I’ve had a love/hate relationship with streaming music. At first I hated it because I wanted to be more in control of… well, everything. And then I loved it because I wouldn’t have been able to afford to listen to 100 albums in a year if I had to purchase every single one. Plus, I would have had to buy Drake’s album and that would not have made me very happy. Now I’m in a neutral place because for the most part I’ve let go of controlling my music, and I’m happy to just stream as and when I want. But I am a bit confused. I wanted to listen to Kelsea Ballerini’s effort again after she was nominated for a Grammy, but found this:

It was announced a couple of weeks ago that Peter Capaldi will be stepping down from the BBC role everyone’s talking about – no, not the lead of whatever baking show will replace GBBO, but in fact, the titular role of Doctor Who. It’s no secret that Capaldi hasn’t been my favourite Doctor, and I’ll admit that I have watched only two episodes of his since his tenure began. So unlike many, I’m glad that the show is adapting and changing once again, and I can only hope the replacement is more to my tastes.

Blatantly just Mr & Mrs Smith with the comedy ramped up, it took me a while to warm up to this film but when I did, I couldn’t stop laughing. It got off to a slow start and I think the key was to get the two couples working together in the limited way that they could - that’s where the comedy really started happening. I could have done with slightly less of no one believing Isla, and definitely less of the whole snake restaurant business.

I sort of knew I was in love with Amy Poehler simply for seeing her on Parks & Rec, and They Came Together. Now I know I am in love with her, because this memoir is a brilliant inspirational and wonderfully open piece of work. It starts by talking about how freaking difficult it is to write a book, which really sets the tone for the rest of the chapters.

I’ve just started reading Amy Poehler’s memoir Yes Please, and I only got as far as the introduction before I wanted to share some of the incredible wisdom. That’s the sign of a good book, I think. So what do I do? What do we do? How do we move forward when we are tired and afraid? What do we do when the voice in our head is yelling that WE ARE NEVER GONNA MAKE IT?

Liked this much better on the second listen through, I think the first time some of the screaming got to me but second time it wasn’t so bad. Love a few of the tracks on there and it stands up as a whole really well. Glad this has finally come to streaming so I can have a listen!

Great album. I had high expectations because he’s being talked about a lot and Human is an incredible song. Thankfully the rest of the album lived up to the hype, with brilliant soul vibes throughout but leaving you with an overall feel-good mood.

It all started with this note from my Zombieland Film Watch post: 5:06 – Recognise that petrol station from that music video. Because there was a shot of a petrol station right at the beginning, when he was laying out some of his ground rules for surviving the zombie apocalypse. Now, I know what you’re thinking - it looks like any petrol station ever, and… well, we’ll get to that. For now, stick with me. It rang a bell in my head as the same fuel depot as spotted in a country music video that I’d seen a year or two ago.

Well. My overall impression following that is: What on earth is all the fuss about? I can see the moments of brilliance in there: Leonardo is, of course, excellent. It never really felt like a three hour film which is impressive because I do get antsy the longer movies go on. Some good comedy moments, and some shocking ones as well.

Firstly, I must say this is a good story, interestingly written, and coming to a great conclusion. But even with that in mind, I can’t really tell whether I enjoyed it or not. I liked the way the story dipped back and forth between the uncomfortable present and the difficult past, and I really did like the ending - it left me with something of a warm glow.

Interesting book this, because it feels like it has a really good story at the heart of it, but it didn’t quite come across right for me. I wasn’t switched on to the main character which can be an issue - we followed her around on a lot of different emotional journeys, but still never really got to know her.

Good second album from Ms Swift, it’s quite fun working my way through her albums knowing how she develops and where she goes in the future. This, though, is solid country pop with some great singles, and a good mix of other tracks – none of which are a letdown, which is the sign of a good album.

I read an NME review of this album before listening, that described it as “13 tog duvet” music, and it is just that. There’s no thumping albums, it’s easy listening all the way, and I guess in the end I found it quite dull because of that. Perhaps good to de-stress and unwind, but not my favourite.

An espionage thriller that encompasses Russia, America, Germany, France and the UK, this is the story of an unwitting man getting himself involved in what could escalate to become a situation of global significance. It actually wasn’t one of my favourite action and adventure stories, because it all felt a bit out of reach.

It being Super Bowl weekend, we opted to go for a sports film, that is blatantly about the NFL even if they’re not allowed to actually say it. It was long, but for the most part enjoyable. The story was good, great cast, and although some of the actual football scenes were quite drawn out, the music made them interesting.

James Corden continues to do fab and fun things for his late night US talk show, but his latest exploits with Queen grabbed my attention like no other. A faux battle between him and current front man Adam Lambert saw the pair having something of a riff off with Brian and Roger backing them on guitar and drums. I’m so jealous of the things James gets to do and this tops the lot. Singing with actual Queen must be the biggest dream of all.

I expect this is a good film if you’re a teenage boy or have recently been a teenage boy, but it didn’t really mean anything to me. I quite liked the relationship between Cera and Hill, but that certainly wouldn’t have sustained me watching for the entire two hours. As the third of three comedy bundle disappointments, I was quite relieved to switch this one off and cross it off the list.

Comedy bundle attempt number two was perhaps the best of the three, but still seemed awful. And this is a film featuring lovely Mary Steenburgen. I’ve liked a lot of Will Ferrell movies before but this one just didn’t make any sense. The boys were so stupid and destructive, they would have been thrown out long before they started fighting on the front lawn.

So, the comedy bundle I bought on iTunes included three films that I was not looking forward to watching, and you will see why as the next three Film Watch updates document. This one, I don’t even understand how it got made. What is the point? Why is Sandler being Israeli? Where are the jokes? Just didn’t get it and couldn’t wait for our twenty minute switch off rule to come into effect.

A really fascinating book this one. It’s appeal is probably limited to those that understand finance and/or shares and trading, particularly as it opens with some quite in depth details about a day in the life of the protagonist - a portfolio manager.

So, ages ago, I bought a bundle of comedy films on iTunes and watched a handful of them and forgot about the rest. With the new releases slowing down in the New Year, it was time to delve into the back catalogue and see what the old comedies had to offer.

Dance music has never really been my thing, but I did quite like this album. I don’t think I would particularly seek out an album like this to listen to, but it was good for keeping a steady pace whilst out for a walk and quite handy to tune out to doing some admin work.

Good, pop album, although it’s a bit cheesy in places. Play That Song being a particular example, it’s so saccharine it hurts, and using that riff is almost as bad as Cliff Richard’s Millennium Prayer. Still, the rest of the album is fine, but I’m not sure it’s worth many more listens.

I usually enjoy John Grisham books, and this one had all the hallmarks of a good story but it didn’t quite work for me. I liked the in court dialogue, where things can turn on a knife edge, and it’s all about being smart and playing the long game, but it took an awful long time to get there.

An incredible film, but of course, a terrible story. That the media knew about this horrible crime for decades before they did anything about it, that it is even happening at all, it’s so awful. But, having said that, it’s a great movie to raise awareness and show how difficult it can be to get to the truth when there’s a powerful organisation trying to hide it.

After reading the autobiography of Ranulph Fiennes, I realised I had another book about exploration I could dive into. This one was a bit different as it was exclusively about climbing Mount Everest, and comes at the very start of Bear Grylls’s adventuring career.

Enjoyed this album, and expanding my knowledge about 80s bands. Loving the girls with guitars awesomeness, and it’s a really upbeat kind of album. My only issue is that a lot of the songs sound the same, so it’s hard to distinguish sometimes, but as they’re all good, it’s not really a huge problem.

Interesting album this one, because overall I liked it but it sort of left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. It’s good pop, Bruno has an incredible voice and great rhythm, but if the lyrics are anything to go by, he’s a bit obsessed with how girls look. Chunky was a particularly weird one.

Somehow, I’ve never actually seen this before so I wasn’t really sure what I was in for. It’s quite eighties, but because it’s set in the jungle, it’s not really that dated. I thought it was excellent - incredibly tense and actually really scary! Some of it was a bit gross but overall it was more about what you didn’t see than what you did - particularly with an invisible enemy.

A recent episode of Back to Work featured a brilliant quote from Merlin Mann. The conversation was actually about sending spam-like emails to people hoping they will promote your business in some way. But I actually think it’s an interesting idea to consider in all aspects of your life. I want everybody out there who is a listener to think about this. What if everybody was doing what I was doing? Or, put slightly differently, what if ten times more people did this than currently do this.

This was Garry Marshall’s last film, which gives it a little poignancy, but I do think it was the weakest of the holiday themed outings. It’s always fun to see so many famous faces together, but just as with the previous one, they didn’t seem to have all that much to do with each other, aside from the odd ‘I know her from this mum group’ or whatever.

This book has been highly recommended to me and I was looking forward to reading it. The time travel/Groundhog Day nature of it appealed from the outset and I’m glad to say I wasn’t disappointed. From the very start, you’re on a heck of a journey with Ursula, from her birth to a variety of deaths, each one starting life over and over again.

I thought I had given up this tea tasting lark, but I was walking through the tea aisle of my local shop recently and all the packaging is just so tempting. I figured if I was going to ease myself back into the world of fruit and herbal tea, I should probably do it cost effectively, so I opted for a box of mixed flavours. And given that it is January, there’s only one option on that list that seems appropriate - detox! At first glance, the list of ingredients doesn’t sound all that appetising. Aniseed isn’t my favourite flavour, but mix it with coriander, and fennel, and even celery? What’s that about?

Ranulph Fiennes has written many books across his exploring career, in fact as he details in this one, that’s how he makes a lot of his living - that and public speaking. This one chronicles all of his many adventures in limited detail, so it’s quite a nice overview of what has been an incredible career.

Just like The Boss before it, I really wasn’t anticipating particular greatness from this film, although I love Amy and Tina enormously. I was so wrong. AGAIN. I should not be allowed to judge comedies from their trailers. It was brilliant, so funny and with some fabulous references.

Beautiful album, this one. It’s interesting having listened to it off the back of Emeli Sandé last week, this is just so much better. Sweeping, soaring, an incredible voice and great instrumentation work to make it a wonderful listen from start to finish.

Had no idea what to expect from this album as I didn’t really know the band, but I loved it. It’s not quite chill out music but is relaxed and moody, thoughtful with some great backing beats. It feels quite intimate, and I think there’s a great quality in both their voices that really resonates.

Wasn’t expecting much from this one, but it was far better than I’d anticipated. Many of the reviews I’ve seen trash the film, and I can’t really see why. I was worried it would be a stupid comedy, but aside from the sofa bed flipping people around (always funny) and one fall down the stairs, it really wasn’t that. It actually had heart.

Apple’s limited edition January-only new year’s activity badge worked it’s magic in our household. The first available week, Mr C and I were both working on maxing out our activity rings each and every day, and it got a bit competitive. Turns out when a badge is limited edition, it really does have a motivating effect. We managed this January one in the first week… come on Apple, what’s next? More badges required!

Really enjoyed this one. Great guitars, interesting song titles and concepts, fab lyrics that avoid all the normal clichés. Like the singles, of course, A Thousand Trees is a stand out, but actually it works together as a whole really well.

It’s a good album, she has a great voice and the musicality is amazing. I’m just not totally sure this kind of music is for me – I found an entire album of it to be a bit intense, a bit too dramatic. The individual songs are great, but I found 15 in a row to be a bit much.

This was an interesting Kinsey Millhone book, because it had two investigations in it. The main story focused on Millhone working for someone who was already dead, and that gave it a unique twist that was fascinating to follow. The second part was about a money-grabbing criminal who was affecting someone closer to Kinsey’s life.

I was a bit wary going into this film, keen to watch anything that Daniel Radcliffe is in, but scared of how intense it appeared from the trailer. Thankfully, the film wasn’t as harsh in that way as I’d imagined, totally watchable, engrossing in fact.

It’s turned into a bit of a meme at this point, that no one really has any clue where in the timeline these films are set. And there’s good reason for the jokes surrounding it, because it has been a confusing ride. What I did like about this one, though, is that it seemed to be setting up all the pointers towards getting us back to the start of the entire story - Scott and Jean liking each other, the destruction in Cerebro, and Professor X losing his hair. It had the same feeling as Star Wars III, where everything wound its way to a conclusion that was really the start of all things.

Evolving sports to appeal to new generations of fans usually involves adapting to shorter attention spans, and that is something that can cause plenty of debate amongst the more traditional sport lovers. I’m in favour of making sport approachable wherever possible, but there’s likely room for all formats - long and short alike. Tennis is taking this approach, it seems, and I recently learnt about a new format. I’ve talked before about whether tennis needs to think about making all matches just three sets long but perhaps there’s another way. I’ve heard of Tie Break Tens, which is an end of season celebratory tie break tournament but today I learnt about the Fast4 format for the first time. It’s been the format for the Hopman Cup, where mixed double teams represent their country. In 2017, it was won by Team France but for me, the format was the most interesting thing about the tournament.

I love Demi Lovato, but I realised recently that she is an expert at picking songs to be featured on. Whilst her own work is plenty good enough, when she is featured on a song, it’s always a brilliant one! Don’t believe me? Let’s review. First up, The Vamps. Yeah, you! Then she teamed up with Olly Murs for the catchy Up, and took on the myth created by N Sync in Irresistible. Teaming up with Fall Out Boy, Demi stomps her way around a toy store, looking at the action figures and generally having a good time.

I read this book in quick succession after the first one, so that just as in the story, it feels like only a few days have passed since the events of that first Kinsey Millhone outing. Still raw from how that adventure ended, Millhone ends up in the midst of another mystery to solve. At first it seems like any other missing persons report, but gradually leads to different states, different personalities and a different ending.

The film did let itself down in a number of places. I thought it was good that they didn’t just pretend life had got back to normal after such a high level alien invasion in the first film. Instead, they utilised the technology the aliens brought and continued to study them long after the fight was over. On the flip side, though, that means the air battle between the high-concept planes and the aliens this time was very Star Wars, laser beams flinging about all over the place, shields up, shields down, that kind of thing.

At first, I was having trouble remembering the first film, and although it didn’t quite matter to the story - they did their best to make it accessible - it got a lot better once the predecessor’s story came flooding back to me. I really liked this one, in fact I might have liked it more than the first one. I like that they didn’t shy away from the disappearance of Isla Fisher, and actually Lizzy Caplan was a more than capable replacement.

Ahh, I love Pink so it’s a surprise that I’ve never listened to a full album by the pop superstar. This, her first, is a great mix of songs and tests out various genres. There’s a hint of Alanis Morissette, and an occasional feel of Alicia Keys, but all of it is just great work from Pink. Strong, confident, with a good message to not stand for any nonsense. Love it.