Bless the Moomins! I loved the TV series as a kid but I never read the source material until now. It’s cute, short and sweet, packed full of ideas and inspiration, crazy characters and wondrous situations.

Whipped through this book in one sitting, it was really easy to read and digest, but raised some really big questions. The author chronicles his idea to set up a self-sufficient camp of fictional survivors of a global catastrophe, to see if it was possible and how it would all unfold. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as planned and he gradually became mentally ill with depression during the process, eventually leaving for a stint in hospital before departing altogether.

Didn’t know much about this band except for Teardrop but enjoyed the album a lot. Oppressive and intense, I wanted to just sit back, relax and listen. Teardrop the standout though.

Truly love this album – stacked full of pop with great beats and catchy hooks, plus some good messages too: be weird, who cares? First half better than second, but all very good.

Amazing-ness all round. I really did think this was the best so far, almost a perfect film. I was glad that Brian had stopped pretending to be a cop and it was so brilliant to see The Rock doing some actual police-work. Even when he showed his acknowledgement that they were good guys at the end, he didn’t just let them go Brian-style.

This music video from The Chemical Brothers is incredible. A single-shot sequence of a lone dancer moving around a grungy industrial warehouse space. So far, so normal. But gradually parts of her body become like wireframe, see-through, and that’s when the magic happens. It’s just so detailed and intricate. That you can see her leg through her other leg. That the red pants are wrapped around an essentially non-existent body by the end.

Ah ha, this is the sort of thing we started watching the series for! So much better than the third outing and fantastic to have the group, particularly Vin, back together. It was a bit frustrating that Brian was allowed back to the FBI, but that also continues to be a running joke for us, so not the worst thing ever.

On the one hand, this film suffers from not having any of the original cast members in it. (Except that cameo, the amazing cameo, more on that later!) It’s not the first time a series has shed all its stars, but perhaps it is knowing they are back in the later ones that makes this one feel quite so jarring.

I can see why Vin didn’t want to come back for this one, apparently his reasoning being they just ‘drum up a new story unrelated for the most part, and slap the same name on it.’ Which is exactly what this one was, but with only one returning character. This had all the good stuff of the first, cars, music and insane driving through traffic, but also more story.

This one was right up my street. Moody and blues, over a variety of different beats with a scattering of new soundbytes on top. Really enjoyed it but did make me crave the Bourne song.

Have been a bit of a naysayer about Foxes previously, but really enjoyed the album. All very dramatic and swooping but catchy with great beats. Loved it!

I really wasn’t expecting to like this very much - it’s probably just a bunch of pretty people racing cars to hip hop beats and not much else, right? Well, yea, it was that, but it also had more to it. There was actually a pretty good story tucked away there - quite Point Break in places, how undercover is too undercover for a cop to get? It gets a bit tortured in places, but stayed entertaining which is the main thing.

This film had some incredibly good things going for it, the individual elements that were really strong: beautiful scenery, great camera angles and shot placements, fabulous cast (although Emily Blunt was nowhere near as kick-ass as the trailer made her out to be), and a brilliant ability to increase tension with very little material. The scene on the bridge, with cars inching along in a traffic jam, it was bizarrely intense - the kind where Mr C and I looked at each other at the end and just let out the breaths we’d been holding.

Loved the singles on this one but found the rest of it a bit less memorable. I know it’s a highly regarded album, and it was good to listen to but I couldn’t name another song on it now.

Really catchy pop that sticks in the mind. Very fifties, in the style of Bruno Mars and Meghan Trainor. Couple of good guests, including Ms Trainor. Very listenable but not a classic.

We decided to catch up on the intervening X-Men films so that we could watch this one - people have raved about it, after all. The trouble is, it was nowhere near as exciting as I thought it was going to be. There were lots of yay, and gasp, and ooh moments but mostly that was spotting the characters of old. For example, ‘Hooray, Halle Berry is back!’ But ‘Oh, she gets to do just as little as she did in the first three.’

I wasn’t expecting to like this one all that very much, although I’m obsessed with Hugh Jackman and would watch him in anything. The trailer made it seem as though they were taking the greatness of X-Men and then making a film in a completely different part of the world with a completely different outlook. That’s exactly what it was, but it was no bad thing. I loved the look of the whole film, it was beautifully shot and with Japan as your background, you don’t have to try that hard to make a gorgeous picture.

James McAvoy was great, and I liked the 1960s look of the piece. I was a bit disappointed in January Jones’s character, which was clearly plucked straight from an Austin Powers movie. The real enemy of the piece though was Fassbender. From impressing with his variety of languages at the beginning, he then absolutely confounded us with his sudden Irish accent. Fair enough he’s a mish-mash of everything, but to have such a strong accent for no apparent reason was bizarre. It really took me out of the whole piece.

It started like this: John: Rumours? You ever heard Rumours? Kayleigh: What? John: What?! Rumours is one of the best albums in the whole wide world! Kayleigh: Never even heard of it. John: Excuse me? You’ve never heard of Rumours? Oh, you’ll love it. I’ll burn you a copy. Tonight. One of my all-time favourite albums. Kayleigh: Mine’s Now 48. John: Now 48?! Kayleigh: They’re all on it, all me faves S-Club 7, Steps, Samantha Mumba, Shaggy! It wasn’t me.

As previously mentioned, Mr C was unable to narrow his shortlist of top songs down to just five. And by the time we got to talking about films we were both pretty exhausted by the whole subject. So, I let him get away with expanding his list to ten films as well! I’m such a pushover. Anyway, these are in alphabetical order with links to my Film Watch reviews for a bit more of an insight.

Now, normally at this point in the year, I hand over a portion of my site to Mr C, allowing him to pick his top five songs and top five films that we consumed in the previous twelve months. It’s a joyous process for me - throughout the year, we keep a note of potential contenders and then I get to watch him writhe in agony as he tries to finalise his top five lists. Unfortunately, this year, the internal debates within him went on for so long that I had to put my foot down and demand a decision.

I thought the casting was brilliant, Matt Damon had just the right balance of seriousness and humour, Jeff Daniels had the gruff boss thing going, Kristen Wigg was great if a little less-sweary than the Annie I was expecting. And all of the crew on board the Hermes were pretty much as I pictured them. The film had all the important bits of the story in it, it was beautiful shot, expertly crafted, and told really well - considering the source material is of a guy being stranded on Mars, talking to himself a lot, and doing a lot of maths and science to survive. Not easy to translate to the screen but handled masterfully.

Wonderful pop-rock, teen angst without being depressing, catchy songs and solid lyrics – not so sure of the one where she raps though.

Lovely to hear their voices again, bit disappointed that it started out strong but descended into epic easy listening by the end.

It turns out our twenty minute rule is about perfect, because it stopped me turning off this film which evolved into a really good action movie. It’s got that edge to it, where it can be a bit gory in places, but Jesse Eisenberg instills the whole thing with a lovely gormless humanity, which blends perfectly with Stewart’s undercover skills.

I wanted to like this one because I really like Bel Powley and Kristen Wigg. But oof, it was just too seventies.

When Pegg shows up, the fast talking kicks in and there are a lot of jokes crammed in to a short space of time. It’s sometimes hard to keep up, but that just means we’ll have to rewatch it again at least once. Overall, it’s a great story, different to the normal boy meets girl thing, and taking some unique twists and turns along the way.

Loved this so much more than I thought I would, good beats, angry ranting, and a great sense of camaraderie.

Very poppy, quite an 80s feel, but really – who are these people and what have they done with Coldplay? It’s almost oppressively optimistic. Unicorns and rainbows all the way.

You know, of course, that I’m an insane Back to the Future fan. However, it wasn’t until we watched the incredible Back in Time documentary that I realised I’d missed out on an important part of BTTF fandom - Michael J Fox’s books. I picked up Lucky Man, his memoir chronicling his career and his Parkinson’s Disease diagnosis, and how the two had to fit in his life side by side, and eventually together.

I went into this with zero knowledge. I’m useless with music history, and although I like rap/r&b, my knowledge of Dr Dre extends to ‘ooh, the guy that made my headphones!’ So it was a bit of a steep learning curve initially, and the first half an hour of the film was rough going - it felt like there was quite a lot of assumed knowledge, who the people are and why they’re important - but then again, I guess most people do know and I am in the minority.

What’s amazing about this album is how you can see the effort and crafting gone in to it. Not all to my taste, but the bizarre mix means there’s got to be something to like.

An electro-pop looping journey that has so many Ed Sheeran influences, it’s mad. Felt very defensive too – Sorry, What Do You Mean, I’ll Show You.

I’m not one that particularly wants a Back to the Future sequel, even though I’m a huge fan of the trilogy. However, anything else we can get that allows us to spend time in Hill Valley is fine by me. I hugely enjoyed the Telltale Games episodic game series that thrust us straight back into the world of time travel and all its many consequences. I drooled over the BTTF lego set, and loved reading the movie line by line in that slightly odd Twitter project.

We’ve had this one on our list for a while, to see what all the fuss was about, and now it’s started to be nominated for awards, that made us all the more curious. I’ve been one of those that wondered where on earth this Schumacher lady came from, given that she’s suddenly everywhere, and this seemed to be the thing that kicked off her rise to fame.

We were watching the recent Back to the Future documentary when it suddenly occurred to me that I’m a huge fan of the films and of Michael J, but I haven’t yet read his books. It was easy to put that right, and very hard to put this one down. Fox has such an easy way of writing, making you comfortable with his style and grace, despite some of the difficult subjects at hand - dealing with fame, that awful diagnosis, and how illness can change you for the better.

Sadly, nothing much did happen throughout the whole thing. They were on a road trip, visiting people who we may or may not should be remembering from the first film (I definitely couldn’t remember anyone), and generally trying to figure out who they were. As a bromance thing, it was eminently watchable, but I didn’t really like the dancing so much, or the constant jangling noise Amber Heard made as she walked around.

Yep, switched this one off. I wasn’t convinced by the trailer, but hey, it’s Simon Pegg and we want to be supportive of his efforts. The real question, after watching just twenty minutes, is, why on earth did he agree to make this film?

Maggie, aka Mighty Girl, is one of the reasons I started my own Life List many moons ago, and I’m always interested to see her take on resolutions, goals and achievements to undertake. Whilst her resolutions this year may be minimalistic, they are none the less inspiring, particularly this one about putting pen to paper/finger to keyboard. Write and write and write and write. It’s like talking, as much as you want, about whatever you want, but no one has to listen to you!

The fact that Peter Kay’s Car Share was brilliant and received a lot of love is probably not news to many, given that the series aired in April last year. It was something that passed Mr C by, however, and whilst I watched it over and over and grew to love it more and more, I felt protective of it in that way that means you can’t really recommend it to someone. He’d ask if it was worth watching, and I’d umm and ahh whilst secretly coveting “my precious.”

Beautifully eclectic mix of grungy rock & roll alongside the more poppy pieces, some country influences and more. Crazy but brilliant.

Perfect country pop, little bit on the sweet side, but not a bad tune on there. Except maybe I wear my pain like stillettos.

I’ve caught a couple of trains over the festive period, and whilst this is not particularly exciting news, it has been a while since I’ve travelled on the railway. I wanted to test out the Trainline app, which recently updated to include in-app purchasing via Apple Pay, and my findings were thus: HOW did any of us manage to navigate train travel without this app? From the off, it is insanely helpful. You search where you’re travelling from and to, and are presented with all the options alongside details of how long it’ll take, how much it’ll cost and how many changes you’ll have to make along the way. There’s even details of the facilities and opening hours of each station - in case you need to make sure there’s somewhere to get a coffee!

What a brilliant film! I’ve heard the words Man from Uncle before, but had no idea what the TV show was about. Was keen on watching this from the trailer, because it looked so beautiful, stylish and amusing in places. Plus, after all those Bond films, I’m jonesing for a good spy movie.

I’m aware of National Lampoon and his attempts to take a vacation, but I’ve not actually seen any of the older movies. Normally, I’d want to catch up with all the past films before embarking on the reboot, but I just couldn’t quite face it this time. Nothing against Chevy Chase, but four films about a bumbling fool trying to go on holiday seemed a bit much.

There is no one right way to blog, e-mail, or otherwise share content with the world. No right time to post, no right combination of networks to use, no perfect font size or color. So at a certain point you’re going to have to go back to the only true metric, the only like that matters in the end. Yours. Boing Boing: Escaping the new media cargo cult

In the previous post I wrote about third-party games on the Apple TV, I talked of how brilliant it was that Just Dance can be played without having to dash about the shops in a fruitless search for the correct controller for the job. That’s not the full story though. Whilst the Apple TV remote can be used for all the games that are available, it’s not always the ideal tool for the task at hand. The swiping motion is a step up from most remotes, although it takes some getting used to. However, for more involved games, the ubiquitous Playstation-style controller is ideal.

Since I started my Life List project six years ago (six!), I’ve been wrapping up how each year has gone and what I’ve experienced that I probably wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t started such a thing. The last so-called Life List Review, however, was at the end of 2013, and two years have passed since then. I made the silly mistake of taking on some exams and spent the next 24 months with my head in textbooks, papers, mock exams, highlighters, notebooks and more.

Many times, I started writing the post about my Life List challenge to complete a puzzle book but the trouble is… well, it’s boring, isn’t it? Who wants to read about someone else trying to do a puzzle? I envisaged glorious photos and regular updates, but to be frank, I couldn’t summon the energy to take any! I completed the puzzle book (almost) at some point earlier in the year, and have only just found the time to write about it. Here’s a quick video to prove it.

I love a good old apocalyptic story, and this has all the makings of your perfect dystopian world. After a bizarre comet event leaves much of the population blind, the few sighted survivors have to make their way through a world that is falling apart - and also deal with some pretty terrifying poisonous, walking plants.