I’ve only been on Mastodon for just a couple of days but already been very curious about the discussion over ‘quote tweeting’. On Twitter, the quote tweet is a much-used feature that allows you to embed a previous tweet in your own and add thoughts. It was brought in to help users share other posts without eating too much into your own character count. This hasn’t been a feature on Mastodon (helped by the fact the character count is higher anyway!

It’s not the best start for a new year of 30-day-or-thereabouts challenges to have given up halfway through the month, is it? Actually, it wasn’t so much giving up as realising it wasn’t working. Therefore I’m refraining from using the word fail because even though I didn’t do a full month like I hoped, I learnt a lot along the way. This month, I was supposed to be following a Les Mills challenge schedule, a featured workout each day that is backed by a scientific plan and reason for the order, duration and difficulty.

It took me a little while to get up the courage to watch the TV show Willow, based on the film of the same name. We’ve only just recently watched the movie - something we’d both seen before and yet could remember almost nothing about. So the world was fresh in my mind, but even so, I couldn’t see how a TV show would add anything to what is a beloved (although not really by me) universe.

Wahey, I’m on Mastodon! You can find me here and I hope to be using it as a full on Twitter replacement and actually engaging with it rather than falling into the on-again-off-again pattern that I had with the bird one. My path to Mastodon has essentially been: Oh, something’s up with Twitter, it’ll probably be alright though, continue as usual All anyone talks about on Twitter now is the demise of Twitter.

When Netflix announced they were making a documentary series about tennis, similar to their work focused on Formula One in Drive to Survive, I was intrigued. I didn’t watch the motorsport one, having spent too much of my time already watching that sport, but people seemed to think it did a good job telling the stories behind the races, and even non-F1 fans were raving about it. Imagine if they could do the same thing for tennis!

Variety published a story yesterday detailing a walkout by the jury at the Sundance film festival from a film where closed captioning wasn’t available. They’ve been striving for greater accessability anyway, but in this instance it was a specific problem for the jury, which includes wonderful actress Marlee Matlin. The article suggests it was a dramatic walkout after a captioning device didn’t work, whilst the statement from the Sundance organisers was more muted, that the jury just decided to watch the film at a later date so they could do so together.

It’s no secret how much I love Kellyoke - the moment on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show where she covers a popular song, usually doing a much better job than the original! Another thing I love is behind the scenes info about music, tv and production, which makes this set of videos absolutely perfect. Called the Kellyoke Afterparty, this series of three videos features music director Jason Halbert and guitarist Jaco Caraco sharing a drink and some gossip after the live show.

One of the easiest switches in the battle to reduce plastic is from shower gel and shampoo bottles to soap bars. Soap has, obviously, been around forever, but there’s been a real revolution recently in making it as eco-friendly as possible, as accessible as possible, whilst not being the skin-drying-boring-smelling compromise that some bars are. Who Gives A Crap, the plastic-free toilet roll delivery organisation, recently launched a new brand called Good Time which sees them branching out into soap and shampoo bars.

The third series of For All Mankind started streaming on Apple last June. For something that I proclaim to be one of my favourite shows, it’s shameful that it’s taken me over six months to get round to watching it. But you know what it’s like, there’s always something shiny and new to try and more TV that its possible to watch, plus it’s always nice to have an old faithful waiting in the wings for when all else fails.

We’re halfway through January now so those who were going to set resolutions have no doubt done so by now. If anyone is still looking for something to get more active and get out there, the Walk 1000 Miles initiative by Country Walking magazine caught my eye. It’s a challenge to do exactly what it says on the tin, although really the goal isn’t necessarily the target but really to get outside and get more steps in than you have before.