If you’re ever reviewing your finances, it’s easy to look at the bigger picture: current accounts, savings, mortgages. But as the saying goes, it’s useful to look after those pennies as well because they can start to add up to more meaningful numbers. The Pennies app helps you do just that, with a super simple and clean interface that sets up a budget and tries to ensure you stick to it.

Feeling a little the worse for wear from our weekend at two music concerts, we decided the ideal remedy was to head to the Edgbaston Priory Club for a spot of tennis. It’s the second year in a row we’ve attended the event, and was just as good this time round. There’s a nice relaxed feeling at Edgbaston, in fact when you walk in it feels more like a summer fete, with lots of kids with racquets running around and the smells of barbecue wafting in the air.

My write up of our outing to see the Spice Girls at Wembley mentions the fact that I had previously not been a concert-going person. I had practically no experience of seeing music live and in person, but that was all set to change that year. My realisation that I could now probably cope with it all coincided nicely with the Backstreet Boys going on their huge DNA World Tour. To celebrate (and encourage) me going, we decided to go VIP and make a nice big deal of my first proper concert experience.

The Spice Girls recently wrapped up a short UK reunion tour with three dates at Wembley Stadium and I was at the middle one. It turns out that Mr C saw them live way back when and when he got his hands on tickets for the Spice World 2019 Tour, he somehow convinced me to go with him. Now I’ve previously not been a concert-going person. I’ve been to one small gig that barely counts, and I’ve abandoned a comedian halfway through their arena set because I was not enjoying the concept at all. So a hugely popular reunion tour full of excitable fans, at Wembley stadium no less, seemed like the perfect event to change things.

Obviously I knew the main plot points and how it all unravelled but it was still really fascinating to see how they worked through it on the screen. It worked pretty well. I wonder if I wouldn’t have struggled a little to start with, it felt quite confusing despite me already knowing the plot, but it soon settled down into a good unpredictable thriller.

I was kind of just enjoying this film as a 90s comedy movie where Joe Pesci does what he does. But as it wore on and Marisa Tomei got more and more awesome, I really fell in love with it. A good courtroom fight is always fun, and this had twists and turns along the way. But Marisa won the day and did so in great style.

Let the games begin!

Union Jack dress count so far is six and rising.

Mr C needed a friend to see the Spice Girls with him so here I am!

I’d sort of only heard of Open Farm Sunday from when I used to listen to The Archers. But finally I have tracked one down and attended. Cute animals, robotic milking machines, a walk through the fields. What’s not to like?

I wasn’t really aware of Five for Fighting before, although it turns out that I know the Superman song from the Axis of Awesome multi-song extravaganza. Also, as it turns out, that ruined that song for me because it’s impossible not to sing ‘I’m a birdplane’ in the relevant places.

I kinda missed the Jonas Brothers thing first time round, so I wasn’t as hyped up by their big return as I know many people were. Having said that, though, I really liked this album. I had some concerns because I was disappointed by the DNCE album after enjoying the singles. This time, it wasn’t a disappointment.

My parents recommended a visit to the Purton Ship Graveyard, where boats go to die. It’s an area of river-side fronting on the River Severn, with a canal not so far inland. The land was eroding too much and so to protect the canal, boats were deliberately brought in and abandoned on the shore. According to the Friends of Purton, there are 96 boats scattered along the riverbank. It’s bizarre, incongruous but ultimately quite beautiful.

You’d probably have to have been living under a rock to have missed that there was a docu-drama programme telling the story of the Chernobyl Nuclear Reactor disaster and what happened afterwards. It has been very well received and widely considered one of the best things on TV so far. I’m not going to add too much to the overwhelming level of support this TV series has got, because I too thought it was incredible. It’s grim viewing, and you can’t really say you enjoyed it after seeing the whole thing, but there’s something about it that grabs you and won’t let you go. The acting is incredible, the visuals astounding and the story is something else.

Two recent conversations about movies have made me realise there’s a key component of the digital rental process that is missing and would make life so much better. At the moment, on Apple in particular, you can buy a film for a high price initially that drops the longer a film has been in the world. Or you can rent a film for a slightly lower price but only keep it for a certain amount of time.

I was expecting this one to be your standard fluffy rom-com style movie, but it had more layers and more humour to it than I was expecting. Firstly, of course, it’s inspirational - be who you want to be, lying might get your far but it won’t be easy to live with, and that you can make a success of your life with or without a college degree, even if it doesn’t quite go to plan.

I was nervous about watching this film because I vividly remember the first one being overwhelming and exhausting. It’s the bright colours teamed with the volume of references (both audio and visual). This film carries on in much the same vain and was equally exhausting. It’s good, though, don’t get me wrong. The voice acting is fabulous, the meta references are wonderful and there is underneath it all a really good and sort of heartwarming story about family.

Every year, Mr C and I sit down and watch the Apple Design awards. Every year we download several of the apps that we’ve missed over the months. And every single year, Mr C says: “They should do more with the design awards, a podcast, a TV show. You should blog it.” I was confident I already had, and looking through the archives proves me right, but I can’t quite believe it was four years ago.

So, Mr C and I have a history of arguing about Richard Marx - I’m on the record as forecasting that his song Hazard will be the one and only reason we ever get divorced. However, that’s not on this album so I can have no complaints. And I actually have no complaints anyway, I really enjoyed it. Nice, proper eighties pop rock, good tunes. I had only heard of Right Here Waiting before listening to this, and that was a highlight, but I think the whole album stacks up.

Technically, I choose the albums for the current year but actually this one came from Mr C. Apple Music updated their recommendation pages and this album just popped up out of nowhere. He listened and said it was worth a go, and with no other more pressing albums being released this week, I opted to give it a go. I’m glad I did, it was a highlight of the year so far! The album is relaxed, reminiscent of The XX and Of Monsters and Men, and just guides you simply from start to finish through some really good songs, great melodies and warm feelings.

I’ve been watching Apple WWDC keynotes for a few years now, and they’re often quite interesting with bits and pieces that make a difference to me and how I use my devices. This year seemed different – perhaps because I made strides towards learning Swift and being a developer myself, but perhaps also because they announced such a lot of things. I was hooked, and afterwards my brain was buzzing.

This was a surprise. The trailer made it look totally watchable but in reality, it was brilliant! The main four cast are obviously fantastic, and they seem to have a good chemistry which is a good start to making a film like this work. Throw in a rather attractive pilot in Andy Garcia as well as some other likeable significant others and you’ve got all you need.

I was a bit nervous about this one, anything that’s a bit punky or aggressive represents a challenge for me. But I actually liked it. I think I maybe didn’t take it in as much as I should have so this is one I will listen to again in future just to make sure.

This isn’t an album I was particularly excited about listening to but I have liked Khalid’s work previously so a new record is always going to be appreciated. This one was good, some fine songs, but it’s all just a bit too relaxed. I don’t know if there is such a thing as being too chilled but if there is, then this album is the epitome of it.

The opening sequence on the beach is harrowing, mind-blowing, intense, a sensory overload that really brings to life the horrors of war in a way that no other film has managed to do so. (For me, so far.) Once that’s through, there’s still two hours of horror, war, tension, needless death, moral questions but also camaraderie, bravery, dark humour, and really some astonishing scenes.

I suspect I have talked before at length about how fun I find the Apple Watch activity badges, and how they encourage me to keep moving. Recently I’ve been less obsessed with them, getting on with my own plans and seeing what badges fall my way without forcing it. However, this month, something weird happened and I wanted to get the monthly badge so desperately despite the odds being significantly against me. It was a calorie count achievement, and it seemed quite tricky but I was making good progress. Then I had a bad few days and figured I probably wasn’t going to get the badge after all. Except on the final day of the month, it was tantalisingly close.

I was a bit nervous about this one, anything that’s a bit punky or aggressive represents a challenge for me. But I actually liked it. I think I maybe didn’t take it in as much as I should have so this is one I will listen to again in future just to make sure.

So on to the album itself, it was quite reminiscent of her older stuff, a nice gentle re-introduction to R&B. But on the flip side, it didn’t really move forward much and wasn’t all that memorable. Nice to listen to and some of the songs had strong uplifting sentiments but I’m not sure I’d seek this out again in future.

These movies are so good because they’re like James Bond but without all the other crap that goes along with being Bond. Fun locations, spy games, lots of action and the occasional bit of humour. But no misogyny, no having to bother about the politics, and not a whole lot of talking really.

I’ve never really got on that well with Siri. Apple’s voice activated assistant can do some cool things but she never really listens to me and I find it easier just to swipe and tap to get what I want. I’m not alone in getting frustrated with Siri, but I’ve long been complaining to Mr C that she just doesn’t listen to me. He’s not experienced the same level of problems and I was taking it personally.

I can’t believe I haven’t reviewed this one before because I first read it a long, long time ago and have dived back into it a handful of times since. It’s one of those long standing favourites, a bit of comfort reading when you’re not ready for something new. Michael Crichton is a firm favourite of mine, and this being a time travel book, it’s bound to be up there with the best. I love the writing, that it starts out quite sedately albeit with the intriguing mystery, and gradually ramping up as things get hectic and time gets tight.

We spent quite a lot of time going, ooh Matrix and ooh Speed, but actually, this film did seem to avoid most of the normal action cliches. He spent the whole time looking for this guy and then eventually dispatched him with just a couple of gunshots. And it was quite fun how cars seemed to be his nemesis. He could fight a hundred people at once, but got hit by at least three cars.

Well, that escalated quickly. From testing out a random Cornish beer in a bottle, now I’m faced with a 5 litre keg of the stuff. Despite being called a mini keg, this thing is so big we had to dismantle the lower third of our fridge. Which in turn means we now have no food to eat, but five litres of prime Cornish ale will see us through, I’m sure.

Game of Thrones spoilers within! Hey people, we did it! I mean, I can’t pretend that I have joined you all on an epic eight year long journey to find out who would finally be sitting on the Iron Throne, but it has been a pretty intense ride for me too. I think the fact that I binge watched all eight series in about six weeks means that I’ve a slightly different perspective than the ardent fans who have waited and wondered and sat patiently and theorised and loved and let this show take over their lives. However, I do still have thoughts to share and here are some of them.

Backstreet Boys have been celebrating the launch of their new tour, 20 years of their best album Millennium, and a host of other things. Lots of content, tweets, videos, competitions, the works. I really liked the recent videos they released featuring their videos from the Millennium album with added information. It’s like the good old days when MTV was actually comprised of music videos, and you could sit all day and watch pop videos with bonus trivia in the lower thirds. Ahh, there is a gap in the market for that, surely?

The trailer to this didn’t really make any sense to me, and didn’t make me want to see the film with any rapidity - that’s part of the reason it’s taken so long to watch it. Actually, the story does make sense and holds its own quite well. I don’t think I liked it as much as the first one but it had more story and morals and plot points which made it kinda different.

I’ve read the book this film is based upon and really liked it but knew it was going to take a little while to muster the courage to watch the film - it’s going to be an emotional rollercoaster, I thought. And yea, it was exactly that.

Late last year, restaurant chain Frankie & Benny’s launched an initiative to ban families from using their mobile phones whilst having dinner. As in, handing over your phone to the restaurant while you ate, and then getting it back at the end if you were a good family and ate up all your greens. I, as well as many others, was outraged at the restaurant’s audacity, controlling streak, as well as just the general tone of disapproval of people who use phones at table.

I loved this! I know of Blondie’s famous singles but didn’t know much about the albums of the band. This was such a good one. Punk, a bit poppy, rock and of course, a superbly awesome woman helming it all. It was a bit more punk than I was expecting but not so much that it was alienating to me.

I like Rob Thomas’ music and the sound of his pop and thankfully this album is much more of the same from him. He has admitted that he wrote this album for the fans, rather than pushing the envelope or trying out a new genre. Instead, it’s just that nice strong pop (that sounded amazing whilst out for a walk in the sunshine). It has a bit of a retro feel in places, which also appeals, as it has nods to the 80s without going over the top. It’s not a classic, but it’s certainly another listenable album to add to the collection.

A walk around Glastonbury Abbey is well worth it, they are exceptional ruins. Especially on a nice and peaceful day.

I can see the Pyramid stage. That means I have practically booked my spot, right?

So many thoughts! First opinion is that this was an epic film on such a grand scale and just so moving. It captured me almost instantly, with that crazy stressful start to a movie and then it never let up. The biggest highlight is the insanely good cinematography that grabs you, thrusts you into the heart of the action, makes you look at things differently and from angles that only the real participants could have seen, and then leaves you to deal with the consequences. I genuinely thought I was inside every rocket that Armstrong was in, I felt that claustrophobic and breathy intensity, and I was more than invested in every step he took.

I’ve been up and running with this new website structure for about two weeks now and I’m still loving it. I don’t know if it’s just the novelty of it all or if the effort gone into simplifying everything has paid off, but I want to blog more and when I do, I write more too. The film and album review process is more immediate which means I have more thoughts and more to say. That can only be a good thing.

This is the last of the Backstreet Boys albums that I was properly obsessed with when it came out, and that has me pondering: do I like this album because it’s good or do I like it because I know it so well? If I listened to it for the first time now would I love it as much as I do? I don’t have the answer for that but all I can say is that I do love it.

The album starts well but I really do not like that song (Sunflower) even though it’s only two minutes. The good bits of the album are good, the bad are bad, so overall it is somewhere in the middle. It did mostly just make me want to listen to Haim again though.

Just a bit of inspiration from an old episode of Radio 1’s Screen Time podcast with Ali Plumb. As I’ve said to people on Instagram and Twitter quite a lot lately, don’t be ashamed of your opinions. If you happen to, for example, not like The Favourite, and everyone’s saying how amazing it is, but you’re like, I don’t like it. Don’t feel ashamed, don’t be like, oh I’ve got to watch it again so I can teach myself to like it.

Oh god, it was just so boring! I knew going into it that I had forgotten a good portion of the first film. But I thought I had enough of a hazy memory to get by. The guy who had his memory wiped, Newt and his nifflers, and Grindelwald at the end, with the kid that turned into a black scribble mess in the sky. That should do it right?

The negative reviews that this film has garnered had me a bit nervous about what on earth I was going to watch, and that’s why it’s taken so long to get round to viewing it. But actually, it was an alright film. There wasn’t really anything wrong with it as films go, the problem is just that it didn’t really add anything to the Star Wars story.