I’m going through one of those phases where I’m working on so many projects, that this here blog falls lower down the list. I know when I’m just posting Film Watches and Casual Reader reviews that I’ve got a little bit busy all of a sudden.

I’ve got several items I’ve been meaning to write about, but there isn’t time, or I’ve written myself out of words on something else, or I’m just too darned tired. The topics are there, but they’re not inspiring me into whole posts, so I thought, instead, I’d capture them in note form. I’m not usually a massive fan of multi-purpose posts, but if I don’t get these down, they’ll just sit in my notebook instead. Better to publish and be damned!

1. Over Christmas, the Guardian iPad app was free for a set period of time, giving you access to the digital version of the newspaper for a few days to get a taste of it. I snapped up the free version, and really enjoyed reading it. The navigation was good, the ads weren’t intrusive (in fact, the Channel 4 TV ad was inspired - TV listings within an app as an ad!) and I found myself reading more than I skipped. The price isn’t too bad £9.99 a month, but I can’t justify it for the amount of times I read a newspaper. I wondered whether it might be something I could read at lunchtimes, but at the moment I’m having too much fun working through my Big Read list. It’d be great if they could find a way of making the “one edition at a time” model work, but I can understand that subscriptions are better.
2. Talking of subscriptions, my Netflix free trial recently expired and I didn’t cancel it, heading straight into my first month as a proper subscriber. Mostly that’s because I was in the middle of watching Coupling, but there are a few other series I might check out too. They do need to start adding more and more content though, otherwise I may run out of things to watch. I do have some interesting thoughts on how Film Watch has affected my movie viewing, but I think that will make a post of its own. I also subscribed to Eurosport, which I’ve been watching via the iPad app. I think I’ll probably keep that up for more than a month too, although I have yet to see masses of sports on there I want to watch.
3. I spotted the weird world of Yacht Island Design recently, a company who are creating proposals for what amounts to floating cities. If there’s anything I like quite so much as the concept of a bunker, it’s the concept of your very own man-made floating island. Mmm, peace and quiet except for the sea. The one pretending to be Monaco is pretty clever, too.
4. I was going to write a review of my iPhone, in a similar style to the Week or Two with the Kindle post, but then suddenly it was a month and then two months with the phone. There isn’t that much to say, really, because it just fits in with my life and I take it everywhere. When we had snow recently, I was taking pictures with the camera that just blew me away. I love that Lisa Bettany went on a photography World Trip with just the iPhone. Other than that, I mostly enjoy not having to carry two devices around anymore, I find the battery life decent enough, I’m using Siri less and less, and feel like I could do more with apps.
5. This weekend, I managed to get round to watching the first episode of the new series of Being Human. It’s such a weird thing, for a series that modelled itself so carefully on the relationship between three main characters, to have just one of them left. There are others who are interesting enough, and the world can clearly carry on without them, but what a tough challenge for the writers to keep the essence of the show without… well, without the essence of the show.

A mix and match of apps, TV, photography and design, and although I’ve not gone into much detail on any of them, I do feel a lot better for getting that off my chest. Now back to one of my many other projects!