With Leo being something of a podcasting hero of ours, we always like to see what’s going on behind the scenes in TWiT land. Given how much of the day is spent live streaming, it’s not hard to see behind each of the shows, but Leo and team have taken it one step further. On the Inside TWiT blog, they’ve posted an hour long chat with Leo and CEO Lisa talking about the state of TWiT itself.

Or, Why I Want My Leopard Back When Apple released the latest edition of their operating software, Mr C declared we needed a beta tester. Seeing as he was working on some quite finicky pieces of software, and I was more into browsers and word processors, the honour fell to me. I wrote a post about my initial thoughts moving from Snow Leopard to Lion, and now I’m updating that with reasons I wish I hadn’t.

It’s been a bit of a downer month in Ambridge really, starting with Phoebe finally making her way out of Borsetshire and heading towards her extended family in South Africa. I thought the departure was really well done. Lots of nitpicking over clothes and packing, trying to brave, and in the end, it was Roy who started with the tears first. Bless. After two kids fleeing the nest, Jennifer finds herself lonely and bored. She manages to find time to give Clarrie something of a pep talk, and denies Tony a hand out after he comes grovelling. She must be able to find something more useful to do, in the whole of Ambridge, and with all their connections and money.

For those who prefer their eBooks on the iPod/iPhone/iPad, Formula Primo Confidential has now made its debut on the iBookstore. The first in the series, Between the Lines, is now available in six countries, with more than twenty coming shortly. The iBookstore version offers full colour graphics, table of contents, and advanced formatting. Visit Between the Lines on the iBookstore and get your free sample now!

There were bits that were similar to other films | Hugh Grant obviously plays the same character in every film, and the Love Actually similarities were uncanny. There were surprising moments too, though, with Rachel’s crazy child, and some of the narration. I can’t really fault anything in the film, but I’m not quite prepared to give it a 5 out of 5.

I had forgotten Keira and Orlando’s potential wooden acting in this, although I must say it got better as the film went on and they seemed to gain something of a rapport. Of course, it doesn’t matter much because the real hero is Captain Jack Sparrow. There are plenty of moments in the film that are preposterous | particularly the sword fight next to the donkey, but it doesn’t matter because it’s all feel good fun, and that’s what matters in a movie like this.

“I hope you don’t think I’m rude…” she said, pushing into the queue in front of me, “but I’ve got three kids in the car.” I would have made a fuss - there is nothing like riling up some queue etiquette anger - but I was hot and tired, and I really wasn’t in that much of a rush anyway. Even so, the brief sentence made me think a lot, and I came to three conclusions.

As mentioned last week, I was somewhat worried about this series finale. The fifth series ended spectacularly, and I loved practically all of the final two episodes. I have faith in Steven Moffat but after seeing the start of this series, my belief system was shaken a little bit. It really shouldn’t have been. The Doctor has been wending his way towards his death, and we were treated to him repeating over and over that it was a fixed point in time. I very much enjoyed the state of affairs in the broken time stream, where everything was happening past and present, history meeting the future. The trains were excellent, and although the CGI was startlingly obvious, it was fun.

Why settle for a simple bunker underground when you can have an entire skyscraper delving into the depths of the earth? The BNKR Arquitectura company (great URL, by the way), have come up with a concept for an upside down pyramid for the middle of Mexico City. Starting with a wide opening at the top, the pyramid piles layer upon layer going down into a single point. There’s a great full-length picture here, whilst the top looks something like this.

I don’t watch that much reality TV. At the moment, I’m favouring The Great British Bake-Off, which is hard to class as reality TV because everyone involved is so nice and friendly, and it’s just like a giant tea party every week. Strictly Come Dancing returns tonight, and that is a show I do watch. I can’t stand Tess or Bruce, I don’t like the pointless results show, I think the singing is atrocious, and the judging can be embarrassing. One of the best bits about the actual format of the show itself was Claudia on It Takes Two, and she’s not even doing that this year.

The BBC confirmed today that after this series, there will be no more episodes of Doctor Who Confidential filmed. The sister show has been sitting alongside the main BBC1 programme since it came back to our screens with Christopher Ecclestone, but is now on the way out. The Beeb say: The Confidential team captured the rebirth of the show back in 2005 and for over half a decade they have given an unsurpassed, access-all-areas insight not just into Doctor Who, but the magic and mechanics of making successful drama. From an episode directed by David Tennant, to the special edition that broke the news that Matt Smith would be the Eleventh Doctor, Doctor Who Confidential has always delivered the very best in must-see behind-the-scenes action.

A long while ago, I discussed the concept of Endless Pools and how very much I wanted one. Actually, back then, I wanted to set up a business - rows and rows of Endless Pools to save people having to swim in a communal pool. Now I am over that nonsense, and would just adore to have a pool to myself. Recently, I’ve spotted a couple of adverts for Endless Pools and thought I’d have a look at the website and see what has changed.

It was fun and frivolous, I loved watching Liam Neeson kicking and punching his way through the bad guys | at some points to a shocking degree. I was left a bit nonplussed at the start, it was all very convenient. Oh, he just happens to be an ex-SAS or whatever, he just happens to be over-protective of his daughter, she just happens to go missing… what are the chances? But leave that aside, and it was a great ride. Not challenging, some good mindless fun, and blissfully short. I really quite liked it.

Ah, I do love it. I love that it’s a little bit kooky. The dialogue doesn’t always make sense, and they quite often talk over each other. I always find myself starting to hate Tom Hanks at the end, the way he is messing her around, but they are so happy at the end that it’s good times and doesn’t really matter. Mr C and I were talking throughout about all the different ways this could be remade | and most of them involved Amazon!

A while back, Mr C and I went on a sojourn to the south coast to take some pictures. Actually, we went there with the specific intention to take pictures and publish them live on the go, forming a workflow as we went. I wrote more about the process we decided upon over on Sidepodcast, but we’ve now hit upon a snag. Posterous have gone through something of a revamp, changing their website and apps to be completely different. I’m not really sure what they’re going for, adding in social networking functionality, I suppose, but all it has done is made it impossible to navigate. The website seems to take forever to load, and the app has spinning load wheels even when it’s not doing anything.

I really enjoyed this simple story of hope and faith and following your heart. It manages to be deep without being mind-boggling, and offers up plenty of quotable lines that could stand you in good stead for the rest of your life. The story itself felt like reading one of the Arabian Nights, following an winding tale as the main character went from one adventure to the next. Good descriptions, good dialogue, and lots of pause for thought along the way.

Closing Time presents the last opportunity for us to really enjoy ourselves before what is bound to be a depressing and likely confusing episode to close the series with next week. I am happy to be proved wrong and find that the series six finale is every bit as genius as the series five one was, but I will own up now and say I’m dreading it.

Last week, I talked about recipes I am tempted to make, and today I’ve got more kitchen related stuff. I managed to have a quick browse through a Lakeland catalogue this week, and it was full of kitchen related gadgets. A few of them were pretty impressive, so I’ve picked five that I would buy if I was in the mood to sort my kitchen out. Lakeland Scrudle - £2.99 The name leaves a lot to be desired, but the description that it helps emptying casserole dishes and getting the last servings out of a pan resonated with me. They say: “A cross between a scraper, a scoop and a ladle, we’re sure this is soon to become a kitchen essential that you’ll wonder how you managed without!” I imagine it is one of those tools that you don’t know you need but once you have it, life is a million times easier.

Credit: San Diego Shooter/Flickr Today is the 100th edition of Baby Panda Thursday, and, I’m afraid to say, the last. It’s been an absolute pleasure to scour through photos of pandas every week (give or take) for the last two and a half years, but I’m determined that Thursdays will not be bad days anymore, and they will not need the cuteness to cheer me up. Don’t think for a second that this is the last you’ll see of pandas on the site, though.

So, who has tried out The Sims Social? I’m just starting to use Facebook more as their battle with Google+ heats up, so that I can see who is winning and who is losing. Then they went and introduced my favourite ever game as a Facebook game. It’s not really the same Sims at all, nothing like it, really, and it’s very, very… social. That might sound crazy, given that it’s called The Sims Social - but I’m finding that you can’t do very much without interacting with neighbours - neighbours that I don’t really have yet and don’t know the etiquette for getting.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Jacqueline Wilson, even though I am far too old to be reading things like this now. I picked this up as part of my reading list challenge, and having vaguely recalled a kids TV show that was made out of this source material, I was intrigued at how the story would go.

Life in the Fast Lane guides us through one single year in the company of Steve Matchett as mechanic for the championship-winning Benetton team. There are plenty of highs and lows to be covered through the year, though, as 1994 was one of the most tragic and troublesome seasons Formula One has ever seen. Matchett covers all the difficulties surrounding Michael Schumacher and a black flag, he talks candidly about the refuelling flash fire that occurred on Jos Verstappen’s car, and briefly touches upon Ayrton Senna’s death. As Steve quite rightly says, that race in Imola was just too personal to go into too much detail.

It was good, occasionally interesting and sometimes funny. The story was okay, but it was a little bit crude for my liking | some rather disturbing sequences and an awful lot of swearing. The characters were good but some of the dialogue was a bit clunky. Having said all that, it was a surprise to read that it took four years to come out after many studio delays. I wonder what I would have thought of it had it come out in 2007.

It’s taken me a little longer than I had hoped but finally, I have seen the last ten episodes of The Killing. I wrote some brief and quite vague notes about the first ten previously, but now I know how the story ends I can talk in more detail. There are spoilers ahead, so look away now if you have yet to enjoy the drama of The Killing. The mystery is solved and we know it was Vagn. After many twists and turns, and suspect after suspect - some very wide of the mark - Sarah Lund finally got her man. In the first ten episodes, I never would have suspected Vagn. Gradually, he looked to be more and more in the frame but still the story twisted away from him. That moment, when he had been questioned and returned to the workshop was brilliant. Theis and Pernille would not let him take the boys to the toy shop, even though he protested his innocence and they should have known better, the look on his face broke my heart a little bit.

Covering the period of George I and George II at Kensington Palace, the book tells the tale of those surrounding the royal family, those that make up the hustle and bustle of court life. As well as looking at the twists and turns of the royal family themselves, we get to hear the unusual tales of courtiers, mistresses, feral children, architects, poets, and old wives.

In the wee hours of the morning, I launched my latest book - Between the Lines. The book is the first in the new Formula Primo series - which you may know better as Life in the Fast Lane. It began as a simple ten part story, in which the readers could vote in which direction the next chapter would go. Now it has been expanded and improved to become Between the Lines.

Between the Lines is the first book in the Formula Primo Confidential series - a fictional motorsport category populated by intriguing and passionate drivers. Following the highs and lows of a rookie racer as he joins the series, this first book will transport you into a motorsport universe of exciting drama. If you ever followed my Life in the Fast Lane series, you will recognise the characters and the fundamental story behind Formula Primo. From a ten part reader-voted story, I’ve expanded on the details to create Between the Lines.

It was very similar to Despicable Me | not in terms of story, clearly, but in terms of plenty of laughs but very much aimed at children. I loved it, it kept me entertained, but it wasn’t particularly fulfilling as an adult | the way that a good Pixar movie would be.

When I formed my Life List reading goal, I decided the best thing to do was pick a list of books that would introduce me to new titles and authors. There are lots of lists scattered around the internet, but I selected one and got on with it. I set up a dedicated page to house the list, and link to the reviews of the books I read as I went along. Quite a lot of work went into that, particularly recently, when I changed all my reviews to exist on single posts.

Last time Toby Whithouse wrote an episode, it involved a strange vampire/fish hybrid that stalked the canals of Venice. This time out, he was seemingly charged with writing the end of Amy and Rory’s adventures with the Doctor. Quite a bigger challenge, I’d say. As is often the case in some of the more recent episodes of Doctor Who, this was a standalone adventure that was really just the coat-hanger for something much bigger. It was signposted right from the start in big neon lettering - the Ponds won’t be on the TARDIS for very much longer.

This doesn’t really count as a week, it’s just one run. The final one. The 5k. According to the class, this is the race that we have been training for. I didn’t have a race, but I did 5k anyway. Walking intervals were not included, but the notes for this final run said we could do them anyway, if we wanted. I decided not to, and ran the whole way.

Occasionally, my dad will send me a recipe that he has found and it’s usually for something sweet and delicious. So far, I haven’t made any of them because it’s hard enough to avoid the sweet things that exist already in our house, without adding any more to the mix. Having said that, there is nothing like window shopping in the cake recipe section of websites, and here are five that I have been drooling over recently.

Oh, how I love this book. It’s one of the few things that I recall fondly from my school days. It’s short and easy to read, but it really hits home. The characters are well written, and despite a limited time to get to know them, it’s easy to form opinions of each and every one. In turns sad and liberating, the plight of George and Lennie is one that I could read over and over. There’s something about their dream that hits home.

The BBC have a new series on at the moment called Nature’s Miracle Babies, and the first episode featured lots of cute and cuddly baby pandas. I only half-watched it really, jealous of the man getting to play around with the balls of fluff, and also slightly concerned when they practically ripped his plastic apron from him as they played. I watched and blogged a BBC documentary on the almost impossibility of pandas reproducing, so I’m well aware of their “miracle” status. Still, they are cute when they finally arrive.

Another great installment of the Inspector Frost series. Very similar to all the others, in that there are many different cases, with lots of different people - some of the threads intertwine and some don’t. Some spark off clues to others, and some are entirely separate. Frost is his usual grumpy self, although this time he has not one, but two colleagues to try and get on side. One of them is a woman, and that means this book is more full than usual of hideous stereotypes and sexism. A sign of the times, perhaps, but it did make me more uncomfortable than normal.

A while ago, I set up my own About.me page. It’s not the most exciting thing you are going to see today, but I quite like the simplicity of the concept. I think About.me are aiming to be the digital version of a business card - a place to send people to find a quick introduction and then all the other places you might be on the web. The nice thing about the service is that it’s free and really quick to create. Considering that the output is simply a list of links, it’s nice that it doesn’t take too long to put together. My only problem was having too many links to put in there, but that’s because I sign up to far too many sites!

Typical that we get to the final week and I am delayed by… everything. First I went to the Steam Fair and took a day or two to recover from all that walking and all that sun. Then I was prepared to go out, got up early and everything and it was bucketing it down. Didn’t quite fancy it. Nevertheless, eventually, I managed to get Week 7, the final one, underway.

Mmmm, Independence Day. Aliens, action, Will Smith, crazy over-the-top speeches, humour, world in peril, what’s not to like? Actually, the main story is silly, with plenty of bits that are unbelievable, but as a whole, it’s good stuff. The humour, the partnership between Smith and Goldblum, it makes up for the ridiculous bits. The three bits I remembered were The White House, the Independence Day speech and the guy in the plane saving the day.

It got off to a slow start, I must say. There was a lot of snow, a lot of moments of the pair of them looking cold and fighting and heavy breathing and stuff. However, once it got going, once she pushed that button, it really picked up. I loved seeing her try and fit in, trying to understand the concept of electricity and remote controls.

David Walliams completed an epic 140 mile swim in eight days, following the path of the River Thames to raise money for Sport Relief. He finished yesterday, and my guess is he’s been sleeping ever since. Almost immediately that he climbed out of the Thames for the last time, he spoke to the BBC for a surprisingly eloquent, if exhausted, interview. I’m not normally one to take much notice of the crazy celebrity stunts. I vaguely followed Gary Barlow when he was climbing a mountain, but then Scott Mills walked a desert and that mostly passed me by. I was also only a little bit aware that Walliams had already swum the Channel - this Thames trip was his idea of topping that.

When Mr C and I started discussing book trailers, we did a bit of research and talked concepts and all that good stuff. I decided to make a storyboard of my thoughts on what our trailer should perhaps have in it. I am not good at art, though, as we have previously discovered. Instead, I turned to my trusty iPad, and what do you know, there were a couple of storyboarding apps available.

Since writing my two-part F1 book and releasing it on Amazon as a Kindle ebook, many people have noted with disappointment that they don’t own a Kindle device. Yet one of Amazon’s best kept secrets is the many, many Kindle apps they have created offering the ability to read their ebook content on a variety of different devices. Even if you don’t possess a Kindle, you should still be able to read an ebook.

But then we were watching, and we watched for an hour, and I just wasn’t getting it. It was weird, it was slow paced, if there was humour there it was very sporadic, and good grief, if I heard ‘We’re on a mission from god’ or ‘We’re getting the band back together’ one more time, I was going to explode.

The troublesome trio are off on another adventure. Presumably dissatisfied with the action they found back in “Eastendersland” last time, they are in search of a fun and exciting planet. Only trouble is, Amy has forgotten her phone. “I bring you to a paradise planet two billion light years away and you want to update TWITTER!” The Doctor has heard of Twitter! I digress. Amy forgets her phone, takes the wrong door and gets stuck in some kind of parallel time stream.

As if I wasn’t already taking over the internet enough, I’ve set up another domain and site. If you head over to christineblachford.com you will find a quite sparse, but in progress website. That is the place where I’ll be specifically posting updates about books and writing and that kind of thing. Don’t think I won’t talk about that stuff here too, but it felt sensible to nab the domain while it was free.

Whilst wandering around the Steam Fair last weekend, we found a line of displays that showed off how smaller engines could deliver a steady stream of water. One couple in particular had a unique way of showing off their technology. I should have taken video really, because the panda was hooked up to the lever and pumping away at the water. Back and forth he went, poor thing. It was like slave labour!

BBC Four are re-airing The Killing - 20 episodes of the Danish drama in its native language with subtitles. This is not the kind of thing I would normally watch. I love a good crime drama, but throw in subtitles as well and it all gets a bit tricky. I tend to watch TV whilst I am busy doing other things, so it is difficult to keep an eye on the subtitles as they flash up. There’s only a certain kind of task you can do when you have to keep flicking your attention to another screen every few seconds.

I really enjoyed it, and was surprised at how much I laughed. Some of it was a bit coarse, but in the grand scheme of things it was more funny than it was anything else, and that’s a win. My crush on Bradley Cooper is fully formed now, so I may have to go back and watch the A Team again, just to see.

Fresh from my adventures with Shelfari, I’ve also signed up to Goodreads. I investigated them both and went for Shelfari simply because the website appealed to me more, but having had quite a lot of fun with one reading site, I thought why not double it? Goodreads does very much the same, although there are some things it does not do as well, and some things it offers that are far better. The basic review and rate, mark as read and collate your reading stats is very similar. Contacting and following other readers is a similar process and they both seem to have very sizeable book databases.