When I told people I was going to see Charles Esten, I was usually met with a confused “who?” which, unless you are a fan of the TV show Nashville, is totally fair enough. Esten featured on that show as Deacon, one of the main guitar-playing country-singing characters through the entire run. And so, even though I didn’t really know much of him outside of this show, seeing him pop up in Bristol during a small tour of the UK meant instant ticket purchase.

I am intensely aware that my recent posts have been all Apple this and Apple that. With Arcade and Books and Oprah and Swift and more, it’s like everything has come out all at the same time. I’m loving the content on Apple TV+ but some of it has been harder work than others. Dickinson was a surefire hit, but For All Mankind took some perseverance. The first episode didn’t grab me at all.

Blackpool! That’s all we need to say about that. In other news, at this point, all the dancers left are really good and have earned their spot on the big ballroom floor, so I was looking forward to this show being of really high dance quality… and I wasn’t disappointed! Great opening number with all the professionals, celebrities, and the bonus Blackpool dancers. It was quite weird to see our contestants dancing with each other, ie.

I knew I was going to love Dickinson because, from the trailer, it was a modern take on the early life of this infamous poet. I’ll be honest and admit to knowing little about Emily other than her name, but as soon as I knew Hailee Steinfeld was in it, I was on board. And it was SO GOOD. Ten half-hour episodes of Hailee and her friends reinventing what a good period piece is.

Sure, the last thing the world needs is another television streaming service and yes, there is a question mark about where Britbox sits in the current market but you know what? I kinda like it. Britbox is a long-in-coming platform initiated by ITV and the BBC, with Channel 4 and Channel 5 on board, to offer UK-based programming to mostly a UK-based audience. It sounds like a good thing, bringing together the main terrestrial channels from the big four, but it does get a bit wobbly when you start to look at what’s available.

This is the time of year when people start talking about the C word - that festive period where you will either be wondering how much cash you might receive as a gift, or pondering how much it might be wise to spend on eggnog, or maybe even thinking about how you can revamp your finances for the new year. I’ve thought about money and finances a lot this year and it’s been an interesting, frustrating and sometimes rewarding process.

Is it Blackpool time?? Not quite yet but it is Blackpool drinking time. DRINK. I actually didn’t think the number of B word mentions was as high as it has been in the past, but maybe I was just mellow with a glass of wine in hand. It’s that point in the competition, unfortunately helped by Will’s early exit, that when the dancers gather on the floor at the beginning, it’s starting to look quite empty.

At the start of this year, I made good progress with learning Swift but of course two things got in the way - real life, and then SwiftUI. When SwiftUI was announced in June, it sounded too good to be true (anything to not have to use interface builder anymore) but I figured I’d be better off waiting to see what it had to offer before continuing my journey. I’m incredibly glad I did!

Well this was a tough one, wasn’t it? The halfway point, hooray, the dancers are really starting to get it all together. But we had to wave goodbye to Will, which was very sad. And poor Neil also had to sit out another week and hand over the dance to a thankfully slightly more prepared Kevin. Here are some thoughts as the whole thing unfolded. Karim and Amy. “Not bad if you did the right steps,” she says in training.

Apple TV+ launched on Friday and yes, you can expect plenty of future updates on the content that came with it. Dickinson was mega! But this isn’t about that. This is about the first episode of Oprah’s Book Club distributed by Apple. I’ve already discussed how I dived right in and started reading the book as Apple quite cleverly coincided the book club with their new reading goals in the Books app.