Yay for Christmas novels! Another area where you can wrap up warm, settle down with a hot chocolate and revel in the festive spirit. This was a good story although it was really obvious where it was going from the start. I felt like the characters were quite remote, despite a lot of soul-searching, I didn’t necessarily find myself connecting with any of them. Except maybe Brodie, and he wasn’t the central focus. A nice, festive read but not one of my favourites.

It’s another film with an odd premise - someone (?) is going to shut down the fairy godmother school so to stop that happening the only young eager godmother left heads down to earth to save the day. It takes ages to get going, you have to really like Jillian Bell to stick with it.

It feels like Apple Fitness+ was announced so long ago - time moves slowly these days, right? But finally, mid-December, the new service launched and I was very keen to try it out. It’s a subscription service that you can either purchase separately or as part of a bundle of Apple services (my option), but it’s squarely aimed at people who have an Apple Watch as well. Once you’re on board, the integration with the watch is incredible and makes it all worthwhile - without a Watch, I’m not 100% sure it stacks up against the vast array of fitness alternatives.

This is a brilliant film. It’s got an incredible cast to start with, and they are all believable as family or friends or adversaries, or potential partners. Great chemistry and even when they’re not being particularly nice to each other, you understand their reasons and what they’re going through. Relatable even when they’re being awful.

Thankfully, it’s brilliant. It probably has a bit of a benefit from following on the slow-pace chill-fest of Taylor’s latest album, but even without that, it’s just good soft rock. One is genuinely one of the greatest songs ever, but even with that it doesn’t overshadow everything around it - they all stand up.

Unfortunately, I didn’t quite like this album as much as I did the last one. Folklore has grown on me since I listened to it earlier in the year and some of the songs are starting to resonate. It’s not my favourite Swift album by far but I like it. This one is just so slow, so chill, so very Dessner, it doesn’t grab me at all. I was really not looking forward to the second listen through, although it was nowhere near as bad as I had built it up in my head.

I really loved this movie. It’s not a new idea to take a mythical creature and put them fish-out-of-water in modern day society, but I really liked how this one came together. All the odd decisions Noelle made actually made sense in her world, and the whole time there was an undercurrent of saving Christmas whilst simultaneously breaking down the patriarchy which I wholeheartedly support.

I found this to be a bit of an odd read. The structure of it was good, starting at the funeral of a man and looking around at the congregation considering who might have been involved with his death. Then we dip back and forth in time to piece together what did happen.

If ever there was a film of two halves, it’s this. You start out with a reasonably cute rom-com, Kate dealing with her difficult family, recovery from a serious condition, a job that only seems relevant for maybe one month of the year, and aspirations to just be a better human without making any effort… she meets a guy who is too-good-to-be-true and their relationship develops. Then, oh my, you’re slapped with the cold, heard, truth and it turns the movie completely on its head!

Anyway, this is their debut album and what an amazing body of work to kick off your career with! There aren’t really hte amazing stand out songs that feature later in their career but it’s some really good rock to get you going. I was confused why Seven Seas of Rhye is on there and also on the second album, but this was a shorter instrumental version that obviously went down quite well because it came a fully fledged song by the next album. Mm, what a great journey.

I don’t know if I had any expectations going into this one, other than quite liking Sweet but Psycho that always ends up stuck in my head. It was such a good album! It’s labelled as pop and I suppose it is but it reminded me so much of the high concept dramatics from the likes of Meatloaf and Bonnie Tyler - pop but with a dark side.

It’s a good collection and very moving, but if I’m honest I think there are only so many things to say about the festive season so by the end I felt it was lacking a bit of variety. Still, it’s always interesting to read essays from different viewpoints, so it’s worth a look whether or not you’ve seen the film.

This was better than I thought it was going to be. The concept isn’t exactly a new one - parent going crazy trying to find a toy that is completely out of reach - but it’s good. The adventure he goes on has some wacky moments and you have to suspend your disbelief a bit, but I think up to the point of the parade, it’s pretty good.

This was so beautifully written. There are a lot of memoirs out there about working in the medical professions but this was a special one. It flows beautifully, it describes an incredible journey of finding yourself whilst supporting so many grateful people.

Hmm. If I remember rightly, I was really keen on the first movie, expecting it to be pretty rubbish and it being a pleasant surprise. This was kinda the opposite. I wasn’t anticipating great things, if I’m honest, but it didn’t even meet those expectations! Fundamentally, it’s an ok film, has a good structure, a good guy, a bad guy, etc, etc. But the pace of it, the flow, the glaring errors in the script… it was so weird.

Really loved this. It’s a Christmas film that starts with the first words being ‘Eff holidays’ so you know you’re off to a good start. But it’s fun, Emma Roberts is great as a sort of selfish but messed up woman trying to get over what was clearly the wrong guy for her. And the connection between the two leads is nice, too, very believable as friends both with and without benefits.

A very good album from Mr Ocean kicks off with the most excellent but long-titled first track. I was introduced to that track via the Boyzone charity version but you can’t fault the original. This is a short album, just nine songs, but they’re all well done and go together well. It felt quite dated, very in the 80s and of its time, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I don’t know that I’ll seek it out again but a good album to start wrapping up the year with.

This was a surprisingly good album! I was expecting it to be, you know, very Steps, and it was recognisably them but it also wasn’t cringeworthy or too poppy. It doesn’t have anything in there that’s going to massively stand the test of time, but I must admit whilst I was listening and bopping along, it was a really fun way to spend an hour. Just some really clean, clear, concise, fun pop songs. A very good job!

This is a great read with some valuable advice on how to live your best life. It takes a while to get through all the pre-amble, the proof that it’s worth doing and selling the idea to us but once it does, you get to the good stuff.

This was quite a quick read, following our protagonist as she’s brought out of FBI retirement to investigate some murders in her neighbourhood. I wasn’t sure if it was totally believable how that happened, or that they would make a new job for her. Surely retirement rules are there for a reason?

I picked this up in a sale and it obviously only took ten minutes to read but it was so familiar and lovely and warm. Oddly, this meant more to me than the first one did, I must have read this more often. I felt like Enid had been around forever, but apparently not. And the image of Mildred floating into the hall on the broom to escape the cupboard was so clear in my mind…

Okay, so I can just about remember the first one of these from a couple of years ago, and that was a fun Christmas movie. At first this one seemed like fun as well but it soon grew to be a confusing mess of many strands, although somehow despite how complicated it was, there wasn’t a lot really going on. Two people had previously fallen out but after spending an hour together they fell back in love. And someone else got kidnapped but then rescued without much drama. Job done.

Another 87th Precinct novel and it follows the familiar patterns of our favourite group of cops investigating crime in the city that never sleeps. There were some interesting structure changes in this one, with direct paragraphs from the gang members. I didn’t care for that so much, they felt quite long and drawn out without giving too much information away. I prefer the dialogues between the cops, or between cops and suspects, as they try and whittle their way towards an answer.

This was a lot better than I’d expected it to be, lovely Sandy running around being slightly hopeless but also getting to the heart of the mystery. I liked the two partners being antagonistic towards each other to start with but gradually growing to respect, if not like, each other.

Looking for something completely different to the disappointing blockbuster of Little Women, we turned to an indie music treat. I really liked this, it was slow and soft with good music and great acting, good connections between the cast. We’ve seen music stories before and stories about people coming home after a disappointing life, and this seemed to merge the two storylines together really well.

Unfortunately, I just didn’t like it. Flipping back and forth and giving away the big plot points within the first five minutes didn’t sit well with me. Also, whilst Saoirse was incredible as always, and Timothy so handsome it’s almost painful, I didn’t feel like the rest gelled. Oh well!

It’s taken a while for me to get to the end of Tehran, the Apple TV espionage thriller based in the Iranian city. Initially, I was watching it week on week as it was released, but I’m no fool. I knew the penultimate episode would have one heck of a cliffhanger, so I opted to save it a week and watch two episodes together. But then, a week became two and other things got in the way and oop, finally it’s nearly Christmas and I need to finish watching Tehran before the jingle bells start.

It had great humour (the restaurant scene was a lot of fun), some amazing fight sequences (could have done without the farm machinery, if I’m honest), and a female sidekick who was impressive rather than irritating. I also liked the recall of various moments repeating themselves… for good or for bad. So not a top notch movie but a lot of fun.

This week the 2021 Grammy nominations were announced and immediately two things stood out to me: firstly, I get very confused by the categories at awards shows and secondly, by far the more important fact, women are having a really good showing this year! For the first time ever, all the nominees for best rock performance are women, and the same can be said for the best country album (sort of - if you see Little Big Town as being fronted by the two women, which I do. To be honest, I see Little Big Town as being fronted by just the dark-haired one, so yea, to me it counts.)

Oof, this is a good album. I don’t quite know why I didn’t do this one when I have previously dipped into Snow Patrol’s back catalogue because it’s stacked full of great singles with lots of amazing work in between. There’s no real filler, and it’s all very moving and emotional.

Kylie’s talent at trying any new genre is amazing, she’s done pop obviously, and more recently country, but now we are firmly in disco territory - if the title of the album doesn’t give you enough of a clue. From start to finish this is an uptempo disco riot, good luck listening to it without so much as tapping your feet.

I do like how the new writers in the Frost series have channelled the feeling of the original set of novels but I’m not totally sure this one lived up to my expectations. It had a great start to the story and a great end, but seemed to get lost along the way in the middle. There’s a lot of waffling around and waiting for things to happen.

Another surprise release from Swifty, and it’s a good one. A great insight into the album, opens up the songs to mean more and is yet more insight into this excellent and ever evolving artist. It was quite comforting under the current conditions but nowhere near as emotional as the Bruce film.

We all know by now that Nora Ephron writes wonderfully with wit and nostalgia, hope and horror in equal measure. This is a short but sweet collection of essays that take a look at Nora’s early work in journalism, dealing with trying to remember people’s names, and how divorce can affect you in very different ways.

Wow, I really loved this book and I have no idea why. I’m vaguely aware of Gilmore Girls and saw Lauren in that Zoey Playlist show recently but otherwise I can’t admit to being a huge fan. But this book was brilliant, effectively a stream of consciousness and a great insight into being in one of the biggest shows of its time.

On the face of it, this is just one of those pretty rubbish but kinda fun comedies, with Kevin Hart running around getting into scrapes and Tiffany Haddish being queen of sass (and I really liked her in this - rundown and sarcastic but with a good, good heart). So you can’t get too involved in the plotting, etc, but even so, it does have some real problems.

I knew a couple of these songs before listening to the album but I think my Lenny Kravitz knowledge was pretty poor. I quite enjoyed it as a collection of songs but I do think it was lacking some cohesion - the styles and genres seemed to jump around quite a lot and you were never quite sure what was coming next.

They’re good songs, catchy and poppy and it does a good job - however, it’s also a bit run-of-the-mill boys getting kinda older and not really wanting to grow up and optimism and all that. Good, but sort of… bemusing. Not really what I expected from McFly.

After perusing the beginners’ guide to Greek legends recently, I thought who better to guide me through the details than Stephen Fry? So I snapped up the audiobook and settled in for the legend to talk to me about legends. And of course he does a great job trying to bring it down to a manageable level. Fry narrates the people and the stories very well, but I have to admit I couldn’t get to the end of it.

I’ve had this book for such a long time tucked away in my Apple Books library and suddenly had a desire to read it. The story follows two points of view, two friends finding their way whilst growing up on the island of Guernsey. It details family issues, love lives, school troubles, and lots more as Renée and Flo at first don’t like each other but gradually find out they are destined to be firm friends.

I mean, we knew exactly what this would be going in to it - a pretty trashy film with Amanda Bynes running around being amusing. I was expecting bad wipes and bad ADR and I got most of that. It didn’t really make any sense and wasn’t very believable but it was a lot of fun and exactly what was needed after an exhausting few days.

I thought this was going to be a straight up rom-com but actually it had a few extra layers and surprises that I really wasn’t expecting. Firstly, it became very clear that the Zooey Deschanel character and subplot was far more interesting than the main one. I didn’t quite understand what was going on with Matthew M being harrassed by wildlife quite so much, it was a weird add-on to the plot.

A relatively good album this one, gets off to quite a jazzy start and, of course, New York State of Mind is an absolute classic. There’s a range of styles and lots of instrumentation to enjoy, but I don’t know if it’s one I’ll replay a lot.

I genuinely don’t know how Little Mix do it but they keep cranking out the hits and they’re all really good ones. Of course it’s not an entire album of bangers but there’s a lot to love on this album and from start to finish, it’s got that girl power loving life confidence first attitude that we know the girls are famous for.

I remember reading the previous Villanelle book and being a bit annoyed at the cliffhanger ending - or not so much a cliffhanger as one that just stopped. I thought I would pick up the next book quite quickly but it’s taken me a while to get round to it. So it took me a while to get back into it and remind myself what had happened in the book and what I’d seen on TV.

This is such a good book. It’s just the simple insight and opening up of one man’s struggle with his mental health - something that needs to be, and gradually is being, talked about more. I think it’s crucial that there’s no big catastrophe that causes Josh’s mental health problems - of course it’s so tough for him but a clear example that brains are really complicated and can just sometimes change the way they work.

Having whipped through Henry’s first book, which talked of his accident, his recovery, and his new-found outlook on life, I was interested what this second book could hold. It takes the form of a Q&A, with a handful of regularly asked questions, answered in great detail by Henry, and ultimately trying to dispense with some advice on how to live life better and appreciate what you’ve got.

Considering this was made in 1990, everything about this movie has a hardcore 80s feel to it - the music, the technology, the way the action unfolds. It’s a good story though and it stands the test of time. I liked that Goldie Hawn isn’t a completely useless companion and I quite like how they had to discover each other again after such a long time apart (and a significant number of identities for him).

I loved it! For a while it confused me how to place the genre of the album, it’s sort of like Enya and that folksy, ephereal style but with a bit more grounded pop underpinning it. Some of the songs stuck in my mind for ages after listening which is a good sign!

Ariana continuing to fight the good fight and show that she’s completely grown up, there’s some lyrics on this album that really do raise eyebrows. But ultimately it’s a very good body of work - some nice pop, well executed and with her incredible vocals over the top.