This one is a formulaic story about mistaken identity and falling slowly in love, whilst also having the trope of a made-up country, a strained family relationship, and learning to help the community on the sidelines. It has plenty of problems, many of which I’ve made note of above, but actually if you just go with it, it’s not the worst Christmas movie out there - quite entertaining really, and some fun interactions between the brother and sister.

Legend. I’ve listened to a couple of MJ albums already, but this one was his first proper solo album. It’s so good, I hadn’t actually realised that the first two songs were so old - they have that timeless feel that could have been released at any time during Michael’s career. It’s just a fantastic disco album with incredible and iconic vocals and just the start of so much more to come!

I mean, the only real way to describe this album is: meh. It was okay, grown up pop, pleasant enough but not at all worth reaching out for. It didn’t make me want to turn it off but I wouldn’t seek it out. The only particular upside is that it felt like all the members got their moment to shine, which is a step forward.

The audiobook version of this I listened to was read by Freema Agyeman so it was quite nice to hear it in the voice of Martha herself. It was lucky too, because there were elements of the text that were third person and some that were first person by Martha. It sounded okay being read by Freema, but I did think it was a bit weird switching between the two like that. However, a good story, meaningful and moving as always, with deeper thoughts about extinction and the lengths you might go to to preserve history.

We’re at the point now where the floor suddenly seems very empty even when all the couples are there - just six dances to get through tonight, and then only five couples making it through to next week. But hooray, the next show is the musicals special and with the quality of dancers we have left, we should be in for some brilliant entertainment. But that’s next week, let’s focus on our six special couples and how they got on.

If you’d asked me a couple of months ago about Whigfield, I’d have said she was a one hit wonder. A brilliant hit, obviously but that was it. Turns out, she keeps on popping up on those 90s episodes of Top of the Pops because she has quite a few dance tracks that I remember and recognise. The album is surprisingly good, the songs do sound similar, particularly Another Day and Saturday Night, but I actually really enjoyed listening to it.

I’m not a big fan of a concept album like this, but somehow this one wasn’t too annoying, despite leaning in to the theatre concept quite heavily. It was a surprise to hear Martin Freeman pop up as the narrator, if that’s what we’re calling him, but thankfully those interludes were short. We all know how I feel about too much talking in an album. The songs were okay, but not hugely memorable, so that’s a couple of points off really.

This was a much-talked about book at the time, part of Oprah’s book club I think, although before I got really on board with that club. However, I snapped up this book but have taken quite a long time to actually get round to reading it. It was good, well written, and a tragic journey through a relationship curtailed, but it felt a little bit drawn out in places. The thing happened and then it took a long time for any further developments. But definitely worth a read.

The big ol’ Blackpool ballroom is our home for this week and it always feels like it really should just be the home of Strictly anyway, it is a really beautiful place, the atmosphere is amazing, and sure, we want it as a one off special occasion, but also, imagine opening and finale episodes here? Oh well, for now it can be our mid-season treat, and talking of treats, Kelvin Fletcher was back to do the terms and conditions. There seemed to be lots of people in the audience, star-spotting throughout the show, whilst also, obviously, watching closely all the dances.

This is a serviceable crime thriller, following two detectives who start out investigating what appears to be a missing persons cold case and end up in a much bigger organised crime conspiracy. I was intrigued by the first part and less interested in the second part - and I don’t actually know what kept me reading because it was given away pretty quickly who was involved in the disappearance and although there was a further twist about who ELSE was involved, there wasn’t really a lot of nervous tension waiting to find out whodunit. An ok read but didn’t blow me away.

Way back when this James Bond spin off project was announced, I thought it was a crazy idea. Some kind of reality show where people do some challenges and answer some questions to try and win lots of money… what does that have to do with Bond? The show, 007: Road to a Million, was recently released on Prime and I watched the first episode with a similar amount of skepticism… but it hooked me in and I absolutely devoured it. Eight episodes later, I was sad we had come to the end of the journey.

I know Boyzone are part of the manufactured band era of the 90s that a lot of people don’t like, but there is something special about them. They have a mix of original songs and covers, most of which are done pretty well, and they have the voices and the togetherness to make it work. I was surprised that they’d done some of the songwriting on this track, they’re more than just pretty faces!

I do think very highly of Chris Stapleton, he’s got an incredible voice and works with a lot of great people. This album didn’t really work for me, unfortunately. It’s fine but it was just a bit dull, the voice is there but the songs don’t really live up to the power that he can produce. So yea, important to say I didn’t dislike this but I have no urge to listen to it again.

I’ve been using and writing about Duolingo and their excellent language lessons for a long time now, but was not expecting the wise old language owl to branch out into other areas, particularly maths and most recently music. The team have said they get asked a lot to expand into other areas, and it’s always been their mission to make the best free education possible so perhaps it was always the next steps.

I didn’t know that Geri had written a book but had access to a copy through a family member and picked it up out of interest. It immediately struck me as trying just a bit too hard to be like Harry Potter but I was intrigued and kept on reading. It’s well written and the characters are well rounded, if a little stereotypical, it’s not an overall bad read. The problem I have with it, though, is there’s just too much going on.

I didn’t know that Arnold S had gone the wise old owl route and was really turning into something of a self help guru, but here we are, the proof is in the audiobook! I listened to Arnie’s reading of this book and I’m glad I did because I think it gave it an authenticity and approachability that reading the text may not have done. Lots of wisdom in here, lots of common sense, a little bit of hard love as well - you have to do the work to make your dreams come true. But overall a really good listen, quite inspiring and honestly a pleasant surprise!

The only intro I can offer for this post is the same as Claudia said in the actual intro to the show: Blackpool. That is the fifth mention, we have been on air for two minutes. Krishnan & Lauren - Samba I like Lauren’s teaching method of bow and arrow for helping Krishnan understand the shapes. Initial thoughts are only yellow trousers and fists for hands, but once in hold it got a bit better. The out of hold bits were not good and he really just looked surprised all the time, oh, I’m in a dance! Judges comments were mostly along the line of ‘you gave it a go.’

I think I like the Camel Club books slightly less than other David Baldacci series’ becuase there’s an elevated level of politics within them - quite natural given the location and subject matter, but that makes it slightly less interesting to me. However, that being said, I really enjoyed the con side of it, and the mystery surrounding the library and the old books. Plus it ended on something of a cliffhanger, so have no choice but to read the next one.

If we hadn’t suddenly decided to work through all the Pixar movies that we’ve missed, I don’t know if we’d ever have watched and boy - what a shame that would have been. It was a bit of a rollercoaster watching this movie, because initially, it seemed like a nice, charming family story about music, happy to watch it.

Hooray, a new section has appeared on this website and it’s dedicated to games and gaming! I’m a fair-weather gamer, usually dipping in and out of iPhone apps until the next Tomb Raider adventure is released. Tomb Raider and Spider-Man have been the two most recent games I’ve been obsessed with and they were a while ago now (haven’t started the new Spider-Man yet!)

I was not aware of this game before seeing it appear in the Apple Arcade new and notable section, although it’s been around for quite a long time across a few different platforms. As a concept, I thought it would be right up my street, I do love the music platform games where you’re matching the patterns with whatever controllers you have - in this case, tying up to the maracas shown on screen.

This popped up in Apple Arcade as a new game, although I think the original has been around for a while and I may have even tried it before at some point. But this was a + version (whatever that means), so worth having another look at. It’s one of those simple games that is useful to have on the iPhone to dip in and out of when you have a few minutes, rather than something that’s going to keep you entertained for hours on end.

Sonic is a tried and true game character with a legendary history and plenty of future left in him and his friends, I’m sure. I think if we’re looking to the past, I was more of a Mario girl than a Sonic player, but I love the feeling of speed you can have with these games. Of course you can look around every inch of a level, but I love that you can also just fly through them, get through as fast as you can and feel that slighty out-of-control edge-of-your-seat buzz that only the blue hedgehog can bring.

I’ll be upfront about it, I didn’t enjoy the playthrough of the first few scenes in this game. As always, the graphics were incredible and the atmosphere really well done. I didn’t like the first person dynamic in play here, I’m not sure whether that’s a general personal taste or specific to this game though - more research required.

Of course, Hole popped up on a recent 1990s episode of Top of the Pops hence listening to them now. I’ve listened to one album before and loved it, and this was no different. Just really good grungy rock with fabulous vocals and a general feeling of anarchy that is great to grab hold of and run with.

So look, we all know where we stand with James Blunt, he is widely ridiculed for no real reason, but hugely self-deprecating thus somehow gets away with it all. I wasn’t expecting much from this album but it’s actually really good. Some grown up pop songs, thoughtful and in places moving - the song about his lost child, and of course the track about Carrie Fisher, both standing out. A surprisingly strong album all things considered!

The second season of Loki drew to a close this week, and I’m going to be honest, it was a pretty big disappointment. The whole series, in fact, hasn’t lived up to the fun and glory of the first one, even though this time out the stakes were higher and the time travel even more prevalent. The biggest problem I had with it was not enough time spent with the characters being themselves. The great thing about the first serious was the back and forth nature of the relationship between Mobius and Loki. We only got to see that fully in the third episode, title 1893, where they went back in time to the Chicago World’s Fair and chased around together like idiots. That was fun and brilliant.

This is a really interesting book, both from the point of view of the story being told, but also as a concept. Michael Palin delves into the history of his Great-Uncle and his various researches piece together a small but not insignificant life, cut tragically short by the First World War. I love how Palin tells this story, being completely frank about the fact that a lot of it is conjecture, but also comparing and contrasting the things he finds out with his own life. And he visits lots of the destinations, or has visited them in his travels, which gives an extra insight as well. Really loved it.

I’m sure last week they were referring to the half point of the competition but that appears to have been this week - they may have mentioned it once or twice, you’ll have noticed! We’re coming down from the stress of Halloween week and are without a theme for a couple of weeks now until everything heads north to Blackpool. We’re left with some really good dancers, and although there are still a few couples who look like they could go home over the next few weeks, it’s really getting hard to predict who is going to do well or not each week.

The BBC just added all available classic episodes of Doctor Who to their iPlayer streaming service, meaning they have the entire collection of Doctor Who series old and new all under one roof. This is superbly exciting. It’s always been in the back of my mind to watch some old Doctor Who episodes, partly because I do feel bad at being one of those ’new Who’ only fans, but also because you can never have too much TV in your life.

This was a really easy read, following the story of an unhappily married woman and how she ends up being something of a spy in her high class world. On top of that, a murder is committed and all the layers have to be unravelled to come to something of a happy ending. I whipped through this quickly, although I felt like some of the periphary characters could have been fleshed out more, and I wasn’t 100% sure that the way the staff were treated was realistic, but it was a quick and fun read.

Yay, we managed to time it correctly to watch this on fireworks’ night which worked out perfectly because the noise of fireworks during any other film would have been annoying but for this one it made for the perfect background noise. I’ve seen this before, a long time ago, but I really couldn’t remember anything about it - other than when they were stood on the roof, I knew we were going to see some explosions.

On last week’s 1995 TOTP episode, Joshua Kadison popped up on the top 40 chart rundown, so just some words on a screen. It caught our attention though because, oof, Jessie is such a classic song. I thought this album was so good, obviously that opening track is a standout but the rest really lives up to the hype. It’s strong songwriting, intriguing lyrics, and although it’s all of that same piano-driven gentle vibe, there’s a lot to like. Roll on one week and Kadison appeared on the next TOTP episode, and starts trending on social media. That’s how good Jessie is.

It’s not often you get an album that is themed around a holiday other than Christmas, but this is Duran Duran’s effort to celebrate all things dark and Halloween. So I had to listen to it this week otherwise it wouldn’t have worked, and I’m glad I did because it was pretty good! It’s a mixture of old and new Duran songs, as well as some covers sprinkled in there too. They have mixed results (interesting take on Billie Eilish, less keen on The Specials). Overall a good album and maybe we can make Halloween records a thing!

This is a fun game that has cute characters and really good animations. The physics puzzles are just the right amount of challenging to keep it interesting while still being ultimately doable. I did find some of the cut scenes a bit annoying, and as mentioned, trying to play this on anything other than a phone isn’t going to work, but ultimately a good game to have installed to while away a few minutes waiting for the bus.

It’s not going to break the box office like the film counterpart but I really love that this is a game about thought and planning and not just shooting and running. The gameplay is easy to pick up and I found it totally engrossing, keeping me playing for ages and to the point I didn’t want to put it down. With that and the fun characters you know from the 007 universe, it’s an absolute winner.

I always love living vicariously through books, seeing into the lives of people who do jobs or have attempted challenges that ultimately boggle my mind. This book is one of those - firstly because Gray charts the course of his career in the military, getting a position flying the planes of his dreams, and then working through the ups and downs of war and various placements around the world and ultimately a test pilot position full of firsts. But secondly, because he does it all after a terrifying and tragic crash so early in his career that really informs the rest of his flying experiences. Well told and an enlightening story.

I quite liked the intro to this week’s Halloween show, particularly where Krishnan got to have a go on Dave’s keyboards - what an honour! Anton wins the costume competition amongst the judges, Shirley’s was a bad choice as it restricted her ability to talk, and Motsi’s hair was flipping about all over the place. But the contestants had great costumes throughout, although is it a rule that someone has to be green at least once a season?

This was a good film, another solid entry in the Scream franchise with the trademark elements that make them so popular - the jump scares, the meta breakdowns of what makes a horror movie work and how the current situation fits, and the big twist at the end. I don’t think it was as good as the previous couple - the gore was turned up a little bit too much, and I wasn’t completely convinced by the killers at the end. But the meta was there, the fun amongst the horror still evident, and Hayden came back! Hooray!

It’s so sad that Matthew Perry has died. Friends is such an integral part of my life, and of course it’s not going anywhere, but now it just has that extra layer of sadness and nostalgia that I wasn’t quite ready for. I recently read his autobiography which shared difficult but important stories about addiction, alongside lots of stories from his career. Perry did far more than Friends, obviously, but that’s the one that means the most to me. With that in mind, here are my five favourite moments from ten seasons of Chandler.

Chains popped up on our 1990s Top of the Pops adventure so I dived into this album with a lot of hope. I knew Sorrento Moon as well, which isn’t too bad a song, but if I’m being honest, it was quite middle of the road, sort of cruise ship singing. Even Chains, which is a tune, didn’t work as well because the album version is different to the radio edit - boo!

This is a pretty good album, it has that brilliant guitar rock pop vibe that McFly and Busted want so much to emulate. It’s fun to listen to but I don’t know that any of it stood out to me so there weren’t any highs or lows, it was just a lot of good stuff without reaching greatness. But hey, I’ll take more from blink-182 any time!

When I reviewed the second series of OMITB (we’re calling it that, right?), I was talking about the upward trajectory that it was on and hoping the third would continue that way. Did it? Didn’t it just! I really liked this murder as it was not connected to the first two series’ story so had a fresh take to it, and featured a lot of incredible new cast members - Paul Rudd and Meryl Streep as the headliners.

I’ll be honest, I’ve never really considered playing a basketball game to any degree of detail before, but this is part of a new setup that just has to be tested. Of course getting a PS5 is on the list but availability of device and also of time has been a limiting factor. So instead, why not take a PS5 level game and stream it to the TV through an iPhone instead? OK!

This was a bit of an odd book and I’ll be honest, I had to power through it but thankfully it was very easy to read and get to the end of it. The story was okay, and the mystery side of it kind of interesting but the main problem is that the characters were all just awful. I wasn’t rooting for anyone, or even that interested in their motivation, so that made it an ok book to read but not one that’s going to stick with me in any way.

Wow, this is quite the book. It’s creating headlines all over the place, and quite understandably as there are new revelations and shocking moments mentioned in the book. I found it to be a really interesting listen, perhaps not the most flamboyantly written memoir but a really solid piece of work that is honest and open and clearly speaking from the heart. I suspect some of the events in the book will have two sides to the story but it doesn’t matter, the most important thing about this is that Britney has taken control of her life and grabbed the opportunity to tell her side.

I read the first George Smiley book a while ago and quite liked it but if I’m honest, I’d forgotten most of the details. The only thing I could remember is that he was a spy… except in this story, he wasn’t! This time, Smiley is dispatched to Dorset to investigate a murder before which the victim wrote a letter suggesting her husband was going to kill her. It’s about private schools and the politics of class, and Smiley investigates without really having any legal recourse to do so. And so it’s perfectly fine but it feels just kind of lacking anything to really grab you and make it a pageturner.

Is it just me or did this week’s Strictly live show have a very weird feeling about it? Of course we were one contestant down with Amanda Abbington absent for non-specific medical reasons, but the remaining pairs seemed very tense and making a few mistakes. And the judging was all over the place! We are at that point in the competition where it swings from ’this is a good score for a non-dancer trying their best’ to ’now we expect greatness and nothing else’ but still, it felt like a rollercoaster of a show.