I love plans and meetings and email invites and cashflows and budgeting, but every once in a while I start to think too much.

I think about how my life is nothing more than a leaf on the wind and as I consider this spinning ball of rock we call home, hurtling around the sun at 70,000mph with nothing but invisible forces holding us together and I COMPLETELY FREAK OUT! Seriously, If I close my eyes I can almost feel the earth moving.

What I have to try and remember is that with or despite my plans the wind will blow and the world will spin and it's God who controls it all. God who created the very laws of Physics that hold reality together and whether I think I'm in control or not, He knows the destination, all I have to do is let go and let him take me there.

Watch how I soar.

It's been a little while since I've blogged, but I've picked up quite a few new readers lately and thought it only fair to share a bit about me.

In case you hadn't guessed, I'm Andrew Gribben and yes, I write all my own posts. I don't have the luxury of having someone write for me. This causes two things to happen:

1. For someone who prides himself in proper spoken english, you'll find far too many spelling and grammatical errors.


2. Posts come randomly, when I have time and when I have inspiration.
   This helpful Venn diagram explains my thought process.

Handy Grib Facts

• I live at the sea-side with, my beautiful wife Lila and daughter Tamar.


• I finally created a LinkedIn profile, which you'll find here and my slightly less-than useful Google Profile is here.


• I'm responsible for http://jotterapp.com. If you don't know what Jotter is, you will soon.

If you came here looking for my address, date of birth and phone number, they're not here. I don't give that sort of information out over the internet and nether should you!

If there is one thing I won't tolerate in my class, it's sectarianism. Pupils who ordinarily show the utmost respect for teachers, can suddenly get riled up, treating you like a traitor, should you dare challenge them on what can only be described as a sin. It’s a touchy subject and the possibility of angry letters and phone calls from parents always seem a possibility, so it’s important to tread carefully and appropriately.

Many humanists would have us believe that religion (of any sort) has been the cause of war and misery throughout time, they aren’t wrong. Christians shouldn’t be “religious” at least not in the way the Pharisees, of Jesus’, time were. We need to interpret everything we do and believe through the lens of scripture, as means of self diagnosis to see if what we are doing is right. However the pattern throughout history is of people claiming who outwardly claim faith but inwardly harbour sin which they use to twist and warp scripture to suit their purpose.

Current day examples include “Protestant” paramilitaries, who don't know what the reformation was, or Christians who exclaim that immigrants should go back to their own countries and stop “stealing our homes and jobs.” Where’s their Christ-like nature; welcoming in strangers and those less fortunate?

The Bible must be taken as whole, not select random passages, not taken out of context, not adapted to fit our agenda or mindset. Just because a sin is traditional or cultural in its basis doesn’t make it OK; tradition and culture are not bigger or more relevant than scripture itself. Christians, not just in Northern Ireland, need to actually apply the Bible to their whole lives, not just choose parts of it as it suits.

What are your thoughts?

Expecting something else?

Yesterday was a somewhat productive day for me; with the school was closed due to weather I got all the network and computer upgrades finished off early.

With all my free time that evening I decided to try making a batch of frozen yogurt, or froyo;  the codename for Google's Android 2.2 operating system </>

So if you want to make a batch at home, don't want fruit and haven't got an ice cream maker, then follow these simple steps.

You Will Need

• 2 cups (500ml) natural yogurt


• 1/2 cup (125) water


• 1 cup (250ml) full fat milk


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 cup (200g) white sugar


• Blender


• Shallow metal dish or tin


• Plastic tub

Steps

1. Stick everything in the blender, and turn it on.
   Be sure to put the lid on the blender!


2. Blend for approx 5 minutes or until your wife complains about the level of noise.


3. Pour into the shallow metal tin and careful place into the freezer.


4. Wait two hours, remove from freezer and scrape, the now slushy mix, back into the blender.


5. Blend for another 5 minutes then pour into your plastic tub, cover and allow to freeze overnight.


6. Eat.

Recently in Church, our senior minister commented on how two of the hymns sang had been penned by people who had lived during the period of the 1859 Revival. A quick scan through the hymn book showed that a huge number of of our traditional hymns originate from that period.

If a work of revival results in such a volume of verse being produced, then perhaps it is not too far a leap to suggest that the so called “problem” with modern worship music is that having not originated during a period of revival the words and music are not inspired of the Holy Spirit in the same way. There may be a degree of truth there but I first I feel that it’s necessary to look back to various times of revival so that we can properly define the term, before making such judgements.

What is Revival?

The Bible show records multiple accounts of revival although not necessarily using that word; the repentance of Nineveh and the day of Pentecost being two that spring immediately to mind.

“And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. So the people of Nineveh believed God” Jonah 3:4-5

How bad were these nations but God still worked with them? Well Jonah was so afraid and hated the people of Nineveh so much, that he ran from God’s instruction and the Jews on the day of pentecost were the city that just crucified Jesus. Both times a wicked and rebellious generation were miraculously turned to the things God.

Wikipedia defines Revival as “a term that generally refers to a specific period of increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a church congregation or many churches, either regionally or globally.” Church history paints events such as the 1859 Revival, the American Awakenings or the Welsh Revival as joyous and blessed times when the Lord worked in power and people were saved. Indeed that is what happened, and then some. It would be naive of us to assume that a such a massive working of God happened during the periods mentioned and then outside of that time period life returned to normal. No, instead revival is a continual working of the Holy Spirit throughout the course a generation. Reports of the 1859 revival in Ireland show how society was turned upside down by the people coming to God; it was those lives who were touched by the revivals of the 19th Century that went on to pen these great inspired hymns.

At this point, I should mention that Wikipedia should almost never be used as a source when trying to make a serious point, but if you bear with me it does actually fit very well into my train of thought. On the page regarding revival it says

“Coincidentally, the very month that Jeremiah Lanphier began his prayer meeting in New York, four young Irishmen began a weekly prayer meeting in the village of Connor near Ballymena.” 

Clearly the work of a historian rather than a believer, you may say, as the word “coincidentally” should in fact read “providentially.” But on a topic such as the 1859 Revival, in Ireland, primarily in the North , it’s very likely that the person adding it to Wikipedia would be a Christian and if so then therein lies our problem. We might be remembering back to the days of revival and praying that God would send another, but we the Christian church, don’t actually believe it will happen!

The Digital Revival

There’s finally been a great move in the last few years towards all kinds of digital media, online broadcasts and use of social networks. As times change, it’s important the the techniques we use to deliver the message of the gospel change with them. As the printing press revolutionised how Bibles and books are published and distributed so the internet has and is changing things yet again. We should always remember however that as the means of the delivery changes, the message should not; a pitfall that the contemporary church has fallen into; marketing Jesus as a brand to rival other lifestyle choices.

It goes without saying that care and accountability should always be exerted when using new technology, but on top of that we need to consider how it is actually used. A new church website is all well and good, especially if aims to draw in and inform sinners, but if it is designed to please members and existing christians who can stand back and say “wow, that’s a great website” then it really is missing the mark.

Their Foot Shall Slide

In his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" Jonathan Edwards quotes Deut 32:35 "Their foot shall slide in due time." He talks about a people who despite God's previous blessing "remained void of counsel, having no understanding in them"

For all we know revival could be underway right now, somewhere else. It could even be happening as a result of the message being sent out digitally. Just because it is not happening where we are does not mean that it is not a revival. Has our foot slipped? Is God no longer working us because we no longer have a true understanding of the Gospel. What we need to pray against is that our longing for the past would get in the way of the gospel message for the future, lest God’s blessing would move on to somewhere else. In the past it has been seen that revival has arrived as almost a direct response to corruptness, indifference or false teaching in established churches and has resulted in new churches and denominations forming.

For example just because God worked in Northern Ireland in the 1950s, it does not mean that he will automatically bless the work a few generations later. Unless we stay true to the Bible and continue to reach out to the unsaved around us with Biblical love and humility; not just preaching sola fide, sola gratia, solo Christo but also Semper Reformanda.

• ”Faith alone by grace alone, through Christ alone” & “Always reforming”

Perhaps not 90%, but a large part of what we believe and practice is derived from social, cultural and denominational traditions, not the Bible. What we assume to be true takes the place of what God says is true, when instead we should be living our lives with the guiding light of scripture.

What you are about to read does not come from the pen of a particular denomination, or preacher, but from a Christian, who like Martin Luther read from the Bible and wondered why the teaching within was not being applied correctly or consistently by those that promote it most.

The aim of this discourse is not to cause upset or strife within the Church, but to encourage discussion and to educate fellow Christian on why they believe what they do, so that their life may have a more firm grounding in the Gospel. Finally if anything you read contains theological errors, or incorrect interpretation then bring it to us that we may learn and correct our mistake so as not to be stumbling block to others.

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Psalm 100:5 - For the LORD is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

Happy New Year!

A few weeks ago I started my own project and corresponding Facebook group for what soon became known as the Open Bible Project. The goal being to produce a version of the Scriptures for various e-book readers which, within the constraints of the device, has a useable user interface and readable layout.

Many, many versions already exist around the web, but either have hideously formatted text or are far too unwieldy to fit into typical usage patterns for the Bible. Of course others have been working on this problem, Osnova has produced several Bibles and developed a jump to verse technique using the search function of the device. Type ge.1.10 and find and the reader will jump to the Genesis chapter 1 verse 10.

I've used a similar technique, by hiding a code for chapter using white coloured text (doesn't show on the device but is still searchable) you can enter Gen.1, Matt.1 etc and the reader leaps to the correct chapter. As far as the reading experience goes, each verse flow into one another, with verse numbers showing in a smaller font.

Very soon I'll have an Open Bible Project website up and running, hosting the scriptures and various reference books online. Each user of the website will be able to annotate, highlight and link text across books of the Bible and the reference library. This customised version of the Bible will be available (freely) as a download for use on your reader, bringing those highlights, notes and links with it.

When no one sticks to them? After reading Alan's post on 4x4s parked badly at Sainsburys, it reminded me of something that's really got on my nerves lately, people that park in parent and baby spaces, that have no children with them, sometimes even be a work van!
The worst culprits seem to be found at Tesco Banbridge and although security have advised to complain to management, they claim it keeps happening and nothing is ever done long term to resolve it. What's doubly frustrating is that Tesco have a parent and baby club which they get you to sign up to and in return, give you a "parking pass" of sorts to allow you to use these spaces. A good idea in principle, but I've never noticed anyone use them, but besides that, what's the point of this scheme if it isn't going to be enforced?

We've got our Google Wave invites and while we figure out what it actually does and wait for what comes next, all we really have is another method to communicate with each other, that we actually have to login to and check. Unlike email, twitter and facebook which we are being prompted about regularly and are in the habit of checking, whole conversations could be going on in wave that we won't realise until we decide to give it another go next month and see what the fuss is all about. But now thanks to the Prowl iPhone app, we can have push notifications coming from the desktop wave client wrapper, Waveboard

Here's the steps you'll need to get started.

• First off it's really handy if you have a spare computer which you leave running, so you get notifications when you're out.


• You'll need Growl for this to work


• Prowl for iPhone and the Prowl plugin


• In the Growl system prefs make sure that the default notification is set to Prowl


• Visit http://www.getwaveboard.com and download the installer and let it do it's thing (Mac Only)


• Install and run Waveboard. At the moment it's a wrapper for the website but with a few nice features added; hotkeys, status bar icon etc

What should happen is when you get a new wave, or an existing wave is updated, Waveboard will send the notification to Growl which in turn will Push out the Prowl app on your trusty iPhone and look like this:

Waveboard also offer an iPhone app which can be launched from the Prowl notification, it's £0.59 and is'nt much more than a wrapper, although I'm sure it will improve over time, but I decided to stick with Google's webapp version. Just browse over to http://wave.google.com, accept the warning that your browser isn't supported and you should see webapp version of Wave. At this point you can add it as a bookmark to the homescreen, giving you a nice Wave icon and remove those browser controls. It's flakey but it quite useable.

I'm not sure what will come from Wave, it could be the next Gmail, or the next Orkut, either way it'll be an interesting journey.

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Sounds tasty right? Well as tasty as it may be it's not the food and drink I want to talk about. That's the title of my wife Lila's blog (@mrsbeanandgone) which she started yesterday.

It's only one post for now, but I'm sure when she finds time out from looking after our 7 week old daughter, we'll be hearing more from her.

Check it out - Coffee and Chocolate Cake

Anyone visiting Belfast recently could hardly miss the construction going on along the banks of the Lagan. Rising above it all is the extremely tall and growing Obel Tower; here's what Wikipedia has to say:

The Obel Tower is a building currently under construction in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Costing £85 million and measuring 80.5 metres (265 ft) in height, the tower when completed is set to dominate the Belfast skyline. It will overtake the current tallest skyscraper in Ireland, Windsor House (80 m), also in Belfast. Developed by the Karl Group, the Obel Tower is located on Donegall Quay on the River Lagan beside the Lagan Weir.

My brother, Mark, an architecture student at UUJ, recently got a look around inside, here are a few of his photos. Just look at how small the other buildings are and he wasn't even at the top!

[gallery link="file"]

Anyone following my twitter feed (@grib) got a bit of a shock last night as they were bombarded by around 50 tweets, over a period of a few minutes. Sorry about that!

What happened was that I was trying to link a few social network sites together; I wanted photos posted to flickr to automatically create a blog post and then for the blog to send out a tweet. Sure you can do this with posterous, but any blog posts created have photos linked back to their site, not flickr.

Using RSS and the WP-O-Matic plugin I had planned for a new post to be created when new photos were added to flickr's RSS feed. But... I forgot I had the other plugin turned on, TwitterTools which automatically sends out a tweet for each post and you can image what happened.

So for anyone following me in various clients including SMS (@wiseguyrussell), I humbly ask for your forgiveness and promise that next time I'm working without enough sleep, I'll be more careful.

As mentioned by Alan, Lisburn and Hillsborough Free Presbyterian Churches held a joint Creation Weekend, with speaker Paul Taylor from Answers in Genesis UK. I got my hands on the recordings thinking some people might have been interested but put off by the venue (as were a couple of attendees who left during the hymns and prayer but returned to hear Paul). This is his talk from Saturday night in Lisburn, entitled "200 Lost Years" it talks about the life of Charles Darwin and his legacy.

Apologies for the poor quality, it wasn't me doing the video...

I took the time today for a little bit of overdue DIY and built a rack for pour-over/filter cone coffee. We'll be bringing this out at the next BEAN AND GONE stall at the Lisburn Farmer's market, along with a whole variety of coffees to brew on it, more on that soon.

 If anyone wants one of these, we're thinking of building them and selling them for around £35-40. Contact @grib if you're interested.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

  <p>  <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via email</a>   from <a href="http://andrewgribben.posterous.com/diy-filter-cone-rack">Grib's Stuff</a>  </p> 

I'm probably breaking all the rules, but I'm going to start with a conclusion, the Amazon Kindle DX is an amazing device. End of post...

...Or at least it would be if I lived in the USA. The Kindle with it's built-in "Whispernet" allows for purchasing and downloading books from Amazon and browsing Wikipedia and the web freely (apart from book cost obviously) until your heart's content, providing you have cellular (Sprint?) coverage in the area. Living in the UK, I'm somewhat out of that coverage area, so even after crossing the hurdle of ordering from an Amazon.com account, delivering to a US address and then getting it brought back here, you're limited to USB only transfer. After all that is it still appealing? Like the man from delmonte, I say "Yes!"

Fair enough you are losing some of the best additional features of the Kindle, but let's remember, what they are additional features. The Kindle DX is the e-book reader that makes other readers like the Sony and even Kindle 2, cry and run away.
It's got a big 9.7" highly contrasted e-ink screen, about (haven't actually checked) 3.5GB of storage (which I've now filled), it's slim, light, looks cool, renders PDF, but more important than all that, you can actually enjoy an e-book like a real book! I know the purists out there are going to wax lyrical about paper, the feel of a book and bla, bla bla... You know what? I don't care. I love books too, but if I'm going on holiday or doing some development work, the last think I want is lugging a suitcase/bag around filled with books, especially text books.

That's why the Kindle DX, in my eyes, is a winner, it's an iPod for books, I can still have all the classics on my fuax-intellectual bookshelves, but if I'm going to leave the house and need a half-dozen iPhone dev books, I'll be talking the Kindle DX with me. And on a technical note, the refreshing of the e-ink screen is not as jarring as I expected, and performance wise it can open most books and PDFs about as quickly as an iPhone 3G can open an app :P

Of course, before I even got a book on the device I'd already installed a hack from here which gave me SSH access and after a bit more jiggery-pokery let me share out my MacBook's internet connection and browse the Amazon Store on the Kindle. Important note if you plan on doing this yourself the one piece of advice I can give is this:

Register the device with your Amazon.com account while it's still in the US.

Otherwise, although you can browse the store, without registering, you can't make any purchases or use the web bowser via the reverse tether. Some might say it's a bit pointless anyway since you have to be connected to a PC anyway, but I'd still like the option, for completeness sake if nothing else.

I'll be waiting for a UK/Europe release and further playing with the device, but most of all I'll be reading.

If you've any questions or thoughts, you can catch me on twitter @grib

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See and download the full gallery on posterous

  <p>  <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via email</a>   from <a href="http://andrewgribben.posterous.com/feile-fm">Grib's Stuff</a>  </p> 

We had a bit of a discussion last night at Xcake about the MacBook sleep time. Since switching to Intel chips MacBooks use what is called Safe Sleep, which suspends your RAM to Hard Disk when you shut the lid. The standard habit of a Mac user since PowerPC days was to shut the lid and throw in your bag, however on safe sleep it can take between 25 and 45 seconds to actually sleep, during that time the disk is likely still spinning.

  <p>  <a href="http://posterous.com/">Posted via email</a>   from <a href="http://andrewgribben.posterous.com/macbook-safe-sleep">Grib's Stuff</a>  </p> 

This coming Saturday, 6th June, Castle Gardens hosts the latest Lisburn Farmer's Market.


Rising above past criticism and terrible weather, the May market was success for all involved, both traders and most importantly customers. The summer-like weather, donkey rides, Art on the Rails and the market itself created a enjoyable experience for all and drew in new visitors, with the tent being packed all day long.

We'll be there again this Saturday, with a wide range of BEAN AND GONE artisan coffee beans and serving drinks too. This month we'll be selling some exciting single origins coffees that aren't available on our website, including; Guatamala Cup of Excellence Perla Anexos and a new Kenyan coffee, Kitamaiyu Estate AA .

Hopefully the great weather will hold and we'll see you there!

This is possibly the world's shortest post, but I'm really, really enjoying (at least learning) developing applications for iPhone. It's such a beautiful platform and SDK. I've already one app approved (pending contracts) and about to submit my second after only two days development time. That's not from cutting corners or bad coding, but because so much of the work is done for you by Xcode. I've taken the week off work to do some serious coding, so I may be off twitter for the next few days, but at least now you know where I'll be :)

I was pleasantly surprised after heading home from Open Coffee Lisburn tonight, to find a nice email from Apple telling me the Exile Coffee "Find Me Coffee" app was now "Ready for sale"

Unfortunately it's not that simple, I seemed to have overlooked part of my banking setup on iTunes Connect. I'll get that sorted out right now, but hopefully the app will be ready available soon. If you're developing for the iPhone yourself, take heed from me, don't cut corners, fill in details properly and you'll be a 59c millionaire before you know it!

Coffee is a passion for me, anyone who has talked to me, knows I could wax lyrical about it. I thoroughly enjoyed being at last month's Farmer's Market and spent the following four weeks looking forward to it, preparing new beans and telling everyone that would listen about how great it was to have something like this in Lisburn. Yesterday, despite being there to sell BEAN AND GONE coffee beans I was told, mid-market, to stop giving away sample drinks, because it was affecting the business of another trader. Annoyed and offended, I sent out a quick tweet and was shocked by the near instant support of the local online community. Russell (@wiseguyrussell) has posted about it on his blog and others @blackconfetti, @odle2, @maramgrass, @stuartgibson, @wiredbob expressed their indignation, both in person and online.

People have been talking about free trade and the unfairness of having a market that allows no duplication. I signed up for the market knowing this and accepted that I couldn't sell coffee drinks and only give samples away. I wanted to write a detailed timeline of what has been happening and allow everyone to make up their own minds.

• October 18th 2008
  The first Farmer's market in Castle Gardens, I popped in while walking past, thought it was great to see in Lisburn (and still do), I even bought a coffee from Javaman.
  Bumped into Sharon from Soupernatural (responsible for creating and organising the market), who suggested I come along to the next market held at:


• December 2008
  I Had planned to attend selling coffee beans, even contacted the council (the organiser being Suzanne Lutton) to get forms, however the fact that the council required a Risk assessment form the length of your arm and Public Indemnity Insurance put the brakes on that. Paying out around £80 on Insurance in what was thought, at the time ,to be a one-off seemed like a bit steep, add to the that the cost of the pitch, being nearly double that of the likes of St George's market.
  I stopped by the market anyway, bought some nice food, (noticed Javaman wasn't there this time) and again talked to Sharon from Soupernatural who told me I should have came along anyway and let their insurance cover me. She told me the market was going to start back and go monthly from:


• February
  I saw a banner go up for the Lisburn Farmer's Market on 7th March and contacted Sharon to see if it was ok to come along.
  I got a call back the next day, from Suzanne Lutton from Lisburn City Council, telling me that although they'd be happy to have me at the market, I wouldn't be able to trade using Soupernatural's insurance. Understandable really, so I arranged my own, as well as ordering in green beans, packaging, signage etc, only to get another call back from Suzanne telling me that Phil from Javaman had expressed concern about me selling coffee drinks. An arrangement was made that I would only sell beans and equipment, so as not to affect his business and comply with the non-duplication terms of the market. With all that sorted out I got ready for:


• Saturday 9th March: First Monthly Market
  Although it was a freezing, wet and overcast day, we had a successful day and as I mentioned above, a lot of fun. So there was no doubt that we planned to go back in:


• March
  I got back in touch with Suzanne at the council just to check everything was ok for the next market, she told me it was and checked that I was fine with only doing samples. From here on out I'll break down what happened on the day:


• Saturday 5th April
  0815
  Setup my tent outside the main marquee, got completely soaked and had a short chat with Javaman, I should add that nothing was mentioned about us selling coffee beans


• 0930
  Was asked again by Suzanne "are you only serving samples" despite having already answered this repeatedly. Suzanne's exact words were "he (Phil from Javaman) saw you carrying in an espresso machine and is freaking out"


• 1100 (ish)
  Several customers expressed annoyance at not being able to buy a coffee (drinks) from us, although as before I let them know they could buy from Javaman at the back of the tent. It was also noticed that all the other market traders had been provided with printed signage.


• 1215
  Sharon from Soupernatural (not the council organiser) came over to our stall and told us we would have to stop giving out samples as it was affecting Phil's trade and there just wasn't enough footfall to justify two traders with the same product. She said that Suzanne from the council would be over to speak to me soon:


• 1400
  Not exactly "soon" and having turned away dozens of customers looking for samples I finally got to speak to Suzanne by going to find her. Suzanne explained the same reasons as Sharon, however she agreed that we should be allowed to give out samples but in small espresso sized cups only. We asked to have it in writing and the following month be inside the main marquee, she said that would be fine.
  We brought up the issue that the market would never grow, or be competitive while they still had a no duplication policy, Suzanne told us she had at least another 6 traders lined up to come (which I think would be great) but they can't as they overlap with existing traders.
  On the issue of the printed banners which the other traders got, we were told that we hadn't one because our spot was outside the main marquee and they wouldn't survive well outside. This was understandable and it was pointed out the other outside spot (for which the trader didn't show) didn't have one either.


• 1445
  Sharon came back and informed us that Suzanne (from the council, official organisers etc) should not have told us that we could give out samples at all and that an espresso size sample of filter coffee would stop people buying shots of espresso from Phil. I want to point out here that the standard of coffee and the culture of the UK and Ireland is that someone will not buy a shot of Espresso, unless they truly are a coffee lover, in which case a "shot" of filter coffee would not suffice or even be considered as the same thing. We were also told that we should not have been at the market at all as when I had first request to come in February, Phil from Javaman had said he would not be happy with me being there at all. Sharon says she passed this information back to Suzanne (although up to that point I had been dealing directly with Sharon) and that the fault was Suzanne's and the Council's for letting me come. She also pointed out that the banners were only printed for the other traders, whom she had invited and arranged with and that our roastery tent outside was nothing to do with her, it was between me and Suzanne. (This contradicted not only Suzanne's earlier reason for us not having signage, but also Sharon's own arguments about who had the say in the running of the market. One moment she has the authority to arrange things, the next we are "nothing to do with her"). It was left that, we had affected Javaman's business so much that he probably wouldn't be back and that it would damage her reputation as a trader as she had given her word that there would be no duplication, the direction of the conversation was thought the right thing to do would be to leave as us even attending the market was a mistake.


• 1530
  I packed up, paid my fee and was told  by Suzanne that she would be in touch, after having spoken to Sharon, so who knows what will happen next?

About Our Ratings

Our ratings are not intended to cause offense, but instead hope to promote quality and good practice in the coffee industry, directing business owners to the areas that need improvement, providing a better experience for all.

As such, the breakdown of our reviews, based on the sampling of a small cappuccino, is as follows:

Taste - Pretty self explanatry, how the coffee tastes. Marked out of 10, most fresh generic coffee's will receive a 7 or 8, outstandingly fresh and exciting coffees will be higher, with stale coffee (usually caused by filling the doser with ground coffee and leaving to sit, or not cleaning group heads between shots) will be lower.

Texture - The texture of the milk, also marked out of 10. Consistently smooth milk with little or no bubbles, known as microfoam, is the goal here. Frothing milk until it is bubbly and dry tends tomake it sour and points will be lower accordingly.

Temperature - Leading on from milk frothing, the coffee temperature, again out of 10 with 10 being the perfect drinking temperature, not too hot not too cold. Extreme heat (hotter than your hand can touch, around 140F) not only makes the milk sour, buttwill get you lower points; no one wants their mouth burnt!

Technical Ability - Marked out of 10, this is a look at the skill and training of the barista preparing the drink. Are they following industry best practices, or ritualistically sticking to bad/incorrect training. Also taken into account are the proportions of the drink, ie the ration of espresso to milk.

Appearance - Marked out of 5, this is not how the staff look, contrary to popular belief (you know who you are!) but is how the coffee is presented, if it is finished with any latte art, if there have been spills etc.

Atmosphere - The atmosphere marks relate to the cafe environment itself; is the establishment billed as a "coffee shop" but the main priority is food and a high turn over of customers. As it is not a major issue it is also marked out of 5.

The final score is calculated by adding these values together and doubling to give a mark out of 100

Exclusions - We have decided to exclude certain coffee chains from our reviews due to bad ratings across their stores. Currently O'Briens, The Streat, Costa Coffee, Cafe Nero and Starbucks are excluded. Although, as I alluded to in an earlier post, Starbucks Coffee, prepared primarily by fully automatic machines, is at least consistent.