This is the second part of a two-part round up of not-so-recent television I’ve been watching. There was a sizeable reduction in what I was able to get to over summer due to the great events such as Glasto and Wimbledon, but I’m back in front of the little grey box again and there’ll be more to discuss soon. Meanwhile, these shows caught my eye over the past few months.

As usual, I took some time off work this year over the Wimbledon fortnight to watch as much tennis as I possibly could. This time, I decided to shift the days a bit and focus more on the second week rather than the first… so typical that this was a year in which most of the top seeds went out super early and so I was left watching rather random people instead.

Recently, the BBC re-aired the 90s series Showstoppers - a musical extravaganza hosted by Gary Wilmott. I remember having this recorded from its original airing and rewatched it over and over. I know the first episode pretty much word for word… for a musicals fan, it’s a must-watch. The show came about because the BBC Concert Orchestra were basically at a loose end and producers suggested a one off show featuring songs from a variety of musicals. It went down really well, so they followed it up with a six part series, featuring lots of different musical guests, heaps of new and old musical numbers, and lots of dodgy jokes but great charisma from host Gary Wilmott.

I’ve been reading through the Saxon stories by the same author but thought I would dip back into Sharpe’s world - I’d got a bit bored of him in India but this one was definitely a change from that dusty and dangerous land. This was more like Hornblower, with Sharpe all at sea, making friends and enemies, and ending up in another significant battle alongside none other than Lord Nelson! A really good read with lots of good characters, and a nice change of pace from the previous three books.

I really couldn’t see where this series could take our lead character after two very eventful stories but there was a lot more adventure in store for Rhiannon. I thought the way it started by catching up with the journalist and then wound back through what had happened up to that point was good, but I was a bit annoyed we didn’t revisit the characters from the cruise ship at any point. I mean, it makes sense if you’re changing your identity but still, a shame. Lots of new characters to enjoy, lots of returning names and faces to remember, and an ending that opens up plenty of potential for the next book.

This collection of short stories around our central hero Jack Reacher are a bit hit and miss for me. The first couple are really good - the one with the handbag, and the one with Reacher and Joe as boys getting up to mischief on a new military base. But as they wear on they get a bit predictable, and shorter. There’s one towards the end that is pretty much Reacher discovering trouble in a bar, beating up the bad guys and then leaving town. I mean, we know that by now, we really don’t need to read it again. So mixed reviews, but the first few are definitely worth a read.

Excellent tunes on here, Chuck Berry doing what he does and doing it well. Obviously I listened to this album for the joy that is Johnny B. Goode but there are quite a few other classics on here. The downside to these 50s rock and roll albums is that the songs tend to sound very similar to each other, particularly those guitar riff intros. But the upside is that they tell good stories like country music songs do. Love it.

Never really know what you’re going to get with Justin Bieber and if I’m honest, this one was a little bit lacking for me. The production is excellent, each track is well done and with good vocals, but it al blends a little bit into the background. There are no major bangers on it, so you just go from one track to the next without huge impact. The extra chatty bits aren’t as annoying as I usually find them, but they don’t seem to add anything and certainly the one about how much soul Justin has was a bit icky.

There’s a lot of Live Aid nostalgia around at the moment as we recognise 40 years since the life-changing music event. This was a made-for-TV movie that documents Bob Geldof organising the charity concert, both working alongside and arguing incessantly with Harvey Goldsmith. It’s a great dramatisation of events, I’m sure with elements dramatised for effect but also I’m sure with great accuracy - for example how much Geldof lied and effectively bullied to get this thing off the ground. I was a bit disappointed that Paula Yates was effectively a non-speaking role, but there was plenty else to enjoy - particularly Domhnall’s portrayal of Bob which was accurate and moving in equal measure. Great job.

This feels like a slightly unusual topic for Michael Crichton to write about, given how his most famous works are technological and political thrillers. But I can see why it captivated him enough to put pen to paper - the story behind it is almost like a movie unfolding. The characters are intriguing, the plotting intricate, the pick-pocketing and preparations are excellent and the unfolding of the robbery beset with problems to overcome. Then there’s the trial and all that follows. It’s really a great story, even if the actual haul wasn’t necessarily worth all the effort! And the re-telling in this is great, written in a really engaging style with plenty of context given for why certain attitudes were taken at that time. Loved it.

I really enjoyed this Doctor Who story, something about it felt really in keeping with the TV show and I could just picture it all remarkably well in my mind. The Doctor is companionless still, but lands on a planet where there is some kind of plot afoot - this time involving the Sontarans who we know well from the TV series. A couple of plucky kids help where they can, and I love the bit where there’s an ominous way of knowing someone has been possessed - in this case a particular phrase. It gives you chills.

I bought this with a spare Audible credit before my subscription expired, and I pretty much just picked it up because it’s narrated by Nicola Walker who I love. Turns out, it was a great choice! Tense and moving, emotional but thrilling, it crosses lots of genres and keeps you hooked right from the start. At first the flipping between points of view was mildly annoying but then it became crucial to understanding how the story was unfolding. And oof, the ending and the twists and turns, all really well done.

When the furore around this book hit, I realised I had the memoir in my collection waiting to read - I must have bought it at some point when my obsession with the South West Coast Path was at its peak. So I had to give it a read, and I’m sort of glad I hadn’t already read it as it was more interesting with the background of the allegations against the author. From the book’s point of view, there’s only a little bit about how they end up on the path the way they have, the rest of it is more the spiritual journey and the hard work of being homeless on that path.

I’m surprised it’s taken me so long to read this book, given the name of it hits so close to home. But here we are, and whilst I knew it was a horror book about a sentient car, I didn’t know much else about it. I enjoyed the fundamental story, the elements here and there that add up to horror but in and of themselves aren’t too scary. I think it was a little bit drawn out, quite a long book for the story contained within, but a small complaint for another Stephen King classic.

I haven’t been watching much television recently as it’s been too hot to concentrate, alongside all the other extra-curricular activities - Glastonbury, Wimbledon, Goodwood FoS, etc. However, it’s been a while since I did a roundup of what I had previously watched, so there are still quite a few to catch up on. This is part one of a two part catchup for some of my recent viewing.

I will take any excuse to think or talk about Back to the Future, so seeing this post on the Guardian last week was another excuse to bring up the topic of my favourite movies. The premise of the article is just a revisit of the film trilogy on its 40th anniversary, recapping the history of it but also bringing it into context a little bit.

During Glastonbury last year, I was under the weather and couldn’t give it as much attention as I wanted, and as it deserves. So for 2025, I was determined to make up for that, especially as next year is a fallow year and there will be no festival to enjoy. I watched as much as I could that the BBC had to offer (there are five stages that are broadcast so not complaining but I do wish they could have spent some time on the Avalon stage, it looked like good things were happening there).

David Jason has written quite a few autobiographies and I’ve read a couple I think, but I enjoyed this one nevertheless. Rather than working chronologically through a life, this one focused on the characters that Jason has played in his career - how they came to be, how he developed them, and what they mean to him. Of course that means Del Boy, but also Pop Larkin, Inspector Frost, and Granville in both the original series but also the later revival. If you’re a fan of any of these characters then there will be something for you in the book, and it’s all told with great humility and humour from start to finish.

Moments into this film, I realised it was a premise we’ve seen a few times before - political leaders getting ambushed on Air Force One and having to fight for survival. It’s not original in any capacity, and the political message about NATO isn’t at all subtle. But it’s still quite a lot of fun. Elba and Cena have good chemistry and make a good odd couple, and there were some good twists upon twists that we didn’t manage to guess. Definitely worth a watch.

I used to like Hard-Fi when this album was first out, so it’s slightly distressing to know it’s celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. Ouch. But it’s great to revisit this music, that quirky early millennium sound that is quite hard to describe but is just guitars and angst and just enough experimentation but not too much. I don’t really rate the cover of Seven Nation Army towards the end of the album but the rest of it is great, nostalgic without sounding too dated.

So, firstly, I’m always annoyed by artists that mess around with the titles to their albums and make them so quirky they are likely to break my website. We can work around this one though with the name Period rather than just the punctuation mark itself. That made me wary of the album and I’ve a hit and miss relationship with Kesha’s music so wasn’t sure what to expect. But, drum roll please, I loved it. It’s so good, great pop, grabs you right from the start and doesn’t let up. There’s a good mix of styles, excellent vocals, although a slight tendancy to over-use the vocoder, really worth a listen.

A few of the John Lange/Michael Crichton books I’ve read recently have been a bit hard to get into because there have been a lot of characters and threads that need to pull together before you get an idea of what’s going on. This one is a bit more linear, focusing on the investigation into a potential terrorist threat, and you get the jigsaw puzzle pieces at the same time as the detectives, before learning what is going down. It’s great, and this one really felt like it had that technological element that made Crichton so successful later down the line. I loved it.

This is an incredible piece of work. The July bombings have been across media and culture recently, with a couple of television series based around these three weeks and the anniversary to commemorate. But this book is highly detailed, incredibly researched with great access to people who were involved and on the scene during this turbulent time. It’s insightful but non-judgemental, laying out the facts and the actions and letting you be the judge. Really good and highly recommended.

I’m really not sure about this Reacher book, it just entirely flowed past me without really making any impact. It has all the traditional Reacher elements, although this was one of the prequels during his military career, rather than his more modern day wanderings. There was a plot to uncover, some people to trust and some to investigate, a handy woman or two to flirt with, and all winding up to a big showdown and a satisfying ending. What’s next?

I vaguely remember seeing talk of this movie when it came out a couple of years ago but mostly forgot about it, until it popped up on iPlayer. I wasn’t expecting much but I do love a survival movie so gave it a go. There are a lot of problems with it - the girls make many stupid decisions and mistakes so you struggle for sympathy, and there are elements that are unbelievable of course. But if you put all that aside, it’s not too bad - very stressful, good tension building, a few surprises, and some good survival stuff in there. It seems odd to me that she comes down and is just allowed to go home no questions asked but hey, it’s a movie!

I’ve listened to one Clash album before, and said that the songs sound quite similar so ultimately you buckle in for the ride and go from start to finish. It’s all good stuff, kicking off with the absolute classic London Calling and racing through eighteen more tracks to hit the end. There’s no real downers, and plenty of good rhythms and punk rock bangers to get stuck into. Love it!

I got a sneak peak at this album when Lorde rocked up for a surprise set at Glastonbury and performed the whole thing from start to finish. Not sure if that’s what the crowd would have been in the mood for, but I loved it, so I knew going into this week that I was on to a winner. It’s just great music, good vibes, interesting themes, deep in places but all handled excellently. For me, a real classic, and a Glastonbury set worth revisiting.

I wasn’t expecting to like the first book in this series by Bob Mortimer, so that was a pleasant surprise and the fact there was a follow up even more so. It felt like the story was pretty much done but it did flow through into this sequel well enough. I don’t think it was quite as strong as the original, but there are more characters to hear from and get to know, and another conspiracy, loosely following the first, to unravel. Fun but not quite 100% like the original satsuma.

I’ve seen this many times before but not for a long time and in the intervening years, I grew negative opinions of it without any real reason why. I thought The Mask character was too zany, too gross, not worth watching. However, this film popped up in conversation on the second series of Light & Magic, so I had to face my demons and give it a watch. Actually, it was a lot better than I remember.

I loved this. I can’t remember where I saw the recommendation but a rom-com set around the Oxford & Cambridge Boat Race? Yes please! The romance part of this was pretty standard - a deal to help each other out, studying skills for love skills, but then obviously they fall in love with each other instead. But the twists and turns around the boat race itself, the various team rivalries, and of course the big question of whether to cheat or not - all add up to a really fun sporting read.

The final episode of series fifteen of Doctor Who was already a pretty good one, wrapping up the season nicely, but then we had a couple of surprises that tipped the whole thing sideways and raised many, many questions!

This is a really good album, I’m not usually a big fan of ten minute songs but nothing on here annoyed me and I really enjoyed it. There are some classics on there, but, let’s be real, we need to talk about Invisible Touch. It is an absolute banger, and kicks off the album in style. BUT man that song gets stuck in my head like nothing I’ve ever experienced, to the point that now I’m slightly regretting listening to this album! It’s good, it’s too good I guess!

So excited for a new Haim album, and this one was absolutely brilliant. The last one was a bit less stellar, so I’m really glad this is back to their incredible standards. It’s the first one in a long time not produced by Ariel and you can feel a slight difference, but for the most part it is Haim’s excellent sound - great instrumental work, excellent production and summer-time vocals that are just crying out for a festival. Loved it.

This was an interesting Michael Crichton pulp fiction thriller, again it took a while to get into because there were quite a lot of characters to keep track of. But the mistaken identity part of it was captivating, the way our hero went along with things thinking they were just slightly weird but actually were a part of this much bigger plot. A lot of fun.

We’ve been waiting for this film for a long time and finally discovered it available for a watch. It’s not an area of history I know a lot about - although Tony Robinson’s Forgotten Wars series gave me some good background. This was a great documentary, well pieced together and focusing on the civilians on the ground, showing how culture and specifically music helped them keep going and stay sane.

This one reminded me of the motel people-hunting book because we had Reacher getting caught up in some kind of big mystery (a woman jumps in front of a bus… or does she?) whilst also following an unrelated young character trying to achieve something. Eventually, the two storylines coincide and we find out what’s going on. It was an interesting ending, with Reacher having to fight his way out of a prison - if you’ve ever wanted to see that, now’s the time!

The final story of the Bridgerton siblings and this was an interesting one - at first it seemed the normal unrequited love and then realising your attention should have been on someone else the whole time. But then it took a turn - blackmail, annulments, kidnapping, hostage taking, all very dramatic. It was good though, it always comes back to the main Bridgerton family and what great characters they are. I’ve really enjoyed the full series!

I’m completely fascinated by the furore surrounding the new production of Evita in the West End. The choice by producers to take the iconic Don’t Cry For Me Argentina song out to the balcony is causing all sorts of angst. Star Rachel Zegler heads out to the balcony and belts out the song to passers-by, with the ticket-buying audience inside settling for a live stream of the big moment. Hardly surprising that the people inside are a bit miffed at this, having paid a significant sum only to have a key moment of the show completed remotely. For those outside on the street - and they are starting to gather in their hordes, waiting for hours to see the spectacle - it’s a real treat. There’s no real consensus on this one.

I’ve recently read the Anthony Horowitz Bond novels and enjoyed them, then realised I had this one sitting on my to-read bookshelf ready to go. It was good, travelling around the globe and using the author’s experience to portray conflict in specific countries quite well. It was a slightly tamed down version of Bond, which is understandable given how difficult he is as a character, and some of the additional characters didn’t seem to be given much room to grow, but overall a really good Bond outing.

This movie could definitely have used a ‘previously on’ segment, because although I could remember flashes of the first Favor, I couldn’t quite remember how it ended to know where our characters were picking up from. But once it got going, this was a pretty good film. Stylish and twisty, Blake doing her best psychopath and scrappy Anna investigating everything - sometimes more by luck than judgement. Just a bit of fun, really, and interesting that they’ve set it up for the sequel (still think Dante might come back!).

As a birthday treat, my parents and I visited the Bombay Sapphire site in Hampshire for one of their Gin Distillery Experiences. It was a gorgeous day, and although I was driving, I was very in the mood to get my hands on some gin and see how the famous blue bottle came to be. The tour lasted about 90 minutes, starting with the most important thing - a drink. For drivers, there was a non-alcoholic option available, but otherwise it was a guide to making the perfect gin and tonic. There are only four steps to it - ice, gin, tonic, garnish - but it turns out the way I make my drinks is wrong at every single stage. Whoops!

Lighthouse Family have always been a sort of easy-listening run-of-the-mill joke in my mind, particularly because at least three of their big hits sound exactly the same. So I was expecting this album to be pleasant and not much more. You know what? I loved it! Great tunes, great easy listening, High is an absolute tune, and I could listen to this over and over. It’s never going to win any awarsd for groundbreaking music but it surprised me in the best possible way.

I’ve enjoyed the last few albums from Miley so I was going into this one with high hopes but in the end, I didn’t really like it. There are a couple of okay songs on there, but most of it is over-produced - feeling like someone let Miley into a new recording studio and she could press ALL the buttons. Miley’s voice is so effortless and she’s got so much talent but this one just didn’t do it for me.

This one definitely wasn’t one of my favourite Reacher books, which is a shame because it feels like there had been some really good ones in the series over the last few releases. But this one just didn’t quite feel right - the descriptions were very dry, the premise was odd, I’m still not entirely sure what the big bad plot was, or who was telling the truth. And occasionally Reacher was acting a bit out of character - I don’t believe he would have gone along with the plot to pretend to be dead, it was exceptionally flawed. Some are blaming this on the new author, but even the original Reacher books had ups and downs, so we just chalk this up to experience and move on to the next!

This is a summertime Sarah Morgan book, I usually read the Christmas ones so it was a refreshing change of pace. Of course it’s more of the same good romantic comedy work from Morgan, although this one does have a series edge to it. Plenty of discussion around grief and coping, and the difficulties around blended families. I found it enjoyable, the characters entirely believable and likable even when they’re acting up, and it was a really well told story. Top work! I should read more than just Christmas books from Sarah Morgan in future!

The penultimate book in the Bridgerton series and this time we’re focusing on Hyacinth, the youngest of the siblings. It’s actually quite a good adventure, I love how much time we get to spend with Lady Danbury, who is of course, the absolute hero of this series. But there’s a love story with a backdrop of questionable parentage and family dynamics, plus a big mystery and treasure hunt surrounding the whereabouts of some diamonds. Lots going on and lots to enjoy!

So, the dust has settled and I finally have a moment to put fingers to keyboard and jot down some thoughts from this year’s WWDC announcements. I’ve been quite lacking in keeping up with any news so was blind going into the Keynote, and they crammed quite a lot in without there being anything too major.