Naughty, But Nice!

 

A selection of tantalising indulgences that would whet your appetite as well as your desires.

Here is a selection of cakes for those in need of some kitchen inspiration. Making your own cakes and cookies will save you a lot of money and can gaurantee you a more healthier choice of ingredients. Home baking puts you in control of what goes in to the mix. So if fruits are your thing, then this is a considerably healthy option on all grounds. Visit 'Naughty, But Nice!' for more of the same - photos are available.


Cookie Rounds
Here we have a selection of home-made cookies baked in traditional style - no fancy work needed just a simple layout, a baking tray and your set to go.

Cream Cakes
Once again, nothing too fancy. Yet they look and taste so delicious. The cream is fresh and has no sugar in it because the cake itself was already sweet.


Premium Cream Cakes
Now here's where things get a little fancy. You have the base of the cake, the marzipan, cream and to top it of, fresh Strawberries.


Mega Cup Cakes
Don't be mean with the cream. A cupcake covered in rich, thick, fresh cream. Topped with an assortment of colourful sweets known as Hundred and Thousands.





This is not a recipe, but just a chance to showcase some of the things you can do for yourself in the kitchen when the pennies are low. Adding your choice of ingredients to your cakes and cookies gives them their own unique look and taste. At most, it will save you a lot more money than buying one down at the supermarket.
For those of you who are not used to the kitchen, familiarise yourself with it. And in that process, grab yourself some flour, butter, and a baking tray and get to it. See what wonders you can create.
© All photos taken by MJ Taylor

The Commodore 64

Remember those computers from the 80's? Well, we take a look at the Commodore 64 and some of the games that were available for it. So without further ado, I present to you one of the highly respected computers of its generation, the Commodore 64!
The 80's was an interesting era and one to be remembered. This was the time where computer games were a lot more appealing than the 70's 2-bit tennis game. That's because the graphics were better and the stages of game play was a lot more engaging.
Along with the Spectrum, Sinclair, Atari and Amstrad, the Commodore 64 was also a popular PC. Many of the games were on cassette tapes which you had to load up using the seperate tape recorder that you plug to the PC. Depending on the amount of data for each game per tape, you can find yourself waiting for 5 to 20mins for a game to load up. Often the case it was always worth the wait.

 




The first joysticks made for the 8bit gaming machines had only one trigger button. The image you see below was one of the first to have two. These were commonly known as 'Quickshot'. They were made to give you a more realistic experience especially when playing games such as Space Invaders, Infiltrator and Zynaps. The joystick had ridges so you could grip the controls during fast playability. Underneath the joystick were four suction cups to sick it down to a table or something of a similar enamel material. The commodore 64 aloud up to 2 joysticks unlike the multi-play we see today.

When it came to games, there were a huge selection of genre's to choose from. 'Shoot 'em ups' and 'Beat 'em ups' were the most popular with such games as The Exploding Fist and Rambo. Other titles came into the frame a little later like 'Red Heat' and 'Ghostbusters 2' just to name a few, making the Commodore 64 a machine to be reckoned with. And with the help of better reliability with loading games, this further expanded the popularity of the computer. Even Aliens was released for the '64 which was the first game to put you right in the action as you travel down the many corridors.

 Technology for computers and their games got better. In the ninties, two 16-bit gaming machines were released on the market - the Sega Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo. They were double the graphics, and games loaded in seconds of inserting the cartridges. This meant that all the 8-bit computers had met their match and were surpassed into the history books. Yet we remember them because they were the first to change the way people play games...forever.