The next book in the Nick Dixon series and this one had an intriguing premise - a body found in one of those concrete pillboxes that were built along rivers during the war. So this one had a bit of military history and quite a lot of wrestling with legal concepts, but at the same time there was some levity in there too. I wasn’t so keen on the caving parts of it, went a bit too deep into that side of things (pun intended), but at the same time I like how the layers of the mystery slowly unravelled and led us to that really quite chilling conclusion. A good book.

Since The Grand Tour became more of An Occasional Jaunt, the three presenters have been trying their hand at other things, usually turning their hobbies into business ventures. James May learned to cook and bought a pub, Jeremy Clarkson got into farming in a big (tractor) way, and Richard Hammond ploughed all his time and money into a classic car restoration business. All of them have made TV shows along the way, and somehow, despite enjoying all three of them, I haven’t written about a single one.

Back in November, I wrote a post/whinge about how difficult it was to track down the Marvel One Shot shorts that complement the main series. They were all over the place, some as film extras, some their own thing on Disney+, some not appearing anywhere official. Well! Disney must have been listening because they’ve just released all the One Shots as their own special episodes on the Disney+ streaming service.

This book wasn’t as much fun as the previous couple, mostly because the case was set in the murky world of politics and to be honest, I read to try and escape the governmental goings on. However, I did like the way this was set up, especially at the start with Jane taking the lead early on and Nick in the background having to deal with a cold case as a direct result of his actions in the previous book.

I thought this was going to be a more outlandish comedy, the farcical style of Police Academy or similar, but actually it was much more serious than that, and a lot better for it. The comedy was there but it was about the characters bouncing off each other whilst a genuinely difficult crime was being investigataed. Eddie Murphy was great, obviously, but his star power has to reflect off those around him and they all did a fab job. I genuinely fell in love with Reinhold’s Billy.

The repeats of Top of the Pops that are showing up on BBC Four have reached the early 1990s so you can guarantee a lot of that era showing up on this album adventure. This first one is a random pick, I recognised the opening chords of Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover from Peter Kay’s Car Share, then realised I knew the song, then realised it was pretty good. The rest of the album follows the same pop sounds, with those occasional sweeping chords bursting in. I thought Sophie B might be a one-hit wonder but there are lots of albums that follow so watch this space.

This is a pretty good, relatively short, not-super-outstanding-but-fun album, you can whizz through it and get a burst of that iconic guitar pop sound and then move on to the next. It’s not going to break records or stand out but it’s a nice gentle album to get through January with.

We chose this film due to the sad passing of Meat Loaf (and the fact Spice World isn’t available online at the moment), and it’s an odd little number. Steve Martin absolutely owns the stage, and this character is right up his street, full of swagger and confidence and people-reading manipulations, a grumpy but troubled interior with a layer of extrovert sheen on top.

I love Claudia Winkleman and her tone is all over this book, you can almost hear her reading it to you in that scatty, warm way of hers. The book isn’t your usual memoir, and it’s not your normal self-help, it’s somewhere in between - Claudia is sharing her wisdom learned through living, and although it sometimes comes across as a little bit bossy, overall, it’s great.

Dived straight into this one off the back of the previous book and in this outing we get a lot more information about our protagonist, Inspector Dixon. He’s got a past and it involves missing persons and boarding schools and lots of secrets. I felt like the case at the heart of the story was a bit odd, it didn’t quite feel true to life to me, but I was happy to go along with it as it was interesting to watch Dixon undercover and how he managed to deal with communicating some things and keeping other things secret. A pretty scary ending as well, a proper thrilling conclusion!

It’s amazing I haven’t listened to this before, it’s an iconic album. I was a bit worried, because I obviously know Perfect Day from the BBC collective version and have that so firmly in my mind that I wasn’t sure the original was going to be as good. Of course it was, and combine that with Walk on the Wild Side and Satellite of Love, and what a stellar album you’ve got on your hands.

I went into this with mixed feelings - I’ve liked a few of The Weeknd’s songs but the last album wasn’t as good as I was hoping. And then I knew that there were ’talky bits’ in this and I tend to struggle with that on albums. However… I actually really liked it! The whole vibe has some kind of fever dream feel towards it.

I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this one. The trailers didn’t make it look that interesting, and it seems quite removed from the rest of the universe, and although it was a stellar cast, it felt like too many people to get invested in. Unfortunately, my expectations were bang on - this was so boring and it felt like it dragged the rest of the universe down a couple of notches with it.

Halfway through the first month of the year, and that means halfway through my first 30 day challenge. It was a deliberately easy one - not having to go too far out of my way to make it happen, and something I have done before and know I can do. But even with that, resuming my Duolingo streak has meant remembering to do it each day for the fifteen days so far.

The film became more and more compelling. By 20 minutes we wanted to see where it was going, by the hour mark, I was totally invested and wanted to know who was behind it all. In some ways the film tried to be a bit too clever, I like dipping back and forth in time but the transitions weren’t that great. But there were no plot holes, and although Statham did his precision shooting in style, it wasn’t just about muscle, there was more to it. Despite the frustrating start, I really came to enjoy it!

There was a special deal on some of this Inspector Nick Dixon series, so having read through the first two, I figured it couldn’t hurt to go all in. These are relatively easy books to whip through, and getting invested and following regular characters can be a lot of fun. In this one, it felt like the relationship and partnership with Jane was building a lot more - they work well together and are going to have to navigate spending a lot of time together at home and at work.

The new year is always a good time for new dramas to start appearing on TV, and the big bang for 2022 was Around the World in 80 Days, a big budget drama starring David Tennant as the hero in this Jules Vergne adaptation. The eight episode series followed Tennant’s Phileas Fogg as he attempts that circumnavigation of the globe all for a simple bet with the others at his gentleman’s club.

I’m surprised this album hasn’t popped up on my list before because Ashes and Gravity are two songs I totally loved when they were out and about at the time. As a full album, the rest doesn’t necessarily live up to the heights of those two openers, but it’s a good pop-rock joy to listen to. Apparently this album features the band’s first songwriting attempts as a band, which seems odd given it’s their fourth studio album!

Pretty good album, this one. I became aware of Maisie from her work on the soundtrack for the TV show Trying and was keen to hear what a full album of her own would be like. She’s supported both in terms of record label and song writing by Ed Sheeran, and you can hear the influences occasionally. But it’s a nice album with songs that speak to certain times in your life - John Hughes Movie and Psycho stick in my mind.

This was a great movie, kick-ass in all the right ways. The visuals were amazing - those colours during the fight scene in the bowling alley, delicious. Karen Gillan was great as the sullen but talented assassin, you can tell she has a fun side deep down. And Chloe Coleman continues to amaze as a super talented child actress. There were unique things in there - the fight with paralysed arms, the men taking each other out before Sam even got there. But there were also plenty of moments that reminded of other things. It was very John Wick, in a lot of ways.

I read this because of the upcoming film so as not to go through a repeat of the Orient Express situation - was a bit disappointed by the end and the resolution of the mystery. This time I wanted to be forewarned and thankfully it wasn’t a disappointment. It’s an interesting book because the set up takes a significantly long time to complete, and then suddenly there’s more than one dead body to deal with. I think I sort of guessed who did it but I had no idea how or how it all actually unravelled. Good story and now can’t wait to see the movie.

I love, love, love Taskmaster, and I can’t fault the dedication of Alex Horne to allow the public to get involved like this - there’s a board game, there’s a previous book, and now there’s this adventure. It’s not just a bunch more tasks to play at your leisure, there’s also an underlying game afoot. For each task, there’s a clue that apparently leads to the head of the Taskmaster.

The struggle of this book is that’s trying to be two things at once - a memoir, and then a manifesto about solving climate change. Both were interesting but I’m not 100% sure how well they fit together. However, it’s well written, full of the arrogance that helps someone get this kind of success in business, but equally humble enough to not alienate you. The climate stuff towards the end was where I really got interested - the vegan football team is absolutely fascinating.

In 2021, I managed to read and review about 150 titles in my Books section, which has to be an all-time record. I say titles, rather than books, because some of them were shorts, some reference, some audiobooks, there’s a mish-mash of stuff I’ve enjoyed all year long. But even so, that’s still a lot to have managed to get through. Partly that’s because of the ongoing efforts to Hibernate for Health, but also because I’ve become absolutely obsessed with reading and do it every minute I can - cleaning my teeth, waiting for the kettle to boil, when I’m supposed to be sleeping, you know the kind of thing.

I didn’t want to watch this movie directly after Silent Night, as I thought it would be a bit too similar - apocalypse ready to annihilate earth and all. But actually, it was surprisingly similar to Ron’s Gone Wrong. The big tech company basically making all the wrong decisions and the world just going along for the ride. Huge cast and they did a great job with this movie, it was hilarious and horrifying in equal measure. All too believable.

Over this holiday period, I’ve finally managed to listen to series nine of John Finnemore’s Souvenir Programme. If you’re not aware of it, this is a fantastic radio sketch programme featuring John and friends covering everything from social awkwardness, new twists on old classics, incredible storytelling and every now and again some really moving stuff. Series nine was different, there were the logistical implications of recording during a pandemic and that gave Mr Finnemore the chance to experiment with the format - this time there was an over-arching narrative, told backwards, with a different featured character each episode going back through the generations. The man himself admitted it’s hard to explain, that if you don’t get it after a couple of episodes, you probably won’t, and he knows it won’t be for everyone.

This was SUCH a good film… right up until the moment that it wasn’t. Ron is, obviously, hugely adorable and we all want one. And the story about friendship, about social media, about looking up into the real world every now and then, it’s all good and quite moving in places. Plus Rob Delaney as some kind of evil Tim Cook/Steve Jobs is brilliant.

Keeping track of what films are coming out when has been pretty difficult over the last couple of years, partly because of delays to release dates for obvious reasons, but also because it’s never quite clear how something is going to hit our screens. With a deep desire not to go to the cinema, I’m reliant on streaming options instead, and whilst it’s getting better all the time (Disney+ early releases, Apple TV rent it whilst in cinemas, etc), knowing when this stuff will be available is hard.

Oh thank god this is over. What a terrible final book, no wonder the movie was no good either. This series started out so well and just went downhill steadily until diving off a cliff. The first half of this book is about Bella’s unexpected pregnancy, which is biologically weird and turns into a totally gross few chapters. The second half is all about lots of random vampires turning up, lots of training, and lots of soul searching about what’s right and what’s wrong… for a fight that never actually happens. What a waste!

It’s become a tradition for me to write a new year post on this site, setting out what goals I’m going to try and fail at over the coming twelve months. Last year’s post was a little bit different, as we were all worn down by a pandemic that didn’t seem to be ending any time soon. I finished that post with the optimistic thought: “So here’s to 2021, and hoping that this time next year, we can all start making proper resolutions again.”

This is the final book that Forester wrote in the Hornblower series and it was sadly cut short by the author’s death, so the actual story is left unfinished. It’s a real shame because it was building up to be a good one - Hornblower turning spy is something that would be really interesting, especially given how wretched he can get turning over what’s right and wrong and morals and that kind of thing.

I can’t believe I’ve never seen this film before, it’s brilliant! We only finally got around to watching it now because it turns out it’s a New Year’s Eve movie and we needed something to break the funk of Silent Night. It’s so good. The two stars are wonderful in their own right but also have great chemistry together, as friends and as potential romantic interests too.

Somehow another year of music has flown by, I’ve banked another 100 albums, both new and old, and now I have to decide which were the cream of the crop and which weren’t worth the download speeds. Each week, for fifty weeks, I’ve listened to one new album (usually from this year, or 2020 at a push), and one older album (any time before that), and have listened to each twice because I’ve found just one listen through isn’t always enough to full appreciate what’s going on.

Unless you’ve been deliberately avoiding it (and you might have, because it’s troublesome these days), you’ll know there’s a Harry Potter celebration on New Year’s Day. The stars of the movies are getting back together to celebrate the 20th Anniversary ready to reminisce about what must have been a huge part of their childhoods. I’m interested to see what is revealed. But I was also super interested to see a four part quiz special hosted by Helen Mirren pop up on Now TV. The show featured big Harry Potter fans gathered in the four houses of Hogwarts doing battle to win a big trophy, and probably some Diagon Alley street cred as well.

It’s fair to say, I watch a lot of movies. Since starting the Film Watch process back in 2009, as of yesterday, the total is 1273 and rising fast. Initially, the goal was to simply increase my knowledge of films, but soon it became bigger and bolder than that. The aim became to watch 100 movies a year, and then to try and beat the previous year’s total, and that was going well until 2020 - the year of lockdown, where the total rocketed to 142. Unbeatable.

This is a really lovely book. Bill Bailey, beloved comedian, musician and Strictly contestant, offers up glimpses of the things in his life that make him happy. From getting out into nature, to spending time with loved ones, to listening to music, to so much more, there is a short essay for each of the items and all of them leave you with that heartwarming feeling the author is looking for.

I finally managed to watch the latest James Bond installment last month, having already had a few spoilers before managing to get it on screen. And then I read a post that sparked an interest in me that I kept meaning to write about… but then Christmas happened and now this terrible year is almost over and everyone has moved on, but hey. I’m still thinking about 007!

So then, what is it? It’s a black comedy, for sure, and a lot of the humour lies in being at a tricky family gathering without the trouble of consequences, so there’s a big battle between British politeness and not giving a hoot about tomorrow. There are some great performances in there, particularly Keira who does frantic trying-to-keep-it-all-together host really well, and Matthew who gradually lets his frustrations show as the night wears on.

This is a reasonable Christmas movie, and a warring neighbours one - kind of the fictional version of the Fight Before Christmas. DeVito and Broderick make a good sparring duo, and it’s nice that they both have relatively good reasons for doing what they do. But ultimately, it is just two men having a competition for no good reason and the women being slightly more sensible and sorting it all out. Plus there are a couple of moments in the movie that haven’t aged so well, and it’s not even twenty years old yet! But mostly worth a festive watch.

This is a short novella that follows the third book in the Twilight quadrilogy, and it’s an interesting book - more because of its concepts than the actual story itself. It’s the first time we see events in Forks from a perspective other than Bella’s, and the first time we really see vampires behaving badly and why they do so. I did like that we went on Bree’s journey dispelling the myths of vampires, but equally, it just reminded me how annoying these vampires are that nothing really hampers them. Back to normality and the final book in the series, please.

Yea, this is two very poor Christmas movies in a row. The thing about this one is, it could be good. There are elements in there that are mildly entertaining but it has so many problems, it just doesn’t work. The most fundamental issue is this feels like at least three different films smooshed together. There’s the woodcutter learning how to be santa (that got off to a slow start, I will admit), there’s the dissatisfied elf heading down to earth (Dudley Moore is great in this, except for those GOD DAMN PUNS), and then the homeless kid learning the true meaning of Christmas.

Combine our run of Christmas films with our aim to work through Tom Hanks’ back catalogue and you get this, The Polar Express. It’s not really been a burning ambition of mine to watch, this kind of mo-cap sets my teeth on edge a bit, but worth a go, anyway. It was what I thought and somewhat worse. I’ve read that the animation style was to get around restrictions on the rights of the book (the author didn’t want this to be animation even though it would be seven thousand times better if it was), so I can see they were being pioneering in their own way, but it’s not great and it’s only getting more dated.

I always remember enjoying this book as a kid - maybe it’s where an interest in cooking came from? Although then again, hopefully not! I remember the mixing up of all the ingredients taking much longer and being a much bigger part of the process, but actually it only takes up a third of the book. The rest is all about the father’s greed and the resulting repercussions of trying to replicate just a little bit of magic. Still fun though.

It’s hard to describe this film. If you’re sick of the Christmas cheer and chirpiness then it’s the perfect antidote. I never mind someone being super grumpy about Christmas and/or being surrounded by kids but this does push the limit on occasion! Billy Bob is great though, at being a terrible human with just an inch of good left in him. The moments where you can see the boy finding chinks in the armour are great.

Last year, I wrote about the top five Christmas television specials, featuring such gems as the wonderful Vicar of Dibley, the ever-engaging Doctor Who and of course, my complete obsession with The Goes Wrong Show. Looking back at this now, I’m a bit annoyed that I called it the top five because… I don’t know how much thought I put into it actually being the BEST five. They were certainly five very good specials that were on my mind at the time, but the best? That’s a much bigger question. Like Ross, I would need to give that some thought, come up with a shortlist, make my final decisions, and laminate the results so they can’t be changed.

Yep, ticking along nicely through this Twilight books but have to admit this was the worst one by far. Very, very little happened until right at the end when a medium level battle took place - albeit far away from where we were waiting with our golden couple. Most of the book was waiting and planning and torturing each other with this love triangle… even though Jacob was an actual dickhead at several points, barely respecting Bella at all.

Aw, this was a nice film. I wasn’t completely sure what to expect really, the title makes it sound like it’s going to be a bit Wreck-It Ralph and deep diving into tech nostalgia. There’s an element of that, but it’s more of a traditional ‘what I learned at Christmas’ story, with Neil Patrick Harris very capably and engagingly narrating the story.

It’s no surprise that as this year’s Strictly Come Dancing drew towards its conclusion and more and more focus was paid on the finalists, particularly Rose Ayling-Ellis, that the number of people interested in sign language increased time and time again. There were several stories on this topic through the series, but by the end, the BBC were reporting that: The director of one firm offering BSL courses told Radio 1 Newsbeat enrolments have gone up by more than 2,000% since Rose Ayling-Ellis has been on the show.

You have to be in the right mood for a book like this, but when you are, it is a wonderful experience. I read through this in just a couple of short sittings - racing through the calm, simple, gentle life of Andreas Egger, who lived the best he could in relatively reduced circumstances. It was simple, and really not that much happened, but at the same time it was somehow unputdownable.

This is such a good documentary, a really insightful look at both sides of a neighbourhood war, with one side coming out a bit snippy but mostly fine, and the other looking like an absolute madman obsessed with Christmas and also suing people - two things you wouldn’t think go hand in hand. The film is really neatly put together, gradually peeling away layers to reveal more and more the obsession and hatred that developed.