The 2014 F1 season promises to be a dramatic one, a time of regeneration and modernisation that more than anything else guarantees to be unpredictable. With an overhaul in the regulations, a raft of driver and personnel movements, plus a handful of new races to challenge all, it is set to be an eventful year in motor sport. Defending champions Red Bull field a revised driver line-up, but they are far from alone. All teams bar Marussia and Mercedes have at least one new face behind the wheel. The regulations too create their own special kind of chaos, with new turbo engines, fuel limits, plus a raft of aerodynamic tweaks to challenge the most experienced of engineers.

I’ve been following the recent tumultuous times at TWiT with interest. As one of the mainstays of podcasting, and one of the few able to create a business from the process, Leo Laporte has always been something of an inspiration. When he hired Tom Merritt to create a daily news show and step into his shoes whenever necessary, I thought they were on to a very good thing. Unfortunately that all fell apart at the end of last year, and Tom departed from the TWiT shores. I have many thoughts about this, some are wildly speculative, some are opinionated about Leo’s choice of replacement, but most of them are just sad that the magic partnership didn’t deliver.

Do you read a lot of series of books? I do. Books from the likes of Clive Cussler, Jeffrey Deaver, Bernard Cornwell, and Alex Scarrow all make my list. And the list is the key point here. Sometimes, particularly if there are double digits worth of books in a series, it can be hard to keep track. It’s okay if you’re just working through a trilogy, it’s not difficult to keep your place, but something like the Sharpe series has 24 books, and they’re written out of sequence in terms of dates and history. Tricky.

You win this time, Benedict-Sherlock! Ahhh, Sesame Street.

Apple are celebrating thirty years of putting technology at people’s fingertips, and they’ve come out with a beautifully creative video showing off their gadgets in glorious surroundings or being put to fantastic use. Thankfully, they’ve toned down the emotion and the smug for this video, and what comes across is just how useful mobile technology can be and what a difference it is making, and will make, to the world.

Another attempt at capturing the bubbles in all their slo-motion glory. This time with rousing music!

I joined Pinterest recently. I know this isn’t groundbreaking news, finally signing up to a social network that’s been around since 2010. I tried signing up once before but they didn’t have my preferred username so I had to go away and sulk about that for a bit. Pinterest, in my limited experience, appears to be one of those social networks that is different things to different people. I can’t see myself getting a huge amount of use out of it, as fun as it is to browse screenshots from film and TV, and ogle cute pandas. I can see how it would be very handy for creative types, and businesses.

Recently, I’ve noticed a few people lacking motivation when it comes to writing – specifically in this instance about blogging. I thought I’d share a few of my favourite tips on getting back your writing mojo, whatever the project, because it’s a new year and a good time to blow the dust off that keyboard. I’m not an expert, by any means, but I’ve written and I’ve had writer’s block, and these are the tips that have helped me. If you’re struggling to get the motivation to write, try one or more of these on for size, and see how you get on!

One of the things I miss most about running is playing about with Zombies Run. Making exercise fun is a key thing for me, and the game aspect of it helped keep my going when otherwise I would probably have stopped early. I’ve been keeping an eye on apps and things that made moving about fun, and spotted the new Zumba Dance app. Now, I’ve never done Zumba - my understanding is that doing it in the class is the best way, everyone all having fun and not worrying about how good you are. I’m not sure how good it actually is for fitness, but moving is always better than not moving. I’m not particularly good at dancing, but I was intrigued by the motion tracking aspect of this app.

I wrote about our difficult initiation with the Playstation 4, but once it finally started working, there is no question that it’s a great bit of kit. We’ve played a couple of games and been pretty impressed with what we’ve seen, but most of our attention has been on Need for Speed Rivals. I am the first to admit that my virtual driving skills are practically non-existent, and racing games don’t really do it for me. I crash, I lose, I prefer to just press X for go and to hell with the braking consequences.

For the previous two series of Sherlock, I have written a dedicated post for each episode, celebrating the highs and lows of each series as it progressed. This year, I didn’t feel the need to do that, as my thoughts tend to cover the third series as a whole. That seems like a good place to start, the whole series didn’t seem to generate as much excitement within me as its predecessors.

I always like to look at the iTunes Film Bundles section, to see what they’ve got on offer. They do a lot of franchise bundles - Back to the Future, Harry Potter, etc. - but this past week I noticed they were doing a set of genre collections instead. The brilliance of these bundles is that they are around the £40 mark, for ten films. And not ten rubbishy films, they’re pretty good movies, in HD format. That makes them about £4 each, which is a bargain by anyone’s standards.

So much love for this. I often forget to check xkcd but every time I do, there’s always something that resonates.

Console gaming is a slow moving beast, particularly when compared with the fast moving online and app world. But after twenty years in the business, and with a desperate need to distinguish themselves from Microsoft’s offerings, Sony should know better, try harder, get the digital side working seamlessly. Santa brought us an incredible gift this Christmas, in the shape of a Playstation 4. It’s been well documented that we don’t really do gifts, but this was something we wanted and would have bought ourselves as soon as we could have found stock, so it was really the perfect present.

Just as with the top five songs of the year, Mr C also likes to pass judgement on the movies we have watched over the past twelve months as well. This is a slightly more tricky selection to explain, as we live constantly about four months behind cinema release dates due to the rental window. So, it’s not quite “top five films released in 2013” and it’s not really “top five films watched in 2013” either, it’s more “top five films that were released between August 2012 and August 2013 that we watched in 2013.” But that’s not as catchy.

It’s the last day of the year, and this is the time when people start making New Year’s Resolutions. I don’t tend to do that anymore, instead working from a broader Life List instead. When I set about thinking of this annual round-up, I felt a little disappointed about how much (or how little) I’ve achieved this year. Looking back can be useful though, as I hadn’t quite realised I’d been to so many places!

This is the time of year where I hand over the keys of my blog to Mr C, or at least give him a paragraph or two of space, to share the things he’s been loving this year. There are two categories - films and music - and we’ll be starting with the latter. Here’s Mr C’s top five songs from 2013, and I will tell you now, it’s been a heartwrenching process to whittle these down to just five.

This year, I was quite excited to see the Top of the Pops Christmas special, because it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t seen much, if any, of the TOTP brand through the year. I used to watch the 1970s editions that were showing on BBC Four but soon bored of that. I remember last year, there was a festive edition on both Christmas Day and New Year’s, and although there were some acts who couldn’t even be bothered to change between programmes, it was still brilliant.

I used to be a total Grinch about Christmas. The entire concept offended me and I wanted nothing to do with it. I’d link to the many posts I wrote about boycotting the festive season, but really, I’m over it. I’ve mellowed in my old age. In reality, I’ve realised that my issue with Christmas is the same as the issue I have with most things - the pressure from society to do things you don’t want to do.

This Christmas special found itself with a really difficult task to accomplish. Following the almost-perfect anniversary special was always going to be difficult, but it also had to steer clear of the normal festive schmultz to head rapidly towards a regeneration. It was still a heartwarming piece in places, the children of the town called Christmas, the Doctor’s dedication to staying in spite of himself, and Clara’s constant despair at being left behind.

Every Formula One season tells a story. A continuing saga, a sporting soap opera, it dates back to the inauguration of the World Championship in 1950 and even before that. At the same time, each and every year, the slate is wiped clean and both drivers and teams are given the chance to impress all over again. This book will guide you through the 2013 season, visiting each event in turn to see how the year unfolded, and how events wound their way towards the season-closing race in Brazil. From the early anticipation of brand new rookie drivers, to the closing stages with familiar faces on the podium, you’ll revisit the highs and lows of another page added to F1’s illustrious and often controversial history.

The chaps in charge of Tomb Raider these days, Square Enix, have in their infinite wisdom released the first installment of the game for iOS devices for just 69p. I was always more of a fan of Tomb Raider 2, but getting access to any of the early games has been tricky of late. Now, the game that made Lara Croft famous has been released for next to nothing and it looks great!

This weekend, we had chance to test out the slow-motion feature on my new iPhone. It’s something we’ve been excited about (as there aren’t that many major feature upgrades on the phone), but we needed some time and something fast moving to video. Step up some trusty alcohol. I love it. Although, I’ve realised that many of the videos I take tend to be slower things that need speeding up, but I hope to look at things a different way in future!

At some point this year, I became absolutely obsessed with Cabin Pressure. If you’re not aware of it, Cabin Pressure is a Radio 4 sitcom, penned by John Finnemore and starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephanie Cole and Finnemore himself. It follows the plight of a small charter airline (although you can’t put just one plane in a line) and it is brilliant. I don’t remember where I heard of it, but with a little bit of an iTunes gift card remaining, I snapped up the first series and gave it a listen. I was almost instantly hooked, and bought the rest as soon as I could.

At the beginning of this year, I wrote about my ambitions to complete a puzzle book. Not a grand aim, I’ll grant you, and not one I thought it would take me almost twelve months to get back to. I have, on occasion, sat down to write an update about my adventures through puzzle land, but as it turns out, writing about puzzles isn’t as entertaining as I thought it might be! Then again, actually doing them isn’t as good as I thought it would be either.

When I first starting putting together my Life List, I pondered adding “See a Backstreet Boys concert” to it. I added it, then I took it off again, then added it, then removed it, and repeated the process a few more times. In the end, I left it off. I wasn’t totally convinced I wanted to see the band with just four members anyway, and besides, going to gigs isn’t really my thing.

I’ve been following the progress of Ghost, a new Kickstarter-funded blogging platform, for a while. It just recently went live for self-hosted blogs, which I briefly considered signing up to. I really want to try out and encourage new blogging formats, rather than the same-old, same-old, but having been through the pain of self-hosted, I decided I’d wait for the hosted solution instead. This week, the brilliant Ghost folks gave me beta access to the hosted platform, so I immediately checked it out. There are three things to note straight away:

I’ve developed a bit of a fascination with workout apps and digital videos, and it turns out iTunes is stocked full of both. I’ve tried a few here and there, but was most excited when it was announced that Miranda Hart, of Miranda fame, was going to release something. The premise behind her video is that you have to have fun while getting up and moving, otherwise it’s easier to sit on the couch. Hence, Maracattack! It’s a good premise.

Up until recently, Bose was just a name that I occasionally heard in reference to headphones. I didn’t realise it was a pretty big brand that have their own stores and everything, not until I was dragged into one. Mr C was investigating the options for their SoundTouch system, and wanted to get a closer look. The SoundTouch is a pretty clever piece of kit, similar to the Sonos system. The idea is that you have speakers of varying sizes littered throughout your house, and they can all be controlled from the one app – either on your desktop or mobile device. They can all play the same thing, or each can play something different, and they hook up to the wifi so can access all the internet radio stations across the globe. You can also Airplay stuff to them from Apple devices, and control things via remote if you don’t have the app to hand.

I managed to miss a lot of the hype surrounding the 50th anniversary special of Doctor Who. Obviously in the run up to the episode airing, it was almost impossible to take an online step without finding something related to the sci-fi show, but before that, I’d side-stepped most of it. I knew of the Billie Piper/David Tennant return, and was obviously expecting an appearance from this new rogue Doctor we were introduced to at the end of the previous episode, but that was it.

The trailers Okay, so, we watched The Internship recently and it left a pretty awful taste in our mouths. I’m thinking that watching Vince Vaugn do something slightly less of a commercial might work, and thus the trailer for Delivery Man kinda works. It’s a pretty far-fetched concept, and all seems a bit contrived, but hey, I didn’t see any Google in the trailer, so I’m sold. Delivery Man

I’ve always managed to get a lot of use out of my iPad. There are two main dilemmas around Apple’s tablet device (aside from price, etc) with one being “What would I use it for?” and the other being “It’s only good for consuming, not creating.” My iPad has always been kept busy, but I would admit that it’s mostly for consumption. Watching TV, videos, listening to music, browsing the web, playing games, the usual kind of thing. I upgraded to the new iPad Air, and wanted to try it out and see how much of my day to day desktop activities it could replace.

Sky have been expanding their Now TV offering with a fantastic Entertainment Pass. The Now TV app is on demand and live programming from Sky without having to sign up to a huge contract, or get dish-shaped things installed on the side of your house. They’ve got sports and movies, but it’s the entertainment package that has really caught my eye. For £4.99 a month (introductory price, we’ll have to see what it goes up to later), you get access to some of Sky’s entertainment channels, with a mix of full series on demand, selected catch up shows, and as mentioned, live coverage. The price is good, for now, matching Netflix, and it’s a similar service with different content inside.

When I took on some pretty serious studying, I knew I’d have to make some sacrifices and that the book learning, revision hours and exam week would need a lot of time, focus and brain power. I hadn’t quite anticipated the degree with which diving into those books took over my life, but this week I finished up the first batch of exams, giving me a bit of breathing space before the next round of learning begins.

I stayed with the Apple podcast app for much longer than I should have done. For a while, I couldn’t really abandon it - having far too many podcasts to listen to, limited space available on the phone, and a need to manage which episodes synced to my device. But a while back, I got over my obsessive compulsion to listen to every single thing in the right order from the very beginning, and that has allowed me a good deal of freedom when it comes to sorting podcasts on the phone directly.

I hadn’t heard of Bastille before I saw them on the iTunes Festival this year, but I’ve grown to like quite a few of their songs, particularly the anthemic Pompeii. I loved this recent video on Vevo of the band rocking up to a park with the barest of instruments and putting on an impromptu performance. Well, impromptu enough that you have plugs for your keyboard, anyway. Things to love about this video:

The Valley of the Rocks is in North Devon, accessible from the nearby village of Lynton. It’s steeped in history, all sorts of Ice Age glacier references and rocky bits and pieces. The Wikipedia entry has what is now my new favourite word – fossiliferous – included in the description. Apparently parts of the book Lorna Doone were set there, although I can’t really picture that in my head, despite having read it relatively recently.

It’s been nearly two months since I posted one of these, and as you can imagine the trailers have amassed at quite a rate. I’ve a list of about a dozen films we’ve been intrigued by, but I’ll just post two trailers here today. The trailers First up, the obvious. Captain America. We didn’t think all that much of the first one, the second one looks an awful lot better. They’ve learnt heaps from The Avengers, it seems.

The National Trust look after heaps of properties - gardens, coastlines, historic buildings - and it is in their interest to get people up and off the sofa and visiting their patches of land. I do like their initiative for the kids, though, a Life List of sorts, except this one has a time limit. Fifty Things to Do before you are 11 and three quarters. These are things that are all about getting kids outside, having adventures with nature, and learning about the world in which they live. Some examples include:

TV and film does very well on Twitter. Besides live tweeting essential events and posting instant reviews to films you’ve just seen, there are also the endless accounts packed with quotes (I follow some Friends and some Simpsons ones), and those that go a little beyond that. In the past, I’ve seen a few “recreation lists” whereby someone sets up a few accounts to do the back and forth that a play or some dialogue requires.

I had a few options for the letter U in my alphabet adventure, but I opted for the Uffington White Horse as it was something a little bit different. I’ve done castles, gardens, museums and attractions, but I had not, as yet, done a chalk drawing on the side of a hill. Naturally, October isn’t the ideal time to get out and about in the British Countryside, and it was a breezy morning when I clambered up the hill. Located on some rolling hills in Oxfordshire, the horse is a National Trust destination. There’s a car park across a field from the hill that hosts the horse, and as you head towards the hill you get some brilliant views. Or you would, in slightly better conditions.

Last year, the iTunes Festival was the awesome tail-end of what had been a fantastic year of sport and general greatness. Mr C watched every single available minute of it, and found a whole host of new acts to like. I even liked some of it, and wrote about my findings. This year, we were excited for the month of September music, although a little disappointed in the line-up when it was announced. Free music, available to stream online, for thirty days, though. Nothing to complain about.

When the last series of the Great British Bake Off aired, I was inspired to start baking. I’ve made the occasional cake here and there, but I wouldn’t have called myself an enthusiast beforehand. However, with each episode of the series, I baked something out of my comfort zone to varying degrees of success. This year, I’m less inclined to get the oven on. Part of that is because I have less time, but a big part of it is just how complex the series has got now.

When I was a kid, I remember being driven across Salisbury Plain, and spotting a pristine but empty looking village tucked away in the fields. My parents told me this was an army village, not for living in, but for exercises and drills. My imagination was absolutely caught by this and whenever I travelled around, across or anywhere near Salisbury Plain, I would always be on the lookout for this exceptional village.

As I’m sure you’re aware, I’m always on the lookout for things of a subterranean nature, and Steven very kindly pointed out this Cold War mansion in Las Vegas, as featured on The Verge. 26 feet underneath Las Vegas, a worried individual built a bunker to resist any Cold War activities. What I love about this, and what I haven’t seen in underground dwellings in the past, is the way there’s a fake outdoors. The building has a roof, there are trees, a golf course, all sorts.

The trailers I can’t remember if I knew they were remaking Robocop, or if I’ve just forgotten but the trailer looks really good. I very much enjoyed the original one, except for the rather ridiculous blood-letting at the beginning. Most remakes are a letdown, and this will probably be the same, but it certainly looks okay from the short clips in the trailer.

When I was younger, I moved from one school that hadn’t started teaching languages yet, to another that were already a year into their studies. I was an entire year behind in learning French, and I vividly remember spending a few weeks beforehand driving around with my mother, listening to some French tapes to try and catch up. In the end, I did a couple of years of French, but studied Spanish more intensely and took exams in that language instead. I did reasonably well, but since then almost all the Spanish has dropped out of my head. French, however, I have managed to retain some knowledge.

A marvellous video from the BBC has emerged, showing three trips from London to Brighton via train from three very different time periods. The journey was filmed in 1953, then thirty years on in 1983, and then this year, another thirty years on. The videos have been sped up and put side by side, and it makes for one of those viewings that I find oddly compelling. I thought more would be distinctly different, but aside from the type of train whistling past, it’s only in London that you can see real differences. I suppose that is because trains tend to carve their own way through the countryside, have their own unique view, and it doesn’t really change.

Another month has magically flown by both in reality, and in Ambridge. Rob and Tom had dinner, much to Pat’s disapproval. What would she think if she learned about Helen’s real relationship with Rob? Meanwhile, Tom got all over-eager, based on Rob’s advice and Kirsty’s Twitter campaign – she’s turning into the new Brenda, meals with Tom, marketing ideas, etc. But Bellingham’s don’t want to increase their order, and Tom may have jumped the gun. For a change!

I remember when I first saw podcasting guru Leo Laporte talk about the Withings scale, that tracked your weight and tweeted about it every day. I thought he was completely mental, sharing such personal information, although the effect of peer pressure when it comes to healthy intentions has been proven. What I didn’t think was crazy was the concept of improved smarter gadgets tracking what you do.