numbered, I think there were 53 if I remember. Once inside the place looks really nice, and the ceiling and rest of the décor is a bit of a feature. The layout is cool, with tables and the bar in the centre, and it has a nice upstairs. They had a live band when I was there on Saturday night, who sounded pretty decent. The drinks are mostly cocktails, with a couple of other options, but this is seen as a place to grab a cocktail, so everyone in the place is ordering and drinking cocktails.

The service…What service? Calling it slow would be so much of an understatement it’s untrue.

Saturday night is of course a busy night, that’s to be said in most bars in Newcastle. This was a reasonably busy Saturday night, but it was not extraordinarily busy, just your average Saturday night bar busy. We were there for around 20 minutes, did not get served, and then left. When you say a bar is busy you’re probably thinking that the bar is packed and it’s 6 or 7 deep of people, with lots of movement. This is not what busy means at The Botanist. I was at the front of the bar, with a person either side of me, and saw the guy next to me who was there before me get served. I stood for around 15 minutes and still did not get served. That’s not too unusual, but what’s unusual is that in that time the guy standing next to me STILL had not got his drinks! The barman who was in front of me was making cocktails, but I have no idea where they were actually going, because nobody at the bar seemed to be moving!

This was the most bizarre experience at a bar I have seen. The bar staff seemed to be making drinks (3 or 4 serving), they looked like they were busy working, but looking around nobody seemed to be moving away from the bar and nobody was drinking. I actually have no idea what to make of it. I go to so many places which do cocktails; Jalou, Revolution, Alvinos, Browns…They all take a little time, but it’s nothing like The Botanist! It’s genuinely the longest I have been at a bar and nobody at the bar actually got a drink! I let my mate stand where I was for 5 or 10 minutes, we still didn’t get served, the guy who I was standing next to STILL didn’t have his drinks, so we left.

If you want to go to the Botanist because of the cool décor my advice would be go, take a couple of pictures, then leave and go somewhere else for a drink. Since I didn’t get a drink I can’t tell you what they were like, other than expensive, which is not a surprise for a place like this, and would not be so appalling if you were able to actually get one of their expensive drinks.

You can pay a visit to their website here, it’s much better than wasting your time visiting it in person. Maybe you can order drinks a few weeks in advance, or B.Y.O.M (Bring Your Own Mojito). Needless to say I’ll not be hurrying back.

On a positive note I now have a new found respect for the other bars which I thought took their sweet time, but they’re actually quite rapid. Check out my other Newcastle Bar Reviews here.

Michael

The friend zone, what a place to be. What can I say about the friend zone?

It’s not a place you want to visit too often that’s for sure, but if you happen to not be a douche and you’re actually a nice guy, it’s a place which you can find yourself in a fair bit.

Read More

Hey!

How’s you weekend been? Mine has been a pretty good one!

It was the Grand National yesterday, did you have a bet? I’m not really a betting man, I know that betting has been getting really popular in the last year or two because of apps and cash out etc. but I have never really been interested in betting. I always say I only bet 3 times a year; The Soccer AM Dance Off (which was not on this year!), The Grand National and Eurovision. It’s became my tradition to have bets on these three events, ever since I was a kid we always bet on the Grand National, it’s pretty much a tradition for so many people, if you ever have a bet, it’s going to be on that. I always bet on a couple of horses, it makes it more interesting when you’re watching the race, there’s nothing worse than it being boring and never hearing your horse’s name, or it falling at the first fence. This year I won! I usually do well, but one of the horses I backed was the winner, Rule The World, obviously named after me ruling the world 😉 It was a massive 50/1 so I have been on cloud 9 since yesterday when I won, it’s true what they say, money won is twice as sweet as money earned 😛

Last night I went out in Newcastle with my friends, and it was a good night. We hit the usual spots including Browns and Alvinos, and watched the boxing in The Monkey Bar which was really good. I managed to watch the George Groves fight which he won, then straight after the main event, Anthony Joshua who won in a knockout in the 2nd round.

Last night I wore some Spring suede style, one of my favourite jumpers from GANT, a cable knit, my suede jacket from Mango, PRPS Selvedge denim jeans, Kurt Geiger shoes, and a white Mango shirt.

I still have loads of Rekorderlig left, so I might have to have one or two of them tonight, and watch a film later on. But first, football 😛

Have a great Sunday 🙂

Whether we’re talking about the modern man of today, or a traditional kind of guy, there are just some things that every man should own. This is the men’s lifestyle edition, with no clothing of fashion included, as I feel that deserves it’s own, bigger feature.

Read More

I can’t quite believe it’s April already!

Last month was pretty cool, plenty of fashion and lifestyle posts were going on here at Michael 84. There were a few events, Air Max Day 2016 happened, and of course I can’t forget about Easter. I actually had a really quiet Easter, which was something I really wanted…Having 4 days off in a row was bliss and something I needed, and I used the time to just relax. I have always wanted to go on holiday over the Easter break, but typically I organised and planned nothing! 😛

The month got started with a big collaboration with LG, for London Fashion Week and their ‘How to wash your clothing’ campaign. LG were a principle sponsor of London Fashion Week, and I was featured in their eBook with my tips on how to keep your clothing fresh.

I also collaborated with Topman in their Great Britain, Great Suits campaign, and was honoured to be part of this campaign, being featured on the homepage of Topman.com as well as it going out to social media and their newsletter of over 1 million people!

I also showed you where I blogged from, in my desk of a fashion blogger post, and it goes to show, it’s the blogger not the desk which matters 😉 I was seeing lots of people posting up their ‘perfect’ desk and office space, which looked like something from an IKEA catalogue, with a flawless desk, white Scandi-style furniture with not a thing out of place. It sort of reminded me of people’s houses looking like show homes, like nobody actually lives there. I like to live! 😀

I also watched quite a few films, including Trainwreck, Date Night and Man Up, I can’t recommend Date Night, but the others were pretty good.

As for fashion I covered a few things from Adidas and GANT, as well as showing you some of my Spring clothing from ASOS, nautical tees and a really cool pair of Ecru jeans which I will hopefully be posting in a style post soon.

Speaking of style posts, I did a few of those too, one of my favourite Spring posts in March was my purple styling post, and gave some summer fashion advice on going sockless this summer.

Now April, it’s over to you! 🙂

Hey guys! 🙂

Spring is here (apparently) so I thought about styling some fashion with that in mind. With warmer months brighter and more colourful options become valid, not that you need a reason to add a splash of colour to your outfit, but it’s a good reason 😉

Read More

Just a little street style post for you today 🙂

March is here which is supposed to mean Spring, but you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s still Winter, since it’s probably colder now than it was in December! 😛 Anyway, I have decided that I will be shaving off my beard/tash for the Spring/Summer….I did a similar thing last year, when I went clean shaven from 1st June. I have decided that this year I am going to do it earlier, and do it for Easter. It’s now becoming a bit of a tradition; Clean shaven for summer, beard to keep my face warm for Winter 😛

I decided to shoot this photo in black and white, I am wearing a combination which I really like; Smart jacket, shirt and pair of jeans. I am wearing a jacket from Minimum, the shirt is from Jaeger and the jeans are from Nudie Jeans.

Sex, drugs and rock n roll…and more drugs, and more rock n roll

SKY Atlantic have been teasing us with the latest release from HBO for a few months now, and last night Vinyl finally got it made it’s debut on TV. If you’ve ever wondered what you’d get if you cross music royalty aka Mick Jagger with film royalty aka Martin Scorsese, this is the TV show we’ve ended up with.

Read More

WOW! Did you see the moon tonight?

I am getting quite geeky when it comes to astronomy and taking pics of the moon these days 😉 The moon looked so weird tonight, so I had to take a photo…

It looks like 2 things in the sky right?! No, it’s just the moon After I had a Google of what was going on, apparently this is called a waxing crescent, and you can see the whole dark moon with a crescent because of earthshine; That’s light reflected off earth. Now you know 😉

It’s that time of year again, it’s the day (and night) of love, Valentines Day!

This year it’s on a Sunday which is pretty rubbish, and I expect if anyone is doing anything, they’ll be doing it on the Saturday, or maybe having a Valentines Weekend rather than one day (that’s a winner for the girls!).

I have come up with a couple of gift ideas, for him and for her…

So if you’re looking for some ideas what to get her I have some; Or if you’re a guy looking for ideas for her then I have some for you too. And if you’re single like me, here’s some ideas for yourself

Read More