I don’t know if this has always been the case, but I’m loving how much information Nasa is providing about the Artemis I mission. I know they’ve always had to be very open as a government organisation, and I’ve always been quite grateful for the free pictures, videos, podcasts and other media they have offered up, but there’s so much more to discover as well.

I’ve been playing catchup with Andy Weir books - having loved the Martian a bit more than is healthy, I was less bothered by Artemis, so a lot of pressure was on this most recent one. Thankfully, I liked it a lot more than Artemis, but it did take quite a while to get going. The mystery of the amnesia was interesting but I wasn’t sure it was going to sustain the book. Thankfully, after Rocky arrived, it was really great - I loved the way the pair learned about each other, how to communicate, and ultimately how to save their planets. They worked together and it made me feel slightly positive about humanity as a whole. Great book.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Gillingham & Shaftesbury Show as a family catch-up day out. It’s a farm show located between those two towns and it’s been going for a long, long time. It’s not a huge show but it’s well stocked with cows and sheep being judged, lots of tractors, some old steam engines, plus plenty of independent stalls from people selling their high quality wares. I loved having a good nose around the various stands, and I think I was quite self-controlled to only come away with a couple of arty animal postcards.

There are so many slightly odd things about Only Murders in the Building that it’s incredible it works at all, let alone is really, really good. First off you have the bizarre addition of Selena Gomez to a more understandable duo of Steve Martin and Martin Short. But together, they are brilliant, her dry sarcasm against their bumbling enthusiasm and/or ineptitude works perfectly. Then you have the fact that they started out as true crime podcast fans before getting mixed up in a real life murder mystery of their very own, in one of those old-school self-contained apartment buildings where there’s a doorman and a code of conduct and probably a dress code and more. The first series follows the trio solving a murder in the building, the second series sees them framed for a second death, and the third… well, we’ll get to that in a minute.

After watching the Elvis biopic and being very moved by that, it seemed only fitting to dive back into my journey through Elvis’ work. This was his first studio album back after being in the army (I skipped the album of Christmas songs) and there’s a feeling of sort of wistfulness, gratefulness maybe, a bit unsure of where he is in his life. Good songs though, still quite early in his career, finding what his voice is. I really don’t like Fever, as a song, it’s so boring! That’s not Elvis’ fault though, only that he chose it to be second ont he list. Otherwise it’s that good sixties rock and roll sound, what’s not to like?

This was an okay album, good tunes, but I’m not sure it particularly stood out one way or the other for me. I always think Kasabian are a band I really like, but actually I only know a couple of their songs from previously, so I went into this with a weird mixture of expectations. It was very listenable, good songs, weird spelling in the track names, but yea, I don’t think I’d be seeking it out in future.

This was SO GOOD. A score out of five doesn’t do it justice because it was off the scale. It’s such an impressive feat to have an original movie from so long ago that is so well respected and liked, and a cultural phenomenon… that one totally stood the test of time when I watched it for the first time 26 years after release… and now it has been followed by a sequel that is as good, if not better than the original.

What a great idea for a story, a fascinating journey into discovering what intelligence is and what effect it can have on your life - whether you have it or you don’t, and what happens when you go from one to the other. I loved how the writing improved as the intelligence did, gradually spelling mistakes went away and the vocabulary increased massively… and then the same in reverse. I thought the book was a bit stretched out, you could sort of tell it was originally a short story that was elongated, but considering how long ago it was written, it stands the test of time amazingly well.

This was a good mystery thriller, following a family that gradually drift further and further apart as they get entangled with a new family until the ultimate dramatic accident occurs that brings everything to a head. The book dips back and forth in time, gradually unravelling more of the mystery until it comes to the conclusion. The only thing I didn’t like about it is that all the way through I couldn’t see how it tied in with the prologue… and it turns out that prologue chapter was a dream. A bit annoying. But it’s a good mystery, trying to guess what’s happening and why, and very interesting when it’s all revealed.

Earlier in the year, I cancelled my Netflix subscription as a temporary measure because, you know, cost saving, and the sheer volume of streaming TV out there to watch. However, I’ve saved up enough things to need to watch on there to make it worth a month of streaming, then I imagine there’ll be another pause to be ended just in time for the next adventures in the Netflix Christmas Universe.

One of the things the TikTok algorithm thinks I like is watching people create their junk journal pages. It can be quite relaxing, but what I really like is having been introduced to something I didn’t know existed. It’s not a new concept but it had passed me by - effectively filling the pages of various notebooks and sketchbooks with collections of… for want of a better word… stuff.

Despicable Me and the Minions franchise has been quite a rollercoaster, dipping up and down in quality at the same rate it jumps back and forth in time. This one was a sequel to Minions, but still a prequel to Despicable Me, so I’m not sure some of the activities stack up timeline-wise (the three became kung fu experts and then just never used it ever again?) but hey, let’s not apply logic to these amazing yellow creatures.

All that conversation led to picking this album this week, and even then it wasn’t easy. The Apple Music version had Set Adrift missing so I had to cobble together my own Frankenstein style playlist. Anyway, when I finally got it all together, the album was great. It’s hip hop but a more gentle style, not so much angst and anger but just skipping along nicely. I loved it!

I really liked this album, but interestingly, it felt quite old school. Not proper old country, obviously, but it felt like the kind of country we used to listen to a few years ago, when we first started really getting into the genre. There’s nothing wrong with a nice bit of familiar gentle country, though, and I found it quite comforting. I also liked some of the messages in there - the first track talking of how he’d still be doing this even if he wasn’t doing it, and Better Back When, that you think things seemed better but the probably weren’t. Definitely not a groundbreaking album but a really nice one to listen to.

I always think I like Harlan Coben books but then I’m quite often not as keen once I get in it. This was another one of those, it was fine, a decent enough mystery, although it required quite a lot of exposition to start with. There was so much back story required to get to the unravelling of everything in the current timeframe it really took a while to get into it. But it was a satisfying mystery that came to a good ending - although I would have liked to know how the conversation that must have immediately followed The End went.

This was an emotional rollercoaster for me. The first 10-20 minutes I found really difficult because it had that frantic Luhrmann feel that makes me feel dizzy and nauseous. I wanted to stick with it though because I knew there were going to be good songs throughout and it gradually became more and more clear to me that I didn’t know anything about Elvis’s life. I know all the obvious stuff, and I knew that he was considered vulgur and dangerous early on, although I didn’t know he was threatened with jail because of it. So after I settled into the film it was a fascinating journey and I learnt a lot and really, really want to learn more.

Last year, the American country music singer Eric Church released a triple part album, entitled Heart & Soul. Each of those three words was the title of one part of the album, and they were released over the course of about a week. At the time, I listened to the albums a little bit reluctantly. Heart came first, and then & was released only as a vinyl release, so I said: “Already I’m on the back foot as I’m not going to be able to hear the middle part of this trilogy… nevertheless, I figured it couldn’t hurt to give the first part a go, and I’m glad I did.”

I’m a fan of the moon. Weird thing to say, I know, but I love that big grey rock up there just minding its own business and inspiring astronauts all over the world to want to step on it. I’ve been ignoring space travel news (other than the fictional For All Mankind style stuff) for a good few years and I guess it feels like an odd time to be getting back into it again, what with the planet we’re actually on burning up quicker and quicker every day - who are we to sink billions in the atmosphere between here and our nearest orbital neighbour?

Before I started building up a digital bookshelf with seemingly every book available via Kindle or Apple Books, I used to pick up most of my reading material from charity shops. There’s usually a good variety to choose from and one of the great things is seeing the older books that are dropped off for re-use. One of the best genres in this category is movie novelisations - an author’s official take on the plot of a film with more prose and less script. They can offer a lot of interesting insight where films don’t do so well, getting inside the head of the protagonists or antagonists, but at the same time can sometimes steer quite far away from your take on the original material. It’s always a bit of an adventure.

Any musicals fan has to read this. I know Andrew Lloyd Webber isn’t so popular at the moment after the disaster that was the Cinderella musical, but there’s no denying what he has done and continues to do for musical theatre. This autobiography is written with wry wit and humour, more self-deprecating than I was expecting, and also a lot harsher - there’s a lot of details and communications and back and forths about who did what to whom in which business deal, and I was quite surprised!

With any new hobby that you get stuck into, you can probably find a podcast out there that will offer up help, tips and advice. My increasing obsession with veg growing and gardening means I was quickly searching for green-fingered podcasts and this one caught my attention quite quickly. Epic Gardening is a mission founded by Kevin Espiritu and with a host of expert collaborators to get people growing more plants.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to dominate a lot of my viewing, with recent additions having mixed results. I’m loving a lot of the TV content they’ve developed, while some of the movies have been less successful for me (I’m looking at you Eternals). One thing I’ve really enjoyed, though, is the Marvel Studios: Assembled series. I’ve mentioned it before when it highlighted some great things about the making of Shang-Chi but there have been a lot more episodes since. For every big TV series or movie that is released, the team put out an accompanying Assembled episode which goes behind the scenes of how the content has been put together. (Oddly, the first six were grouped together as a series and the rest as standalone episodes but you can find them if you search ‘Assembled’.)

If you had to say to me, which of the Guardian’s of the Galaxy would make the perfect subject of their own spin-off TV show, I don’t think Groot would be my first choice. Baby Groot is, of course, adorable, but the limited dialogue offered by everyone’s favourite tree-based character would seem to reduce what any follow up shows could be about.

Oddly, It Feels So Good was featured on a 1993 episode of Top of the Pops that the BBC are re-airing, and it just put me in mind of this dance version which I knew better. So it had to be time to dip into Sonique’s back catalogue and this is some proper late 90s/early 00s dance pop that is wonderful to hear. I loved pretty much the whole album, except it feels like an odd choice to stick a remix of the lead song at the end that is so much worse than the original at the top. Bit of a weird note to end on but otherwise, I loved it.

This is a good album from Paolo Nutini. I’ve liked his work in the past but not really kept up with what he’s been doing lately. It was pretty much what I expected, a mix of slow and fast, singer-songwriter good pop, with perhaps a stronger Scottish accent than we’ve heard before. Really the only complaint is it’s just a bit long, and that’s not necessarily a problem but it feels like it tails off towards the end, too many slow songs in a row. But overall, a great piece of work.

I didn’t know a six-part documentary charting the beginnings and growth of Industrial Light & Magic was in the works so when the show arrived on Disney+ last month, it was a pleasant surprise. I love a glimpse behind the scenes at how the magic is made in the film industry, and watching creative and brilliant people do what they do just fills me with inspiration and joy. So, as it turns out, this show was absolutely made for me.

Being in the Apple device cycle means putting up with the unfortunate changes they make to their devices until either you get used to it or they roll it back. I tend not to complain too much about them because I’m still so hugely in awe of how brilliant my phone and iPad are, so the benefits far outweigh the cons.

I had seen a couple of people talking about air fryers on TikTok, but not really paid it too much attention. It sounded like just another cooking fad that would pass me by, like slow cookers (I did actually try a slow cooker with disastrous results) and pressure cooking. But then a couple of friends were discussing their own joys of frying in only air and my ears perked up.

I watched Downton Abbey relatively recently and whilst it was alright entertainment, I don’t know that it grabbed me the same way it did a lot of the nation. However, I figured it was worth giving Julian Fellowes works a go in a different format - this time a book. At first, it did feel a little bit slow-going, setting the scenes and introducing a lot of characters. Not too many, but how they all fitted together was mind-boggling. At one point, I genuinely had to draw out a little family tree to get my head round it. But once I got past that, and as the action gradually drifted towards a conclusion - secrets being revealed and all the ramifications that followed - I was hooked! A fun read.

The level of curated content available on Apple Music is so good that it’s overwhelming - partly because there’s so much of it and partly because, despite repeated upgrades and efforts, navigating around the Music app is still really difficult. However, it’s super easy just to pop on one of the three radio channels and listen to whatever’s being played and my one favourite find at the moment is Rock Classics with Jenn, on the Apple Hits station. The premise is simple, Jenn guides us through brilliant rock classics from throughout music history based around a theme… and it’s the themes where the fun starts.

This was such a good film. We’ve not done all the Predator series and certainly haven’t dipped into the Alien versus Predator situation, but as this was a prequel, it seemed okay to give it a whirl out of sequence. I’m glad we did, it was great. The film was absolutely stripped back to the bare essentials and stacked full of tension from start to finish.

This website, mrschristine.com, has been hosted on a static site generator for just over three years and it’s been a fantastic step forward for me. At the time of the big switchover, I wrote about the pros and cons of moving away from Wordpress and it’s fair to say since then the pros keep getting better and better but the cons haven’t necessarily gone away.

Two years ago, to the very month, I wrote about my frustration on trying to follow news and blogs via RSS feed. It wasn’t hard to find great content that I wanted to keep on top of but finding the best way to actually subscribe and follow was really difficult. I think that problem has continued, particularly with the more fragmented world of newsletter subscriptions and paid for content.

I know Lighthouse Family are considered slow-going easy-listening lift music but actually, I didn’t mind it. It made for really good background music, and even though I only knew a couple of the songs, it all seemed to work together. It’s not one I would seek out over and over but I can see why those couple of songs are as well-known as they are.

You know, I love early Beyoncé but there’s a moment where her music goes off the boil for me (haven’t quite pinpointed it yet but it’s there) and ever since I just haven’t been interested. The reviews and the hype over this album were so great though, it was impossible to ignore.

Mr C set me up for this movie by saying there was terrible effects in it and plane technology that couldn’t exist. None of that was true, okay some of the effects while they were in the plane haven’t aged that well but are perfectly fine within the context of the movie. And the plane doesn’t quite look like the stealth bombers we know but it’s plausible enough. And the rest of the movie was entertaining enough so it beat my, admittedly very low, expectations.

A TV show about the challenges of parenting wouldn’t usually be up my street given how very happily childfree I am. However, buoyed by the success of watching Trying (a show about a couple looking to adopt) and by the excellent casting of Daisy Haggard and Martin Freeman, I thought I’d give Breeders a go. There have been three seasons, and the first one is slightly different to the others. I thought the first episode was an absolute triumph in plotting, following a sleepless night that really sets the scene for the rest of the show. It starts with a pact to sleep two hours on, two hours off, and it ends up with Freeman waking up in his car being accused of killing his kids… and yet it makes total sense.

A new trailer for the upcoming Star Wars series Andor was released this week and it looks so good. So very good. Rogue One was such a good film that it’s been a long time coming for a spin off of the spin off. The Disney+ blurb says the series ‘focuses on Cassian Andor’s journey to discover the difference he can make… the tale of the burgeoning rebellion against the Empire and how people and planets became involved."

I was pretty ignorant about the state of the UK’s wildlife until the big lockdown meant concentrating on these four walls plus the back garden. You’ll know I concentrated my efforts on turning into a vegetable gardener, but alongside that is a growing understanding of the other creatures and insects that use our little pieces of greenery to survive. Hedgehog populations have been falling for a long time, and there’s always talk about what you can do to help. I went with the bowl of hedgehog food and a saucer of water each night to keep our prickly friends going, and noticed there were already little hedgehog-sized holes in the fence to let them come and go as they pleased. In fact, one evening, I followed a hedgehog at a safe distance around the garden and it magically disappeared in what seemed to me to be a dead end, so I’m confident they’ve got the fence network sorted.

Did you know there’s stand up comedy on Apple Music? I just found some recently, stumbled across it by complete accident, and I was surprised. Although, when I really thought about it, it does make sense. Old school stand up comedy used to be released on records, didn’t it, with people happily playing their favourite stand up on repeat.

We’ve reached August and it’s time to start the eighth 30 day challenge of my year. Off the back of timing the Waterllama hydration challenge so perfectly for the hottest days in the UK ever, the summer vibe continues and this month I’m focused on lunchtimes. We’re going for 30 Days of Salads. I’ve been eating more salads recently anyway, but it feels like it’s time to give the meal some proper attention. Firstly, I want to investigate varieties and recipes for salad so that it’s not just lettuce and cucumber every day that could get boring. Secondly, understanding what I can use from my garden and what I can look to grow next year to make salads for lunch an easy and super tasty thing.

When I kicked off July’s 30 Day Challenge, to get a full month’s streak on the health tracker Waterllama, I thought it was just a fun thing to do with a cute app that would help me keep hydrated. How could I have predicted that it would be around at exactly the right time - when temperatures in the UK hit their highest ever for a couple of days and keeping fluid levels up became crucially important?

Apparently Black Sabbath are credited with having a hand in creating the heavy metal genre, so this is one of the first outings of that kind of music. I didn’t mind it, the bits that were musical were great, but there was a lot of that thing where songs just go off into something completely different, noodle around a bit, and then come back. I swear there was a minute long drum solo in there somewhere. So I liked it more than I thought I would but it’s probably not really to my taste.

Mabel’s second album is very good, featuring lots of that pop sound she’s become famous for. Quite a lot of the time, I could almost visualise her dancing along with her troop on stage. Yay for pop! There really wasn’t a standout song on the album, though, a couple were better than others but no real anthems, unlike the first record which was stacked full of them. Fun but not particularly memorable.

This was a free book of the week from Apple Books, so low stakes investment but actually it was a really good read. I whipped through it in super quick time, and enjoyed watching the characters gradually relax and unfold into their surroundings. The bit where there was a supposed mystery over the emails and money and stuff was annoying because it was so obvious what was going on and our hero Maeve even laid out the facts and still couldn’t see it… annoying. BUT once that was out in the open, the rest read like a dream. I’m curious what the other books in the series are like too.

I was excited for this movie - getting the gang back together - who wouldn’t be? And it was fantastic to see Dern and Neill, Alan and Ellie, back on our screens with their will-they won’t-they chemistry. The trouble is, that’s really all that was good about this movie.

Not long ago, I wrote of a new fondness for gin, particularly as June celebrated World Gin Day. Since then, I’ve learnt even more about the tipple and even managed to find a whole gin universe to be unravelled. Bear with me on this. I talked of James May’s gin, the cleverly titled James Gin, which has the broadcaster’s traditional understated marketing and labelling but is packed full of taste. Recent efforts to sell the gin have seen James May recruiting fellow Grand Tour star Richard Hammond, a noted gin-fan, for various things, such as talking about gin, or playing chess whilst under the influence of gin. All fun and games.

I’m not great at planning or being organised or looking too far ahead, although it’s something I’ve been working on for a long time (especially if the number of to-do apps I’ve reviewed on this blog are anything to go by). However, when it comes to gardening, apparently, a bit of forward planning is necessary.

Overall I think I enjoyed this book but I have to admit to find it quite slow going. There’s a murder and a mystery at the heart of it, but it seems to take such a long time to make any progress at any point. It has the problem of a non-police character getting involved where they probably shouldn’t but then as a relationship was developing with one of the detectives, it kind of worked. I liked the character building and really felt part of the family of Ericka and Anna, but, yea, it just seemed to take a long time to get to the big reveal.