It’s no secret that I’m a big Tomb Raider fan - lots of memories and nostalgia associated with this, but actually, when I drill down into it, I don’t know that much about the early games. I went big on Tomb Raider 2, and then nothing until The Angel of Darkness. So, obviously I snapped up the previous Remastered bundle of I, II and III, but haven’t actually had time to get stuck in with them. And now, the second Remastered bundle of Last Revelation, Chronicles and Angel of Darkness has been released. I managed to play a few minutes of Angel before being strong-armed into Last Revelation, and oh boy, I’m glad that happened!

I love the Carpenters and have been trying to squeeze in one of their albums for a long time, finally their day has come! I went back to the debut, and it was an interesting listen because it’s not quite the sound that became so popular. There are a lot of jazzy elements to it, harking back to their previous life as a jazz band, and Richard gets an almost half share of the vocals whereas it later became very much Karen the singer, Richard the musician. But it’s still a good listen, and her voice, ooh it melts me.

I was so looking forward to this Manics album, just like I was last time, and… just like last time, it wasn’t quite as good as I hoped. I had very mixed feelings about the first track - good to hear something a little bit different from the boys but can’t say I agree with everything they’re whining about in there. The rest of the album falls back to the sound you know, and it’s perfectly good and fine to listen to but just doesn’t hit those heady heights of Resistence is Futile… and strikes a quite angry-at-the-world note that I just wasn’t feeling.

Super quick read this one, a nice neat little story about two people meeting by happenstance and falling in love hard and fast in extreme circumstances. At first, I was a bit dubious because there’s no way a call centre employee could spend this much time on the phone with one customer, but there’s a twist that explains all that away. And I quite like that this relationship entirely grows and evolves on the phone. I don’t make phone calls wherever possible so it’s a strange world, but it makes for some interesting conversations.

I love Cathy’s writing and so even though I don’t have any particular desire to write a memoir at the moment (definitely one of the people described within who thinks they have no specific story to tell), I wanted to read this book. And I’m glad I did because I think firstly, it’s just a nice uplifting book to read about powering through and getting on with your craft. And secondly, I think it can apply to all kinds of writing, and by extension, all kinds of endeavours really. A nice book, lots of advice and pointers to get you started, not hugely structural but more of a cheerleader to keep you on the right path.

I love Jenny Eclair’s writing and this book has some great scenes, wonderful turns of phrase, and great characterisation… particularly because most of the people in the book aren’t particularly sympathetic and often awful to each other. But you still are hooked on finding out what happened and what’s going to happen next. From that point of view, I loved it, but I have to admit, after the event where our two timelines converge and then towards the abrupt ending, I just felt like there wasn’t a clear ending. I’m not saying everything has to be wrapped up in a neat bow, it couldn’t be for these characters, but it just felt left, dangling, and unsatisfying. Still worth reading, for sure, but I wish it could have had just a bit more of a conclusion.

Oh wow, I loved this book. I absolutely devoured it, almost in one sitting but definitely in as quick a time as possible. If I had a spare moment, I was reading this. It’s just a wonderful depiction of a handful of London characters trying to make their way in the world, using dating apps, arguing with noisy neighbours, attending horrifying hen nights, and dealing with ailing parents. It’s gorgeous and so well written, you’re just captivated and swept up in it all. I didn’t want it to end!

I enjoyed this Doctor Who tale which featured the Tenth Doctor and Donna on an adventure in partition-era India. There’s mystery afoot, obviously, but the real joy of this story is the appearance of a certain character called Ghandi. Although in a couple of places it felt like the author was just spouting Wikipedia at us for a history lesson, the way Doctor-Donna listens and learns from Ghandi as he embraces and deals with life around him was amazing, and pretty inspirational. Lovely stuff.

I love Stephen King’s writing and this is a mammoth book that is pretty iconic - the clown, the balloons. I’ve not seen the recent film(s) but might take a look now that I’ve read the books. It’s scary stuff, the story of a horrifying clown menacing a Maine town and killing off children, and a group of kids who come back as adults to relive the horror and finally see an end to it. I did think the story dragged a little in places, it felt like we trod over the same ground quite a lot. But you can’t fault King’s ability to write a bad guy. Henry, and Tom, and Beverley’s father, all of them, you can just feel the menace crawling right out of the page. So good, and creepy.

This film was free on the BBC iPlayer and it kept catching my eye because it’s clearly a ridiculous and long title. I did a tiny bit of research and found out that The Money Pit is a loose adaptation of this film which made it a must-watch. It’s not really all that good, I don’t know how funny it actually was, but the three leads have great chemistry and Cary Grant and Myrna Loy bantering with each other 1940s style is quite a lot of fun. I think I prefer the Money Pit, but this is not a bad start.

This probably isn’t a book I would pick out for myself but it was recommended to me by my dad and I’m glad of it. It’s a very simple, relatively short book that tells of the adventures of a school inspector in the Yorkshire Dales in days gone by. It’s actually part of a series and I haven’t read any of the others but I might seek them out because it’s funny and has great characterisations and amusing anecdotes. Just a nice, gentle, slice of life.

The Backstreet Boys popped up on Saturday Night Live’s 50th anniversary concert and boy were they well received! Who would have thought that Paul Rudd and Jon Hamm would be bopping along to these boys as if their lives depended on it! Plus Maya Rudolph always in flirt mode, it’s wonderful. What I love most about this is actually the YouTube comments, not traditionally a place known for positivity, are all so supportive of Brian, it makes me quite emotional. Such love.

Mansun are the latest band to have popped up on the 90s Top of the Pops replays, and a band I hadn’t actually heard of before. Mr C was quite keen on me listening to this album though, and I enjoyed it! I didn’t think it started out that well, but gradually improved and some of the singles are real bangers. Overall it’s a mixed bag, but for a group I’d not heard of, I really enjoyed it!

I was looking forward to this album, Olly Alexander tends to deliver good pop tunes and after the fiasco that was Eurovision, it would be nice to talk about something else with regards to his music! And actually, I thought Dizzy, the song that didn’t go down so well with the rest of Europe, was a stand out on the album. It worked much better in this context, and was one of the better songs. They’re a mixed bag but generally veering towards good, and more of that pop style that we know and love.

Another memoir from the former doctor turned comedian/writer, and this time a lot of it is about the transition out of the hospital work to whatever was coming next, and how difficult it is to come back to ‘civilian’ life. And how difficult it is to be a patient when you’re a doctor! It’s written with the humour and sensible observations you would expect, but there are some harrowing events depicted within which I wasn’t necessarily expecting, so it’s a good idea to know that before you go in so you can brace yourself. But, a brave, moving and funny book that is worth it.

It’s been a little while since I read one of these, having been focused on other series, but it was nice to return to the characters and their little corner of the country. A decades long mystery is being unravelled, which was an interesting one to follow as the clues started unravelling - I didn’t guess the two big twists at the end! And meanwhile, our detectives are happily loved up but unless I am very much mistaken, we’ve got the very beginnings of some potential drama coming soon. Which means I’m just going to have to read the next one!

One of my new year resolutions is to spend a bit less on streaming services, which means I’m having to be a bit more judicious about when I watch certain things… and that I’m inevitably watching more on the free services like BBC and Channel 4. It does mean an increase in ad viewing as well, which is a downside, but at the moment, it’s worth the trade off. Here’s a roundup of recent viewing, which has covered quite a wide variety of shows!

Right, up front we have to acknowledge the awful portrayal of Native Americans and the casual racism on display here. It’s of its time, sure, but still not really acceptable and there are definitely moments of uncomfortable viewing. But I honestly love every other thing about this movie. Doris Day is brilliant, the love quadrangle a lot of fun, the songs are absolutely banging, and it’s just a joy. There are some surprisingly insightful thoughts on gender hidden behind the misogyny, and plenty of city versus rural rivalry, and all of it topped with some fabulous tunes. Love it.

This book was adapted for the second series of the recent Reacher TV show, so it was vaguely familiar to me as I read through. We have the return of Neagley, which is great, but also a few other characters who have worked with Reacher before and have a variety of loyalties and opinions on him. And the big mystery this time initially looks like it might be about their past but, as always, ends up being much more than anyone could have expected. Another good Reacher story!

I can totally understand why people would have gotten obsessed with these books as they first came out. The characters are so well drawn, where normally you would have a stiff-upper-lipped Regency attitude, these are living breathing humans with wants and fears and everything in between. And the alphabetical siblings are a lot of fun, and when you thrown in various romances on the top, there’s a lot to like!

I keep seeing walking pads everywhere - the smaller, more agile version of a treadmill that is designed for walking rather than running, and getting your steps in rather than completing a marathon. Naturally with the start of a new year and resolutions being made and broken, it makes sense for a lot of conversation to centre on health and fitness but I really am seeing these small machines everywhere, they are having a moment!

I’ve had this book in my to-read list for a while, probably since the TV show first aired on Apple, but it’s taken me a while to get up the nerve to read it - it being such a classic. I liked it to start with, definitely the ideas around science versus religion, and predicting the future, and all that were very interesting. But as time went on and it drifted further away from those early chapters, it got a bit too political and a bit less interesting for me. Still, can’t question how visionary the whole thing is… and why it’s so hard for it to be adapted to other media!

I had never heard of this film and had no expectations going into it, so it was a revelation. It’s a quiet, simple film that follows a group of school kids going about their day - playing sports, falling in love, figuring things out. It looked quite cheap and really felt like an extended kid’s television programme, but I really got invested in these characters. They were so engaging! And in some ways a bit ahead of their time, what with the girl playing football and the boy cooking up a storm. I was honestly a bit disappointed when we got to the end, I could have followed them around all day.

I always think I’m going to really like spy movies, all that intrigue and double crossing and stuff. But most of the time I end up not knowing what’s going on and just enjoying the pretty pictures. This one was something similar, but it wasn’t helped by the pace of it. It’s a slow, slow movie, and is very much a style over substance production. The cast is incredible, naturally, stacked full of great names but they don’t seem to connect very well - whether friend or foe - and so I ended up feeling a bit disappointed by the whole thing. Especially because Gary Oldman is so good!

There is so much content on Disney+ that it’s easy to overlook some gems, and I’m glad to have uncovered one of them - Inside Pixar. The documentary series is twenty short episodes that delve into different aspects of making Pixar movies. Lots of behind the scenes insight into various roles, from artists to writers, but also less creative roles such as the admin assistant, the facilities manager, and even a pastry chef.

The Only Fools and Horses Musical has been around for a few years now but left the West End for a UK tour last year and finally I have managed to see it. Written by Paul Whitehouse and Jim Sullivan (son of original creator John Sullivan), the musical features all the characters you know and love, including that yellow three-wheeled van, and brings them together for a two hour extravaganza.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this album, I don’t know much about Faith No More. It was harder rock than I’d been expecting but it wasn’t too much. They’re a little bit playful, experimenting without going off the rails, and I quite enjoyed the process of listening. Some of the subjects are hit and miss but overall a good album, better than I had any right to expect!

I wasn’t expecting a new album from Kim Wilde, and if we’re being honest, it’s not really a ’new’ album. It is SO eighties: brilliantly, unapologetically eighties, with Kim Wilde living her best life. She sounds a lot like Madonna at times, and it’s weird that Midge Ure makes a guest appearance only for Vienna to be sampled on the last track. But although it’s muddling and a mixed up experience, I really enjoyed it!

I’ve seen this before, a long time ago, and I remember liking it. It’s in the same category as The Great Escape - a huge war adventure with super famous names doing very heroic things. This one involves climbing up a big mountain, escaping the Germans a couple of times, plotting and double crossing, and eventually big explosions. Hooray! It’s great, the cast are brilliant, particularly David Niven who always shines in roles like this. The only downside is sometimes the escapes from the various scrapes felt a little bit too easy… although always happy for the plot to keep rolling on. It’s a long film so we didn’t need it to be any longer! Good twists and turns, and a satisfying ending. Top work.

It feels like there are two halves to this movie - one is brilliant, the other is nonsense - and they just don’t rub together very well. The part about four girls believing in themselves, sticking together, and finding their way to a promising start in the music industry is good… formulaic but good. The four girls are great and have lovely chemistry, the ‘bad music industry bods’ are funny, and it’s quite inspiring with good songs along the way. Then you have the whole side-plot with the sadly deceased father who rather than learning he had limited time left and spending it with his family, instead locked himself away in the garage and built a beat-boxing robot hiding a Famous Five style treasure hunt puzzle. SO WEIRD.

What a fever dream of a film this is. At first, I wasn’t sure we’d get past the twenty minute rule - some quite poor fight sequences, and all very 80s. But then I was intrigued what was going to happen and ended up being glad I watched the whole thing. It’s still a mess of a movie, cheesey and chaotic and god Arnie please stop with those post-murder quips. But it’s also scarily prescient. It’s supposed to be dystopian but is entirely plausible, and makes predictions such as deepfakes way before they have become a reality. Not a good film but maybe, as it turns out, a really important watch?

I watched the TV show adaptation of this and it was absolutely brilliant, moving and engaging and a simple but great story. The book is all of that and more. It’s absolutely intoxicating, drawing you in right from the start. You feel like you’re maybe eavesdropping on this tell-all confessional documentary but you can’t help it because the characters are so complex and layered, the story revealing itself so gently but addictively. It’s perfect.

Mixed feelings about this film. At the end of it, a recommendation came up for Pearl Harbour and I can totally understand why. It has that same US are the heroes and did nothing wrong and that’s all you need to know feeling to it. You have to keep that in mind as you watch, this is a very one-sided point of view. On the other hand, I don’t know much about this conflict and you don’t see many films about it, so that’s a positive point - you don’t necessarily learn a lot about what’s happened or motivations or anything, but it’s always a starting point to have something portrayed on screen. Owen Wilson does a great job considering he’s more well known for comedy, and Gene Hackman is in his element here.

Jack Reacher gets drawn into another criminal enterprise, this time by happening to be in a cafe at the wrong (right?) time. It’s a kidnapping that isn’t what it seems and Reacher has to go sort of undercover, or perhaps double agent, to try and get to the bottom of what is going on. I quite enjoyed their foray into London and Norfolk for the big showdown, fun to see this described through somewhat sheltered US former military eyes. Another very solid book in the Reacher canon.

I really enjoyed this murder mystery that was slightly less cozy than some of the ones that have gone before. Centered on an amateur dramatics group, there are plenty of jealous and bitter motivating factors, and lots of twists and turns along the way. The characters are really well drawn and Marlow becomes a character in itself, you feel like you’re there. Another really good entry in this series… and a cliffhanger to ensure there will be another!

The second series of Silo finished on Apple TV recently and ooh it was a great ride. It picked up right where the last series ended, with our intrepid hero Juliette Nichols (portrayed endlessly brilliantly by Rebecca Ferguson) finding a new Silo - an abandoned Silo, or so it seems. Needless to say, spoilers follow if you haven’t watched the series yet, so head over and finish up the ten brilliant episodes before coming back.

Yes, En Vogue! Obviously, Don’t Let Go is the standout highlight here and has popped up on our Top of the Pops 90s rewatch, but the rest of the album lives up to the standard of its main single. It’s fantastic R&B pop with great harmonies and vocals, and plenty of sass. I think the last song goes on a little bit, but I can let that go for a really solid and great set of songs.

I had high hopes going into this album, the last one was really good and the Marshmello track Miles On It is very catchy. But oof, this wasn’t a great listen for me. The good was good, but the slower songs were really not a fun listen. Backseat driver is just annoying - this kid chatting on and on, it’s not cute, it’s frustrating. And the song about his lucky number being three, and counting a family of three and a family of five as the same is just not logical. Anyway, hit and miss, more miss than hit.

I seem to remember the second Ghostbusters movie so much better than the first, so it was fun to read this novelisation and be reminded of some of the intricacies of the first. It’s a fun read, interesting to get character insight and motivations, inner thoughts etc. They were missing the key quote ‘what did you do Ray’ which I still say pretty much every day, so that was disappointing. But overall a great movie that turns into a good read.

I LOVED this, it’s completely bonkers, and a unique take on the rom-com idea - hit man heads home for a reunion both of his school class but also his first proper love, all the while re-evaluating his life. If we’re being honest, this is pretty much another vehicle for John Cusack to bounce around a small town chattering ten-to-the-dozen, but I am here for it. It’s not gonna be for everyone but it was definitely for me.

There are a couple of good songs in here, and obviously Don’t Cry For Me Argentina is a belter, but I don’t know, is it just me or is the rest of it a hot mess? I found it really hard to follow the actual story, there was a lot of implied knowledge about Argentinian politics, and by the end I couldn’t figure out the point of it. Of course you can just tell the story of someone’s life without it having a big message, but what was the wider context, why did it all have such a depressing ending? Hard pass, if I’m being honest, I’ll just sing the tunes to myself.

Another Reacher book, and this time we are back to the present day (albeit a while ago as I’m so far behind on this series!), and Reacher gets drawn into another investigation. I liked that that slant on this one is that he doesn’t want to find out what really happened as he fully believes the murderer did what he did. But as his mind continues to tick on, he can’t help finding and pulling at those loose threads, and so we end up in a huge shootout, as you might come to expect. A great, standard, classic Reacher thriller.

This book does fit into the cosy mystery genre but it has a slightly odd structure. The murder happens up front and straight away, but then we go all the way back to the moment our narrator moves into the village and spends a LONG time getting settled. It’s nice, there are fun characters, but it’s weird because the character is so suspicious of everyone right from the start with no real reason for it. Then when there is a murder, there’s actually not much in the way of investigation after the event, as all the time has been spent on the build up. Odd, but interesting.

Randomly, we recently watched the Uncharted movie with Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg and it was entertaining enough for me to decide the game would be worth a look. Then surprise, surprise, at some point in the past I’d already purchased an Uncharted bundle of games. Thinking back, I remember playing one of them and thinking it had a bit too much story, bit too much talking, and abandoning it, but this time, I’m used to that now (all games are like that apparently), so let’s give it another go.

This is a weird one, there’s nothing outwardly wrong with this movie, it’s typical of it’s time - singing and dancing and finding love along the way. But it’s also really, really bad. There aren’t many songs, although the dancing is top notch, so it feels a stretch to call it a musical really. The story is awful - this guy stalking a woman he just met and really getting under her skin. Even if you count for the fact that it’s ‘of it’s time’, it’s still pretty questionable. And ultimately the story is a whole lot of nothing. There are better Astaire movies out there.

The next book in the Jack Reacher series is something of a prequel, dipping back into our protagonist’s history whilst he was still in the military. This time we have Reacher investigating a couple of murders that ends up leading into a sprawling plot and a bigger conspiracy, and he has to keep it quiet and learn who to trust and all that usual good stuff. At the same time, Reacher and his brother are dealing with the illness and death of his mother, which is an interesting personal angle that we don’t always get to see.

Well, what can I say about this film? On the one hand, it is traditional 90s rom-com territory. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy tries to get girl back, boy founds out he’s actually been in love with the other girl the whole time. But then, things kind of go off the rails a bit. Everyone in this film is slightly unhinged, and the revenge lengths our pair go to seem very over the top considering the crime committed.

I finally got around to watching Boybands Forever, a three part documentary on the BBC that aired late last year. I had planned to watch it over Christmas but a few scenes into the first episode, I thought it might be a bit depressing - turns out these boybands haven’t all had the best of experiences. So I waited until January, when we’re all experiencing the blues anyway, so why not share the pain.

I’m one of those that is skeptical of AI, both the impact it can actually have on the future, but also from the point of view of being wary it may destroy the future (Terminator movies, anyone?). So whenever I see one of those memes doing the rounds of an AI getting a question ridiculously wrong or failing to understand basic alphabet or numerical concepts, I take great joy from it.

After watching the short documentary series Boybands Forever, it was inevitable that one of them was going to pop up on this album adventure, and when I realised that I haven’t done any East 17 yet at all, the die was cast. How is that possible? This is their debut album and it gets off to such a great start. In fact, I really enjoyed all of the main tracks, I’m just annoyed that they make the grave error of putting some remixes at the end, songs that we’ve already heard.