This may have been my favourite of the Saxon Stories so far, with our hero very firmly in the driving seat, full of confidence, and trying to do the right thing even when the odds are against him. There’s plenty of fighting and sailing boats and politics here and there, but of course the bit I found most interesting was the kidnapping, love affair and rescue attempts. So good, interesting and moving. I’m in two minds about whether this series is really grabbing me or not, but this book has turned the tides towards the positive for now.

Sometimes you just need a mindless action movie where the stakes are high but it’s also kinda tame. This is exactly that movie. It’s not at all original, the reluctant ex-spies are forced back into action to protect their family. But it had it’s moments, and it was a great cast, including lovely Andrew Scott. There were plot holes galore but twists and turns along the way, and in the end, a lot of fun.

Every year, I get obsessed with the blossom that blooms as the temperatures finally start to warm up. This batch, appearing on a hedge I walk past regularly, was there for a couple of days only, and then all completely disappeared. Weird.

I really enjoyed this Poirot story, it felt like a pre-cursor or a practice run for the Orient Express that we know is coming in Agatha Christie’s future. A collection of people ride on a train, someone is murdered, and there’s a bigger plot afoot. I like that this wasn’t all about Poirot though, it’s a while before he even turns up, and he’s not the one finding every single clue - although of course he is the one to piece it all together.

There’s so much media around the sinking of the Titanic, an event that continues to captivate so many people - including me. But why does it? This book tries to answer that question, alongside chronicling the sinking in one chapter but more importantly the stories of the survivors in subsequent chapters. Some people warrant an entire chapter to themselves, their subsequent stories are so full and intriguing. Other chapters cover a few survivors and what they did with their lives after making it back to dry land, and it’s just so fascinating to see the shadow of this tragedy looming over them and the different ways of dealing with it. Along the way, the tables are turned on us, though, and pondering why this particular ship continues to garner so much attention.

I loved this, obviously the main standout track is Bitch which is a belter to sing along to. But the rest of the album lives up to the promise. It feels quite a lot like Alanis Morrisette, all rock and angst and guitars, and although Meredith doesn’t quite live up to the greatness of Alanis, it’s not too far off. It’s a shame she didn’t really have too much more success after this album, as I would have liked to hear more.

At this point, Mumford & Sons are indelibly linked with Ted Lasso in my mind, and that’s a good association, a pleasant memory. So I went into this album hoping for some good tunes, but unfortunately I didn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted. It’s slow and depressing and potentially what I thought Mumford always was - dull folk music. Maybe I’ll just rewatch Ted Lasso instead.

I love Paddington as a bit of a palatte cleansar between more serious books. This one was interesting, particularly with the stranger turning up to the gardens and asking our favourite bear a lot of intriguing questions - and getting even more fascinating (and unhelpful) answers. It surprised me when the visitor had a mobile phone as you always consider Paddington being a sort of old school but timeless character, and suddenly I had to think of him in the modern world. Alongside these adventures, Paddington learns about self-playing painos, and gets a parking ticket!

As a quick salve from some of the more meaty reads I’ve had recently, I listened to a quick audiobook of the next New Series Adventure story in the Doctor Who universe. This one was narrated by Russell Tovey who has a great voice and a did a fantastic job with the different characters. I was particularly impressed with his voicing of Sebastian who was an odious character and really done well. It’s an interesting story, a sort of Hunger Games hunt style with a bit of cloning in there for good measure. Very Doctor Who, although I’m disappointed Donna didn’t seem to get too involved in the outcome. Still a fun read.

Alongside powering through the Reacher series, I’ve decided to muscle through the Saxon Stories as well. This is the third in the series and it’s really getting interesting as these characters grow and develop, cross paths and diverge again, and keep popping up in each other’s lives. For an era where it seems like death is literally just around the corner, it’s impressive for the few survivors to keep cropping up again and again. This also had the intrigue of Uhtred falling from grace from a Lord to a slave and back again, with everything that entails in between. The machinations of loyalty and fighting for the right side are complex, but the characters are easy to follow and have respect for. I’ll be reading on!

At first I enjoyed this book - classic Reacher getting picked up as a hitchhiker in a seemingly innocent vehicle that actually ends up with him getting embroiled in a big plot. This one was fascinating, the drivers clearly hiding something and Reacher gradually finding out what it is. I also liked the cat and mouse chase with the detectives not that far behind. But once things started to be revealed, I sort of lost the plot a bit - quite a few different agencies and a lot of different levels of undercover, and I didn’t really care to follow it that much. Ultimately it was an ok read but I’m just happy to move on to the next. Will Reacher ever manage to get to Virginia?

So good. I’m disappointed in myself for not having gotten into Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books sooner but now that I have, I’m all in. This one reminded me at first of Apples Never Fall which I read last month, but only because it’s a large family with a lot of siblings. There the similarities ended and this one tells its own story of woe and hardship, overcoming the odds, and a wide array of characters eventually coming together at a party where everything comes to a head. I really liked that this told a lot of story but you could tell there was still a lot more to happen in these lives, and yet I wasn’t disappointed by the ending either. It wrapped up so well. I did enjoy the bonus crossover mentions of characters, Carrie Soto obviously popping up but also a Daisy Jones mention as well. Can’t wait to read the next one!

I don’t remember why this one popped into the subconscious but it felt like a good opportunity to listen to some 2000s music rather than being totally stuck in the 90s. The highlight of the album is In the Morning, naturally, and the rest of it is okay, listenable but I think it’s pretty forgettable. I do like their sound so it’s not all bad, but will maybe just stick to listening to the singles.

Gracie Abrams has been appearing on various TV clips recently, and she popped up on the Selena album so I dug through the list and found I’d missed this album. I’m not totally sure it was worth prioritising this week, as it’s pretty derivative. It starts okay, but the end tails off quite drastically. The Taytay song is good but ultimately think this one is pretty skippable, which is a shame because I had high hopes.

This Reacher prequel takes us back to the events directly preceding the first book in the series. For some readers, this must have been quite the journey back in time, but for me it was only a few months ago that I was reading that first book so it was relatively fresh in my mind. Reacher, still in the military, is sent undercover to keep an eye on a murder investigation but of course he ends up getting directly involved and disobeying orders to do the right thing. We find out the circumstances behind Reacher’s exit from the army, and it made me quite sad in the end. But that happened so that the series we know and love could exist so on we go!

This is the first Bridgerton I’ve read that hasn’t been made into the TV phenomenon yet, although I’m sure it’s coming. This series is great at bringing a modern perspective to Regency England, and even though the pomp and circumstance is all there, you get to remember that the characters you see in period pieces are humans too with the same thoughts and feelings as modern generations. This one took me a bit longer to get on board with because it’s so blatantly the story of Cinderella adapted to the Bridgerton world, but as always you get sucked into the romance and the glamour of it all and so ultimately I really enjoyed it.

This video popped up recently on the BBC Archives, featuring a short look back in the day over whether people would buy films if they could, rather than renting them. We know the answer to that now, my bulging Apple library is a testament to it, but back then it was DVDs, rentals, and Netflix in it’s original rental-by-mail format was still a few years in the future. It’s so interesting to hear the different viewpoints. Of course the rental guy is going to think that it’s a stupid idea and he’s not going to go out of business anytime soon. And of course the people gunning for the change are saying it’s the way of the future.

I had never heard of The Alarm but they popped up as a question on the Popmaster TV show (‘you are… ten guns out!’). That led to them being the album pick of the week and I wasn’t sure what to expect but I was so surprised. I LOVED it. It’s just great rock, for the 80s it sounds pretty modern, and it’s stacked full of good songs with great riffs. I could listen to this one over and over - always amazing to get a find like this from a band you’ve never heard of.

It’s weird to me that Benny Blanco is credited as a joint artist on this album, as they’ve been working together for ages and presumably it’s only that they are engaged that he has top billing. It’s not a bad thing though for people to get more credit, so I’m in two minds about it. As an album, this is pretty good, it’s very mellow and sounds like Billie Eilish in a lot of places, although there’s a track that Charli XCX would be jealous of in the middle there. Good listen, and even the talky bits weren’t too annoying.

I watched the TV adaptation of this relatively recently, and so it was fresh in my mind the story - Susan starting out in Greece, coming back to London to investigate the cold case of a murder in a hotel alongside the disappearance of a young woman. It’s more of what made the first book great - story within a story, meta references, great characterisation, and ultimately two good murder mysteries, one inside the other. I love Anthony Horowitz’s writing when he gets super detailed and twisty meta like this, so this was another success for me.

This movie popped up as a question on Only Connect - films that had coined terms now in common use. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that Bucket List only came into being in 2007, it feels like such an obvious and natural term to use but of course someone had to come up with it in the first place. As a film, this is a nice and gentle watch, seeing two crochety old guys getting up to mischief and learning lessons along the way, it’s lovely. Not perfect, it’s a slow start and you sort of feel like ‘well sure, if we all had the money to do that’ but it’s charming and you can’t fault Morgan Freeman’s endearing performance in this.

There were some elements of this that I thought might make it a good film - great cast, stylish and fun action sequences, but I just couldn’t deal with it. The first problem was bullets going round corners, you need a real good reason for that to be a thing, and I’m not sure they had one. Secondly, the film-making was so jittery and intense that the car chase sequence was completely nauseating so I don’t think I could have watched much further even if I’d wanted to.

We needed something to watch where you leave your brain at the door, and this popped up as a low cost option. The first movie was okay, cringe and annoying in places but mostly funny, but I have to admit to not having high hopes for the sequel. It was adorable though, very funny and Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand absolutely stealing the show. It’s still cringe and I actually think De Niro’s character is getting worse and less sympathetic, but still, a fun watch.

It took me a while to adjust to this film, partly because I hadn’t quite realised it was a slasher thriller (given the cover, that’s completely my bad) and also because it was billed as a version of And Then There Were None and it’s very very loose. But I did like the way it dipped about in time and backtracked and started pulling everything together. I’m not sure if the dissassociative identity thing is supposed to be a twist but it was pretty well signposted throughout. It was a very interesting thriller though and the end, oof, I didn’t see that coming.

Finished off the trilogy of novelisations with this final book that covers Marty and Doc’s exploits in 1885. It’s very true to the movie, with quotable lines throughout, and only a couple of additional insights. Of the three books it’s probably the one that adds the least, but it’s always fun to be in the Hill Valley universe and I’m glad to have read it.

A prequel to the Ryan series, this was a slightly weird story because we all knew where it was heading and that was nowhere good. It’s weird to know the answer of a mystery book before you really get into it, but equally that shone a light on aspects you may not notice otherwise. This time you’re more attuned to the clues and whether they are being noticed or missed, and that’s an interesting take. Poor Ryan really gets put through the ringer in this one and it’s actually a timely reminder of what he’s been through for when we return to the main series in the next book.

As with the last Danielle Steele book I read, it takes a while to adjust to the style here - arms length storytelling, describing what happens as time passes rather than getting stuck into specific scenes. But the characters are interesting and the story is great, and it feels very soap-like, I just want to know what happens next. This one was a pretty emotional story, too, about a young girl injured in an accident that has to learn how to find herself again, and not only that, realising that who she was before may not be the ideal version of herself as well. A good read.

This probably wasn’t one of my favourite Jack Reacher stories, although I do like that he was feeling the effects of the previous book. Turns out he’s not superhuman after all and can feel pain! But it felt like he was getting involved with something that really didn’t need to be undertaken. He was suspicious of being dropped off, suspicious of a doctor not really doing his job, and sure it all led to a big bad plot (a REALLY bad plot as it happens), it didn’t feel like enough to grab him. But still, it’s always fun spending time with Reacher, particularly as he gets more and more out of touch with the modern world - phones and the internet and the like.

Gina G has quite naturally appeared on our TOTP 90s rewatches, with that absolute classic Ooh Aah taking centre stage around Eurovision time. But I was quite surprised that she kept on coming back, I’d assumed she was a one hit wonder, but there she was time and again with another single. So I figured it was worth listening to the album, and guess what? I loved it! It’s 90s and it’s cheesy but it’s really a lot of fun. Some of it is super catchy, Fresh is living rent free in my head at the moment. One of the songs sounds a bit too similar to Ooh Aah, and then you get the repeat for the last track, but otherwise, I surprisingly really enjoyed it!

I really liked this album. Lady Gaga can be a bit hit and miss for me but this was a big hit. It’s back to good old pop, great to listen to and some real bops along the way. The last song with Bruno Mars, though, that’s not so good and a pretty grim way to end the album. But if you exclude that one, this is a great piece of work.

I really enjoyed this book, a super sweet and simple story about a Londoner struggling to keep up with the pace of city life, splitting from her boyfriend and finding her feet in an unusual place - a retirement village. It reads well and the characters are great, and although there’s the cliche hook of yet another dating app, there’s a lot more to it than that. It reads well and was a joy to return to and spend time with these characters. There’s plenty more that could be told as well! The only problem I had was not really feeling the title fit the story.

The second of the Saxon stories features our intrepid hero getting into more scrapes. I’m always surprised by how young our main character is, he gets up to all sorts. This time there are solo raids and a duel, and then some far bigger battles to attend to as well. A little bit of romance here and there (so sad at times!) but the heart of these stories is about torn allegiances, about not really knowing your identity and trying to find where you fit in the world - ideas that are as relevant now as they were back then in the dark ages.

I saw the TV adaptation of this a while ago, and thought it was an interesting concept so eventually got round to reading the original book. It’s good, great characterisation and the style of it - although it’s a book that dips back and forward in time, there are clear delineations and it serves towards the story rather than being an irritating distraction. Gradually you get to know these people, the layers of the onion are peeled back, and we get to know who they are, what happened, and where they go from here. A good read.

This was an interesting book detailing the perils and pitfalls of living in a dwelling not really designed to support human life, alongside the joy and calm that comes from being that much closer to nature. The housing crisis is dissected in detail here and it’s completely relatable and understandable how Davies ends up living in a shed… albeit not something I would have been able to do. Lots of bureaucratic and political problems are highlighted here but it all boils down to humans treating each other kindly and being able to have some basic human rights. Without that, what are we?

The previous two films were non-starters, so it was a relief to find this one entirely cosy and lovely and watchable. It’s pretty predictable, every plot ’twist’ was sign-posted about a year in advance, and it’s not in any way challenging. But oh, these ladies are absolute legends, excellent friends (tough love!) and living their best lives. It’s just nice to spend some time in their company.

I can’t really put my finger on why I didn’t like this movie, it just didn’t grab me at all. It wasn’t particularly funny, they weren’t particularly nice, and although there was some chemistry between the leads, the banter didn’t quite work for me at all. So I left it.

I liked the first Moana more than I expected to, although it was not without its problem. It popped up on TV one day when I was under the weather and it was quite a soothing re-watch. This sequel is not a patch on the first! So boring, and the couple of songs I heard weren’t great. Couldn’t get past the twenty minute rule at all.

Of course Anastacia was an absolute icon in the late 90s/early 00s, but I hadn’t realised just how many of these songs I recognised from back then. It’s great, boppy pop, sometimes angry, sometimes happy, definitely sing-a-longs. I’m Outta Love will always remind me of Peter Kay’s Car Share, but that’s even more of an honour to be included in that show. A fab album!

I love a couple of the Rizzle Kicks early singles (Skip to the Good Bit is a banger) but haven’t really thought about them too much since they’ve been gone - it was a pleasant surprise to see them back. The album was fine, good enough, certainly a bit more grown up than previous works. There were no real stand out songs on there, but considering what a risk it must be to come back together after so much time and water under the bridge, I think this is a great job.

I had never particularly heard of this movie before but was browsing for 90s night movies, and this came up in a list of those films that are released simultaneously with another of almost the same plot (Dante’s Peak in this case). So figured it was worth a watch and… it was a revelation! It’s proper disaster movie stuff, and there are some slightly implausible moments, but it’s also really good and draws to a moving conclusion where humanity comes together to fight for survival. Good stuff.

I’ve seen this film loads of times but not for many years, so it was weird to watch it again - somehow entirely familiar and yet also surprisingly new in lots of ways. If I saw it new now I wouldn’t care for it, I’m sure, but because it has that nostalgia factor, it was an enjoyable watch. It’s an interesting film and role for Phoebe Cates, as a grown up with an imaginary friend, but she does a great job - even though I can’t believe she’d stay with that hideous husband. And Rik Mayall is there doing what he does best, a bit of chaos and anarchy to brighten the day.

I’m amazed it’s taken so long to watch this film, given how stacked with people it is, and given how it clearly influenced elements of the Fast & Furious franchise. But finally got round to it and am glad of it - leave your IQ at the door, it’s just lots of people pick-pocketing super fast cars. It doesn’t all make sense but it’s a lot of fun. The only problem with it is that there are so many famous names in it that quite a few of them feel criminally under-used. But still, very entertaining.

Poirot investigates several interconnected mysteries that lead to the uncovering of a powerful group called the Big Four. I loved this, particularly the setup - Poirot about to leave, Hastings returning, things going drastically wrong almost instantly. There were a few mysteries to solve and the over-arching bigger plot which ends with the slightly unbelievable twin brother of Poirot. Surely Hastings wouldn’t actually fall for this? But a lot of fun to read and a satisfying ending.

This was an incredible read, so well written. Even though it’s an unfathomable period of time to me, you’re really drawn into this life of a runaway girl pretending to be a boy in order to survive. It’s good and interesting, and the characters are all brilliant, but I have to admit I found the first half better than the second - once she did team up with her errant brother, it felt like things were only ever going to go downhill. Still excellently written and, although a depressing ending, not entirely without hope.

Reacher finds himself seemingly involved in a random bus accident that leaves him stranded in a town, and he gets involved in protecting an elderly witness to a crime. Of course there’s much more to it than that, and I enjoyed the process of trying to figure out who’s doing what and why. Reacher’s occasional phone calls to the mysterious Major Turner are fascinating as well. The ending is a surprise, partly as we don’t know what’s happened to Reacher (although there are many more books in the series!) but also because it wasn’t as successful as he hoped and you just know he’s going to blame himself in future.

I’m loving the new series of Mythic Quest, which is in its second half now, and features all our favourite characters in new and hilarious circumstances. Rachel Meyee tying herself up in knots in front of Congress in last week’s episode? Perfection. And actually, Rachel taking centre stage in that episode reminded me of this article from last year that has stuck with me ever since I read it. It talks of the decision to show Rachel’s grey hair on screen in all its glory, alongside the character of Poppy showing silvery strands in her hair too. It’s excellent, obviously, for a bit of grey haired representation, particularly as Ashly Burch looks amazing.

When it says it’s just mowing, it really is. You’re a little cartoon person sitting on a little cartoon lawnmower, and you swipe around the screen to make it go in the direction you want. When faced with a neighbourhood of overgrown gardens, your challenge is to mow them and move on. Mow and move on. That’s it! So simple and even though it sounds boring, it’s surprisingly satisfying!

I’m not sure if this game would have particularly jumped out at me as a must-play but it was released on the Mac in February and I want to support such endeavours, so gave it a go. I didn’t know anything about it going in and thought it was going to be a bit more hardcore than it initially was - the cover makes it look quite aggressive, but maybe I just didn’t get that far.