I’ve started this book a couple of times I think, but this time it stuck - I’m mildly obsessed with Bletchley Park, the secrecy, the combination of using maths and language to make SUCH a difference to the world, the outrageous abuse of Alan Turing. This book tells the history of the park from pre-war, through great achievements and then the astounding secrecy that remained even after the war was done. We get to hear the story told from people who were there, and documents and facts that are now in the public domain, and it’s well done mixing a historical timeline alongside chapters on what life was like in the park. It felt a little drawn out in places but ultimatley is a great record of an incredible achievement.

Obviously, having blitzed my way through both Mamma Mia films, it had to be an ABBA album this week. I’ve listened to a couple of albums from this band already, but started at the beginning of their journey, so this was the first one that’s really felt like proper ABBA. It has a good few songs I know and love (SOS is so stuck in my head, and I’ve Been Waiting for You is just lovely) and the rest of it has that great pop vibe that ABBA are known for delivering. It’s fun when the boys pop up to do a bit and there’s even an instrumental track on there - it’s all a bit 70s but wonderfully so.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this or not but it actually came across really well. The first track sets the scene, a sort of meandering whimsical journey through loneliness and finding yourself outside of any relationships. I enjoyed some of it more than other bits, the duet with Miranda is interesting given their history, and Dry Spell is pretty candid. There’s a slight over-reliance on slide-guitar but even with that it’s not too country, so overall a good listen.

You can love or hate the phenomenon that is Clarkson, May and Hammond but you can’t argue that they have achieved some incredible things. This book takes you behind the scenes for a new angle - the infamous Mr Wilman. I didn’t know a lot of the early stuff, that he and Clarkson had been friends for so long and just how much his career was propelled by Clarkson helping him out. Then you get to Top Gear and how that evolved and grew and became the beast it was… until eventually it imploded. I really liked the frank details here - where they didn’t act in the best way, Wilman doesn’t shy away from that, and he’s equally proud to discuss what they did well. There are highs and lows and crashes and races, things we know and things we don’t, and it’s all written really well with great humour. I loved it.

I’m so glad that things worked out this way because I absolutely LOVED this film. I suspect it’s to do with the writers having the freedom to explore the plot more, rather than being hemmed in by the existing musical. And we know these characters now and have come to terms with the slightly bizarre three fathers situation… that meant the quality of the story was so much better and the comedy layered on top was fantastic.

This album has been a contentious one (in my own mind, only) as to whether it should count in this album adventure. As a collection of covers, it’s not really what the adventure was about and I’ve debated (with myself, obviously) over and over again. Then, Burning Down the House popped up on the Top of the Pops replays, and I decided to go for it. Partly, that’s because Tom Jones has obviously put a lot of thought into this collection of songs, crafting the track list and selecting the ideal guest artists to participate. And partly it’s because this is my game and I wanted to listen to it.

I love Mel C, I’m impressed by her longevity in this business, and she looks amazing! I was keen to listen to this new album, and it’s good, but it’s probably leaning just a bit too much into the dance genre for my tastes. I know that’s a direction she’s going in, proper DJ and all, but it’s not quite what I wanted. However, as a dance album, it’s very good, it has echoes of Robyn in there and it’s done well. So worth a listen, for sure.

Oh man, I’ve loved following Reacher on his ups and downs and cramming the whole series over the last year or so. But we’ve surely reached a point where the character should potentially be retired… this was a real low point. There’s definitely been a dip in quality since Andrew Child got involved, which is not to diss his work, it’s bound to happen when the author changes. The plot was very basic, there was a lot of chasing around after files - physical and digital - and it all felt very bland with abstract stakes. I can’t stop thinking about the bit where he says no one ever looks up when they walk into a building… such a generalisation and what evidence do we have for that?? I’m annoyed at myself for not swearing off this series already, but you just want the next one to be better, don’t you.

People have been raving about this book, so I was curious to see what it was all about. Having read it, honestly, I’m none the wiser. The style of writing is engrossing, you’re thrust into this world of stage and theatre and drama both on and off the boards. But the two halves of this story are deliberately but confusingly different, don’t really make any sense and don’t progress any sort of plot or story. Maybe I’m missing something because the people that love it really do, but I just didn’t get it.

It’s becoming a bit of a tradition now that when I realise a new series of Trying is rapidly approaching, I finally get into gear and get my quote post ready to go. This series fast forwarded a few years so the kids are older and relatively settled into family life. But there are still plenty of challenges and lot to laugh at along the way. Rewatching this show reminds me how much I love it and will never get bored of it.

I’ve really enjoyed previous Matt Haig books I’ve read, both fiction and non-fiction, so I was looking forward to this… it just didn’t quite work for me. The writing is engaging, and the spirit of the book definitely has that magical Matt Haig quality, I guess I just didn’t like the story. And I had the feeling along the way that some characters were getting more airtime than others which made it feel a bit disjointed. I don’t know, it was definitely worth reading but not a favourite.

For some reason, my journey through photography and particularly improvements in the technology used to take photos (I’ve really not developed much as a photographer myself) has been documented in turtles. I guess it had to be something so why not an adorable shelled creature. The first attempt at capturing a turtle image ended in frustration, disappointment, nothing tangible to see, and was quickly followed by the purchase of a new camera.

When I saw A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong towards the end of last year it must have been a sort of test run because the Mischief crew are going big with promoting their new London production and short UK tour run. They’re popping up everywhere and releasing lots of promotional content, including this excellent behind-the-scenes video of how the show has come together, and generally what a great bunch of people are involved.

I have a huge and growing list of things to blog about but April really got away from me… how can I not have written already about the Artemis II mission? I was so looking forward to it, I kept an eye on it constantly, and was hugely impressed with some of the imagery they shared. The moon in all its grey and cratered glory. I love it so much.

Love this. Written before the recent Artemis mission but knowing who was going to be taking part and what they’d get up to, it documents the history of space travel with a unique view. You can find many many books detailing how mankind left earth and started travelling to infinity and beyond, but this one focuses in on the humans (and a little bit about the animals) who made it happen. Intriguing ideas like are astronauts completing the experiments, or are they experiment themselves are scattered throughout and it’s just a really neat, well written, interesting book about these special explorers.

This album is exactly what you’d expect from a Fat Boy Slim album and at first I was on board - two big classic tracks to start with and then getting into the heart of the matter. It’s just a bit long for me, it’s about an hour of relentless dance music and that’s too much. Fatboy Slim is obviously a master of his craft and I love the singles but I don’t think listening to a full length album of this style of music works for me.

This was a pretty good album, Foo Fighters can be a bit hit or miss for me but this was on the positive side. It has plenty of tuneful rock in there and some interesting topics to discuss. I think it just fell a bit flat as there are no stand out tracks in there. First time through I thought it was probably quite forgettable. Second time through it was growing on me a bit, so I think it’s probably one that benefits from repeated listening to get comfortable and familiar with it. But it’s good, anyway, no complaints.

I was expecting not to particularly enjoy this book, I don’t really know why. But actually it’s great - a short memoir but written more in the style of a conversation. Erivo is keen on sharing what she’s learned upon our journey and giving tips and advice on how to deal with the difficult business of show, as well as real life. It’s interesting to read about how she went from humble origins to actual superstardom but kept totally grounded along the way. A nice read.

I was less keen on the previous book in this decluttering series but this one was a bit better. I liked that the family were all back together and had some revealing conversations, alongside the backdrop of another murder (you do have to wonder if the police might start thinking ‘everywhere this declutterer turns up, there’s a murder!’) and everyone’s favourite woodsman Dodge is firmly in the frame. It reads better and went by in a flash, still not perfect, but showing the hints of Brett’s genius that I normally love.

I knew I was going to love this. Reid’s excellent romantic writing combined with a NASA space story? Sign me write up. It was brilliant as well, enough detail to be a respectable science and space novel, but with the additional layer of complex family relationships, burgeoning romantic love lives, and all the threats and discrimination that previous decades had to offer. And all written in that hugely engaging and devourable style. Loved it.

This is such a slow-starting film, it almost fell foul of the twenty-minute rule. If it wasn’t for baby Tom Cruise being such an adorable creature and the occasional laugh, I might not have carried on. Glad I did though as it really picked up and by the end was absolutely brilliant. It’s a bit scatty - I’m not sure how he didn’t get ripped off more, letting random people stay in his house alone, and I’m not clear on how long the parents were away for but there’s no way you could fix the car or put the house back together in the time allowed. But it’s great, it’s fun, you can see the glint of superstardom in Tom Cruise already and Rebecca De Mornay, who I didn’t know, is very watchable. And now I’ve seen the classic scene as well.

Obviously, Hold On is the classic song on this album, an absolute banger of a late 80s/early 90s track. But did I know anything else about Wilson Phillips before listening to this? I did not. I loved it! It has that late 80s girl band vibe, a bit Bananarama but less constrained, and I really enjoyed it. The song Eyes Like Twins vexed me somewhat as I couldn’t make sense of what it was trying to say, but otherwise I really enjoyed this.

I really enjoyed the previous Jessie Ware album as it leaned into that old school disco vibe - and thankfully, this one is more of the same. Very 70s in feeling, and sustains that disco feeling throughout. There are probably a few moments where the lyrics are a bit distracting and maybe don’t flow as well as they might, but the topics are varied - from heavy to light - and the overall feel is marvellous.

I thought I was going to like this, because I liked Ove and My Friends. This one was written in a similar style, but it just didn’t grab me. The setting was evocative but there were maybe too many characters to really give anyone chance to develop, and there was certainly a lot of switching between scenes, particularly towards the end of the book. It was like a montage and that didn’t help trying to develop a bond with any of the adults or kids alike. I had thought I would get stuck into this and then enjoy the two follow ups but I’ll probably leave it for now.

Again I feel like this was another step forward in the Final Destination franchise after a real dip. The cast are pretty forgettable, but the story is interesting - the 50s/60s stuff was gerat, I wish we could have seen more of that really. How it impacts future generations is fine, I wondered if it wasn’t going to tie in to the other films a bit more but it didn’t seem to. Meanwhile, the deaths in the present were really gross but inventive, and overall I thought this was a better FD film. We all blame the kid with the penny though, right? For everything?

A nice, super simple rom com featuring three girls who escape the city to move down to Cornwall for the summer and find themselves, and love, while they’re at it. It’s a great read, although it takes a while to get going because you really have to wade through how annoying their lives are to start with. But once in Cornwall and things start ebbing and flowing and winding their way towards what we know will be a happy ending, then it’s all good.

Not a fan of this Doctor Who story, which is quite surprising because I usually love a story that messes about with the structure of time. But I couldn’t quite my head around this character going backwards through time while everyone else was going forward, and it didn’t read very well. I’m also not sure there was enough balance between the Doctor and his companions, did they even do anything? Not sure. Happy to have done this one, crossed it off the list, and now move on to the next.

I know this film has got some pretty negative reviews, but I really enjoyed it. I think a lot of the negativity around it is tied up in feelings towards AI generally, although I’ll admit the film is not without problems. Having your two leads basically just immobile and staring at each other for 90 minutes isn’t a great start, and having a timer for the film in the corner can be distracting - particularly if you weren’t enjoying it and were just looking at how long left you had to go! But I did like it. There are plot holes galore, but I liked the idea and getting to the bottom of the mystery was a fun ride. The end was a bit much but still it all worked. I feel like this is what that Ice Cube War of the Worlds should have been. I liked it.

This was definitely better than the previous film, although still nowhere near as good as the originals. The characters were slightly more engaging and I definitely thought the death scenes - whilst still disgustingly gory - at least managed to build the tension a bit better. There were some intriguing plot points too, having a survivor, the guy turning on his friends, and oh wow, I loved the end where it linked in to the beginning of the first film. Great stuff.

No specific classic albums jumped out this week, so back to the alphabetic list and this time we have Athlete. Oh this is such a nostalgic time jump to those early 00s albums, the Gavin & Stacey kind of music. Great tunes on here, Half Light and Wires being the standouts obviously, but the rest really lives up to it and I enjoyed listening to this a lot.

Hmm, I think in all honesty this wasn’t really my cup of tea. Tenille is clearly very talented and wanted to put that on show here with a stripped back album that is essentially just a voice and a guitar. That made it a bit too slow and sorry but dull for me, there’s not really a change of pace throughout and it made it quite hardgoing, even though it’s relatively short. If you like this kind of thing, I think it’s really well done, but not for me.

I loved this. I somehow ended up reading this at the same time as I was watching The Miniature Wife, so it was very much all about small things. It’s like a cross between Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Jurassic Park, and just a really good adventure. Some of it is more believable than other bits, but as an action adventure thriller, it’s great and has a lot of Crichton’s signature elements - great science, interesting characters, a perilous journey, and a lot of moral questions. I can already picture the film adaptation.

The way these books are written is quite irritating (which is a surprise because I usually love Simon Brett so much), but somehow I can’t stop reading them. It doesn’t help that we have a quite unique female character being written by a man, but I don’t hold that against an author - they can tell whatever story they want to tell. The mystery in this one was quite good though, with the death of a character basically predicted and then coming about so quickly. I’m not sure why, but I do still want to read the next book in the series.

Hmm, this book is a perfectly serviceable thriller style book but it just annoyed me from the start. You’re led to believe that the wife is charged with the murder of the husband even though it’s obvious that’s not the case. It’s really clear all the way through that the friend is suspicious, and although I didn’t necessarily predict the twists and turns that did lead to our protagonist being in court, I’m not sure I was too fussed what the result was going to be either way.

I was less keen on this one than the previous Grace book. The crimes were just a bit distasteful, and I could never keep it straight which timeline I was in. But as always with these long-running detective series, even if you don’t like the mystery at the heart of it, there’s plenty to enjoy with the group of characters that pop up each time. Grace is ready to move on and start a new family, but is he going to be allowed to do so peacefully? Watch this space!

The final part of the Bill Hodges’ trilogy, and I enjoyed this far more than the previous one. The premise is a little bit hit and miss, but I really enjoyed the team being more involved than they were in the last one, and ultimately that we were getting to the grand finale. Big plots and plans were unravelled, and our heroes had to save the day. But it’s not like it was a happy ending. I know there are other books featuring some of the characters, so I can’t wait to read on because I loved this.

Bit of a story behind this one - Rita Wilson popped up on the Claudia Winkleman Show to promote her latest album and I realised that she was more of a country singer than anything else. I’d previously thought her work was more jazzy so ignored it, but now I was intrigued! Her first album AM/FM is a lot of old school covers so I gave that a miss and went for the second, original works for the most part. It was okay, but it did feel a bit like someone’s first album who isn’t naturally a music artist. The lyrics could use some work and some of the songs are pretty simple. I liked Girls Night In though, and there is definitely potential for her future albums.

Scouting For Girls became a bit of a running joke in our house because most of the singles released on their first album sounded the same… I liked them, though, so it’s not really a complaint! I’ve not actually reviewed any of their albums so far on here, but this is their latest and what an optimistic piece of work it is. The title clues you in and from there, it’s just feel-good pop from start to finish and more importantly, the songs don’t sound too much like their previous work or too much like each other. Short, sweet, a lovely listen overall.

I wasn’t sure about this one to start with but gradually, I really came to love it. It’s like an origin story and so nice to read about a character who is just, basically, normal to start with and what he undergoes to then become the fit fighter that is usually the protagonist of a Baldacci novel. There are horrors underneath it all, of course, but I really enjoyed the journey - it’s definitely part one of at least a two part series, but it builds everything up really nicely to lead into the second.

I wanted to read this to finish up the early part of the Girls series because I know there’s a newer book out with a more adult view - the girls have obviously grown up and have a whole different set of issues to deal with. In this one, it’s a lot about boyfriends with the boys being annoying in different ways, and also looking at the dangers of meeting up with someone you find online. There’s also grief in different forms and plenty of other drama to contend with, all in Wilson’s trademark open style.

Brilliant, what a great film. Of course we’re starting with a fantastic cast which really helps but the quality of the film-making means you can’t look away. It’s got an old school feeling to it, many people have compared it to Heat, with two protagonists slowly facing off with each other, but it never feels like a pastiche. It’s tense and gripping and even though it takes its own time to tell the story, I loved it. You do just have to wonder why he’s still going when he quite clearly has a good amount of money already, but that’s his business, I guess!

Wow, this was objectively terrible. I stumbled across this after powering through the first three movies a few years ago. They were available on HBO Max and I’m glad I didn’t fork out anything specific for this one because oof, it’s bad. They’ve taken the great idea of Final Destination and turned it into a cartoon essentially. The graphics are bad, the gore is next level but completely unbelievable, and the characters don’t have a chance to develop at all. Other than the racist and the objectionable friend, they are bland and undefineable. I don’t know if Final Destination 5 is any better, I’m still going to watch it, obviously!

I really enjoyed this latest book in the Marlow Murders series, and this time we got to learn so much more about the ringleader and her murky past. I’ve sort of forgotten what the main murder and mystery was, although I know it was entertaining as I read it, because finding out what went on with Potts and her late husband was far more intriguing. I love this mismatch bunch of friends and how they get to the bottom of things regardless of whether they should be getting involved or not.

I wanted to watch this for two reasons - first, it seems like a fun odd couple movie and secondly, I’ve had a bit of a crush on Alan Ritchson since the third series of Reacher (physical fights with his neighbours, notwithstanding). This was great. It’s stupid and takes zero brain cells, but it’s a really enjoyable way to spend 90 minutes. There are movie references galore, not in a derivative way, more paying homage to cinema. And yea, Kevin James is great, Ritchson shows surprisingly good comic skills, and it’s all just a lot of fun.