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Irish Examiner
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Thirst-quenchers: Cool down with the best of the summer's new drinks
The anatomy of a summer drink is fickle. It must be refreshing, yes. Beyond that, there is a wild world of ways to help people cool down as the summer, relentless beast that it is, rages on around them. While some parts of Europe are married to their summer traditions, we're less resolute in our summer drinking. Some summers have a uniquely insistent thirst, like the year Britney Spears made us all want Iced Frappuccinos or when we all went collectively mad for Aperol Spritz. Then there was a revolving door of drinks trying to recapture that spark. The Paloma and the Spicy Margarita. Iced Oat Lattes have been the harbinger of many a glorious summer evening. There was the summer it felt like Whispering Angel was all anyone could talk about or Instagram. Last year, was peak hard seltzer and the pét-nat craze is not to be forgotten. But what will capture our taste this year? Shamim de Brún with her Iced matcha at One Kind Folk, Ranelagh, Dublin. Photo: Gareth Chaney Yellow is shaping up to be the colour of the summer. Butter yellow has been taking up space on mood boards for weeks now. It has infiltrated clothing, Instagram flat lays, and columns the world over. Typically, if a colour or aesthetic starts to dominate online it infiltrates food culture. And vice versa. So I think we'll see a lot of lemon cropping up on drinks menus nationally. During summers, lemons are inexpensive, easy to find, consistent in quality and hard to use incorrectly. Lemon in summer drinks is hardly groundbreaking. The first records of lemon-sweetened drinks date back to ancient Egypt, over 2,000 years ago. It has long been listed among 'foods to reduce body heat naturally' which may still come in handy. Here's your guide to some of this summer's freshest quenchers. Boba Lady Boba Bubble Tea Drink Original As temperatures climb and the Irish humidity amps itself up, the chewy delight of boba tea comes into its own. Sometimes Boba shops can be intimidating for beginners who experience a bit of choice paralysis, but a safe bet is always the classic, or the vanilla. If you want to have a boba in the comfort of your own garden, Ladyboba has brought canned versions of this Asian export to supermarkets across the country. As with all Boba this is a playful drink with tapioca pearls suspended in chilled milk tea making it refreshing and texturally captivating. I'd recommend the Taro version, here the Taro with its vibrant purple hue, embodies summer charm. Made from earthy-sweet taro root, its creamy sweetness and velvety feel are ideal for long, sunny afternoons. TRY: LADYBOBA's Taro Bubble Tea Drink Iced Matcha Latte Ceremonial Grade Matcha, 100g pouch, €45, from Mafia Matcha Matcha is the perfect drink to cut through summer's lethargy. It tastes like Zen in liquid form. Matcha lattes provide an earthy balance of sweetness and that distinctive, satisfyingly dry finish. Releasing caffeine much slower than coffee the faintly vegetal drink comes in a wealth of options and pairings. Newly ubiquitous, you can find this green drink all across the country from Circle K to an increasing number of specialist Matcha Bars. If you've never tried it before tis the season. If you ever see a lavender option, it really is worth a punt. The flavours face off well and create a sort of floral congruent pairing. Highly recommended if you have a thirst that needs quenching and to meet a deadline on a sunny day. While whispers of matcha-tinis hint at a future where matcha sheds its wellness shell. TRY: Dubliner Lizaveta Takvarava's company Mafia Matcha offers ceremonial-grade Matcha you can make at home. Kefir For those nostalgic for Yakult, Actimel, or even the era of the Yop, Kefir is the relatively new to Ireland option that is socially acceptable to consume in the office. This tangy fermented milk carries notable probiotic benefits. Lightly tart and slightly effervescent, kefir invigorates the palate, making it perfect for health-conscious dairy loving drinkers seeking refreshment with depth. TRY: Leitrim's Blakes Always Organic. Nitro Cold Brew Cold brew is the iced coffee for chemex/v60/moccamaster people. Nitro cold brew has surged into speciality coffee shops over recent years. Cherished for its creamy, Guinness-like texture thanks to nitrogen infusion, the drink is typically fruity with chocolaty notes that shine brightest after a slow extraction, which is why some coffee drinkers find cold brew sweeter compared to conventionally brewed coffee. It's the ideal summer thirst quencher for your 3pm slump. TRY: 3fe and many places it supplies locally and nationally serve this smooth, chocolatey beverage that's naturally sweeter than traditional iced coffee. Live Soda Living Things Peach and Blood Orange soda If you are looking for a delicious alternative to fizzy drinks, or as my nanny would say 'minerals,' without all the added sugar or artificial sweeteners, live soda is the summer thirst quencher for you. This is a new style of low sugar, all natural, belly-loving drinks. They're called 'Live Soda' because they contain live probiotic cultures, and often fibre, to support 'gut health'. (The buzzword du jour in wellness land.) Unlike Kombucha, the more well known fermented drink of the moment, Live Sodas are typically made with real fruit juice. So they have a more fruit forward flavour profile akin to the 'European fanta' summer fantasy feel. TRY: Living Things is an Irish company in this space offering a gentle fizzy drink with subtle sweetness. They come in a range of flavours – my favourite is the lemon. Espresso Tonic Espresso tonic elegantly bridges the gap between morning caffeine and evening leisure. Slowly gaining popularity beyond specialty coffee menus. This effervescent drink combines tonic water's sharp bubbly bitterness with the robust intensity of espresso, creating a sparkling cooler drink perfect for sultry afternoons in the sun. It has been slow to make its way to Ireland creeping onto the menus of serious coffee houses like Smithfield's Proper Order over the years. It has a distinctly moody aura. It's a drink for people who want coffee's nuance with summer's breezy indifference. It's the negroni to an iced lattes April Spritz. TRY: Smithfield's Proper Order or other serious coffee spots. Ginger Beer Ginger beer is on the up up and away. Whether enjoyed straight or spiked, it embodies vibrant summer afternoons. It came to me personally by way of Hallow and Fentimans circa 2017. Since then ginger beer has become a fast favourite among Irish people. These days there are multiple Irish made versions of this spicy, cooling, and delightfully effervescent drink. Ginger beers marry ginger with a kick of a rotating crop of extra bits like chilli, lavender or apple. TRY: Poachers for a non alcoholic version that isn't too fiery or Kinnegar's Jackrabbit if you want to up the ABV. Radler/Shandy If you demand liquid refreshment that sings of sunlight, ease, and icy relief then maybe a Shandy/Radler is more your scene. Both a shandy and a radler feature a blond lager (usually Pils or Helles) as a base. They have long been summer favourites, blending lemonade's tart sweetness with beer's refreshing depth. Generally they're ideal for extended summer evenings where you want to be relaxed. TRY: Whiplash's Body Radler, a sherbet-lemon brew that hits precisely this mark. Made the traditional German way of making lemonade then blending with body riddle to get to a sherbet lemon 2.8% pint. It's crisp, and utterly sessionable. Limoncello Spritz Could the limoncello spritz dethrone Aperol's iconic reign? Quite possibly. Limoncello itself has been enjoying a resurgence of late as Italian culture dominates social media aspirational content. Many brands and bartenders have returned to it for its versatility twists on the Spritz serve. As an alternative spritz it's zesty and brightly citric with delicate bubbles, and a lemony sweetness that positions it perfectly as the breakout drink of this summer. TRY: Funkin have a canned Lemoncello that I have seen in SuperValu and independent specialist shops. Hard Iced Tea This is a relatively new category to land on our little island. Generally hard iced tea is the perfect equilibrium of robust tea flavour, delicate sweetness, and just-right alcohol levels make it an ideal beach or garden companion. Hard teas fit into many of the same drinking occasions as hard seltzers. Despite their newness there's a comfortable familiarity to them accompanied by a lightly sugary kick. The category is coming into its own now though it goes back to the turn of the century, when, in 2001, Boston Beer Company introduced Twisted Tea. Anyone who took American history for their Leaving Cert might argue that tea has been made 'hard' as far back as the 1800s. TRY: Lay-Low Hard Iced Tea reimagines iced tea through an Irish lens making it a new summer essential, destined for coolers nationwide. Available in peach and lemon flavours.
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Japan bans flashy baby names like 'Nike,' 'Pikachu'
[Source] Japan's parliament passed legislation in late May establishing standards for children's name pronunciations, addressing disputes over creative interpretations of traditional characters. What you need to know: The law requires family registries to include phonetic guidance for all names, preventing parents from assigning arbitrary sounds to kanji characters. Officials will reject applications where proposed pronunciations lack connection to the written characters' standard meanings. Registry offices can deny names like pronouncing traditional 'Taro' characters as 'George' or 'Michael.' Households will receive postal notifications about existing name pronunciations, with a one-year window for appeals or modifications. Why this matters: The legislation responds to administrative burdens at medical facilities, schools and government agencies struggling with unconventional pronunciations. Creative, unusual names — including examples that sound like 'Elsa,' Naruto,' 'Nike,' 'Pikachu' and 'Pooh' — have divided opinion between advocates of parental choice and critics citing potential social consequences. Still, the naming approach has gained popularity over past decades, with daughters receiving distinctive names more frequently than sons as families embrace personal expression. Previous naming controversies include a 1993-1994 legal battle over registering 'Akuma' (meaning 'demon'), which ultimately failed. Meanwhile: The new legislation comes amid Japan's population decline. Last year, births dropped to 686,061, the lowest annual total since national records began in 1899. Meanwhile, fertility rates fell to 1.15 children per woman, significantly below the 2.07 threshold needed to maintain population levels. Government officials have identified the 2030s as the critical period for reversing demographic trends. Trending on NextShark: This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter — a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices. Subscribe free to join the movement. If you love what we're building, consider becoming a paid member — your support helps us grow our team, investigate impactful stories, and uplift our community. Trending on NextShark: Subscribe here now! Download the NextShark App: Want to keep up to date on Asian American News? Download the NextShark App today!
Japan Today
05-06-2025
- Japan Today
Government tells parents what not to name their babies
Those who were in Japan in August 1993 might recall a news item about the father of a newborn, who went to the Akishima City office and attempted to register his infant son with the given name "Akuma," written with two characters that combined mean devil or demon. Perhaps out of sympathy for the child, paper pushers at the city office were disinclined to accept the father's application. Akuma's dad maintained that such a name was perfectly legal, because the ideographs for aku and ma both appear in the Education Ministry's list of characters approved for standard use. The media had a field day reporting the story. In January 1994, the Hachioji branch of the Tokyo District Court ruled that Akishima City had not followed proper procedure, temporarily restoring the name so that it could be denied properly. By July of the same year the father finally gave up, agreeing to pick a different name, ending the controversy. But, reports Weekly Playboy (June 9) the root problem, of what constitutes an acceptable name, became more widespread. It seems that all too many parents these days have been saddling their infants with kirakira (flashy), i.e. silly or frivolous names. Which finally moved the Diet on May 26 to pass a new law setting standards for naming children. The new law specifies what types of names will not be accepted for entry into family registers. For example, names cannot be assigned a reading that's unrelated to the actual characters. So two characters typically read "Taro," a common Japanese male name, cannot be read "George" or "Michael." Likewise, readings cannot be assigned to characters in an arbitrary manner. The character "Ken" (meaning healthy or robust) cannot be assigned to be read as "Ken-sama" (Master Ken) or "Kenichiro." In addition, characters used in a name cannot be assigned with an opposite or contradictory reading -- sort of analogous to the practice of calling a tall man "Shorty" in the West. So for instance "Takashi" (meaning high) cannot be read "Hikushi" (low). And it goes without saying that the new law bans names that carry discriminatory and/or antisocial nuances, or which are otherwise clearly negative. Which almost certainly eliminates names like "Akuma" from the running. That said, Weekly Playboy points out that it's only fair to state that plenty of Japanese given names are quirky enough, even before the new law goes into effect next May. Certain names are based on historical precedents, such as "Asuka." Originally a village in Nara Prefecture it is used to name an historical era from the late 7th to early 8th century, and written with characters meaning "flying bird." Another example would be "Satsuki," the old name for the fifth lunar month and written with characters normally read gogatsu (May). Or take "Kazuko." Written with the character wa in heiwa (peace) and ko (child), between 1926 and 1957 it was Japan's most popular name given to baby girls. The reason why a character normally read wa came to be read kazu is obscured in the mists of time. Linguists have advanced several theories, but no one knows for sure. Some say it might be derived from the word for number (also kazu), or possibly a corruption of a verb with a similar sound, such as katsu (to win). Japanese language scholar Hiroyuki Sasahara, professor at Waseda University, tells the magazine the widespread use of given names using two characters dates back to the 8th century CE and follows a long-established naming practice in China. Japanese, however, adopt nonstandard variants in which a kanji used to name a child may be pronounced not according to its dictionary reading, but based on its root meaning, opening up a whole new can of worms. For instance, the character dai or okii, meaning "big," can be arbitrarily assigned such readings as Hiroshi, Takashi, Takeshi, Hajime, Masaru, Yutaka and numerous others. Before deciding on a child's name, some prospective parents consult fortune tellers. "That was basically modern-day style of fortune telling that first appeared during the Showa period (1926-1989)," Sasahara explains. Appealing to common sense, he encourages parents to read up on the Japanese language, kanji, and names, and make efforts to conceive how their child's name would be perceived by society. "Because names have historical and social implications, I think parents have a responsibility to consider how a child's name will be accepted by society," he asserts. Sasahara thinks the flashy name phenomenon has been enabled to some degree by the increased trend toward nuclear families, as such households lack an elderly relative who can offer sensible guidance and advice. That said, the article concludes, the names that Japanese choose for their progeny will play a role in determining whether or not their language will have a rich future. And that's reason enough to take the process seriously. © Japan Today
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Even Yoko Taro says it was "more dangerous," and other devs tried to stop him, but Danganronpa's creator insisted on having 100 endings in his absurd new RPG
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Nier Automata's effortlessly eccentric director Yoko Taro has said he originally made games with multiple endings at a time when short games were out of fashion. Now? He reckons making games with 100 endings, like Danganronpa creator's new game, is a risky move. In the latest issue of Famitsu Magazine, the Nier mastermind sat down for a chat with Danganronpa's Kazutaka Kodaka and 999 director Koutarou Uchikoshi, who recently teamed up to release strategy RPG The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a dangerous high school-set game that has seemingly countless routes to complete. Nier Automata's 26 routes were a major deal when the game first released – even though most of them were joke endings. But Taro explains in quotes translated by Redditor ComunCoutinho and Google Translate that he only added multiple routes to his Drakengard series for the extra replayability. You see, for most of the 2000s, a game's length was somewhat used to measure whether it was worth the price. In 2025, with dozens of games competing for our time every single month, a 500-hour epic doesn't seem as appealing. "In the current year, making something with 100 different routes and endings is the more dangerous play," Taro tells the developers of The Hundred Line, which has roughly 100 routes and endings. That's not an idea that put the developers off, though. Uchikoshi apparently created a flowchart containing all 100 routes to show Kodaka how rash his initial idea was, but seeing everything physically laid out apparently got the famed visual novel maestro more motivated to do it. Kodaka is at least aware of the gamble he took. He recently said that he'd love to port The Hundred Line to more consoles, but the studio is still "on the brink of going under," which isn't a surprise considering the team ended up with a lot of debt trying to create the ambitious genre-bending hybrid in the first place. Yoko Taro says Nier: Automata has so many endings because "Square Enix told us" to "add more content"
Al Bawaba
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Al Bawaba
NieR's Yoko Taro: AI will make all game creators unemployed in 50 years
Published April 30th, 2025 - 10:57 GMT ALBAWABA - Japanese director Yoko Taro, best known for working on titles such as NieR: Automata, sparked widespread concern on social media after predicting that AI (artificial intelligence) will cause game developers to lose their jobs. In an interview with Famitsu, Yoko Taro and other famous Japanese game directors, such as Kotaro Uchikoshi, were asked about the future of adventure games. Both Taro and Uchikoshi raised AI as a subject of concern, as reported by IGN. While Uchikoshi still expressed his interest in creating new games, he feared AI-generated games would become more mainstream. Additionally, the director added that AI still struggles with "brilliant writing" and lacks creativity, which humans still excel at. On the contrary, NieR's Yoko Taro predicted that AI might take over game creators' jobs in 50 years. ＡＩ予想。補足すると、・ＡＩで一般の人が全員クリエイターになる。・クリエイターでは食えなくなる。・でも作りたい人は食えなくても作る。 という感じなんだけど、僕の未来予想はほとんど外れるので気にしないでいいです。 — yokotaro (@yokotaro) April 30, 2025 In a new post on Musk's X (formerly known as Twitter), Taro responded to IGN's post about him claiming that AI will "turn ordinary people to creators" and that it will not be possible to make a living as a creator in the future. Moreover, he did add that all these predictions should be taken with a grain of salt since they "are almost always wrong so don't worry about it." Many artists already fear AI taking over their jobs across various art forms such as drawing, music, voice acting, and many more professions. Several also take to social media daily to protest against the creation of AI-generated content. ChatGPT recently sparked outrage after one of its users generated himself alongside his family in Hayao Miyazaki's iconic studio Ghibli art style. Many artists called the trend "disrespectful" to Miyazaki's career as a beloved artist and director. © 2000 - 2025 Al Bawaba (
