Drippingly Gorgeous! (Magnum Pleasure Store Review)

A Day Without Pleasure Is A Day Lost

So, there I was on vacation in London and I was idly walking with my sister through Covent Garden one fine day, we stumbled across an Ice-cream shop, which was unusual in itself, so we went in to explore. Now, as a rule, ice-cream is meant for dessert, traditionally after lunch/ dinner, or a mid-evening snack or whatever. We thought about it for a minute or two because the time was around 11:15 and we had not had lunch as yet, what made us give in to the sweet lovely sinful temptation was that this particular shop was not easily accessible from a bus/ train or tube stop. It was some distance away and would mean a ten minute walk back to the shop since we had somewhere else to go as well as we needed to get lunch. 

Promotional Summary of the Magnum Pleasure Store (which I found online)

"Magnum ice cream, the brand synonymous with luxury and pleasure, has today opened the gates to a haven of chocolate and ice cream indulgence, with the opening of the 5th Magnum Pleasure Store in London’s stylish Seven Dials. The store has been designed by and launched by fashion guru Jeremy Scott, Creative Director of Moschino and is adorned with his MagnumX Moschino bag collection. Jeremy invites pleasure seekers to Dare to go Double with double-dipped, personalised Magnums with two layers of deliciously decadent chocolate, a luxurious layer of sauce and a selection of over 20 tempting toppings available exclusively in the heart of London’s shopping district.
The Magnum Pleasure Store will serve bespoke ice creams to visitors throughout the summer including one curated by Jeremy himself. Customers at the hotly anticipated summer pop up can enjoy a pleasure-packed experience at the dipping bar as well as at various events that will take place throughout the summer. Whether choosing a double or single dipped Magnum, customers will then be able to choose their own selection of tempting toppings, such as Black Lava Sea Salt and Blackberry Crunch, to sprinkle over the setting chocolate. Each individual creation will be perfected with a drizzle of chocolate and the finishing touch; a classic M coin decoration with prices starting from £5.50.
The Magnum Pleasure Store is decorated in bold Magnum X Moschino style. Magnum X Moshino is collaboration with Moschino Creative Director Jeremy Scott. They have teamed up with Magnum for the ‘Release the Beast’ campaign to celebrate Magnum Double, encouraging pleasure seekers to embrace and show off their wild side and live the Magnum ‘Dare to go Double’ attitude, just as visitors to the Magnum Pleasure Store will be invited to do.

When - 29th June - 10th September 2017
Sunday: 10am – 6pm
Monday/Tuesday/Wed: 10am – 7pm
Thursday: 10am – 10pm
Friday: 10am – 9pm
Saturday: 10am – 10pm

Where - 21-23 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London, WC2H 9LL"

So as you can see we was very lucky to experience the wonderful (slightly expensive) sensation of creating my own ice-cream. Since this shop was only around for 74 days in the heights of the English Summer, it was a fortunate unexpected gorgeous experience. 

Stupidly and I've been kicking myself ever since, is that I totally forgot to take a video of the Magnum staff making the wonderful creation below. The naked magnum was dipped in a dark chocolate coating, then a combination of the following toppings chocolate fudge brownie, chocolate flakes and shaved dark chocolate, then drizzled with white chocolate with a chocolate Magnum coin as the final touch. I still cannot figure out how the coating managed to become so crunchy just a couple minutes after dipping. 

It was a foodie gastronomic delight! 

Not to mention the very first time in my life that I had dessert before my lunch! It was worth it though :)

Luckily there is always someone online with incredible videos which display the whole process. Have a look below. 

Tourism in London (England) and Tourism in Trinidad & Tobago (A Comparison)

As the country I live in, Trinidad and Tobago waits with bated breath for the 2017 budget to be presented on Monday 2nd October, 2017, I thought it would be an opportune time to compare the Tourism in Trinidad and Tobago and the Tourism in England where I went on vacation this year. Austerity measures and serious ones at that are expected, see news article - Tough Love Budget. 

It is the fault of previous governments of Trinidad and Tobago to not diversify away from the reliance on oil, but hey, when you're getting billions of US dollars from oil, you tend to be blinded by the truckloads of money coming in the door. 

It was purely by chance that I encountered the picture taken on Oxford street (see below), because the only way you would notice banners that high up, is if you're riding on one of London's double decker buses. I never actually originally planned or had any inclination to go on a bus around that area, but that led me to researching what the hashtag #London is Open meant, which led me to this. 

London Is Open

#LondonIsOpen is a major campaign – launched by the Mayor, Sadiq Khan – to show that London is united and open for business, and to the world, following the EU referendum.

It shows the world that London remains entrepreneurial, international and full of creativity and possibility. It reassures the more than one million foreign nationals who live in London that they will always be welcome, and that any form of discrimination will not be tolerated.

London is the best city in the world. We're entrepreneurial, international and outward looking. The key ingredient of our city’s success has been the flow of brilliant ideas and talent from across the globe. Our city is comfortable in its diversity, proud of its history and optimistic about its future. London is open.

Sadiq is urging all Londoners, organisations and businesses to show their support for the #LondonIsOpen message via social media and other creative ways.

We don’t simply tolerate each other’s differences, we celebrate them. Many people from all over the globe live and work here, contributing to every aspect of life in our city. We now need to make sure that people across London, and the globe, hear that #LondonIsOpen. I urge everyone to get involved with this simple but powerful campaign to send a positive message to the world. 
Sadiq Khan (Mayor of London)

As this website so handily indicates for the year of 2016 - Visitor Numbers , the top 10 visited attractions in England took in 42 MILLION visitors. Think about that for a minute. 42 million tourists, imagine what that does for any economy. Compare that to Trinidad and Tobago which has just 1.4 million residents.  Note - these figures may not be truly representative of the top tourist destinations in London. 

Rank	Site	Total visits
1	British Museum	6,420,395
2	National Gallery	6,262,839
3	Tate Modern	5,839,197
4	Natural History Museum (South Kensington)	4,624,113
5	Southbank Centre	3,909,376
6	Somerset House	3,443,220
7	Science Museum	3,245,750
8	Victoria and Albert Museum (South Kensington)	3,022,086
9	Tower of London	2,741,126
10	Royal Museums Greenwich	2,451,023

There is such an amazing plethora of information for tourists traveling to London it's hard to pick out the definitive one but these do very well
1) Visit London
2) Time Out London

Either of these websites have huge events calendars that you get overwhelmed with the choices of what can one do with their day in London. I should point out that these are totally relevant and updated with all the information one can need to visit each location.

Conversely, for Trinidad and Tobago, the official website of the Ministry of Tourism has 6 attractions and no events calendar. Likewise the Discover Trinidad and Tobago website has an impressive calendar of events but absolutely no further information on 99% of the events. Yes, the website is splashy and showcases Trinidad and Tobago Culture and places, but it is not associated with the official Tourism policy of Trinidad and Tobago. 

Someone told me earlier this year, that if one was a visitor from any other country in the world and they had say - 1,000 US dollars to spend, and they came to Trinidad and Tobago, what does one spend that money on? Because there is no coherence between any of the Tourism operators or any festivals etc. Essentially, what should've been our biggest selling point, just about gets by with government spending on Tourism which is barely made back by actual tourists spending money. 

It further does not help that the last 15 years that the crime rate has risen unbelievably - 5249 murders as per this website's count - TT Crime, and for 2017 the country is well on it's way to having the highest murder total in it's short history. Littered in between the dead are foreigners as well, so, as a result of this, travel advisories have been issued by foreign governments warning tourists about the safety of their potential stay and could very well scare away thousands of potential tourists.

As a fairly damning indication that the Government of Trinidad and Tobago does nothing for Tourists to Trinidad and Tobago, let me give you an example of what happened on a Caribbean Airlines flight that I was on from Barbados to Trinidad. Note that flight path - Barbados to Trinidad. 

During the flight of just under 1 hour, a couple videos were shown, one of which was a tourism video promoting Antigua attractions, excellent production value as well as ministers from the Antigua Government giving their perspectives of Antigua culture. That to me was both appalling and laughable at the same time because Caribbean Airlines is the state-owned airline and flag carrier of Trinidad and Tobago. 

Disclaimer - This post was not meant to provide solutions to the current lack of a coherent tourist strategy in Trinidad and Tobago, it was meant as a comparison between what a first world country has (England) and what a still wannabe first world country (clearly third world) has (Trinidad and Tobago) still to do close the massive gap.