It’s that time again! A whole year of music listening gets distilled down to a choice of five top albums and seeing if any of them can break into my top ten of all time. I don’t usually enjoy this process and this year hasn’t been any different, although if I’m honest, the choice was slightly less inspiring than usual. It felt like the year was very top heavy in terms of stand-out albums, and as I was reviewing my shortlist, none of them were really jumping out.

If you’ve followed my adventures, you know I’ve gone back and forth on the whole album thing, but I think getting to the end of my fourth year of listening to two albums a week (400 albums!) means that I’m on board. So I was surprised when I first heard that Sheryl Crow wasn’t going to make any more records after her latest release Threads. At the time the album came out, she talked of how happy she was that it would be her final release because the album features so many incredible guests and songs, and it was a good one. But she also said:

I don’t know if it’s just me, but Christmas television this year hasn’t felt as special or as inspiring as it sometimes does. There’s no Christmas Doctor Who special, and no superb films finally showing on TV, so that the only thing to look forward to seemed to be Gavin & Stacey. Wait a minute, Gavin and Stacey returning after a decade?? Yes! Many, many, many of us were looking forward to this welcome return to the twin worlds of Billericay and Barry Island, and thank goodness it was a perfect episode that wasn’t ruining anything that went before.

As is tradition now, I have come to the latest Sims game very, very late. When I talked about The Sims 3, it was about four years after the game had been released. I love a good late review, honestly. Well, The Sims 4 is slightly different. I did download it slightly nearer its release date - 2017, I think. But it didn’t work on my Mac, because it’s an old and rickety machine that desperately needs updating. The game didn’t play at all well and I participated for less than an hour.

When I first wrote about For All Mankind, it was out of duty rather than enjoyment really. This was a show about the moon with a sprinkling of feminism and couldn’t have been made more for me if it tried. I talked of how the first episode dragged and the second picked up and by the third I was hooked. Well, I should have sensed the pattern there because every single episode that went by was better than the one before and by the tenth episode, the season finale, I was enthralled. We binge-watched the last three episodes together and I’m glad we did because the [spoiler-alert] cliffhanger with the guy in the airlock was spine-tinglingly good.

I had heard that a new version of Baby It’s Cold Outside was going to be released, with updated lyrics, but I hadn’t heard it until recently. Kelly Clarkson and John Legend have rewritten the old classic which has come under fire for some difficult lyrics that could be considered to fall on the wrong side of consent. I do get why the old song is problematic for some people. That line “what’s in this drink” can absolutely be taken out of context and if you read the lyrics at face value, it does sound like a guy trying to coerce his date to stay longer than she really wants to. But that’s only if you want to read those things into it, because the other view to take is that it’s a song from 70 years ago and it doesn’t actually mean any harm. Of all the songs in the world, this one wouldn’t be my first choice to cancel.

Final thoughts! How can it be over already? I mean, I know it’s been weeks and we’ve all been on a journey and it’ll be quite nice to have my Saturday nights back but still… it’s all done! What a final show it was, kicking off with an incredible routine, and featuring Taylor Swift, plus all the old gang back for one more round including lovely Will!

Whilst we’re on a roll with female representation in our entertainment spaces, the Country Music Awards this year were an incredible show of women’s strength. Hosted by Reba, Carrie and Dolly, the show kicked off with a medley of songs from many, many, many women from throughout recent country music, including many I’d never heard of and need to know more about. (Who knew Delta Dawn wasn’t just the song Monica sings in a see-through shirt?)

I had seen in passing the news that James Corden was taking a break from his Late, Late show for other projects and guest hosts would be filling in. Alicia Keys kicked things off but it wasn’t until I caught the clips on YouTube that I realised just what a fab job she’d done. We all know already that Keys is brilliant, but her take on the year wrap-up is a step above, even if only for the piano reveal with Rocky theme tune.

Somehow we have whittled the contestants down to just four and it’s time to wave goodbye to the one who will miss out on the final. Somehow it feels so soon that we have reached this point, and yet when you watch the titles it’s like “oh yea, they were in it, that was so long ago!” Time is weird. Anyway, here’s how my thoughts flowed as the couples tried out two dances in one night.

As soon as it hit December, I restarted my Netflix subscription, because there’s no way I was going to miss out on all those cheesy Christmas movies. However, the bonus alongside festive treats is catching up on the big series’ that were released over the last six months that I have fallen behind on. Starting with the final ever series of Orange is the New Black, bringing to a close the show that was one of the OG Netflix Originals.

We watched the third movie in Netflix’s Christmas Prince franchise this week and… huh. It was an experience. I’ve obviously reviewed the film itself in the proper place but I wanted to expand upon this with a note about the fiasco that is the credits. The normal movie credits roll, that’s fine. Cast, crew, music and location credits. Then we get to the geographic specific stuff, the dubbing and additional voice credits.

Quarter finals, musicals week, the famous five, all the ingredients for a fun show. It’s amazing how short and sweet the broadcasts are now - just an hour of dancing and we’re done. But we’re getting close to the end now, who will miss out on the semi-final spot? Here’s my thoughts throughout the show. This is an opening. Anton and Kevin singing?? Craig? Bruno being under-utilised for a change? Too much!

This time last year, I had seen zero music concerts. Basically my entire life. Plenty of theatre and musicals and stuff, but no musicians up on stage giving it their all. Fast forward twelve months and I’ve wrapped up my fifth visit of the year with a similar number already scheduled for next year. Turns out I was missing out on quite a lot and I have a lot of ground to make up.

When Mischief Theatre announced a year-long residency at the Vaudeville in London, I was intrigued and determined to see as much of the output as possible. I’ve previously seen their plays and pantos and bank robberies that go wrong, and consider myself officially obsessed with this comedy troupe. The first of three shows wraps up this weekend, and I just managed to catch Groan Ups “before term ended”. Unlike The Play That Goes Wrong and the other shows, which are basically non-stop slapstick comedy, Groan Ups is character-driven, with a story that tracks the lives of five friends from about 6 years old, to 14, and then to adulthood.

Okay, people, things are getting serious. Partly because Saturday night was some of the first wine I’d had after being ill for a bit, and also because we’re edging closer to the part of the competition where all the episodes end in -final. Whoever gets through this is into the quarter-finals, Musicals week. Let’s go! Actually, before we start, just gotta say… Bruno sings?? AJ and Saffron up first and wow, the song is so slow. It drags the whole thing down, feels heavy. Samba is so hard but somehow she was making it look hard too. Good effort but not quite perfect.

When I told people I was going to see Charles Esten, I was usually met with a confused “who?” which, unless you are a fan of the TV show Nashville, is totally fair enough. Esten featured on that show as Deacon, one of the main guitar-playing country-singing characters through the entire run. And so, even though I didn’t really know much of him outside of this show, seeing him pop up in Bristol during a small tour of the UK meant instant ticket purchase. The pre-concert research included finding out that he doesn’t have an album because he was focused on releasing 54 singles, one a week, to break a Guinness World Record. He called it Every Single Friday, which is a bit of genius.

I am intensely aware that my recent posts have been all Apple this and Apple that. With Arcade and Books and Oprah and Swift and more, it’s like everything has come out all at the same time. I’m loving the content on Apple TV+ but some of it has been harder work than others. Dickinson was a surefire hit, but For All Mankind took some perseverance. The first episode didn’t grab me at all. This show is an alternative take on the history of the moon landings, whereby instead of the US getting their feet on the lunar surface first, the Russians won the space race.

Blackpool! That’s all we need to say about that. In other news, at this point, all the dancers left are really good and have earned their spot on the big ballroom floor, so I was looking forward to this show being of really high dance quality… and I wasn’t disappointed! Great opening number with all the professionals, celebrities, and the bonus Blackpool dancers. It was quite weird to see our contestants dancing with each other, ie. at one point I spotted Karim and Alex having a boogie. Very odd.

I knew I was going to love Dickinson because, from the trailer, it was a modern take on the early life of this infamous poet. I’ll be honest and admit to knowing little about Emily other than her name, but as soon as I knew Hailee Steinfeld was in it, I was on board. And it was SO GOOD. Ten half-hour episodes of Hailee and her friends reinventing what a good period piece is. Here are five things to love about this new and exciting show, that thankfully has been renewed for a second series already:

Sure, the last thing the world needs is another television streaming service and yes, there is a question mark about where Britbox sits in the current market but you know what? I kinda like it. Britbox is a long-in-coming platform initiated by ITV and the BBC, with Channel 4 and Channel 5 on board, to offer UK-based programming to mostly a UK-based audience. It sounds like a good thing, bringing together the main terrestrial channels from the big four, but it does get a bit wobbly when you start to look at what’s available.

This is the time of year when people start talking about the C word - that festive period where you will either be wondering how much cash you might receive as a gift, or pondering how much it might be wise to spend on eggnog, or maybe even thinking about how you can revamp your finances for the new year. I’ve thought about money and finances a lot this year and it’s been an interesting, frustrating and sometimes rewarding process. One of the key finds was Monzo. Monzo have been around for about four years now and already have racked up over 3 million users, which is supremely impressive.

Is it Blackpool time?? Not quite yet but it is Blackpool drinking time. DRINK. I actually didn’t think the number of B word mentions was as high as it has been in the past, but maybe I was just mellow with a glass of wine in hand. It’s that point in the competition, unfortunately helped by Will’s early exit, that when the dancers gather on the floor at the beginning, it’s starting to look quite empty. They still know how to put on a good show though.

At the start of this year, I made good progress with learning Swift but of course two things got in the way - real life, and then SwiftUI. When SwiftUI was announced in June, it sounded too good to be true (anything to not have to use interface builder anymore) but I figured I’d be better off waiting to see what it had to offer before continuing my journey.

Well this was a tough one, wasn’t it? The halfway point, hooray, the dancers are really starting to get it all together. But we had to wave goodbye to Will, which was very sad. And poor Neil also had to sit out another week and hand over the dance to a thankfully slightly more prepared Kevin. Here are some thoughts as the whole thing unfolded. Karim and Amy. “Not bad if you did the right steps,” she says in training. Encouraging! A great dance, I feel like he lost definition a couple of times but a really amazing job - energetic as always but seemed more in control this time. Epic scoring.

Apple TV+ launched on Friday and yes, you can expect plenty of future updates on the content that came with it. Dickinson was mega! But this isn’t about that. This is about the first episode of Oprah’s Book Club distributed by Apple. I’ve already discussed how I dived right in and started reading the book as Apple quite cleverly coincided the book club with their new reading goals in the Books app.

This past week, the BBC aired their behind the scenes documentary about how their latest Children In Need initiative came together. A handful of actors got together to record an album of covers, solo songs that are personal to them for a variety of reasons and a group track to finish it all off. The 90 minute programme followed their journey from selecting the songs through perfecting their vocals and then the nerves of recording. I thought it was fascinating to see how the various people took to the challenge - Helena Bonham Carter went traditionally a bit off piste, Olivia Colman was insanely nervous about the whole thing, Luke Evans just rocked up and did it no problem, Suranne Jones took her song to the kids, and Adrian Lester showed off some remarkable beat-boxing skills.

The US version of The Office has been off air for over six years, but it is barely out of the public consciousness and rarely a day goes by that I don’t see an Office gif fly by on my Twitter stream. The success of the Office didn’t diminish the brilliance of the original UK version but it certainly dwarfed it in popularity – spreading its wings to be much more of an ensemble piece, and covering far more ground than the original two series ever could.

Oh, Halloween week. And this time someone is dancing to the Backstreet Boys. Hooray! I’m surprised that we haven’t started hearing all about Blackpool yet, but perhaps that is the next milestone? Who will get there? Read on! Hope Will gets better soon, oof! And Neil! Although I have to say, Kevin, of course, fits Ghostbusters very well. Loving that the name patch clearly has space for four letters but has squeezed in Kev instead.

I recently discovered the podcast Robot or Not which is an audio show where: “Jason Snell asks John Siracusa to rule on the meaning of various words and concepts. It’s not just about robots anymore.” I have been listening to the entire back catalogue, partly because the episodes are so short but also because they’re so fascinating. As the title suggests, the concept started out solely about robots but has branched out to food, ethics, religion and actually quite a lot about food. One of the older episodes I listened to was all about how to distinguish between movies and television these days.

This week, guest judge Alfonso Ribeiro sat in for Bruno Tonioli. He did the same thing last year, but I wasn’t watching then, so it was the first time I’ve seen him in action. Such fun! It was actually quite nice to have a bit of a different line up, I wouldn’t want there to be guest judges every week, but it’s no bad thing to hear from different voices. Anyway, on with the notes as it happened:

I can’t commit to listening to Beats 1 on a regular basis, as much as I love what they’re doing on the Apple Music platform – but there’s one thing I try very hard not to miss, and that’s Julie Adenuga’s Friday show. It’s Fridaaaaaaaaay. I love Julie, and her weekday show is excellent, crammed with music and interviews that sometimes veer slightly too grime for my tastes but otherwise are eminently enjoyable and listenable. However, when you get to the Friday show, things really shift into gear.

Many moons ago, I wrote about Duolingo, the language learning app that uses short lessons, goals and badges to encourage you to reach your targets. I’ve dipped in and out of that app over the years and for some reason, just recently, the obsession grabbed me once again. I downloaded the app and was impressed with some of the new content since the last time I looked at it. Not only are there the standard lessons – with each topic of the language broken up into a specific area where you can learn and gain skills via typing, speaking and listening – but now there are stories and audio lessons too.

It only took four weeks to get some Strictly Come controversy but I have to admit I was surprised by the bottom two and the subsequent decision by the judges. However, before we get there, here are some quick notes about the dances as they happened. Chris Ramsay went first, and I quite enjoyed the inside basketball included in the dance. It was good although I’m not totally sure I like the non-pointy-foot option. He is a funny one though, “let’s see that leaderboard!”

I just wanted to write a couple of thoughts down in praise of the TV series State of the Union. It aired earlier in the year in the US, I believe, and has just been shown on the BBC and via iPlayer and I absolutely drank that show up. Written by novelist Nick Hornby, the show consists of ten episodes of only about ten minutes each dipping into the lives of a married couple seeking counselling for their union.

I’ve been a podcast listener for a long time and have talked often about them, from my evolving listening habits, to being a bit of a hoarder, and even picking out some of my favourites on occasion. Recently, I’ve been more obsessed with Beats 1 and streaming music and letting my podcast backlog creep up and up, but that has all changed. My podcast app of choice has previously been Downcast. It’s a sturdy product that collects and plays podcasts well, but it’s not perfect, and if I’m honest I had got into that slightly stale place where you just keep using an app even though it crashes quite a lot, because laziness is keeping you there.

One of the things Apple is renowned for, and also vilified for, is their unified approach to technology. They make the software and they make the devices which helps to have a more seamless experience as a user (although not at the moment!) and now they’ve added content to their list as well. When I wrote the post about enjoying the new reading goals in association with Oprah’s book club moving to the Apple platform, I hadn’t realised quite what a crossover experience the team have created.

Hey, remember when I wrote about buying a Soda Stream to replace the endless bottles of sparkling water I was wasting? Well, I just had to change the gas canister and it got even more awesome. Firstly, that’s lasted just over three months, which is longer than I’d expected and has saved a really significant number of plastic bottles. Secondly, the replacement canister I bought was just a bit more than £20 so it’s also saved a significant amount of cash.

This week, I was not very well and had to watch Strictly without a glass of wine in hand which was a different experience. Although I was a bit delirious from the cold meds, so it probably added up to the same thing. It was movie week, of course, and full of drama during the week of build up and on the night itself. Craig and the teeth! Katya falling over many times! Dev covering everyone and everything in blue body paint!

In the latest iOS release, Apple have got a lot wrong. Many things that used to function now no longer do so, and everything is just that little bit more flaky. I’ve never restarted my devices quite so much as I have these past few weeks. However, one thing that I have enjoyed is the new reading goals. The Books app, or iBooks as I can’t help but keep calling it, was always a tangential thing for me. I love reading and books but Kindle was my app and store of choice. The Apple Books app, whilst making a really nice reading experience, didn’t do much in terms of promotion, finding material, or collecting your works once downloaded. Meanwhile, I’ve just spent a significant amount of time putting my books into Kindle collections on the iPad which was an easy process and makes for a nice digital bookshelf.

Just a quick update on my previous post about the launch of Apple Arcade. I listed five games that I played when they first came out but since then I’ve tried a couple more that are worth a mention. We also investigated the new ability to pair a Playstation controller to the Apple TV and play games on the big screen - which can make a big difference depending which game you’re playing.

When I go Strictly, I like to go all in and whilst I have drawn the line at listening to the podcast this year, I’m keen to keep up the It Takes Two habit. I only just managed to fit them all in with a couple of hours to spare before we set about watching week 2’s show, but it got done. And what did I make of week 2? Fun and fabulous, as always. Here are some notes I made along the way.

I’m behind the times on this, but I’m glad I waited to watch Aisling Bea’s new comedy This Way Up. I bought the entire series to binge on the Apple TV and got through it in super quick time - it was wonderful and heartbreaking and genuine and lovely and inspirational and sobering all in equal measure. The two areas it particularly shines in are the portrayal of struggling with mental health - Bea’s character Aine is recovering from a nervous breakdown and trying to deal with life in a very lonely London. It’s a difficult subject to talk about let alone make a comedy of, but the tone of every episode is perfect. The fact that Aine can whip smart her way out of any conversation, but seconds later when by herself, sinks to her knees in desperation - I don’t know if there’s anyone who couldn’t relate to that in some way.

You know how people often say that technology can fix problems they didn’t even know they had? Well, Apple have fixed a problem that I definitely didn’t have – not enough access to games. Their recent launch of Apple Arcade is interesting and exciting for many reasons, but more than anything, when am I going to find time to play all of these titles? On the one hand, I never really thought the app gaming world needed a revolution or a boost – there was plenty out there to play, free games, paid games, lots of choice, lots of variety. But on the other hand, if Apple can help put a bit of a spanner in the free-to-start-with-but-then-pay-to-actually-get-any-enjoyment-out-of-the-game model that has taken the app world by storm, then I’m probably glad to see it.

So, we’ve all seen the first episode of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing competition and what an extravaganza it was. Immediately, I have to go back on two things I said in my previous post: That I didn’t know any of the contestants this year and was more likely to want to get on with my life than get to know them. But no, no, one show in and I was obsessed. My concerns about Motsi. I still stand by the feeling that the BBC have put themselves in a difficult position having sisters as judge and competitor, but I can see why they’ve taken the risk. Motsi is properly brilliant. So, having clarified that I loved it, here’s a stream of consciousness as I watched.

I’m sure you’ve seen this by now, but Jennifer Lopez gave a bit of a dancing masterclass on Jimmy Fallon’s talk show this week, as the pair of them demonstrated the evolution of dance in music videos. I particularly like the bit for Waterfalls, which I didn’t know what an iconic dance but must be, the Wrecking Ball space hoppers, and the Bad Guy hoodies.

Having gotten through the Avengers Endgame ordeal with only minor spoilers, attention now turns back to Agents of Shield. Previous seasons, we have paused watching this show because there are links to the big bad Marvel world and we didn’t want to go around spoiling ourselves as that would just be silly. Turns out, we needn’t have worried. There aren’t any spoilers in season six of Agents of Shield, due to several reasons.

Of the wide variety of museums to visit in London, for some reason, I opted to go to the London Transport Museum. I say for some reason, as though I am not actually a total nerd for trains and the underground and the history of both. It’s really a wonder I haven’t been before. The museum is situated near Covent Garden and claims to let you “discover London’s history at the world’s leading museum of urban transport, online, in our Museum and at our Depot. Our Depot houses over 320,000 objects from our collection, including trains, buses, signs, photographs, posters, and large objects - to name a few!”

When the sun’s been out, we’ve been sneaking quick trips to the South West Coast Path at various points along its length. None of them have been particularly exciting trips but there are enough now to make a quick scrapbook. This batch includes a walk returning by train, a walk returning by bus, a walk that was stopped by a massive hill that we just couldn’t face, and a trip down Newquay streets which covered more of the path than I thought it was going to.

Actually, not an elephant, but the unique selling point of Dudley Zoo is that it’s also a castle. The animals are milling around the ruin walls and you get the experience of visiting a zoo but also visiting a castle. There’s a variety of animals in the castle grounds, and the zoo does a good job of offering up some good views and some things I’d not seen before - the ability to go through a little tunnel and pop up in a little cupola in the middle of the lynx exhibit, for example. That was kinda freaky, but fun too.