Another Tenth Doctor story, this time the audiobook was read by the actor who plays Rose’s dad, Pete Tyler, and it was an interesting one. The story unfolded the same way most Doctor Who tales do - a mysterious situation, a little bit of danger, the sonic screwdriver doing what it does best, the Doctor trying to teach some compassion, and ultimately an ending where everyone learns something. But I liked this one for the added ideas of a planet allergic to infiltrators, and fighting back. We could all learn from that.
This was actually quite a fun movie, with no-one really taking themselves seriously - particularly Pierce Brosnan. You have to really like Adam DeVine as it feels like this movie is built around him, if you’re not keen on Bumper, you’re not going to get much out of this. It’s not smart or clever but it’s fun and great for a mindless evening alongside a G&T.
I must have bought this audiobook around the same time as watching the film, and just like the film, I enjoyed it without really understanding all the intricate details. There were a lot of names and teams and people moving this way and that, and whilst it was tricky for someone not fully into baseball to follow it all, I still quite enjoyed the flow of the piece. It’s read by Scott Brick, too, who always does a good job.
It took a minute to get into this film, because there were a lot of characters introduced quickly, and across a couple of different timelines, but it was a fascinating story about the women behind the man behind one of the biggest toy trends in a long time, and an absolutely classic illustration of the evils of corporations, greed, and capitalism at its worst. But that makes it sound like a real downer, when actually it was a really colourful, snappy, intriguing film, with a great cast.
Finally, I have managed to cross ‘Watch Back to the Future: The Musical’ off my to do list. There have been a couple of failed attempts and I’ve been worried that the universe didn’t want me to see it, but I’ve thwarted the universe and seen the brilliance of this show.
Firstly, this is an annoying album because I like to take the original track listing but this one had two or three to choose from. Ultimately, I went for the 2002 reissue version which is a bit of a copout but that’s what was on Apple Music so it was the lazy choice. I knew so many more of these songs than I was expecting, Sophie E-B had a real run of good bops! There’s great dance tunes on here, and whilst listening I really enjoyed it. I don’t think it’s the kind of music I would reach for, but if it comes on, why not sing along?
This is a weird little album, it’s short and you definitely know it’s a Blur album, it has that iconic voice and sound about it. But I feel like only the middle is any good - the start is forgettable, and the end is not great. The way it actually ends, cutting off like that, really irritated me. But some elements in the middle are really strong, which makes it overall a difficult one to review!
I’ve had this book collecting dust on my digital bookshelf for a long time now, and decided to get it over with. I thought the ungrateful whining diary of a man granted the gift of travelling the world to see the seven wonders wouldn’t really thrill me anymore, and I was right, although it was nowhere near as bad as I’m making it sound. It is funny in places, and it was a really quick and easy read, but ultimately it’s not something I would choose to read now.
I had never heard of this film but I’ve seen it mentioned a couple of times recently and it caught my attention - mostly because of the epic cast. It was so good! I was in exactly the right mood for a sort of action adventure drama caper thing, and this is the perfect film to fit that bill. The cast is great, they seem to be having a lot of fun and no one is taking themselves or the plot too seriously - they work together well, and despite the calibre of talent on screen, don’t have egos about it.
Another great Mrs Pargeter mystery novel, this time our intrepid heroine has joined a keeping-up-with-the-joneses style neighbourhood and spends some time figuring out each of her neighbours, before realising that one of them killed the person who owned her house before her. She naturally gets very involved in the investigation, and gets to the answer well ahead of the police, with a little help from the friends of her late husband. An enjoyable read, and another cosy mystery solved!
If you mention Lightning Seeds to me, of course my first thought is that football song, but as we’ve been watching 90s Top of the Pops episodes, I’ve realised there’s a lot more to them than that - and what there is, I really like! I knew more songs on this album than I would have guessed, and I really liked the whole thing, this is a guitar band sound that I’m completely on board with. More, please!
The last Jason Mraz album I listened to was a bit too loved up and saccharine for my tastes, so I was nervous going into this one. It’s toned down a bit, thankfully, whilst still being a feelgood album, so a lot better to listen to. But, if I’m really being honest, nothing stood out on there, no super catchy tunes, and I think I’ll have forgotten this one quite quickly.
For some reason, this story didn’t grab me as much as some of the previous ones did, although when I did start to get into it, it swept along nicely. Some interesting themes towards the end - protecting art, food sustainability, and of course how poorly Africa has been treated. Not necessarily what you’d expect from Doctor Who but it never hurts to cover new ground.
It lived up to my own self-imposed hype and was really good. Elements of it maybe haven’t aged as well as you’d like, even though it’s only been twenty years, but still, it’s another one of those fun teen girl high school rom-com movies that are just a good watch. So much of it reminded me of Pitch Perfect, too, it must have inspired quite a lot of that movie.
I really loved this book. I listened to the audiobook read by the author, and it’s just such a wonderful, difficult, moving story about someone trying to find themselves, understand themselves, make their way in a world where they don’t necessarily fit into ‘normal’ (whatever that is). Tom is hilarious all the way through, obviously, and I recognised bits from his standup too, but there’s also a lot of heart and sharing difficult things which really make you think.
Another Amazon original short story by the master of twists, turns and thrillers. This one is a pretty simple story of a cop investigating potential bombings which are indicated by use of poetry. So we dip into a bit of poetry theory and thwart a couple of dangerous attempts at terrorism and then there’s the excellent twist at the end. A fab short read.
I listened to the audiobook of this, which was less of the pair reading out their book, and more of a podcast style chat between them. I’m assuming they cover the same info that is in the physical book but it’s definitely more of a conversation between friends, which was a lot of fun to listen to. I don’t care so much about the fishing part but even the bits where they’re talking about the actual passtime were still fun because the pair make such an entertaining partnership.
This book too me so long to get through, it’s pretty long but also quite dense - a lot of agencies and dates and countries and they did this, so we did that, etc etc. Every time I thought I was going to stop reading though, which happened a few times, there was a nugget of information that I really loved. The way different agencies failed to work together, or loading up submarines with listening technology, or how everything is developing with so much modern data floating around. A bit of a slog but overall quite interesting.
Gene Pitney is a sound from my younger days as my parents would listen to him often and I know a lot of the main singles. I figured it was worth starting at the beginning of his journey, and this album has a few great tracks on with the rest doing a good job of supporting the main. I didn’t realised Town Without Pity was from a film and reading the synopsis it sounds pretty brutal, so makes a lot of sense why that song is so depressing. Great voice though and the start of a fantastic career.
Before listening to this, I’d seen interviews with Kelly that said she didn’t want this to just be a divorce album but more the story of a relationship from start to finish. I’m afraid to say, it comes across as a divorce album - but it’s not an angry hate-all-men option, it’s just a sort of depressing tribute to the end of an era. The songs are all okay, but there are no great anthems on there to pull it up a notch or two. Completely listenable but not the best.
This is a great book - I’m lucky enough to have a bit more space than the three square feet discussed but even with that in mind, the book is really useful for thinking about what things to grow together, and what you can plant in succession to make the most use of any space you do have. A really useful reference to help with a bit of vegetable plot planning.
Have you watched The Muppets Mayhem on Disney+? You may be thinking ’no, of course not, why would I’ but I’m here to tell you that you absolutely should. I wasn’t aware of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, even though by all accounts they’ve been around for nearly fifty years, but their comedy musical series that was released in May was surprisingly brilliant viewing.
I love the two big Libertines songs, the first being the first track on this album, but where is Don’t Look Back Into the Sun? Turns out that was a non-album single. I hate those in the context of this album adventure! Anyway, the rest of the album is fine but it doesn’t quite live up to the opener, so worth a listen but not something that will live with me forever.
I first became aware of Maisie Peters via the soundtrack to Trying, one of Apple TV+’s best and underrated shows. That was very much simple, singer-songwriter ditties, whereas this full album is much more poppy with fuller production and more to say. I really liked the album and it grew on me even more on a second listen so I think a few more times through and this will be a real staple on the playlist.
Convoluted mystery and I guessed the twist before the main characters got to it, but I did enjoy the twists and turns, and it’s written in such a way that you can’t help keep on reading to see what happens next.
Almost a year ago, I wrote about a tweak to this very website that split off the films into their own sub-site, to try and speed things up as a publisher. It turns out, the more you write, the more a static site generator struggles to keep up.
Well, fast forward to the present and I’m very happy to say the films are back home where they belong - all within mrschristine.com. It’s only a slight change but it makes a big difference - the films appear on the homepage now, in all the same feeds, and in the More to Explore section on the sidebar.
This is a really hard film to review because the good stuff was exceptional but the bad stuff was - oof. I honestly came out of it saying I would rather watch Eternals, and that’s saying a lot. I loved the banter between the gang, Drax and Mantis continuing to be a brilliant comedy duo, Quill going through many emotions, and Nebula growing as a leader. The music was brilliant, and the visuals were all very well done. But honestly, I could barely cope with the flashback stuff. Fine to be raising awareness of animal experimentation but there was so much of it, and the juxtaposition from that to someone in the present day being funny meant I couldn’t appreciate that comedy as much as it deserved. After each flashback I was just wanting to switch off and do something else… every time.
Julia Bradbury has walked all over the UK and made various TV episodes about her adventures, but one that has always stuck with me is the Worcester & Birmingham canal walk. Julia split the nearly 50km walk into a two day mission, stopping off at Tardebigge to break up the two halves. I finally got organised and kicked off this walk, but only did about 10km in the one session, so it’s going to take me a few more than just the two days. Never mind though, it’s an interesting walk and so far worth it!
What a lovely film this is. You never quite know what to expect when delving back into the archives and watching a classic black and white movie - sometimes they can be quite stuffy, but this one was wonderful. The story is pretty light, the motivations not deeply explored, and the setups are a bit contrived, but Hepburn and Peck absolutely smash through any problems there might be with the script with their individual personalities and their combined chemistry. A real gem.
I’m still learning a lot about yarn, the different types and weights, materials and measures, the fact that they appear to be sold in grams rather than length, and that kind of thing. But I do like perusing the huge variety of colours and yarns available, and was happy to find the above in store. Yarn made from recycled bottles is genius, isn’t it? What a great use of bottles that would otherwise just be thrown away. The texture is a little bit different to other yarns but I think you would get used to it quite quickly, and they’re not all going to be like this specific one, either.
It feels like the output of both TV and films has slowed somewhat, presumably relating to the strikes that are ongoing. Although any situation that forces a strike is not great, it is a bit of a relief to have a minute to think about what we’re watching and actually catch up a bit. I’ve been looking through the next few months of movie releases and there are quite a few that speak to me!
I must have read this before, because I’ve mentioned it before on this site, but I didn’t remember it when I started reading again. I listened to the audiobook, read by Scott Brick, and immediately you are drawn into the story as you join Norman on his journey to a mysterious situation in the middle of the ocean. It starts out as a standard sci-fi story but turns into something more psychological and philosophical as it unfolds. Interesting and well told, a good story!
We need to talk about Silo… and there will be spoilers. To set thing up, I was looking forward to this obviously, as it’s about a post-apocalyptic world where a hardy group of survivors live in a sealed bunker, make do and mend, because the outside world is so dangerous. I hadn’t read the books, although I have now somehow managed to snap up all three of the books for future perusal.
It’s Wimbledon time! Lush green grass courts, strawberries and cream, and one eye always watching the weather to see how much play is going to get completed each day. I can’t wait! Here are five things I’m looking forward to ahead of the 2023 tournament:
Being on it. Have watched qualifying and kept an eye on that draw, as well as being ready with the draw and the order of play for Monday. Let’s do this! The battle for the top prize. Can Świątek do it? Is this Jabeur’s time? Will Sabalenka conquer her demons to get a Wimbledon win? I’m not sure this counts as looking forward to, but the Venus Williams versus Elina Svitolina first round match is must watch for me. I can’t believe the only non-Brit wildcards have to face off in the first round, and I want both of these to do well, dammit. Such a wide field, and so open, we could have a complete surprise on our hands like last year, or it could be one of the players who is on everyone’s predictions list. Dark horse and underdog story, anyone? Thanks to Break Point, I actually know a bit more about the men’s draw as well, I’m usually fully focused on the ladies but this time I might spare a minute to browse the men’s results too. There’s always a rumbling of political aspects within sport at the moment, but I’m hoping this will be a great fortnight of quality tennis to enjoy. Ready? Play!
This is exactly what you think it will be - Rick Astley, with his booming voice, doing the best he can with Stock, Aitken & Waterman goods. It’s fine pop for what it is, but it’s no wonder Never Gonna Give You Up is hte only one that really properly stands the test of time. What really annoys me is that Together Forever is basically the exact same song, with just the smallest of tweaks and a different title. Properly phoning it in SAW, do better!
I don’t know if in my head I was confusing Tom Grennan with someone else, or just not knowing him at all, but I wasn’t expecting great things from this. His appearance at Glastonbury (having nothing to do with being topless, obviously) caught my attention and I realised these were good songs, catchy, and some of them I did actually know and like. And that pretty much sums up the album, great songs, some of which I know, many of which I didn’t but the kind that grab you and immediately get you on board. Good times!
I read the first book in the Eddie Flynn series a while back, so it took a minute to remember how it all worked - it’s a fun thriller, although a slightly odd combination of former con artist practicing law whilst trying to manage many threats against himself and his family and not lose his mind along the way. It’s pretty stressful, but a good book with interesting twists along the way.
I’ve been meaning to write this post all week and I admit it feels a bit late to be talking about Glastonbury Festival a full week on from when it ended. But then again, I still watch old sets from past Glasto festivals, so potentially it’s a timeless thing and it doesn’t matter how long it takes me to get these thoughts down.
I listened to the audiobook of this, a hard to describe book - sort of self help, sort of travel guide, sort of memoir. It documents a year in the life of the author who ups and moves to Denmark thanks to her partner getting a job at Lego. Denmark is apparently a very happy country, so we spend the year trying to dig into lifestyles and traditions and find out why. Occasionally I got a bit frustrated by the endless surveys and reports that were referenced, but the anecdotes and real life stuff more than made up for it. A fun read.
Blue Man has gone missing! I say it every time, but Will Robie was my first Baldacci and so the one I connect to the most, and it feels like every time we go on an adventure with him it gets more and more personal. This time he’s dealing with feelings of the heart, as well as trying to find out what’s happened to his boss and potentially even close friend. It’s a good mystery and the stakes get really high, plus there’s an element of bunker towards the end too. Great stuff.
This was well written but of course all very predictable - newly single, making a new life for yourself in France, getting involved with village life, making new and old friends, and ultimately doing a lot of baking. It was a nice group of characters to go on the journey with, though, and I enjoyed the story, whipping through it nice and quickly.
I feel like this one took a long time to get to the actual adventure part - the gang were apart to start with and had to get together, then find a farmhouse to live in, then meet all the residents, then do some touring, and finally, get to the good stuff. It did have the bonus of horrid other children that our gang took against which is always fun, and the mystery plot about an old castle was fun.
I’d sort of forgotten about Natasha Bedingfield, but this debut album has three absolute belters on there and the rest stand up to comparison as well. It’s pop but you can really feel the times moving away from over-produced group stuff to singer/songwriters holding their own, and this album has good songs with strong messages, and the very catchy Unwritten to stick in your mind long after listening.
This is such a good album, and quite a surprise. It’s not your usual McFly sound and actually, it’s more like they are pinching sounds from all over the rock world - it’s not original, but it’s a lot of fun, a kind of unashamed honouring of all the most famous rock sounds you know and love. They’re good tunes, done well, and it’s a step in a new (or at least different) direction for the band.
Mixed feelings about this book, it’s well written and the story weaves its way around some complex relationships very well. I like the passage of time, and how the characters come into and out of each other’s lives. But on the other hand, the main two characters are really not very likeable, and there doesn’t seem to be a lot given in the way of motivation or remorse for their actions. There are lots of other elements hinted at too but potentially not given the space they deserve - Matt’s early relationship with Alex and Kate’s eating disorder both feel like they could have taken up more space. But it’s Ruth Jones and I love her, so happy to have read this one and keen to move on to her next.
So annoyed at this film. I thought it was doing okay - you know, the regular kind of stupid that you expect from this franchise. It was laughable but fully entertaining and bizarre in all the right ways. I LOVED how much fun Jason Mamoa was having in this role, he was head and shoulders above everyone else, the best thing in it. But it was the end that really ruined the whole thing.
If you’re looking for a TV show that follows a brilliantly flawed independent woman investigating mysterious circumstances against all the odds in the deserts on the west coast of the US, then you’re in luck, there are two! Poker Face and High Desert both follow that premise and whilst they do have plenty of differences, the similarities are hard to ignore! Both were brilliant though, and I highly recommend them.
When it’s hot and stuffy on land, one option is to get out on the water and feel the breeze as you sail along. With this in mind, I joined family on board the SS Shieldhall for the first of their summer sailings. Steamship Shieldhall is the largest working steamship in the UK, staffed fully by volunteers who keep it running as a charity.
The journey was from Southampton Docks in to Portsmouth Harbour and back again, a smooth journey that was pretty relaxing. You get the run of the ship, even an opportunity to go down into the engine room (although it was SO HOT, it really undid a lot of the cooling work from the rest of the journey), and up on the bridge to see the captain at work.
This book had a fantastic balance between Hornblower’s personal life and at sea life, with the start of the book seeing him leg through a canal tunnel and become a father for the second time, and then quite quickly avoiding humiliating disaster as part of the funeral procession for Nelson. What I really enjoyed was the difficult decisions Hornblower was presented with - whether to go after the gold despite a potentially fatal injury to the expert, whether to stop to pick up a man overboard in the middle of a significant chase. A cracking read.
