Next Thursday, as you probably already know, is a leap day. We’ve been having one every four years since 45 BC, when Julius Caesar tried to put some order into the passage of time by neatly dividing each year into 12 months and 365 days. Inconveniently, the time it takes for the Earth to complete one orbit around the sun is actually a little longer than 365 days, and every four years those extra few hours add up to another whole day. Hence our need for the occasional February 29th. Like the one coming our way on Thursday.
When wine in cans started appearing in shops here around 50 years ago, it was pretty dreadful stuff. The wine used was of the lowest quality, and it got even worse in the can, changing colour, reacting with the metal, and in some of the foulest cases, taking on the smell of rotten eggs. If anyone bought canned wine, they rarely drank it. Instead, they tipped it into sauces and stews. Not that it was any good for cooking. Even in the 1970s.
When Queen Elizabeth II died on September 8 last year, a countdown started ticking for many of the companies which hold royal warrants to supply goods and services to the monarch.
Ulster Tatler is a lifestyle and society magazine based in Northern Ireland which was founded in 1966. Established in 1966, the Ulster Tatler is now Northern Ireland s longest established and most widely read monthly. It has coverage of events in the Northern Ireland social calendar as well as local fashions. The tone of the magazine is very much to look of the positive side to life in Northern Ireland.
Coffee shops are the new pubs, a friend once remarked. And he may well be right. As traditional bars struggle, coffee outlets are popping up on every street corner. Many pub landlords, especially in country areas, are only keeping their doors open in anticipation of the day someone will make an offer for their licence. Meanwhile, young entrepreneurs in horseboxes can hardly turn out the mochaccinos fast enough. Somehow, we’ve gone from ‘fancy a pint?’ to ‘see you for a coffee’.