Three books in one, this is a handy way of reading the first few books in the Malory Towers series. I have fond memories of reading these as a kid, although I didn’t remember the specifics, only that most of the girls were goody-two-shoes and adventures and midnight feasts were had. Actually, they really weren’t all that goody-goody. Even our heroine Daryl had a wicked temper that sometimes was totally misplaced.

Final thoughts! How can it be over already? I mean, I know it’s been weeks and we’ve all been on a journey and it’ll be quite nice to have my Saturday nights back but still… it’s all done! What a final show it was, kicking off with an incredible routine, and featuring Taylor Swift, plus all the old gang back for one more round including lovely Will!

Thank goodness, this movie is a return to form - well the form applicable to the Nativity movies anyway. It was really quite enjoyable, and moving in places, and actually has a timely story about immigrants and just treating people as human beings even in times of trouble.

What a terrible movie. Honestly, the Nativity series has so far been in the so bad it’s good category of brilliant Christmas movies, but this one does not stand up to the rest of them. For a start, the plot makes no sense, it’s far-fetched and contrived and the sequence of events is utterly ridiculous. I know you’re supposed to suspend your disbelief, but hey, I haven’t even started talking about the fact that Mr Poppy takes a bunch of kids to New York without permission or enough supervision.

Whilst we’re on a roll with female representation in our entertainment spaces, the Country Music Awards this year were an incredible show of women’s strength. Hosted by Reba, Carrie and Dolly, the show kicked off with a medley of songs from many, many, many women from throughout recent country music, including many I’d never heard of and need to know more about. (Who knew Delta Dawn wasn’t just the song Monica sings in a see-through shirt?)

I had seen in passing the news that James Corden was taking a break from his Late, Late show for other projects and guest hosts would be filling in. Alicia Keys kicked things off but it wasn’t until I caught the clips on YouTube that I realised just what a fab job she’d done. We all know already that Keys is brilliant, but her take on the year wrap-up is a step above, even if only for the piano reveal with Rocky theme tune.

Yes! What a great album to sign off the year with. If I’m honest, we were a bit lost for inspiration on how to wrap up the year, and so turned to many lists of greatest albums or best-selling albums. This featured quite highly but now I can see why.

I was quite surprised by this album. I’ve had a bit of a run of looking forward to some releases and then finding them kinda mediocre but this one was a step up. The one song stands out a little bit because it was so desperately overplayed, but actually the rest of it lives up to the pressure of that huge single.

I saw this promoted as a teen movie version of Love Actually, and although skeptical, I was pleasantly surprised that it lived up to that reputation. Perhaps the connections are slightly less tenuous, because this is about a group of teenagers from the same town who all end up at the same waffle house, but still, how they get there is the real meat of the story.

Somehow we have whittled the contestants down to just four and it’s time to wave goodbye to the one who will miss out on the final. Somehow it feels so soon that we have reached this point, and yet when you watch the titles it’s like “oh yea, they were in it, that was so long ago!” Time is weird. Anyway, here’s how my thoughts flowed as the couples tried out two dances in one night.

As soon as it hit December, I restarted my Netflix subscription, because there’s no way I was going to miss out on all those cheesy Christmas movies. However, the bonus alongside festive treats is catching up on the big series’ that were released over the last six months that I have fallen behind on. Starting with the final ever series of Orange is the New Black, bringing to a close the show that was one of the OG Netflix Originals.

This is a really lovely Sunday afternoon movie - gentle but emotional, with a good story but no crazy heart-wrenching moments. I dreaded that third act twist that would ruin everything before the happy ending but thankfully it wasn’t bad at all.

We watched the third movie in Netflix’s Christmas Prince franchise this week and… huh. It was an experience. I’ve obviously reviewed the film itself in the proper place but I wanted to expand upon this with a note about the fiasco that is the credits. The normal movie credits roll, that’s fine. Cast, crew, music and location credits. Then we get to the geographic specific stuff, the dubbing and additional voice credits.

For a sequel, this movie stands up really well. I think there was some concern in our household about how exactly a kid would get stranded in a completely different state, but actually the circumstances made sense. They wouldn’t happen these days, obviously, and there’s no doubt that the mother really needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror, but as setups go, it worked.

I love this album, not quite as much as the first from The Calling but really good. The first half I know very well, from a time when I would start listening to albums and get bored halfway through. So the first half is stacked full of tunes, and the second half, whilst it tails off for me, is still really good.

Wasn’t really on board with this one. The new albums haven’t been that inspiring for a few weeks now, and I sort of just gave in to listening to a bit of bog-standard pop. That’s exactly what this is, a few fun songs but for the most part just poppy background music.

I liked the concept of a couple that never meet but correspond mostly through notes. It was even better than I thought it was going to be, especially considering the two heroes don’t even meet until at least halfway through. But you’re gripped by the two lives, each having their own problems that somehow keep them apart but also drive them closer together.

This is such a terrible movie. Not even the normal fun but stupid holiday adventure. It’s badly written with terrible dialogue and goofy acting, and it really, genuinely feels like it was made by young movie students.

This psychological thriller tells the story of a very dysfunctional family dealing with a lot of history that was considered buried. The trouble is, the two big twists are both so obvious right from the start, that for most of the first half of the book, you’re just waiting for it to happen. I’ll admit that I didn’t see just how far it was going to go, nor how the ending would pan out, but for the most part, you’re not really left guessing.

Quarter finals, musicals week, the famous five, all the ingredients for a fun show. It’s amazing how short and sweet the broadcasts are now - just an hour of dancing and we’re done. But we’re getting close to the end now, who will miss out on the semi-final spot? Here’s my thoughts throughout the show. This is an opening. Anton and Kevin singing?? Craig? Bruno being under-utilised for a change? Too much!

I love the book, I’ve read it a couple of times and the film picks out the best of the tension and the most important of the plot developments to generate a tension-filled two hours. From the very start, there’s a general feeling of inevitable dread that doesn’t let up until that explosion at the end.

This time last year, I had seen zero music concerts. Basically my entire life. Plenty of theatre and musicals and stuff, but no musicians up on stage giving it their all. Fast forward twelve months and I’ve wrapped up my fifth visit of the year with a similar number already scheduled for next year. Turns out I was missing out on quite a lot and I have a lot of ground to make up.

So… the first of December rolled around and immediately I re-subscribed for Netflix, and got watching their latest Christmas movie offerings. This one, it was fun in the moment with a glass of wine and getting that early festive spirit on but oh no, it wasn’t a good movie. You sort of know it’s not going to be groundbreaking with the concept - a knight time travels and something about Christmas? Oh-kay.

When Mischief Theatre announced a year-long residency at the Vaudeville in London, I was intrigued and determined to see as much of the output as possible. I’ve previously seen their plays and pantos and bank robberies that go wrong, and consider myself officially obsessed with this comedy troupe. The first of three shows wraps up this weekend, and I just managed to catch Groan Ups “before term ended”. Unlike The Play That Goes Wrong and the other shows, which are basically non-stop slapstick comedy, Groan Ups is character-driven, with a story that tracks the lives of five friends from about 6 years old, to 14, and then to adulthood.

I’m a big Garry Marshall fan at this point, but I have to admit this a) wasn’t the film I thought it was going to be and b) wasn’t as good as I hoped it might be. I did like that neither of the characters was a particularly good person - hard reporter saying horrible things about people he doesn’t know versus woman who really does leave a trail of destruction in her wake.

You have to love The Cardigans, great 90s music that just makes time goes faster. Erase and Rewind is great, obviously, but the whole thing stands up. Back then, this album was a way of the band changing their image a little - darker than what had gone before.

I didn’t really know anything about FKA twigs before listening to this album and I suspect I should have done a bit more research before diving headfirst into it. This is Bjork-style quirky music, creative and arty but in all honesty, not that great to actually listen to.

Okay, people, things are getting serious. Partly because Saturday night was some of the first wine I’d had after being ill for a bit, and also because we’re edging closer to the part of the competition where all the episodes end in -final. Whoever gets through this is into the quarter-finals, Musicals week. Let’s go! Actually, before we start, just gotta say… Bruno sings?? AJ and Saffron up first and wow, the song is so slow. It drags the whole thing down, feels heavy. Samba is so hard but somehow she was making it look hard too. Good effort but not quite perfect.

I love script books and I, like many others, absolutely adored Fleabag so snapping this up was a no-brainer. I thought there were going to be more notes and asides from the author but as I was reading through it, I kind of realised I was happy with just the scripts. Fleabag is such a wonderful love story, not about Harry or the Priest but about Fleabag finding and loving herself.

Right. Well. Here’s the thing. I used to love this film. Genuinely thought it was one of my favourites and I have been waiting for SO LONG for it to be available anywhere on demand, but it has been stubbornly absent. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it popped up on the iPlayer and I was ready to watch straight away.

Went into this one slightly concerned it wouldn’t have aged well, and knowing John Cleese is verging on a bad reputation. But this is what he does best, running around furious at everything. The haircuts didn’t age well and the cars definitely didn’t, but the rest of it stood up.

I’ve seen this before once, I think, a while back and I was nervous about watching it again because I thought it was going to be problematic. You know, teacher/student relationship, age differences, etc, etc. Actually, they handled that better than I’d expected, and it’s a good movie. It’s got funny moments, a good cast, and Drew is just wonderful in it.

This debut album from Eternal plunges you straight into the 90s and it’s wonderful. There are a few stand out tracks on there, particularly Just a Step from Heaven, alongside a couple of well-done covers, but mostly it’s just those great pre-millennium pop beats.

Oof, I wanted to like this one, because I love the band and some of their previous songs. But it was just really dull. None of the songs stood out and as a body of work, it just sort of lulls you along with sweeping love songs and huge emotions.

This was an Apple Books offer and I fancied reading something quite frothy and light. This was the perfect choice. A mother and her two daughters guide us through the story of a hastily organised wedding in Aspen at Christmas. All three women have secrets they are hiding from each other, and have quite a lot of soul-searching to do if the festive nuptials are to go ahead without a hitch.

Weirdly, it was somehow better than expected and also worse than expected. I was not a fan of the cyborg Idris, nor his Transformers motorbike. This isn’t a sci-fi series, and I know they sometimes push the boundaries of physics but at least it’s for the most part based in reality. This was just rubbish.

I can totally see why this movie, released in the same summer as Armageddon, was overshadowed by its competitor. Somehow, despite a stellar cast, you don’t really latch on to any of the characters, except the president because, you know, Morgan Freeman. It feels a little darker than Armageddon too, because of the decisions made around who gets saved, who isn’t, conflicts created by such things.

When I told people I was going to see Charles Esten, I was usually met with a confused “who?” which, unless you are a fan of the TV show Nashville, is totally fair enough. Esten featured on that show as Deacon, one of the main guitar-playing country-singing characters through the entire run. And so, even though I didn’t really know much of him outside of this show, seeing him pop up in Bristol during a small tour of the UK meant instant ticket purchase. The pre-concert research included finding out that he doesn’t have an album because he was focused on releasing 54 singles, one a week, to break a Guinness World Record. He called it Every Single Friday, which is a bit of genius.

I am intensely aware that my recent posts have been all Apple this and Apple that. With Arcade and Books and Oprah and Swift and more, it’s like everything has come out all at the same time. I’m loving the content on Apple TV+ but some of it has been harder work than others. Dickinson was a surefire hit, but For All Mankind took some perseverance. The first episode didn’t grab me at all. This show is an alternative take on the history of the moon landings, whereby instead of the US getting their feet on the lunar surface first, the Russians won the space race.

Oprah’s latest book pick is the sequel to this, the original adventures of one Olive Kitteridge. I’m always one to start at the beginning so I dived headfirst into this and I loved it. It’s a series of stories from a small coastal town in Maine, that are standalone but intertwine and gradually tell the story of Olive and those who interact with her.

Blackpool! That’s all we need to say about that. In other news, at this point, all the dancers left are really good and have earned their spot on the big ballroom floor, so I was looking forward to this show being of really high dance quality… and I wasn’t disappointed! Great opening number with all the professionals, celebrities, and the bonus Blackpool dancers. It was quite weird to see our contestants dancing with each other, ie. at one point I spotted Karim and Alex having a boogie. Very odd.

I knew I was going to love Dickinson because, from the trailer, it was a modern take on the early life of this infamous poet. I’ll be honest and admit to knowing little about Emily other than her name, but as soon as I knew Hailee Steinfeld was in it, I was on board. And it was SO GOOD. Ten half-hour episodes of Hailee and her friends reinventing what a good period piece is. Here are five things to love about this new and exciting show, that thankfully has been renewed for a second series already:

Sure, the last thing the world needs is another television streaming service and yes, there is a question mark about where Britbox sits in the current market but you know what? I kinda like it. Britbox is a long-in-coming platform initiated by ITV and the BBC, with Channel 4 and Channel 5 on board, to offer UK-based programming to mostly a UK-based audience. It sounds like a good thing, bringing together the main terrestrial channels from the big four, but it does get a bit wobbly when you start to look at what’s available.

Having seen Little Mix live, it was only natural to catch up on their back catalogue, although I’m only missing one album after this one. DNA was their first effort and it’s stacked with great songs, it’s no wonder the girls took off like they did.

The previous album from The Script had to grow on me a little, took some time to really get to grips with it. This one was back to The Script at their best - great songs that grab you first time. The only one that didn’t quite work for me was Underdog and not because it wasn’t great, but because it felt like it was trying too hard to be Hall of Fame.

This is the time of year when people start talking about the C word - that festive period where you will either be wondering how much cash you might receive as a gift, or pondering how much it might be wise to spend on eggnog, or maybe even thinking about how you can revamp your finances for the new year. I’ve thought about money and finances a lot this year and it’s been an interesting, frustrating and sometimes rewarding process. One of the key finds was Monzo. Monzo have been around for about four years now and already have racked up over 3 million users, which is supremely impressive.

Is it Blackpool time?? Not quite yet but it is Blackpool drinking time. DRINK. I actually didn’t think the number of B word mentions was as high as it has been in the past, but maybe I was just mellow with a glass of wine in hand. It’s that point in the competition, unfortunately helped by Will’s early exit, that when the dancers gather on the floor at the beginning, it’s starting to look quite empty. They still know how to put on a good show though.

At the start of this year, I made good progress with learning Swift but of course two things got in the way - real life, and then SwiftUI. When SwiftUI was announced in June, it sounded too good to be true (anything to not have to use interface builder anymore) but I figured I’d be better off waiting to see what it had to offer before continuing my journey.

I surprised myself with this one, I thought I was going to love it and when it first kicked in I was enjoying but gradually as the album wore on, I just started to really dislike it.

I loved this album. It felt like a really compact work but bursting at the seams with thoughts, ideas, and honest reflections - about the world, about love, about family, everything under the sun.