The last four weeks have whizzed by in a blur of washing, catching up on Coffeesh0p and yet more wedding parties (you can never have enough!) but I’ve finally found time to sit down and write about our honeymoon. Now I just have to hope that some of you out there are still interested and that I can remember anything about it!

We went to Bayahibe, a pretty touristy resort on the south east coast of the Dominican Republic. Our hotel was frickin’ sweet, 5* all inclusive and right on the beach, with only one more hotel along the coastline between us and the completely uninhabited south east tip of the island, which is a huge nature reserve.

Just off this coast is the island of Saona, and our visit to there was quite possibly the best day of our lives and the highlight of the holiday. We had heard that the reefs there were the second best in the world (after the Great Barrier reef) so we just had to check it out and we certainly weren’t disappointed. The trip itself was brilliant, the staff were fantastic and we downed rum after rum on the boat while listening to (would you believe it?) the Trentmøller remix of Go by Moby – one of our favourite tracks. John had a good old boogie on the boat before realising he was being filmed and promptly stopping, but we bought a DVD of the trip so it’s now immortalised on film forever, no doubt to resurface for embarrassment purposes at some future birthday party or to show to the kids to prove we were young and cool once. We saw eagle rays and moray eels and other, much prettier sea creatures like enormous starfish, angel fish and sea urchins.

The Wildlife

Lunch was on the breathtaking Saona Island – filming location of the iconic Bounty ads – and was delicious, ate overlooking the Caribbean Sea and covered in butterflies! The afternoon was spent in the amazing ‘natural swimming pool’ – a football pitch sized patch of shallow water, far out from the coast. Ironically, being miles from anywhere, this was probably the busiest place we went during the entire honeymoon! The water was clear and beautiful, about chest height (on me, but I’m a short arse) and the bottom was covered in huge, hard starfish – not like the crap squidgy ones we get in this country. Here, the staff on the boat turned the music up loud and we drank rum and coke and ate fresh coconuts that had been picked on Saona Island earlier. It’s safe to say it couldn’t have got much more Caribbean than that! Later on in this trip we’d break our camera, get incredibly pissed and emotional and a little bit sunburnt, and when we got home I spent an hour sobbing and exclaiming ‘that was the best day of my life!’…but the less said about that part, the better.

Saona Island

There was also some amazing sights to be seen in the sea just off the hotel’s beach – we saw a sting ray about 6 foot out from the beach, followed it round for a bit and made a large and rather obnoxious British family shit their pants and drag their kids back on to dry land when their nosiness got the better of them and they asked what we were looking at. Another amazing experience was feeding the fish just off the beach – turns out they eat bread (who knew?) and wading into the water with a roll or two causes hundreds of beautiful fish to swarm around you, jumping out of the water and stuff, it was absolutely incredible and we even borrowed snorkels so we could get underwater and in on the action.

Another awesome trip was to the capital city, Santo Domingo. We had the most fantastic tour guide called José who referred to his wife as ‘Fidellia Castro’ the entire day and talked about how wives were the bosses of the households in the Dominican Republic just like everywhere else in the world – all in the most good humoured and loving way possible of course! We were embarrassingly clueless about the place before we went on this trip, so here’s the history lesson: Santo Domingo was founded in 1496 by Bartholomew Columbus and was the first place to be settled in the Americas. It boasts the first cathedral, chapel, hotel and just about everything in the New World. The Catedral Santa María La Menor, for example, is older than ANYTHING in the USA. The city’s modern history has been pretty turbulent, and it even had a different name from 1930-61 – “Ciudad Trujillo”, after the country’s dictator. He was eventually assassinated, but not before much bloodshed and 30 years of an oppressive and unpopular regime. To put this guy in a bit of context, there were extravagant gifts in the old mausoleum that had been sent to Trujillo from Hitler and Mussolini…so not a nice dude. That this period is still in living memory seems obvious, as does the rest of their history with links to Christopher Columbus, the slave trade and so on. In our experience, Dominicans are SUPER proud of their country, their heritage and their past, warts and all. It’s a very refreshing attitude and we enjoyed finding out all about it in an open and matter-of-fact way. The ancestors of a lot of the population, for example, arrived as slaves – and whilst we all know that this was a terrible time in history and many abhorrent acts were carried out towards these people, that is how they ended up there and that’s that. That something isn’t pleasant doesn’t make it any less true, and I really liked that quality that we found in so many of the people there. They were also very patriotic but not in the mental, nationalistic way you seem to get in the US and UK – they said things like ‘my capital city’ even if they didn’t live there, and thanked tourists for visiting ‘my beautiful country’. Overall, people were incredibly friendly and welcoming, and often even seemed grateful to the tourists for even going there in the first place. But then, it’s not long ago that Dominican Republic was a third world country, and thanks to the recent earthquake we’ve all seen on the news that it’s neighbour, Haiti, most definitely still is. Tourism has transformed the country and they seem thankful and proud to show it off – as well they should, because it’s so beautiful. It has the typical breathtaking Caribbean beaches as well as jungles, rainforests, coral reefs, bustling cities and Western style shopping precincts for the rich and famous – a bit of everything. I really don’t know why it’s not as popular as some of the other Caribbean Islands which, as far as I can tell, tend to be less diverse in their ecosystems and landscapes.

As well as the cathedral, we visited numerous significant buildings and places, including the first road to be built in the New World, the palace of Christopher Columbus’s son, Diego, and some stunning caves known as ‘the three eyes’ which featured beautiful, turquoise underground lakes (unfortunately this was post-camera-breakage so we don’t have any good photos of these. Boo!) We also bought the tiniest, most expensive piece of rock ever but it was totally worth it – a teardrop shaped chunk of amber (a Dominican specialty) with a 60 million year old bug in it. It set us back nearly £300 but still, there can’t be that many 60 million year old bugs floating around. Other purchases worth noting are of course the ubiquitous rum and cigars, which were so frickin’ cheap we ended up buying about double our customs limit and having to squeeze it all in our cases for the journey back. We had no trouble there, thank goodness, although we did see an hilarious stereotypical indignant American couple arguing with customs. They appeared to be the only people in the whole world who haven’t heard of the ‘no liquid in your hand luggage’ thing and loudly failed to grasp why their litres and litres of rum were being thrown away. Just as an indication of price, some pretty awesome 40-odd % rum was around £5 for a 70cl bottle – bargain! We drank plenty while we were there and also discovered some crazy Dominican aphrodisiac called Mamajuana, which John has since christened as ‘rum-hypnol’ (not because of anything rude, you filthy buggers…but because the only time I drank some was when I was already horribly drunk and I basically lost around 3 hours then passed out. The next day I actually thought I was dying of some tropical disease because the hangover was so bad). Basically mamajuana seems to be a mixture of herbs which are soaked in red wine, then honey and rum, then drained – this leaves you with the sex rum which you then drink. Or something like that. It’s delicious so keep your eyes peeled on Coffeesh0p as we’re hoping to source some of the herbs from somewhere at some point soon as no one sells them in the UK at the moment. Oh and John bought a SINGLE cigar for £20. That had better be one awesome cigar.

Last but not least, our other trip worth mentioning was to go and swim with dolphins! The place itself was a complete rip off and the staff were the most miserable shits we had ever come across – but once we were in the water with the dolphins those feelings just evaporated and it really was all the clichés you can imagine. We’ve never been that interested – as in, we’re not one of the many people to whom swimming with dolphins is the absolute pinnacle of being – so more than anything we got the opportunity to do it and we just wanted to see what all the fuss was about. And would you believe it, Mr and Mrs cynic here just totally “got it”. It was incredible, and I’m now totally a dolphin convert. Do it if you ever get the chance.

Other than that, we spent a fortnight lazing on the beach, drinking so much rum it’s a wonder we’re still alive, eating amazing food, swimming every day in the sea and the huge pool (which happened to have a bar in it), and generally just relaxing. It was the most fantastic two weeks we could have hoped for (apart from the bastard camera breaking) and we’re incredibly glad that our ‘ah, fuck it, it’s our honeymoon’ attitude won out over our tight-fisted, sensible attitude. After all, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity…although having said that, you are all heartily encouraged to buy plenty from us in order to help us afford to go again

Yep!

Last Thursday at 9pm, a programme being shown on BBC3 called “Can I get High Legally?” caught my interest. Not having a TV ourselves, we patiently waited for it to become available on iPlayer whilst the orders poured in – a massive amount, far more than usual. Something in the programme had obviously made legal highs seem pretty appealing. Or had it?

Our orders per day. Guess when the documentary was on.

George Lamb was presenting, which made me wary from the outset. What can this uber-trendy, slightly poncy metrosexual reminiscent of other Camden boys like Noel Fielding and Russell Brand have to say about the science and safety of legal highs? Well, as it turns out, nothing. The description of the programme on the BBC website claims that “George Lamb dives into the world of legal highs, meeting users and sellers, finding out why they are legal and if this means they can also be called safe”. In actual fact, the programme consisted mainly of Lamby boy wandering round Camden (where else?) looking shocked. You can buy legal highs in shops? There’s proper websites selling them? It all actually looks professional? That’s because they’re legal, idiot. We’ve already established that. Unless he feels that the purpose of the programme was to answer the question in the title, which seems pretty pointless – “Can I get high legally?” – well yes, of course you can.

This brings me on to my first major issue with the programme (and believe me, there were many, but I’ll only rant about a select few here); where were the mentions of alcohol and tobacco? They literally did not get mentioned once, which I think is pretty appalling. Holy shit George, did you know you can just wander in off the street and buy a pint? And there’s proper shops selling it? Regardless of one’s opinion about the “differences” between drugs and alcohol, it is a mind altering substance that you can buy legally and with minimal restrictions, just like the legal highs George Lamb is horrified to see available, displayed in attractive ways and with nice pictures on the packets to entice customers. What about the Martini advert with George Clooney and all the sexy women? Why is that different? What about all the casual references equating getting drunk with having a good time in popular media? Why is all of that OK, in fact so OK that it doesn’t even get a mention? People just do not see that intoxication is intoxication, and if one kind is acceptable then we need to think about why. George Lamb voices his concerns throughout the programme that legal highs are so dangerous precisely because they’re legal – because that means everyone thinks they’re safe and isn’t careful enough. I think that is a valid point, but where it applies most strongly is with alcohol and tobacco, substances that most people don’t even consider to be “drugs”. How many deaths are there per year from legal highs, George, compared to alcohol and tobacco?

These are the kinds of questions he should have been answering, which brings me onto my second point. It’s hard to pin down, but there was just a general lack of substance. Where were the statistics, the graphs, the interviews lasting more than 20 seconds, the facts? This programme, these questions, had such potential, but it just wasn’t in depth enough. He doesn’t ask the right questions, he misunderstands or misrepresents (or both) the points made by the experts and he whizzes through the whole thing not really covering anything. They set up a night out, for example, where a group of three students were to take some legal highs and record their experiences throughout the night. What we in fact got was three sweaty faced goons grinning into the camera, edited with some generic “rave” footage. What did they take? Pretty basic question. How much did they take? Were they drinking alcohol? How long after ingestion was the footage filmed? Why didn’t the BBC choose to show more than 3 or 4 seconds of footage at a time so that we could actually get a look at them – were they sweating, slurring, delirious? We didn’t get the answer to any of these questions and considering that this was presented as a case study of people taking legal highs, I think it’s pretty shocking journalism. But perhaps I’m being unfair – we did learn during a meeting with Lamby in a greasy spoon the next day that they felt a bit rough. Well big woop.

Another massive misrepresentation was the case study involving Guernsey. Guernsey, for those of you who don’t know, is mega strict on illegal drugs. This legislation has obviously been highly successful as they now have a massive problem with legal highs, as the teenagers and young adults (because it is mostly them) can’t get hold of the real stuff. George Lamb didn’t quite seem to be able to make his mind up here – whilst he explains how unusual the situation is there and seems pretty sure that it’s because of the super tough drug laws, he then questions teenagers on the street and expects us to be shocked that they’ve all tried legal highs. Of course they’ve all tried legal highs, they all take them there, that’s the whole point and why you went Guernsey! It’s not representational of the population at large so I really didn’t get the point of this section at all. His condescending attitude towards users of legal highs also really pissed me off. He got down with the kids and joined them in their car whilst they smoked some kind of legal smoking mix (probably Spice) from their hand-crafted Coke bottle bong (we’ve all been there) and questioned them about the safety of what they were doing. When they replied that they were aware that it was risky, he was incredulous – fancy knowing that something you’re doing is risky and doing it anyway, how stupid, right? Right? Well, no. Unless Lamby boy’s never crossed the road, got in a car, lit up a fag or basically done anything ever, he’s being a total hypocrite. As it turns out, he actually admits to having taken cocaine and ecstasy during the program, making his hypocrisy even more apparent. Being aware of the risks of something and doing it anyway doesn’t make you an idiot, it means you’ve considered the risks and decided they’re minimal, or at least minimal compared to the benefits. Yes, an aeroplane might crash, but you want to go on holiday, and it’ll probably be fine. People make these kind of decisions every day.

Another aspect of the programme boasted about in the description is that Lamb talks to “sellers”. Well, he actually talks to one, and he was a complete arsehole about it. He wanders into shops and rings people up wanting to talk to them on camera right now, and then treats it as some kind of admission of wrong-doing when they say no. Finally, Chris from Potseeds.co.uk, a friend of ours, agrees to talk to him and George is off to Potseeds HQ in Totnes. The way it is edited makes Chris look like a lone man who sells drugs out of a shed, rather than the manager of a busy, successful and completely above board business, and Lamb’s tone is mocking throughout. He picks up packets off the shelves, laughing at their funny names, in a scene akin to a crap drugs education lesson at school where you’re warned off drugs as “only dopes smoke dope”. The worst bit though is when Lamb chooses to assess what Chris has said in the voiceover, recorded after he’s left Totnes, rather than addressing his criticisms to him when he has a chance to reply. Chris hesitated, we are told, which obviously makes him a bastard and a liar and a downright horrible human being (or words to that effect). Or, it just makes him a normal man who isn’t trained for TV, who knows every single syllable he utters will be analysed to death and used against himself and the entire legal highs industry.

The final bit of the programme that really got my goat actually had the potential to be very interesting. Lamb goes to speak to an actual scientist (just one though – toxicologist Dr. John Ramsey from St George’s College at the University of London) about legal highs and he is told that MDMA is probably safer than many legal highs as it’s been around for such a long time we know how to deal with it. Well, I totally agree – pure, pharmaceutical-grade MDMA is almost definitely safer than legal highs. In fact, it’s one of the safest drugs around, so saying that it’s safer than legal highs is kind of a non point – it’s also safer than alcohol. But, more importantly, pure, pharmaceutical-grade MDMA is not what we should be talking about here – it’s not what is available in clubs or pubs or whatever to the average customer. Ecstasy, MDMA’s dirty little sister, is what must be considered when you compare illegal drugs to legal drugs, as that is the alternative. Even street bought MDMA is nowhere near 100% MDMA. This leads me on to the final, and in my opinion, worst moment of this documentary, where George Lamb fucks up yet another incredible chance to actually learn something from someone who knows what they’re talking about. He’s talking to Matt Bowden (who we also spoke to later for comment), the guy who made BZP big in New Zealand, as a reaction to the massive crystal meth problem they have there. Matt categorically says that BZP is not “safe”, it’s “safer”, but if people are going to do it, “safer” is better than nothing – my sentiment exactly. At this point Lamb demonstrates a display of ignorance of Brass Eye proportions when he says that he’s been told that “taking an ecstasy” is safer than taking legal highs. By this point I was practically screaming at the screen, and I bet I don’t need to tell you why as I’m sure you all have a much higher IQ than Lamby evidently does – the scientist said MDMA, for christ’s sake, not ecstasy, and that’s a pretty fucking important difference. After this, Lamb takes salvia and makes a total tit of himself but I was sick of his bullshit by then (although I did notice that he didn’t even explain what salvia was… considering that he’d been talking about synthetic legal highs all the way through it might be important to mention that salvia is a plant, and is in no way a legal high).

I had many more complaints about this programme, from the trivial (like Lamby’s stupid highlights/streaks/whatever the hell they are) to the not-so-trivial (what about all the legal highs out there that aren’t synthetic? They didn’t get a mention at all, other than salvia which he didn’t differentiate from everything else he’d been talking about), but those are the main ones. I wouldn’t mind if the programme had concluded that legal highs were all bad, as long as it was based on some interesting, reliable evidence. As it was, there wasn’t really a conclusion at all, and I felt like I hadn’t learned anything. There were some interesting ideas (following users on a night out, for example) and some very interesting contributors. It’s a great topic and, as legal highs become more prevalent, something that needs to be discussed, but uninformed dirge like this contributes nothing other than yet more misunderstandings. Given the BBC’s track record, with programmes like Horizon definitively stating that popular legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than MDMA and cannabis (watch that episode here), I had high hopes that this programme would give a well researched, balanced insight into the legal highs industry. Instead, we got a overgrown gawky teenager marvelling at “druggies” and consistently boasting about his own supposed experience with illegal drugs (which did nothing but make him look like a hypocrite), topped off with an image of salvia use no more insightful than “woah, man”. Disappointing work, BBC (But thanks for the extra sales )

Hopefully I can find a video of this somewhere to post up here, but no luck yet.

UPDATE: Here it is! Unfortunately, the site it’s hosted on will probably try and sell you a girlfriend or something before you can actually watch the video. Click the red play button and close the pop up window if one appears. Then, the play button turns green. Click it again and you can watch the entire thing:

If you can’t be arsed to cook, check out these Smoking Mixtures instead!

This recipe is just a quick one to follow on from the cannabutter and infamous hash brownie recipe I posted recently. Even without the cannabutter, these cookies are amazing. Here goes:

Method

1. First, cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add the egg, vanilla essence, flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt and fold in.
3. Next, add the cereal and chocolate and mix thoroughly.
4. Drop small spoonfuls onto a greased baking tray, around 5cm/2in apart.
5. Bake at 180ºC (350F or Gas Mark 4) for 10-12 minutes.

Enjoy!

If you can’t be arsed to cook, check out these Smoking Mixtures instead!

Introduction

Although I do say so myself, this is the ULTIMATE Hash Brownie recipe. So good in fact, we recommend trying them without Cannabis Butter, because you’ll want to eat so many of them. They’re very moreish so take care if you do make the cannabis version – it can take up to 45 minutes to feel the effects, so don’t just eat more and more – it could get very messy! If you want to learn how to make hash brownies, this is the article for you.

Ingredients

Hash Brownies

• 4oz (115g) Cannabis Butter
• 2oz (60g) Self Raising Flour
• 8oz (225g) Soft Brown Sugar
• 1.5oz (45g) Cocoa Powder (NOT Drinking Chocolate Powder)
• 1oz (30g) Ground Almonds
• 2 Eggs
• Grated Rind Of One Large Orange (Important!)
• 1/2tsp Baking Powder

Chocolate Butter Icing/Frosting

Making icing for a cake really isn’t an exact science – it’s difficult to give amounts as you may have a different sized baking tray meaning more or less brownies, or you may just have a different personal preference. The following amounts are a guideline so feel free to tweak as you wish!

• 4oz (115g) NORMAL Butter or Margarine
• 1 – 2oz (30 – 60g) Cocoa Powder
• 8 – 10oz (225 – 285g) Icing (Powdered/Confectioners) Sugar
• 2tsp Water, as needed
• Maltesers (optional, but totally worth it)

Equipment

• Kitchen Scales
• Sieve
• Large mixing bowl
• Wooden spoon
• Shallow baking tray
• Greaseproof paper / Wax paper

Method – Hash Brownie Base

1. First, sieve the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the ground almonds, sugar and orange rind and mix together well.
3. Next, add the butter and eggs and beat the mixture together until smooth.
4. Bake at 150ºC (300F or Gas Mark 2), in a shallow dish, greased and lined with greaseproof (wax) paper for 50 – 55 minutes.

Method – Chocolate Butter Icing/Frosting

1. Just mix together the ingredients in a bowl and spread over the top of the brownie.
2. As an optional tasty extra, smash up a couple of packets of Maltesers and sprinkle them over the top. Do this straight away so they will stick in the icing rather than just fall off when you try and take a bite!
3. Cut into at least 16 pieces and serve! If it’s your first time cooking with cannabis, be sensible and don’t have more than one or two in the space of an hour, no matter how absolutely fantastic they taste.

Enjoy!

[This is the first post by my girlfriend and Coffeesh0p partner Mrs_Synch!]

What’s wrong with this article?

We can all debate until we’re blue in the face about alcohol, drugs, their legal alternatives, tobacco and whatever else is a source of controversy in this country. My problem with this article, however, is not that I disagree with the journalist’s point of view (although I do). It’s that if this is what counts as journalism these days (on the BBC news website no less!) I am, quite frankly, shocked and disappointed. These are some of the reasons I felt so strongly about it (I’ll address each point in the order they come in the article):

1. ‘The pills or liquid’ – what? How vague is this? I know it’s only the second paragraph but read on and the trend continues. There are no names of the brands, retailers or wholesalers they are referring to. They mention none of the ingredients they claim are so dangerous apart from this deliberately controversial reference to BZP. As a herbal highs retailer in the UK, I can personally say that I know of no wholesalers that are willing to sell us any products containing BZP. Although the legal status of BZP does seem to be a bit dodgy (the article said it becomes illegal in March, but I’m pretty sure it’s tightly controlled here already), as far as herbal high sellers go BZP is not readily available in the UK. It is certainly not ‘one of the main ingredients in many products’ in the industry. This is quite simply a lie, and a demonstration of the lack of research done on the part of the journalist. Ten minutes on Google could have told her this is not the case.
2. ‘Twenty-five-year-old Alex from Birmingham’ – Right, I see. So the whole substance of this piece comes from a girl who got pissed, took EIGHT unidentified legal pills, slept in a field all weekend and then got the shits. Come on BBC, this is really poor. The symptoms Alex lists are also, incidentally, ones you can expect from your common or garden hangover. Admittedly the guy who sold her the pills was obviously an idiot, but you get a great many idiots in bars who continue to serve people who are so drunk they can barely stand up. I have also never seen a pack of legal pills which do not explicitly carry the warning ‘Do not drink’, and by her own admission she and her friends were already drunk.
3. “These things are packets of tablets and capsules sold as herbal highs, but are in no way herbal. These things are purely synthetic chemicals,” he said. – Yes, this is a quote from a doctor so it seems almost credible, but again, the vagueness of this point just makes it stupid. Yes, I’m sure there are pills out there that are advertised as herbal and aren’t. But certainly not all of them, and there are a large number of reputable retailers out there who actually do give a shit about the safety of what they sell. There is one very obvious example of legal pills that ARE undeniably entirely herbal, and that’s Happy Caps. If this journalist had done her research, she would have found out in minutes that Happy Caps are capsules, not tablets (so not even any harmless tabletting agents), and that they contain ground up herbs and extracts. Hell, you can SEE what’s inside them if you pull the gel cap apart, and it’s planty and quite definitely herbal.

Whilst this journalist clearly has an agenda (read: drugs are bad), this poorly written piece of tripe has given me no information whatsoever. I’m always interested to hear someone else’s point of view, and when I saw the title, was excited about reading it and possibly reporting on it for Coffeesh0p. Unfortunately, I was left disappointed in both this journalist and the standard of reporting that is obviously publishable these days. BBC news editors, you should be ashamed of yourselves!