I’ve managed to read quite a few books this year, dipping in and out whenever I get a spare five minutes. I post my reviews over on Goodreads, but thought I would share those books I’ve enjoyed in 2016 for which I’ve given five out of five stars. Lucky Man by Michael J Fox I was hooked from the beginning, revelling in this calm and rational way of looking at and dealing with the world. It can be a difficult place, but Fox has such a humour and humility about it all, that it was inspiring to read. I liked how it dipped back and forth a bit, but was generally chronological, from his childhood through to his recent advocacy work with his Parkinson’s Disease foundation. Inspiring and insightful, I highly recommend this whether you’re a fan or not.

I’ve been obsessed with novelty mugs for many years, and occasionally have taken time out to blog about some of my favourites. In fact, I’m surprised to find that I’ve written five posts before, and that it seemed to be an annual event up until 2013. Given that it’s been a couple of years since I had a look at what’s available on the hot drink container market, I figured it was time to break out the mug post again, so here goes. It’s too late to buy any of these as gifts for Christmas, but if you’re looking for something to spend your holiday gift vouchers on, then look no further!

That’s the key, you know, confidence. I know for a fact that if you can genuinely like your body, so can others. It doesn’t really matter if it’s short, tall, fat or thin, it just matters that you can find some things to like about it. Even if that means having a good laugh at the bits of it that wobble independently, occasionally, that’s all right. It might take you a while to believe me on this one, lots of people don’t because they seem to suffer from a self-hatred that precludes them from imagining that a big woman could ever love herself because they don’t.

This coming weekend is the final of Strictly Come Dancing’s 2016 competition, and it’s been an epic run to the finish. I used to write about this show all the time but haven’t shared my thoughts since 2012. It must be a good series this year to get me back behind the keyboard! Rather than prattle on endlessly, I’ll just share five thoughts about the 2016 batch of amateur dancers:

At the moment, travelling is like a distant dream - a wonderful idea full of experiences that would be fabulous, but that is just out of reach. Time, money, effort, life, all those things are getting in the way. But that doesn’t stop me letting the dream run wild, and I found an app that is such an incredible concept, I have to share, even if I haven’t experienced it myself. It’s for the more spontaneous and random traveller, someone who isn’t really sure what they want to do.

At first glance, The Pandolly Podcast doesn’t seem like it would be a good fit for me. Pandora Sykes and Dolly Alderton, fashion and dating experts from The Sunday Times Style, get together once a week to review some of the big and little stories of the week. They recommend fashion items from sponsor River Island and Instagram accounts to follow, chat about celebrities, odd stories and bigger worldwide news, plus often get into all manner of feminist issues.

Now, you know I love James Corden and his antics, but combine them with the fabulous Hailee Steinfeld and you’re on to a winner. This game, though, it is something mindbending. Taking the first line of every song and repeating it for every line is so hard, have you tried it? Try it! A lot of fun though, and far more hilarious than it has any right to be. I’m worried I will never be able to sing songs normally, now that I know they should all just be the first line repeated over and over.

You know that meme where celebrities read mean tweets about themselves? Well, app developers have picked up on this and started reading one star reviews of their products. The end result is brilliant, if you’re slightly geeky like me. Love the people that are confused and say really nice things but then award one star. And poor Marco who gets all the personal comments and nothing about the actual app in question. Hope there’s more of these in the future, although of course I don’t actually hope that developers keep getting one star reviews!

Up until this year, when a certain motorsport game came out that replicates the 2016 F1 season, I called our Playstation 4 “the Tomb Raider box” because that’s pretty much all it was good for. I’m not a big console gamer but Tomb Raider has always been a huge love of both mine and Mr C’s, so it was only natural we grabbed the new Rise of the Tomb Raider game as soon as it became available (which was a year later than on the Xbox, thanks peeps).

I can’t believe it was three long years ago that I first wrote about the magic of the Duolingo language learning app. Three years of free French lessons (with a few hiatuses here and there) and I definitely feel like I know more of the language than I ever have before. What’s also amazing is looking back at my initial post, to see how the app has developed. It has a fresh and much cleaner look now, the lesson style has changed slightly from a “three strikes and you’re out” approach to a more “keep trying and you’ll get there” system. There are also a lot more languages out there to choose from, I’ve already experimented with a spot of German and Dutch, but always come back to the more familiar French.

The BBC recently published a short video that explained why some people respond better to having music playing when they’re studying and others work better in silence. This is a topic that has been on my radar for a long time, because Mr C and I differ radically on our approaches to concentration. He can listen to music as he works and learns, whereas I don’t favour silence but certainly prefer a white noise that requires no additional concentration.

I’ve been paying a bit more attention to my Apple Watch exercise rings again recently, and although I usually work on a week by week basis, I was perusing the history in the accompanying iPhone app. There, you can see how you’ve done each month and it’s also a good way of comparing days, ie. seeing if you often take Fridays off. I was surprised, however, going back a couple of months, to see a trend I hadn’t really noticed at the time.

I started watching 11.22.63 a long while ago, and have just, finally, after such a long time, gotten to the end of it. I was so looking forward to watching this series, James Franco goes travelling through time in an adaptation of a Stephen King book? It couldn’t really sound more perfect if it tried. The first episode was massively intriguing, and I forgave its slow pace as it was setting up an absolutely intriguing premise. The moments where he jumped through the time travel window and found life to be exactly the same again and again, I loved all that stuff.

I’m not an American citizen, so am interested in their election only so far as what happens over there seems to affect us anyway. I’m not usually one to talk about politics either, because it always seems to be to be a topic that causes arguments and resolves little. Even so, I think it’s worth highlighting a presidential candidate who has set up her own podcast, called With Her, to cover the last few months of the campaign.

I was superbly excited going into this year’s Apple Music Festival, even more so than usual. Previous years have seen me bouncing around in glee at the concept of a fortnight’s worth of free live music, streamed around the globe to be soaked up in the comfort of my own living room. This year, given my focus on musical education, I was looking forward to it even more! Plus, the line up looked exceptionally good.

This video is so gorgeous. Watch it full screen if you can. What’s incredible is that we could very well be living through the moments that will be detailed in future history textbooks, when that billionaire changed the face of space travel as we know it. Incredible.

I’ve always been interested in the standing desk revolution but never really had the opportunity to investigate any of the options until recently. In my day job, getting a standing desk wasn’t really an option, whilst at home, adding a motorised desk to the office would involve a significant reshuffle of furniture. However, a friend bought themselves a Varidesk and very kindly lent it to me for a weekend. The Varidesk is a great halfway house idea to allow people to convert their existing desk situation into a moveable standing desk instead. Two small levers either side of the main desk part, allow you to raise and lower the level at will, making it easy to stand or sit without committing to either one.

After a little bit of delivery drama, my new Apple Watch Series 2 arrived just in time for the weekend, and so naturally, I headed out to test out the one thing I’ve been looking forward to since it was announced - swim tracking!

Amazon’s continuing efforts to deliver consumables to your door before you’ve even realised you need them has seen a rapid expansion in the UK recently. Their Pantry service launched a few moons ago, their Fresh option has been gradually creeping across London presumably with desires to go further, and just a few week’s ago, the Amazon Dash buttons were launched. If you’ve not heard of them, the idea is simply that you set up a small device with a button so that when you press it, specific goods come to your door. The buttons are supplier specific, and offer a range of goods for you to select from, that should arrive with Amazon Prime swiftness. That’s the idea, and in principal, I love it. The concept of reaching for your last dishwasher tablet, or getting to the bottom of your jar of olive oil, and simply having to press a button to get more is brilliant! Forget having to remember to put it on a shopping list, you never have to think about it again, and stuff just turns up at your door.

Passenger, playing at the Apple Music Festival this evening, perks up my attention. Me: “Who does he sound like?” Mr C: “Not sure.” Me: “Is it Mumford & Sons, maybe?” Mr C: “Could be, the guitars and stuff.” Me: “No, it’s his voice, it’s familiar.” Mr C shrugs. We listen on. Two songs later, Passenger starts playing Let Her Go. “OHHHH, this is who he sounds like! This is the song I was remembering!”

There are lots of productivity apps and habit trackers available on the iOS store, but I have become partial to Streaks. It’s such a simple app that can really make a difference – although admittedly my streaks have not been so fruitful lately. The app is really easy to use. If you have a goal in mind, something you want to do on a regular basis (most likely daily, but can be adjusted to weekly or monthly if required), you can set it up on Streaks to track your progress. When you complete the goal on any given day, you just pop to the app and tap it as done. You can view your progress, and your statistics with a couple of simple taps, and you can do that for up to six different goals.

Criminal is part of the Radiotopia network, a selection of well-produced shows from hosts that all have wonderfully smooth and captivating voices. I have listened to a few of them over the weeks and months, and Criminal is one of the few that has stuck. They describe themselves as a podcast with a different take on crime. This, from the about page: Criminal is a podcast about crime. Not so much the “if it bleeds, it leads,” kind of crime, but something a little more complex. Stories of people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle.

I think Harry Potter & the Cursed Child was the first book that I pre-ordered, waited for midnight for the download to begin, and started reading that very same night. I didn’t finish it in one go, but was done by lunchtime the next day, and my feelings on it veer from one direction to the next depending what mood I’m in. I did love the story, because seeing how the next generation interact with each other is fascinating, and throw in elements of time travel, and I’m on board.

I wasn’t expecting much from this Olympics, I’ll be honest. It felt like there was no way Team GB could live up to their amazing performance at the home games in London, there was so much talk of drug cheats and athletes being banned, several athletes opting not go due to potential Zika/health problems, and on top of all that the concerns that Rio would be able to pull it all off without a hitch anyway.

I recently stumbled across an old note I made, after listening to an episode of Inside Science from the BBC. It’s a fantastic space quote about setting up lunar fuel depots, discussing the prospect of solving the problem whereby you need to take off from Earth with all the fuel to get where you’re going. If you can break that barrier, more remote areas of space become possible. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio

I am confident that someday in the future The Rock, who was once a professional wrestler, will run for president of the United States, and I think that he will win. I have seen with my own eyes the power of The Rock. The Rock is a uniter, not a divider. When the BOP showed Walking Tall, the turnout for every screening all weekend long was unprecedented. The Rock has an effect on women that transcends divisions of race, age, cultural background – even social class, the most impenetrable barrier in America. Black, white, Spanish, old, young, all women are hot for The Rock. Even the lesbians agreed that he was mighty easy on the eyes.

A long, long while back, I wrote my five reasons for not going to the cinema anymore, and occasionally if I’m ever asked why I dislike watching films on the big screen, I point people towards that post. All of it still holds true, and as I get more cranky and my TV setup at home gets more awesome, there’s less of a reason to fork out for cinema tickets for any blockbuster release.

My Life List has featured “watch a professional ballet performance” for a long time, and I’ve never quite got round to it. I’ve just recently realised why that is, considering how much I love the theatre and would grab any excuse to go. I have a weird obsession with ballet that manifests itself by me loving the behind the scenes activities – training and classes, rehearsal, choreography and dance schools – but then not being at all interested in the end result.

Apple Music gets quite a lot of stick for its functionality and usability, and I can understand the complaints to a degree. However, I’ve used it constantly these past six months for my weekly album adventure and much more, so I’m listening to more music than I probably have before in my life. I’m comfortable with how it works and I love it being part of my iOS experience. There’s one feature I really would like, though, and that is a Reading List style place to save things for the future. If you use Safari, you’ll know it’s easy to save whatever web page you’re on to your Reading List so that you can revisit it at a later date. Or if you’re anything like me, save stuff that you take several months to get round to looking at.

The 2016 Wimbledon Championships drew to a close this past weekend with Williams and Murray taking their respective crowns and bringing to an end two weeks of spectacular tennis. I’ve never felt quite so on top of all the Wimbledon action as I have this year, well not since I once took a whole week off to watch nothing but the tennis. There are two reasons why I’ve managed to stay so informed. One is the brilliant Live at Wimbledon radio, which provided all day every day coverage either of everything going on across the grounds, or more specific channels for Centre Court and Court One. The other weapon in my knowledge arsenal was the fantastic Tennis Podcast.

Now, I have to be careful writing this post, because in our household there is one human who is utterly obsessed beyond comprehension with Taylor Swift, and just to be clear, it’s not me. I like Ms Swift, I think she’s very talented and pulled off an incredible feat switching from country to pop the way she did. 1989 is a really good album. I also like the stuff she does with her fans and the way she really seems to care about what’s going on around her. (That’s enough praise to get me out of trouble, isn’t it?)

I didn’t realise I was eagerly awaiting the fourth series of Orange is the New Black, not until the Netflix Twitter account started to count down to its release date. Then I remembered how much I enjoy the show, and how long it has been since we were last allowed a glimpse of what was going on at Litchfield Correctional Facility. The release of series four coincided with a period of time where I happened to be in front of a screen for a good portion of the day. Or five days. And that’s what it took me to watch it through - the first time I’ve really, truly, binge-watched something the way all the jokes suggest.

I hadn’t really been paying attention to the BMW Group’s Next 100 celebration with concept cars ahoy - that is until I saw this video with their take on the future of Rolls Royce. “Are you ready?” the breathy voiceover lady oozes. Erm, not sure that I am actually!

The BBC Good Food Show has been on my to do list for a while, and this year I finally managed to find time to attend the show for a few hours. It’s bad timing really, because I haven’t been cooking or baking as much as I used to, but even so, I’m still keen on seeing what the best of the kitchen world has to offer. In all honesty, I was a bit disappointed. I was hoping the show would have innovation and cool kitchen tools, areas for increasing food knowledge, cooking skills and creating more interesting dishes. Generally, I just wanted a bit of inspiration.

Apple’s WWDC took place last week, and whilst the keynote speech that kicks the event off was interesting for its new developments introduced, it wasn’t my favourite part of the week. Apple have done a great job upping their game in terms of providing coverage of the conference for those who can’t make the trip. They stream all the sessions live, and record them all for later watching on demand.

I feel like I saw this Chinese elevated bus concept previously - perhaps at the drawings stage of design, but now there’s a scale model to show how it really would work. It looks incredible, wonderfully futuristic, and it’s a brilliant idea. BUT, I do get the feeling it wouldn’t work with human beings behind the wheel of the cars. What if someone has to get out for a second - or pull over? What if there’s a crash underneath it. Where do the lorries go?

This podcast popped up out of nowhere but instantly became a regular part of my audio entertainment. It’s a simple concept - Anna invites over her Hollywood friends, has a bit of a chat with them, and then takes calls from listeners with relationship and other problems. Anna and the guest attempt to dispense advice, but make sure to point out they’re unqualified to do so.

I love this video about some of the work the LEGO Master Builders get up to - how they come up with ideas, design their projects and build the finished articles. The best bit, of course, is the glimpse inside the warehouse of LEGO bricks - row upon row of baskets stacked full of bricks, organised and wonderful. The other thing this video brought to mind is that, whilst we live in a world where getting your dream job is more and more possible, there are still some jobs that still make you think “how on earth do you become one of those?”

I’ve been wondering why I’ve felt quite tired recently, and then I realised. It’s because I’ve suddenly started focusing on my health and fitness again, ramping up the amount of exercise I actually do. Three years of concentrating on exams can have a detrimental effect on the time available for little things like: joining a gym, going for a walk, dancing around the kitchen, that kind of thing. That’s all done and dusted (for now at least!) so I’m focusing on fitness which, for me, begins with the Apple Watch and it’s pesky three-ring strategy. Stand goals are relatively easy, but it took a considerable effort to get Stand, Move and Exercise maxed out every day. First I did it for a week, then that turned into two weeks, and then I thought, can I? Could I possibly? Will I be able to keep this up for a whole calendar month?

I enjoyed watching the first week of the French Open at Roland Garros, but the second week has been a bit of a washout. These days it always feels a bit weird for me to watch men’s tennis because we get to view so much of the WTA via BT Sport’s brilliant almost-constant coverage. Having seen a few men’s games this past seven days, I’m convinced that we’ve got the good end of the deal. When I was younger I used to prefer the men’s game because I knew more of the players, plus it was faster and more interesting to me. Now I’ve completely changed my opinion and prefer the women’s tour - and here’s five reasons why.

Beauty and the Beast was never one of my favourite Disney films but with Emma Watson in the live action remake, I’m interested to see how it comes to the big screen. A teaser trailer was released this past week, with just a few glimpses of the lady in question, and no sign of the beast at all. I’m a bit concerned that this teaser doesn’t really do much to make it look live action, up until you see Emma’s lovely face. Until then, it could just as easily be the cartoon in slightly sharper detail. Hopefully future trailers will offer up a little more because even though I said it wasn’t my favourite, I’m still secretly a little excited for it.

Top Gear returned on Sunday, with the first episode presented by the new line-up airing over the bank holiday weekend. I’ve been waiting with anticipation for this moment, along with the debut of the Clarkson/May/Hammond Amazon adventure as well. Top Gear in its previous guise was brilliant but it was never quite clear if it was the format of the show that made it great (gorgeous HD photography, fun stunts alongside interesting but not so useful car reviews) or the personalities and relationship between the three hosts. Jeremy Clarkson’s angry outburst has given us the exact situation where we can find out.

It’s always a lot of fun when artists cover other artists, and that is never more true than when it’s a Backstreet Boys tune on display. The superbly fun Florida Georgia Line took on that challenge with an impromptu cover of ‘Everybody’ and they did it pretty well, I think! If anyone else leaves BSB, there could be a spot open for one of these two. Although, I have to admit, my one takeaway from this video is to ask what device is it being filmed with? It’s a brilliantly clear image! Love it.

I love this video promoting the US version of Red Nose Day. So many celebrities, most of whom are favourites, and only a couple of whom I don’t actually recognise. It’s an amusing message, of course, but I have to admit the best bit is the bonus appearance of Ana Lucia - who appears to be on a film set and in a completely different context to everyone else. Weird.

A recent episode of Note to Self highlighted a really interesting concept that they’re unfortunately calling the ‘Lonely Web.’ The idea is that for all the popular social media posts that get hundreds of views every day, there are those that don’t get any visits at all. It’s an interesting listen, if a little hamfisted at times - you sort of get the feeling that it’s not a huge issue, particularly as not everyone is out there to be famous, and there’s an awkward moment at the beginning where Manoush only just manages to remember there’s a world outside of America. Nevertheless, it’s a thought-provoking podcast with great production values.

A new trailer for the third installment of the Star Trek reboot was released recently and it looks quite a lot like the previous two! This time, however, it’s co-written by Simon Pegg and directed by Justin Lin, who played a big part in getting me hooked on the Fast and Furious franchise (something I’m still not totally over!)

It’s not every day you open up the app store on your phone to discover that Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has released an alarm clock app to help you wake up and set your goals. Turns out that was a really good day. The Rock Clock does exactly what it says on the tin, it’s an alarm clock which pushes you to reach a specific goal (ie. wake up early, or write that screenplay), and the alarm sounds feature the Rock’s beautiful voice giving encouragement.

I really love this music video for Sweet Lovin’ by Sigala. The song itself is your standard dance number, but the video takes it a step further with roller skates that issue smoke from the back. I want some! What is really fab about the whole thing is when more skaters join the fun towards the end of the video, creating a sort of roller skating version of the Red Arrows. This must have been a lot of fun to film.

I pick and choose my way through Desert Island Discs, but the wonderful thing about it is the timeless nature of all the interviews. The BBC have made the full archive available indefinitely, so you can listen to anyone at any time. I subscribe to the podcast, but often don’t get around to listening until well after the interviews have been aired. I just recently listened to Dame Judi Dench’s show, and fell even more in love with her than I already was. Rather than joyously recounting stories for each of the brilliant songs on the list, Dame Judi gradually comes to the realisation that all her songs are actually quite depressing. It’s really fun to hear, as each track passes by, Judi’s reaction that she maybe should have taken a look at the eight songs as a whole.

It felt like an incredibly long wait, but finally, a couple of weeks ago, I got to see the new Star Wars film. Actually, it emerged onto my chosen digital media platform about four months after it graced the cinema screens, so whilst it felt like the anticipation went on forever, that window is thankfully getting smaller. I managed to avoid all but the most obvious spoilers - and for the most part they were things that only made sense after you’d seen the film anyway. (There are no spoilers in this post, btw.)