Whilst I am up to date with The Good Place (makes a change!), I hadn’t realised there was a podcast from the makers that dated back to the end of series one. Recently I heard some chatter about how good the podcast was, and so I quickly subscribed and started catching up. The chatter was right, this show is really good. Obviously you should only listen if you have watched the show they are talking about, but once you’re in the know, the extra insight you gain from this podcast is incredible. Hosted by actor Marc Evan Jackson, who is in the show, the podcast gathers a rotating guest list of other actors (including stars Ted Danson and Kristen Bell), as well as creators, writers, directors, producers, wardrobe, set designers, visual effects, anyone who is involved in making The Good Place as good as it sounds.

First proper walk of the year. Felt more like May than February, although I’m glad it’s not. The first two months of the year have gone quick enough, thank you.

A couple of weeks ago, BTSport’s tennis coverage switched to the latest rounds of the Fed Cup - the self-styled World Cup of tennis wherein players team up according to their country and battle it out to win the tournament and be best across the globe. The British team were playing on British soil for the first time in several years, and were doing pretty well, so it was some constant and slightly one-sided broadcasts that we watched but even so, it was brilliant! I’ve not really paid this tournament any attention before but now I’m hooked!

My Swift journey so far has been stop/start in nature, but recently it has become one of those hobbies that occupies a significant portion of my mind, one that I think about a solid 90% of the day. That’s good, really, because it’s a useful skill, coding, and one I am still very much at the early stages of grappling with. I’m never quite sure how much detail to go into here, really, because is it interesting to read about someone else learning how to code? I don’t know. What I am confident in, though, is sharing the resources that are helping me along the way.

Somehow I have nothing really to say about the songs on this one, it was just your regular country tracks. The thing I didn’t like, as always, was the handful of tracks that were some irritating guy leaving voicemails about random stuff. I just don’t want that kind of thing interrupting my music - it wasn’t funny but even if it was, it wouldn’t stand up to more than one or two listens.

I really liked this album! It’s punk but not too extreme, great tunes, a fab sound that grabs you by the elbow and sweeps you along to the end, rocking out all the way. I didn’t think I was going to be a fan but I really enjoyed the full album.

I love reading John Grisham’s legal thrillers so I don’t really need an excuse to pick one up, however I was urged towards this after watching the film. The movie is very close to the book, but my word the novel moves glacially slowly. You can see that it’s pace is designed to ramp up the tensions felt by everyone involved but it does make it a bit of a slog, especially in the middle.

Pretty good sequel, all things considered. It’s hard to do follow ups when the panda has already achieved everything his heart desired. This is a good story though, the threat real. There’s perhaps a bit more fighting than I’d have liked, but it’s nicely offset by the cuteness of the baby panda flashbacks. Dude, seriously.

I wasn’t blown away by the first movie of this series, but the dragon was cute and the voice-cast good so the second one was worth a go. I kinda wish I hadn’t. It was all fine, interesting enough story, the odd funny moment and Toothless was being much cuter in this one.

So I’ve just binge watched all six Rocky films in a row, not all in one day, I’m not a maniac, but without watching other films in between. Somehow despite having the least interest in, and probably actively disliking boxing, these films grabbed my attention and became something of an obsession. The drama is brilliant. The dialogue nutty. The training montages legendary. What I loved most of all, though, was how inspirational Rocky is as a character. A simple guy who just wants to do right and do what he loves. He likes people, he respects people, he sticks up for people and he thinks the best of everyone.

I can’t remember how I stumbled upon the podcast Everything is Alive but I know I listened to the first episode about a can of cola and found myself oddly moved and disturbed at the same time. It’s not often something has that effect on you. The premise of the show is simple but weird. Our host interviews inanimate objects, except they are not as inanimate as you might think. They have voices, thoughts, past histories and philosophies, insights into the human condition as seen from a point of view I can guarantee you won’t have thought of.

Well, I can see why Sylvester wanted to come back and finish off the series properly but I have to admit I was concerned about this one. It’s so much later and he’s so much older, how is he ever going to get back in the ring again? That’s kinda what the film is about, although it takes a long way round in getting there – showing instead the often overlooked things about life after your famous career has pretty much ended.

Mr C and I don’t go much in for the Valentine’s Day thing but something happened this week that it’s important to document. After years of searching (more than a decade), I have finally found OUR SONG. It turns out, this On the Record thing that I’ve been studiously documenting for the last 3+ years has finally been worth it. This week, Mr C selected Huey Lewis & the News (he doesn’t always get his picks from Carpool Karaoke, honest), who of course I only know from Back to the Future.

I was aware of Huey from the Back to the Future soundtrack but I didn’t have much clue of his other work. Somehow, I had heard of a few more songs than I thought, and it turns out, I really enjoyed the whole album. It’s quite eighties but in a nice soft pop rock way that made me feel happy, and it’s always good when a record leaves you feeling like that.

I was surprised at the quickness of this album from Ariana after the last one, and if I’m honest, I wasn’t as keen. Sweetener took a while to grow on me but had a vibe that I quite liked. This one seemed to veer too far in the mean direction - 7 Rings has a hook that just annoys me, and the I’m Bored song is harsh. Thank U Next is great, but that may be the only one I take away from this album.

After Rocky IV didn’t quite live up to the expectations of the previous three outings, I wasn’t expecting too much from this fifth Rocky appearance. Thankfully, it was a lot better than that one. I have to admit that the kid was pretty annoying, and any moment he was wearing that dangling earring, I wanted to rip it out of his ear.

Ah, love Truly Madly Deeply so the rest only has to follow on from there. The album starts off with the most famous songs which gets things off to a good start, although then it does mean you’ve done the best by about track four. Nevertheless, the rest of the album is great and reminded me favourably of the late 1990s.

So I know of Fonsi from his work with Demi and, of course, Justin, and those songs as well as other collaborations are all featured on this bursting at the seams album. It’s good music too, great rhythms and some catchy beats. Some of the slower numbers weren’t really to my tastes but overall a solid album and well worth a listen.

Well, this is a dip in the franchise, I’ll admit. It has the elements that have made the previous three Rocky movies good, but it juuuust kinda tips them too far into being less enjoyable. For example, the situation: Russia vs the US, seems a bit old now, maybe it was more exciting at the time.

Not a huge amount to add commentary-wise to this one over the previous Rocky’s, I really enjoyed it - it felt a bit weird that Apollo suddenly changed sides like that, but the way it was written made sense and you soon get used to it. Like I said above, that’s a bromance I really want more of!

It took just over a month, but we finished Spider-Man on the PS4 and what an adventure it was. Those early days were brilliant, working our way through the main mission, the side challenges and generally just swinging through the city. The game got gradually harder, as you might expect, but it was also more rewarding. There were three things, however, that really dipped our love of the game and now I can’t decide whether I overall really liked it or not. (Spoilers from here on in.) Firstly, we took a two week break from playing which was partly to do with being ill but also quite a lot to do with knowing that the next bit we had to do was play as MJ. Those scenes playing as Miles or MJ were so frustrating. Slow and sneaky was the aim and constantly being spotted and captured and starting over again, it wasn’t fun.

Weezer surprised everyone last week by releasing a covers album stacked full of proper tunes. I had a listen through and it’s good, although I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of covers for the sake of it. Many of their versions sound just like the originals, so then you’re left wondering exactly what the point of it is. Having said that, their version of No Scrubs is fabulous, a stand out song.

Mariah Carey’s diva reputation means I haven’t always wanted to pay attention to her, but you can’t argue that when she put her mind to it, she made a lot of good music. This album is stacked with some great tunes, although I was surprised at the cover of Open Arms - how did I miss that Mariah did this Journey cover? Anyway, all good, I enjoyed the listen.

My Backstreet Boys fandom sort of took a dip in the middle there, the last few albums I’ve not really paid too much attention to. But now I’m back on it, and thankfully, so are they! I really enjoyed this one, there are some great tunes on here and yea, they have grown up and are more reflective and thoughtful, but that’s no bad thing.

Catching up with a recent Graham Norton Show episode, The 1975 were on to promote their latest album and tour and whatnot, and I believe they might have told the greatest story that’s been on that show. Matty Healy, talking on behalf of his bandmate, described to Saoirse Ronan and assembled guests a situation regarding one of her movies. Adam came into rehearsal ages ago, once, and he said to me, he was like: “Have you seen that Lovely Bones film?” And I was like “Yeah.” And he was like, “It’s mad, isn’t it?” I was like: “It’s great, it’s good.”

As mentioned in the previous Rocky post, I was eager to know what happened next in the life of this humble but talkative Philadelphia boxer. This second film is just as good as the first, continuing the story of his rivalry with Apollo Creed but this time coming up with a different ending.

Where to begin with this? I’ve known for a while that I need to start watching Rocky, partly because it’s culturally relevant but also because people have been raving about the new Creed movies and I feel like I’m missing out. The problem, of course, is that I am less than a fan of boxing and that’s the main premise of all of the above.

Lovely Shakira, this is a great album. It starts with three classics, and has great latin rhythms from there. The only downside to it is the same thing I complained about on Enrique’s album - putting the same songs at the end only in Spanish is cheating a little bit. Somehow I forgive Shakira more though, because they’re such good bops.

The thing about Mumford & Sons, to me, is that they make good albums, they’re just not at all memorable. They’re great background music, steady, folky, and all really nice. But it doesn’t stand out and it doesn’t make me want to seek out any more. Nothing wrong with it at all but not my favourite.

I think this movie is better than the first one, and it’s nice to have the solid foundation of Fiona and Shrek as a couple (albeit a foundation that is given a test during this story). My brain being a bit fuzzy from illness, I actually found it quite hard to follow the layers of potions on top of potions, but if you just go with it, it’s quite a lot of fun.

We were medium happy with the first Ice Age movie, and having scooped up the rest of the pack in a Blue Sky bundle, we figured it was worth watching the sequel. I think I liked it more than the first, a serious situation about climate change lends itself to an interesting and funny story - animals on the move, alongside being the last of your species (or not), and believing you’re one thing when it turns out you’re another.

This is the weakest of the animations we’ve watched so far - both story-wise and in terms of visuals. Having already enjoyed the Penguins movie, I was naturally disappointed about how much the penguins featured in this, they were the stars of the show and criminally underused.

People love this movie, and it’s good but I have to admit I wasn’t completely blown away by it all. There was some underlying flaws which irritated (the kid was obsessed with being as good as the others but didn’t bother trying to get fitter or anything? And why didn’t the dragons just fly away from the massive dragon they were all scared of? What was keeping them there?).

So, the biggest question is, why have I not watched this before? It’s a great big fluffy adorable panda for goodness’ sake? But, righting that wrong now, thank goodness the film stands up to the cute main character. Good story, great cast, fab animation, lots of fun jokes and of course, lots of great wisdom to take away. It did feel a bit like Star Wars goes to China but I loved it.

I’d never particularly heard of this film, but it was an easy movie to sit through at the start of what became a huge off-sick-binge-marathon. A solidly eighties film, entertaining enough, but it didn’t quite stand up to something as famous as ET.

I was kinda hoping to really like this album, what with Rod Stewart being a legend and all. I like the songs that I already knew, the classics, but the rest of it wasn’t that interesting. It’s a shame but I’m glad I gave it a go.

This was an okay album, listenable, but I didn’t really rate it as much as I had been hoping to. Missing U is a great song, but the rest of it kinda pales into comparison. Not memorable but worth a go if you’re a Robyn fan.

I think this is a book that we read in school, but if that is the case, I don’t remember very much about it. I had a vague feeling it was a difficult read but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I loved the way it started with just a small boy being dumped in some long grass, and gradually his world expanded more and more until you get to the end where there’s a whole adult life still to be explored.

An interesting piece about film credits aired on Marketplace last week, discussing why the in- and out- credits on films have gotten so much longer than previously. It explained why this has occurred and started with a look at the closing scroll on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. “The credits last a whopping nine minutes and thirty seconds, that’s an addition of more than three minutes over the original 1993 Jurassic Park…

I don’t remember why I bought this because I haven’t yet seen the TV show and was only vaguely aware of the phenomenon. But I’m glad I did buy it because it was actually a really good read. I wouldn’t have said that historical Cornish fiction would be my cup of tea, but I liked it. There’s a detached way of telling the story that I really like, whilst we sometimes get a glimpse inside the character’s head, for the most part we have to infer what their motivation is.

Well this is just a great classic band, and the disco numbers on this album are untouchable. I wasn’t quite so keen on the instrumental stuff but that’s just me, really, and not a reflection on them. I’m interested to hear more of Chic and find out if it’s all quite a lot of the same stuff, or if they progress in any way.

Great album, this one. I sort of lost track of Amy Shark after she was featured as a Beats 1 Up Next artist, but realised I hadn’t listened to the album. It was brilliant and I’m now annoyed that I didn’t listen to it last year as it might have appeared in my top five somewhere. Great songs, lovely music, and it’s quite an unusual, offbeat and unique sound in the current climate.

This game just keeps on delivering. It’s getting harder as we progress, obviously, but then you get moments like this that are so worth it!

One of the things that brightens an otherwise dull January is the return of tennis. Things in tennis-land go quiet in December, once the finals are all complete and players are taking a well-deserved rest. But the WTA swings back into action in January, and we are already saturated with coverage. Brisbane, Auckland, Shenzhen and some bonus Hopman Cup were all available on our screens this past week. With a year of the ups and downs of the tennis rollercoaster ahead, here are five things I’m looking forward to:

There are lots of articles written at this time of year looking back on the months gone and looking forward to the next twelve, and I’ve been intrigued by the variety of “best upcoming films” that have been touted. How many of them am I looking forward to? I had a browse through a few articles (Wired and The Guardian, in particular) and picked out the films that stood out to me.

Before we get into the album adventure for 2019, it’s worth a quick reminder of why this project even started and if we have made any progress on the original premise. Three years ago, it all kicked off when a conversation on Peter Kay’s Car Share caused a real life debate in our household. I was on Kayleigh’s side, that you could have whatever album you wanted as your favourite, whether it is a compilation or not. Mr C was firmly on the side of Peter Kay/John, who rejected the idea of a compilation album being eligible for selection as your favourite.

I’ve seen a lot of debate recently about the usefulness of new year’s resolutions - are we putting too much pressure on ourselves? Are we pushing for hard to achieve activities when we should be revelling more in what we have and who we are? I think there can be an element of this and I can respect those who don’t care for a resolution one way or the other. I personally think, however, that it’s a great time of year to consider what you’ve done and what you might like to do in the coming months. Self-reflection can be useful.

From a quick, refreshing walk around an RSPB nature reserve. I know the camera in my phone isn’t ideal for this kind of photography, but I still like the patterns created.

I had such a rollercoaster with this album, was looking forward to it, then was mad that it wasn’t available, then avoided it for as long as possible. Actually, I liked it. First listen through, by the end I was like ’enough angst already TayTay’ but on the second listen it started to grow on me. Some of those songs do get stuck in my head though.

An alright album, this one. I’m a bit surprised by how massive Post Malone is, everyone seems to be talking about him. The album didn’t blow me away, a couple of good songs on there and generally a solid listen, but not a huge deal in my eyes.