I’ve had this book to read in my list for a while, and given that the show is making an unexpected return with a fourth series, I thought it was worth prioritising it before it becomes outdated. This has interviews with all the cast and crew so has that official air, and covers how the show came to be and why it had such an incredible impact. It does lean a little too much to the US view, obviously written by a US journalist that makes sense but sometimes it felt like they thought the UK was some unknown mysterious place. Regardless, it’s a great review of the wonderful series and naturally just makes me want to watch it all over again.

I really enjoyed this Doctor Who story. It got me thinking about how these stories tend to be either set on Earth and the aliens are causing mischief, or it’s set in space and the humans are the problem. This was the latter, and it was really interesting to follow the greed and naivety of the various tribes as they dealt with the prospect of an incoming comet. It’s fun to revisit the early Amy Pond days, when her biggest issue was that dress hanging on the back of the door. Good times.

Before Christmas, I suddenly realised I had booked tickets to see a performance of the UK tour of Fiddler on the Roof. I couldn’t remember what had driven me to do this, because whilst I love the songs in the show, the film always felt like it dragged and it’s not one I remember massively fondly. It’s a tough story as well, hard to watch, harrowing in places… a bit incongruous with the festive season we were building up to. Also, I like to hibernate in December.

Finally I’ve made it to the end of this series and I think this last book was a triumph. There’s one big final battle, with quite a lot of chess playing to get there, and our heroes face into their final fight with great class and honour. I like that they’re all really starting to feel their age now - even if they’re not old to modern eyes, they are in that historical sense. It’s been a rollercoaster following this journey with Uhtred but I’ve learnt a lot and enjoyed the majority of it along the way, so another great body of work from Cornwell.

This week again, I just looked at the long list of older albums and picked something from the top. I remember loving this album when it came out but looking through the track list, I could only really remember the main singles. Movies is a brilliant track, and Smooth Criminal is obviously a stand out, but the rest of the album stands up. I like this kind of rock that is hard but not too headache-inducing. It was a joy to revisit this.

On the one hand, I feel much fonder towards the Jonas boys after enjoying their Christmas movie but on the other hand, I wasn’t sure I could take this entirely seriously for the same reason. But I gave it a go and it’s a good album. The first half is very slow, and although it does pick up the pace, it doesn’t go all out, like Sucker for example. The Greatest (with the brothers) is probably the highlight, but the whole thing is just a nice listen. It manages the balance of being loved up and soppy without being overly saccharine and that makes it a hit in my book.

I’ve recently really enjoyed the trilogy by Alice Roberts looking at what we can learn from burials - but I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this book, focusing in on religion. But it was of course absolutely fascinating, following how this religion took off. I particularly liked the moments were Alice kept reminding us, and herself, that Christianity isn’t an it, it isn’t the thing, the thing is the powerful people and the beliefs that took hold and why they spread the way they did. Fascinating.

Elizabeth Day is one of those writers who creates incredible characters and they are the reason you keep on reading. In this book you have a cast of people who feel like they’re outsiders, but gradually come together to make a change as best they can. I didn’t realise this was a sequel to a previous book which presumably covers the events described within, so you certainly don’t need to have read that to enjoy this one. It was really captivating and I wanted to know how it was all going to work out!

If I think about it too much, I get a bit stressed at the weird order I’m playing these Tomb Raider games in, but I couldn’t hold off playing Tomb Raider II any longer. This is the first TR game I ever played, and therefore holds massive nostalgia for me. But even with that, I do think it’s an incredible game - such great levels and locations, perfect puzzle play, and a good story to hang it all on.

If I hadn’t just watched Domhnall Gleeson in The Paper, I think the new Taylor Swift music video would have passed me by. But I spotted Gleeson standing next to Swift in a promo shot from the video, and was instantly intrigued. The six minute video was released on Apple Music and Spotify only, so my searching endlessly on YouTube wasn’t a good start, but once I found it, I was entranced.

I really wasn’t expecting The Paper to be any good. A spin off sequel from the US version of The Office, it felt like another one of those projects that nobody asked for and wasn’t needed. Well I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was tempted in to watching it by the fact that Tim Key’s in it, and he’s brilliant, but there’s so much else to love as well.

This is a fantastic sequel to Riders, and obviously the basis for the very popular TV show. I listened to the audiobook which was read by Georgia Tennant, who was fantastic, as always. Usually when I’m reading a book of a TV show I’ve seen, I picture those characters, but actually for this, they’re so well described, they took on their own form in my mind so that I sometimes forgot who they were played by in the show. Except David Tennant, obviously. But yes, what an incredible book. A few moments and mentions that are ‘of its time’ but nothing too egregious, so lots to enjoy.

Wow, what a voice Eddie Cochran had. I was only vaguely aware of him from a brief mention on Peter Kay’s Car Share, but this album makes me think I really should have known better! For such a young guy, the voice is incredible, no doubt causing a lot of understandable comparisons to Elvis. It’s a short album stuffed with short rock and roll songs, just like a lot of the albums in the 50s - and it’s a really great listen! Such a shame his career was cut short!

Albums like this are why I have to listen to each weekly choice at least twice. First listen through, I thought it was utter nonsense. But then second listen through, I realised that the songs are great, it’s just the interludes that I’m not a fan of. I’m usually pretty down on interludes anyway, and these were really odd and definitely distracting. Which is a shame, because the songs in between really are great, excellent pop, interesting lyrics, good beats. A difficult one to judge really!

At first I quite enjoyed reading this, it’s well written and the characters are well drawn. You really get a sense of how protective and secretive this street is, and how being all alone in the new house might make you a bit paranoid. But it was so drawn out, I kept reading because I wanted to know what the big secret was, but it really took a long time coming. And then in the end, it turned everyone into unlikeable people so I felt a bit disappointed.

Continuing my efforts to find the humanity in politics, this documentary was an incredible insight into the efforts of Jacinda Ardern, someone I was vaguely familiar with but knew far too little about. It’s an excellent documentary, engaging and moving right from the start, eye-opening, and refreshing. The amount of stuff that Ardern and her team and also family had to go through, it’s just amazing that she remained as grounded and hopeful as she did. I found this infuriating and depressing in places, but then there’s an optimism that shines through and makes you remember there are good people out there.

I’ll be straight about this, I’ve had a crush on Robson Green for as long as I can remember, so I really like his BBC series where he takes friends, family, and fellow actors around his favourite parts of the North. Robson Green’s Weekend Escapes features the man himself taking these guests somewhere to rest, relax and recharge, and unwind with an activity that can be sporty, creative, or nature-based.

I love CHVRCHES but somehow I’ve only kept up with current albums and not gone into the small but important back catalogue. I can’t quite believe they’ve been around since 2012, but what a debut album to kick things off with. Fantastic dance and great vocals, interesting ideas, clever lyrics, a lot to love. It’s fun when sometimes the male voices pop up as well, when we’re so used to hearing the band fronted by Lauren. The Mother We Share is a classic but the rest of the album lives up to the promise as well.

The start of this year is littered with albums from ex-boy and girl band members, this one being a former One Direction star. I’ve not been particularly bothered by Louis’ work to date and this album follows the same lines - it’s good, it’s fine, it’s standard modern pop music, but it didn’t reach out and grab me enormously. Entirely listenable but pretty forgettable too.

This was a really good read but I found it quite hard going, just in terms of the content. We’re following a human trafficking organisation this time, and we get some pretty brutal insights into that world, particularly as we follow the point of view of one of the victims who desperately tries to escape and stay alive. Aside from that, though, it has moments of humour that we come to expect from our intrepid heroes, but also the ups and downs of relationships as these familiar faces navigate life and work.

The penultimate story in this series and if I’m being honest, I found this to be one of the more forgettable books. The characters we know are all present and correct, and I’m starting to feel a sense of hope that everyone I care about might actually make it to the end. But in terms of what actually happened here, I don’t know that it stood up to some of its predecessors. Some oaths, some battles, honour and dishonour. The section in London was interesting as we haven’t visited that part of the country in this time, but I’m quite looking forward to getting to the end of this series now.

Honestly, this was so funny. It’s stupid and ridiculous - a kind of cross between Monty Python and the Naked Gun films. Everyone is an idiot, the humour comes thick and fast and can vary from subtle and sublime moments to low-brow poop jokes. And yet, I laughed, a lot. And even while I was saying ’this is so stupid’, I was still laughing as I said it.

As we’re all very aware, I adored Planet Zoo so much that the game reviews on this site came to an abrupt halt while I played literally nothing else. I thought it was worth having a look at Planet Coaster, seeing as I love these simulation games and I used to enjoy Rollercoaster Tycoon as well. This is just the next level of that adventure.

Tot is one of those apps that is so simple, it does one thing but it does it really well. It’s for Apple devices, and for taking notes, but nothing fancy - super quick note-taking that syncs across devices so you can just get on with whatever you’re doing. The app is easy to use - you get a handful of pages, symbolised by the dots, and in each one you can make notes, add bullet points for a to do list, or break things up with very simple formatting.

The game starts you off with a plot of land and a couple of roads and gives you brief instructions on what to do. If I’m honest, I could have done with more hand-holding at the beginning. I did really like that you just dedicate an area a specific zone (residential, commercial, industrial) and then buildings and locations just start spawning in there. I’m not big on house-building or that close up design element, so to have the buildings take care of themselves was something of a relief.

I’m not sure I would normally reach for a show like All Her Fault, because the concept of a missing child is pretty depressing and there are other things higher up on the list. The hook, such a good one in this show (you turn up to collect your child from a playdate only to find the person that answers the door has no idea what you’re talking about), usually grabs you but then the twists and turns that follow can be disappointing.

Generally speaking, I spend as little time as possible thinking or talking about politics. I’m very grateful to live in a democracy but still, the upper levels of politics tends to just be posh people shouting at each other and making decisions that are best served to keep them in power, rather than actually make anyone’s lives any better. More than anything, what I would want from a politician is just to be honest, straight-forward, and actually try to make things better instead of people richer.

I had a couple of weeks left on my Now TV streaming subscription, which meant that for once, I was able to watch the current hot show at the time everyone else was talking about. And when we say hot, we mean it in more than one way.

I absolutely loved this book, it’s such a good memoir. It’s funny from start to finish, and describes the challenges of gradual eyeloss with great heart and in a really approachable way. Obviously, I was obsessed with Chris’ journey on Strictly, and getting more of the back story that led him there and then the great details about how he had to adapt to the show and vice versa were really interesting. But more than anything I loved the small details and funny stories, like when he and his flatmate each wore the wrong half of a suit. Perfect.

This is another anniversary album, and it’s got some of J-Lo’s best work on it, in my opinion. Starting the album with three absolute bangers (although it was weird to hear the original version of I’m Real, I’m so used to the remix). I like it most when the latin influences kick in, but from start to finish this is a really good pop album with great vocals from an absolute megastar.

I’ve mixed feelings about Robbie Williams, very talented, some outstanding hits in the back catalogue obviously but occasionally misguided and that Netflix documentary did him no favours. But hey, fresh start, let’s judge this album in its own right. It’s actually really good, I was surprised. Thoughtful and somehow harking back to the old days but with plenty of new ideas in there to keep you interested. It was going really well, until track 8 about Morrissey. I can’t get my head around this song - is it serious, is he a fan, is he prodding the bear, is he just having a laugh? I don’t know but generally speaking I don’t want Morrissey taking up any space in my head so this track is just an annoyance. The rest of it is great.

There’s a lot to like in this book, the story of a friendship tested many years ago and efforts now to bring it back together. The characters are good, the friendship described well, the setting is vivid and the drama off the scale. Tension is present throughout, and for that part, it’s good. But it does feel long, it drags in places, and very repetitive - the scenery, I get it, in some way’s it has changed a lot, in others it’s the same. I’m glad I read it but I’m also quite glad to have put it away now.

The second part of my winter catchup, and let’s be real, we need to get this out the way so I can start talking about the TV shows I’ve watched recently - there has been some good stuff. But as a quick recap of some of last year’s viewings, here are eight shows that caught my eye.

Yay for ABBA! This is a fun album, it feels a bit more eclectic than you might usually expect from this pop group. The boys get more of a turn singing, and the topics range from the usual love songs but also an ode to King Kong after seeing him on TV, and a treatise on respecting those who go out adventuring and exploring. I wasn’t so keen on Suzy-Hang-Around, it was a bit mean, but otherwise, this is a lot of fun. And we haven’t even mentioned Waterloo yet!

I was, if I’m honest, a bit disappointed by this. It’s just some pretty bland, generic pop. It’s not bad, there’s nothing to hate about it, but it doesn’t have whatever it was that made Blue special, that little bit of swagger that made them cool in the 90s. It was fine, but I wouldn’t particularly recommend it.

I’ve had this in my collection to read for a long time but this year I’m trying to dive in and clear some of the backlog. This is a Grisham law story but aimed at a younger audience - I still really enjoyed it. It’s got a great balance of technical law but explained for that youthful audience so it becomes really easy to read and to follow the angst this young, slightly precocious but quite endearing, boy is going through. A cracking read and I’d be keen to read more.

I don’t really know what to say in this review, because it’s just more of the same excellent historical writing from Bernard Cornwell. We’re so far into this series that our heroes are embedded, we know how they’re going to react to things, and all it needs is outside influence and forces beyond their control to create a gripping narrative. As always, the specific details and character names get muddled in my head but somehow I still really enjoy the read and look forward to the next one. It feels like we’re building towards something big.

I’ve drifted far away from podcasts over the last few years, having previously been mildly obsessed with the format. I’m rectifying that by resurrecting this feature, and my first podcast for 2026 is Get a Grip. The show is a conversation between two good friends, covering recent pop culture news, things happening in their careers and personal lives, and new ways to look after yourself. Angela Scanlon and Vicky Pattison are done being told to pipe down, calm down… or “get a grip.” Instead, they’ve flipped the script – Get A Grip is their unapologetic podcast group chat where nothing’s off-limits. From the messy realities of womanhood to celeb gossip, wild headlines and the everyday dramas we’re all muddling through, Angela and Vicky are loud, proud and completely unfiltered. Every week, they’re laughing, oversharing and getting real, while dragging you, their beloved Gagglers, right into the chaos.

I was a bit nervous about this one, if I’m being honest, because the last two Knives Out films have been brilliant, how long can this run last? And this one incorporating themes around religion and faith, and priests and resurrection… not really my cup of tea. But of course, it was fantastic. Yes, it was fully rooted in religion and belief but it was all done so well, so respectfully for both sides. Josh O’Connor was outstanding as the young, modern priest troubled from start to finish but hauled into this murder investigation with the ever-brilliant Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc.

I’m gonna be honest, this was the start of a new year so I just looked at the list of albums I’ve got hanging around and picked the top one. Thankfully, it was good! I don’t know what I was expecting really, but it was a lot more rock than I’d imagined. What’s Up? is such a classic, I honestly think it would be in the debate for best song ever for me, so there’s no chance the rest of the album could live up to it, but it was still a good listen. Odd, different to what I’d expected, but great music from talented women.

It became apparent towards the very end of last year, that I’d missed something in the crazy success of Alex Warren. He rocked up at Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball this year and I realised it was the same song that had been on Strictly earlier in the year and that it was HUGE. So, I started listening to this album and at first I was worried - it was great, soaring choruses, huge tunes, what if this should have been in my top ten list? The main song, Ordinary, is a banger, but once that’s out the way, it starts to feel a bit samey. The songs are all great, there’s nothing wrong with them, but it’s on and on for a full hour. I don’t completely understand the decision of making an album and then sticking the EP on the end as well. So it’s great, but it’s a lot.

The drama! We’ve got a bit of a continuation from the previous book, with Ryan struggling to balance his happy family life with what could be a national conspiracy. I thought at one point this might lean in to the Da Vinci Code style of puzzles and codes to unravel and solve the mystery, but it only did a couple of those and they weren’t really the heart of the story. I’m slightly concerned about how much trouble our favourite characters get into, at some point this isn’t going to end well. But thankfully this time, things worked out okay!

Whilst we are waiting endlessly for the new Tomb Raider games to arrive (finally they are announced, at least!) there’s been the upcoming Amazon MGM TV series to focus on instead. Previously we only knew that there was going to be such a show and that Sophie Turner was playing the lead role. I find Sophie a bit hit and miss, but she was excellent in Joan so I hold out hope for another good strong performance.

I’m going to try and be more prompt with my musings on TV consumables, given that the last roundup I did was a summer catchup in July. Given that we’re in the situation we’re in, however, I thought a winter round up to finish off 2025 would be appropriate, before my new year’s resolution of writing more often takes effect. With that in mind, here are eight programmes that I thought were worth mentioning.

I get annoyed at myself for falling for celebrity names trying their hand at writing a novel, but I was a little bit sucked in to Clare Balding’s debut. It’s not a bad piece at all, the writing is very careful, but engaging nonetheless. The story isn’t exactly a stretch - farming, horse racing, LGBTQ+, etc. The characters are fun though and you’re rooting for good things to happen to good people, so it’s worth a look.

This year’s Taskmaster New Year Treat was a two-parter, the first time the festive special has been extended from one hour, and both parts were absolutely brilliant. The New Year episodes tend to feature a cast that aren’t comedians, and this time we had Big Zuu, Jill Scott, Sam Ryder, Suzie Dent and Rose Ayling-Ellis - a dream cast.

Another stop along the Warwick Castle light trail.

This is the time of year when people are making resolutions and trying to revolutionise their lives - myself included - but that can be overwhelming and easily ditched once January really kicks in. One habit that could be useful is to use Finch, a self-care app that has an adorable and gamified approach to keeping you on track.

For a few years now, the goal has been to watch 100 movies during the year, with a nice mix of old and new along the way. Last year, we just scraped across the line with The Holdovers being the 100th movie in the last few days of December. The trouble is, whilst the films are still out there and calling out to be watched, streaming television has been SO good recently that it’s hard to balance both! However, I would like to give films a fair go in 2026, and here are five upcoming releases I’m looking forward to.

This is another movie that we’ve been trying to fit in around Christmas because it’s sort of set around Christmas/New Year, but also fitting the right mood because it’s not exactly a festive feast. We finally managed it this year and I’m glad to kick off the year with this as the first film. It’s a great musical, although I’m not a fan of all the elements of it (I can live without the cow over the moon nonsense). I wasn’t sure about all the changes between this and the stage show, they cut quite a lot of mentions of Christmas, and a whole song here and there. And some of the sung through dialogue became conversation, but that worked better than I thought it might. It’s a bit clunky, and the pacing is hard because the first half is joy and love and the second half is emotion and death, but ultimately it’s a great journey.