I was really looking forward to this, Matthew Vaughn, spy movie, great cast, tick, tick, tick. Oh my god, it was SO bad. The pacing is all over the place. The start is so slow, if I didn’t have a crush on Sam Rockwell (who held up this film pretty single-handedly) then we wouldn’t have got past twenty minutes. It got a bit better in the middle (although that may be related to the gin & tonic I had on hand) and then a chaotic and ultimately embarrassing ending.

I never got round to watching the film of this but I’m often enticed to buy the source material that films are adapted from, which is how this ended up in my to read list for so long. It’s a pretty good read, a pretty simple, if devastating idea, and although it’s obviously a dystopian future, there’s something quite contained and therefore more tense about the whole thing. Not a bad read, maybe I’ll get round to the movie sometime soon.

I listened to the audiobook of this, read by Lorraine Kelly in her amazing Scottish accent. It’s a weird story, though, there’s something about the way it’s told that feels a bit hands off. There are long passages that are just ‘this happened, then that happened, then they did this’ like it’s an overview of things rather than the actual story. But of course, if we did dialogue and details for everything it would go on forever. Some of the characters are interesting, some a bit disappointing, but overall it’s a good, coming-back-home story.

It’s becoming clear that I’m a bit of a Kevin Williamson fan - I hadn’t realised this about myself but it’s ever more apparent. In my head, I remembered I Know What You Did Last Summer being better than it was, and I remembered this one being less good… turns out I had that absolutely the wrong way round, this was brilliant! It has big ticks on the ‘bunch of school kids talking meta to an epic soundtrack’ front, but also a solid story that isn’t too horrific and more of a thriller.

Lydia West seems to have a knack for picking incredible TV shows to appear in - Years and Years was terrifying, brutal and brilliant. It’s a Sin broke me so badly I still struggle to think about it. And now Big Mood, where she stars alongside Nicola Coughlan who is taking the world by storm since first appearing on Netflix’s Bridgerton. With two such strong actors in the lead roles, we’re off to a good start with this Channel 4 show about friends pushed to the breaking point by life, growing up, and mental health.

I really didn’t think The Completely Made Up Adventures of Dick Turpin was going to be any good. A new comedy series on Apple TV, launched at the start of March, the show features Noel Fielding as the title character and it leans in to his brand of nonsensical, kind of dream-like situations and comedy. You obviously have to like what Fielding does to get on board with this show, but even if you don’t there may be something in there for you because the guest cast is ENORMOUS.

Enya popped up on a recent Top of the Pops replay with a later song but I realised I hadn’t listened to any and it was about time to fix that problem. Of course this has Orinoco Flow on, or as we all know it, Sail Away. I only knew that song but I quite enjoyed the whole body of work - it’s a unique thing, you know you’re listening to Enya, and it’s relaxing and for a specific mood.

I liked this, it doesn’t quite live up to some of Sheryl’s previous works, and there’s no standout tracks on there, but it feels like having a catchup coffee with a friend. A friend who is sort of angry about life but also quite hopeful that there’s light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a short, good listen, not outstanding but worth every minute.

It took me a while to get into this book, the main character is such a great odd little character but it felt like nothing was happening for quite a while. But then I really liked the way it all gradually unfolded, the mystery of things becoming clear and an intriguing ending with a twist. I’m very curious to read the second book now featuring the return of Molly the Maid.

This is a fantastic film. It took a minute to get used to the quirky, off-balance cinematography, but once adjusted, it really added to the piece. I love it being a time capsule, a single block, people weaving in and out of each other’s lives over the course of a day - initially having a bit of fun, but gradually getting more and more tense, until inevitably there’s a blowout, with catastrophic consequences. It’s hard to say I loved the film, as I switched off at the end with rage at the injustice of everything, but it’s an incredible bit of filmmaking.

There are uncomfortable things in there - Downey Jr’s character, the Simple Jack movie - but actually in context, they should be uncomfortable and they are making a wider point. There are some surprising moments too, and obviously a lot to love about the meta take on the hideous aspects of Hollywood. But if I’m honest, if you take away the controversial things, it’s really not a very good film, not very funny, and I think meta has been done better elsewhere.

I’ve had this in my to-read pile for such a long time and I didn’t realise it was about travelling through time, else I would have picked it up sooner! The author seems to not want to call it time travel, which is odd to me because time travel is awesome and that is what the characters do, but hey, let’s not argue. It’s a brilliant book, jumping straight in at the start of the adventure as our hero Max joins St Mary’s, goes through training and heads out on several journeys with mixed results. There are layers of deception and romance and it’s just a really good read - and the start of a lengthy series, hooray!

This absolutely grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go until I knew what was going to happen. It was so well written, the mystery unfolding gradually, and I love the concept of the seven lies, each one building in scope and deception until the inevitable house of cards tumbling down. Well paced and very readable, I think I was just a little disappointed at the very last scene, it didn’t feel like a conclusion, even in the open-ended sort of way. But small complaint for a good read.

Another good book, this audiobook edition was read by Will Thorpe and he did a passable job at the Doctor’s quirks and Martha’s stubborn fierceness. The mystery at the heart of their adventure was good, I liked how mundane things became somewhat threatening, the autumn leaves a first hint and then the scene with the bats was terrifying. Overall a good, serviceable Doctor Who novel.

The trailer for this wasn’t exactly encouraging but it seemed only fair to give it a go, as the first movie was far better than expected. I sort of wish we hadn’t. It’s barely watchable although surprisingly fun to make fun of. It’s cartoonish throughout, the graphics are absolutely terrible, and some of the concepts ridiculous. From the very beginning it’s like they hit find & replace on the first movie’s script to change New York to L.A. and jet glider to impossible submarine. I mean genuinely, the opening is a scene by scene, beat by beat copy.

Today the UK shifted forward an hour into British Summer Time and I continue to hate the concept. Every year that passes, the time change seems to rock my foundations more and it takes longer to get back to a sense of normalcy, but never mind, I’m in a privileged enough position to have nothing to do today but get over it.

I loved this! Gin Blossoms popped up on the Top of the Pops reruns recently and it’s just such lovely guitar pop Dawson’s Creek style music that I couldn’t help but have them as this week’s album. It’s exactly that, reminiscent of that period in the 90s where it was all sunny vistas and teenage angst and really great soundtracks to go with them.

There’s nothing particularly remarkable about this Spanish-language album from Shakira but it’s very listenable, great pop beats, veering into regaton on occasion, and with her excellent vocals and the odd shout of ‘Shakira, Shakira’ to seal things off. A good album all things considered!

I was really expecting this to be a disappointing film, particularly after giving up on the Arnie comedy Twins recently. But it was far better than it had any right to be. I mean, in reality this film is predominantly Schwarzenegger hanging around with six year olds and being completely adorable. But there are other elements of comedy that prop it up, the partner is brilliant, the baddies cartoonish, and the happy ending a satisfying one.

The first actual item of clothing I knitted was of mixed success so it’s taken me a while to try again. This time I went for a cardigan, as I’m a big cardigan wearer, using this free pattern. There are SO many cardigan patterns out there but I started with this one because it said all the good key words ’easy’, ‘beginner’, ’everyday’.

Loved this. There’s something about books like these that really get under your skin - just spending time with really interesting characters and hearing about the minutae of their lives. When it’s well written like this, as we know Nina Stibbe can do so well, it’s absolutely a pleasure to read, like dipping into a bath of engaging story and being disappointed when you have to pause, or the book ends. Loved it.

This film has such potential, but it doesn’t quite hit the highs it could. It’s a great idea, rich for mining - all the way through I kept thinking what a great television spin-off could come out of this. Kurt Russell is fab, there are some great cinematic choices and it’s generally an entertaining ride. But it’s definitely not perfect: the pacing feels off, very slow to get going, hours wasted at the start and then rush, rush, everyone dies, escape achieved, credits roll. There are some glaring plot problems (what is a jet glider and how does it work?) but it’s all wonderfully eighties and a lot of fun.

Really love this post from earlier in the month that celebrates the fifty year anniversary of Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You. It’s an incredible song and means different things depending on the version you listen to - Dolly’s soft-spoken heart-felt love song is the original and best, but Whitney’s passionate belting out of the track is absolutely iconic.

It’s not perfect - takes a long time to get going, and if we’re being honest, there’s not a particular story of substance in there. It’s really hanging a lot on Paul Rudd’s shoulders but thankfully he carries it off. I laughed a lot and it has a good message about people being themselves and sticking up for your friends, and it finished on a happy ending. Good times!

This is obviously a super popular book and one that has seemed to kickstart a whole cottage industry of gentle village-based murder mysteries (including the Marlowe ones I slightly prefer). I’ve kind of been avoiding this for no real reason but finally dipped in to see what all the fuss is about. It’s good, very character driven with subtle comedy and plenty of twists and turns. I did find it a bit sprawling and not sure I totally buy the resulting whodidits, but a good read nevertheless.

Just a thumbs up to Flexi-Hex, a product I pulled out of a recent delivery box and was pleasantly surprised by. Rather than the usual plastic and bubble wrap that you find when opening a box of, let’s be honest about it, gin bottles, Flexi-Hex takes recycled paper and makes a kind of accordian style cardboard thing that does just as good a job of keeping deliverables protected.

I enjoyed the first two seasons of Girls5Eva, a short and sweet comedy series about a girl group who had a brief moment of fame in the past and are now back in the public consciousness (sort of), thanks to a feature in a new song. They regroup, literally, deal with the fact there are only four of them now, and start tentative steps towards a career.

I really like The Lightning Seeds and the more I listen to them, the more I realise that is the case! It’s just nice, preppy, guitar music that picks you up and makes you feel good. I love The Life of Riley, but the rest of the album stands up to the opening tracks. A lovely, very listenable album.

This is a really good album, it’s almost like sitting around a campfire with a friend - not all the songs are absolutely going to grab you but they’re all from the heart and telling a story. Kacey has strong song-writing skills and it makes you want to listen along. I’m not on board with all of it, The Architect is a bit on the nose for my tastes, but as a whole it’s a strong album.

I must have picked this up at some point after seeing the film version starring Tom Hanks but this has been on my to read list for so long I almost forgot it was there. I finally got round to it and it’s a relatively quick read formatted nicely and well written. It pulls on the emotions but also keeps a level head detailing a really terrifying situation - the lead up, the actual pirate activity, and the aftermath.

This film gets off to such a slow start that I almost didn’t get past the twenty minute rule, but I stuck with it and I’m glad I did because in the end it’s just an entertaining 90 mins of teenages hanging out at a record store - which is the dream high school job, right? The only thing that rattled me a little was the fact that, whilst they’re all a bit messed up, it’s only the female characters that look to kill themselves or have a screaming hysterical row in the store. That aside, it’s not going to break any ground, but it’s a fun watch for what it is.

I think I just didn’t understand this film. The start was really Severence and I thought it was going in one direction, but then it took a different turn and then a few other ones after that. I don’t know why Meg Ryan played multiple characters, I don’t understand why Joe went along with the plan without asking more questions, and I am really not sure how and why the volcano spat them out at the end without any harm or injury to either of them. A lot of questions and no answers. There may have been some interesting messages in there about not selling your soul to the company store, but they were really hidden by the nonsense.

Really loved this book. Obviously had watched the TV show on Apple TV which was incredible, and so reading the book was like returning to an old friend. The adaptation is pretty close to the source material, so I could picture some of the scenes as they played out, but there were minor differences and I enjoyed seeing them. It was nice, if enraging from a feminist point of view, to dip back into this world and I hope that Elizabeth is a bit happier after the end of the book!

I can’t believe I’ve never seen this before, it’s such a good film. Good actors, great cocktail skills, budding romance and a twisting, turning story that comes to a sort of happy ending. It really reminded me of White Men Can’t Jump, in that it’s really two guys coming together and then making a lot of bad decisions and playing their egos off against each other in the worst possible way. But that does make for an entertaining film just as WMCJ did too.

This was SO GOOD. It felt almost like an indy film - slow, patient, quiet, but absolutely engrossing, focused on the people more than the story, letting them allow the plot to unfold around them. Of course it’s not an indy film, it has Gene Hackman and Harrison Ford in it, but it’s just brilliant. An unexpected but immediate favourite.

I’ve recently become a little bit obsessed with Geoff Marshall’s YouTube videos, following his stories about railways, stations, the trains that run on them as well as bus routes. It’s very London focussed, naturally, but there are excursions outside the capital too. As his about blurb states: You’ll find me travelling around London and the rest of the country on public transport, creating stories about stations, trains and buses, as well as engineering and design… In 2017, I visited all 2,563 stations in Great Britain, followed in 2019 by going to all 198 stations in Ireland, and I continue to visit new stations as they open. In 2024, I rode a section of all 544 Bus Routes in London.

I really enjoyed this album. I knew I liked Razorlight but when I looked at the track listing, it was only Golden Touch that I thought I recognised - turns out there were a good handful of tunes on there that I remembered from the first time round. Great millennium style guitar pop rock, with Stumble and Fall potentially standing out more than Golden Touch by the end!

Pretty good pop album from Ariana, featuring those intense and soaring vocals that we’ve come to know and love, alongside deep-dives into feelings, relationships, hardships, and just trying to learn to love yourself. I don’t think there were any bangers on there, so I’m not sure it’s going to live long in the memory, but it’s a nice one to listen to.

Let’s cut to the chase: I remembered this being better than it was. It was up there with Scream in my head, one of those 90s slasher movies that has pretty people, good tunes, and a brilliant horror mystery to be unravelled. It had two of those things going for it, but everything else was nonsense. The initial accident that caused the problem was blown out of all proportion and a lot of the choices made afterwards make no sense… laughable in places. The acting isn’t that great, really, they’re all quite young and go on to do a better job in other things, I think. Watchable but probably not a first choice.

I’ve tried to read this a couple of times, and I remember watching the TV show and liking that so thinking the book should capture me as well. For whatever reason it didn’t grab me before but I wasn’t ready to let it go… and I guess that’s worked out, as I got through the whole thing this time, hooray! It’s a good ghost story, well reasoned with only hints of the supernatural. The underlying story is horrifying, obviously, and very disquieting, but overall a good tense read.

This movie has some really promising elements but they aren’t used very well and the end result feels like a sprawling mess. Goldie Hawn is legendary, obviously, and can carry any movie she’s in, so she’s very watchable from start to finish. But it’s a real shame that the brilliant army stuff is bookended with some really boring men-are-terrible romance stuff. I would have watched much more of the middle third, but could live without the start and end… making for a rollercoaster viewing experience.

There’s no question that Arnie and Danny are a power couple in the comedy sense, and they do look like they’re having a lot of fun together in this movie. But I remember it being more fun all round, it actually ended up feeling really slow and ultimately quite boring. You could see where it was going and I just didn’t have the patience to go along with them to get there.

This did not feel at all like a John Hughes movie, it was more like a Gremlins film or something odd like that. It was really weird and awful and yet somehow kind of intriguing. I thought we might be able to make it through more of the movie but once they got drunk and Anthony Michael Hall started up the worst and oddest accent ever, it was all over. A rare JH mis-step.

The premise of this kept me reading, a woman disappears and there are tantalising clues about where she may or may not have gone - with not enough evidence of foul play for the police to get involved. The characters were well drawn and dialogue good, plus there are a couple of other viewpoints sprinkled in early on and we don’t know who they really are or how they fit into the puzzle. So it’s good from that point of view, but I did think the foreshadowing cliffhanger was overused and it seemed to come to a very quick end after so much build up.

I listened to the audiobook of this, read by the author Shirley Ballas. It was an eye-opening insight to Shirley’s life. I, like many, didn’t know of her until she was hired as the head judge on Strictly Come Dancing, and recently they did a small video that looked into her life and it sounded really fascinating - full of hard work and difficult decisions, and fighting your way in a male dominated world. This book is more of the same, well told, honest and insightful. I really enjoyed it.

I remember liking this previously, but oof, it has not aged well at all, has it? There’s obviously the problematic transphobic ’twist’ ending, but even outside of that there’s plenty of sexism, racism, general bawdy humour that doesn’t sit well anymore. Elements of it are still entertaining, and there a lot of quotable lines in there that still stick in my brain but I’m very happy to move on from this and never look back.

On the one hand, the sheer volume of intellectual property that Disney has control over continues to baffle and concern but on the other hand, you get to enjoy a game where all the worlds collide and Disney characters from far and wide come together in a game like this. I don’t think I would have paid top dollar for this but I might have picked it up in a sale… as it turns out, the game is free in Apple Arcade, so definitely worth a look!

As a category, this kind of game should be right up my street - it’s third person player, it’s a story-driven action/adventure and it’s an offfical Star Wars game. Sign me up! This was in the January sales for the Playstation, so picked it up with the intention of getting completely stuck in once I was done with Spider-Man. Of course, the webbed one took a bit longer than I’d thought but once I got through saving New York, I headed over to a galaxy far away.

I was subscribed to Paramount+ through their app and happily watching my way through Yellowstone and Frasier and other such high profile releases, when Apple TV released an update to their platform that integrated usability with certain streamers. From the outset that was already confusing, because you could add a channel, such as Channel 4, Paramount or Disney and it would bring in the traditional gallery of potential watches that would then take you to the programme.

We’re definitely seeing signs of spring everywhere, and if I’m honest some scary signs of summer even during February. The tentative blue skies mean it’s time to start thinking about the garden. I tried to be patient this year, just because there was a nice sunny day in Feb, I didn’t suddenly rush out and plant everything. I waited until March, until a couple more frosts had passed by, and then got things underway.