Whenever I mention one of those counter-top grill type machines, I always say “It’s so good I put my name on it,” because, you know, George Foreman. I don’t really know who George Foreman is but that’s the kind of advertising that really sticks because it’s a catchy line and it was a new idea. I realised, watching quite a lot of TV over the past few sickly days, that you couldn’t get away with this any more. Celebrities are endorsing products left, right and centre, and whilst they might not have actually branded their names right into the goods themselves, they’ve all but sold out in every other way.

I quite enjoy the BBC’s seasons, where they focus in on one particular subject across a majority of their platforms. But the latest one, called Sitcom Season, has me scratching my head. I love a good sitcom, new or old, but part of these plans involve bringing back a whole host of classic comedies and revitalising them for the new generation. For example: “Porridge, the classic prison sitcom, returns nearly 40 years after Norman Stanley Fletcher served his time. The legendary Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, who created the 1970s series, will write the one-off special episode, which sees Fletch’s grandson, also known as Fletch, imprisoned for a series of cyber-crimes.”

I haven’t really used iTunes for its intended purpose in a long time. It’s very handy for adding id3 tags to things and it’s a nice way of perusing the store for all its many digital wonders, but in terms of syncing devices and storing my stuff, the iCloud has been far more useful. One of the problems with this strategy, however, is that it meant I couldn’t get my hands on any audiobooks that I’d bought from the iTunes store. Up until now, they have been locked away on the desktop, with no means of getting them onto a phone or other device without using a cable. Whereas with most items, you can look through the iTunes store and see whether you already own it thanks to that little “cloud with an arrow” symbol, audiobooks had no such luxury.

Zootopia looks like one of those films that is going to be almost unbearably cute. A world of animals of all shapes and sizes, all getting along? Hello! More than anything though, the films many trailers have opened my eyes to the world of sloths - who knew these creatures were so adorable? The way his face lights up at the joke… so… slowly. It’s amazing.

Apple have increasingly upped the comedy in their ads, as well as bringing more and more celebrities on board to cameo. Their latest effort also raises the amount of cuteness and awesome to almost unacceptable levels. Potentially, the best ad ever.

If things had worked out differently, I don’t think I would have ended up watching any of the Fast and Furious films. I like pretty people driving gorgeous cars as much as the next person, probably more so, but I wasn’t convinced they could make one feature length film out of such a thing, let alone seven. Yet, those seven movies later, I’m an emotional wreck. Paul Walker’s death was meaningless to me at the time, but is now steeped in so much poignancy it physically hurts to think about. The iconic stunts in their unbelievable and ridiculous nature still manage to take my breath away. And hearing any suped up car makes me do a double take of joy rather than disgust. I have genuinely never been so affected, so bruised by films, to the point where I have absolutely needed to take a break from the big screen. I’ve only just worked up the strength to post the Film Watch review and that’s over a week later.

It was nearly seven years ago I wrote up some thoughts about Hawkeye, the super-accurate camera tracking system that allows line calls in tennis to be queried and corrected. At the time, I spoke of its benefits and pondered whether we would ever get to a stage where there are no linesmen at all, instead umpires would rely on Hawkeye to make all the decisions. This hasn’t happened, but more and more I’m starting to think it should. With the introduction of BT Sport came a wealth of WTA tennis into our lives. So much tennis has made me an armchair expert, and it’s come to the point where I really do wish it was down to Hawkeye to make the calls.

I found myself with a spare hour or so whilst in Bath recently, and suddenly remembered something I’d spotted online – an audio walking tour of the city. Rather than having to wait at a tour stop and join with a random group of people to be ferried around the famous streets, this was a solo adventure. The site offers two tours, for free, and the one I opted for was the Jane Austen Walking Tour.

I was browsing through the App Store recently and found a new app called Stride & Prejudice - an endless running game with a difference. Instead of traversing through jungle lands collecting coins, or jumping across rooftops to escape the cops, this one is far more simple. You’re a lady in a nice frock, running and jumping across the text of Pride & Prejudice. Makes sense, right? It’s primitive in its design, and could certainly do with a polish around the edges, but it only aims to do one job and it does that pretty well. The real question is: who is going to play a game like this?

When Emma Watson started up a new Goodreads book club that focused on works about feminism and equality, I immediately signed up. That was all I did though, and I’ve thoroughly ignored the email digests that have been emailed to me, and I have yet to buy the first book on the list let alone catch up to what the second one even is. That’s not to say I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s great to see someone famous endorsing something like this, and the joy of it is Watson has really thrown herself behind the idea with great gusto and passion. So much so, she’s reportedly going to put her acting career on the backburner for a year to concentrate on reading a book a week, thus turning the book club into something even more special.

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.

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.

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’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.

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.”

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!

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.

One thing that had never really occurred to me about streaming music services until the last couple of weeks, is the access you have to things that you don’t need all the time. Sure, you want to create playlists of your favourite songs and you want to listen to the best band albums over and over again, but sometimes there is music you only require for a specific period of time - and Christmas is that time.

One of my earliest forays into recording my voice involved working with LibriVox to create audiobooks. The site is a great place full of volunteers who help to record and gather together public domain works, creating a vast archive of audiobooks. I haven’t had time to participate in a long while, but did manage to list all the projects I was involved with. It was previously a constantly updated page on this site, but I’m moving it to this static archive for now.

The long-awaited update to the Apple TV that allowed third-party apps has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, there are lots of new apps to play with and some of them are fan-flippin-tastic! On the other hand, usability and simplicity has taken a big knock, and there were some pretty serious niggles that are, thankfully, gradually being ironed out. Better to dwell on the good, though, and I’ve found the apps to be a breath of fresh air. The Apple TV has always been a pretty big part of our TV/film watching experience, but now it’s added a whole new level with games. There are two easy comparisons to make with the new gaming functionality, and that’s to put it up against the Wii (casual gaming, less of a focus on graphics) and the Playstation (top of the range graphics, more expensive games).

It’s a big responsibility and an honor to work in that huge orbiting laboratory. Figuring out how to support life in the hostile environment of space has resulted in thousands of down-to-earth spin-offs, from temperature-regulating underwear to heart pumps that rely on Shuttle fuel-pump technology. The concrete benefits and by-products of the science we do in space have touched fields from agriculture to medicine to robotics. Data gathered on the Shuttle and ISS help power Google Maps; experiments with different dietary and exercise protocols have revealed how to ward off, permanently, one debilitating type of osteoporosis; the robotic machinery now used inside the parts of nuclear power plants that are too hazardous for humans is a direct descendent of Canadarm: the list goes on and on.

I was super excited to watch the new Jessica Jones series on Netflix. I’d not got on board with Daredevil, but this was something different. The concept appealed 100% - Marvel expanding their universe with female characters at the helm? Bring it on. Netflix allowing us to binge watch the entire series at once? I’m on board! The trouble is, it arrived just before I got to my latest exam break, so I had the pain of avoiding spoilers and looking wistfully at the Netflix tweets about the series, waiting, waiting, waiting until I could find the time to watch.

As is often the way, the first part of my December downtime has been spent curled up under a duvet desperately waiting for the hour I can have my next Lemsip. This year, I tried a new tactic of supplementing the real medicine with that other thing that’s supposedly even better: laughter. There were a few new stand up shows available on iTunes, those that have presumably also been released on DVD in time for Christmas, and I was very entranced by Dylan Moran’s live show Off the Hook.

I think this was aired on James Corden’s show last week, but I’ve just caught up with the video now. Love Me Like You Do isn’t one of my favourite Ellie songs, but how can you not love it done in so many different ways? I particularly enjoy the country version, with some exceptionally dodgy accents. I’ve been listening to more and more country music recently, and not a lot of it sounds like that!

I’ve fully embraced the world of Apple Music, far more than I have any other streaming product. It’s not perfect, but considering how many Apple shaped gadgets I have, it fits into my life better than other streaming services do. It’s had quite a big impact on my listening habits, which is perhaps a story for another day, but the bottom line is I’m listening to a lot more music than I used to.

Last month, Mr C and I finished watching all of the Bond films. We’d been pondering the merits and pitfalls of doing such a thing, but when I bought the iTunes bundle of all 23 films up to and including Skyfall, it was inevitable. We finished the films just in time for the hype to start for the new film, Spectre, which means there’s a lot of great Bond content on TV and the internet just as our interest has peaked.

To celebrate some exam success this week, I was whisked off to the Apple store to purchase some Beats goodies - bluetooth in-ear headphones, and their mini portable speaker, the Beats Pill. Both are a lot of fun, however it was an impromptu off-the-shelf purchase that has turned out to be the real revelation. I’m always keen on gadgets that make photography more accessible. In this day and age of leaving the house with powerful photographic equipment tucked in your pocket, adding peripherals can make things even better. One of my key criteria though, is that they shouldn’t make you and your camera any less portable.

I was allowed to lift my head from my study books for two weeks recently, to head to Belgium for a fortnight work trip. It was crazy busy and there wasn’t a lot of time to be a tourist, but I did manage to snap a couple of pictures in Brussels. It’s a lovely place, full of juxtapositions of old and new, and a big mish-mash of languages. I wish I could have had more time to spend nosing around, but had to settle for just a few glimpses of the sights.

Just like many people, I’ve been curious how James Corden would get on in the wild world of late night US talk shows. You’ll have noticed my obsession with Jimmy Fallon, I’m sure, and the concept of these daily evening entertainment extravaganzas fascinates me. By all accounts, he did okay and there’s at least something to work with. From the clips I’ve seen, it’s a good start but I just have one question. Why would you ever put Tom Hanks in your first show because how are you ever going to top this??

Since writing about my desire to chronicle the connected life I’ve done a lot of playing around with gadgets but not so much reporting of my findings. One of the health and fitness gadgets I’ve been less keen on trying is the Fitbit fitness band, partly because it just doesn’t appeal to me and partly because of their refusal to embrace Apple’s HealthKit concept. (For those who missed it, HealthKit syncs all data from health apps to graph your progress in one handy place. Fitbit refused to be included, and Apple took their gadgets out of the online and retail stores.)

Life is, predictably, very busy at the moment and instead of flailing around as I make my way through a day, I’ve had to start thinking in the morning: “This is what I have to achieve today, how will I fit it in?” That means a bit of forward planning, which in turn means that Hugh Grant was right all along with his system, highlighted in About a Boy. I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes.

I so wanted Newsstand to be the answer. The concept is perfect: digital copies of magazines delivered to my device without me having to a) leave the house/rely on the postal service or b) find space for physical paper. Unfortunately, it’s just not that simple. I started my digital magazine explorations with Zinio, and then moved on to Newsstand when Apple kicked off their version of digital newspaper and magazines. Both do very similar things, allowing you to subscribe to a magazine, or download individual editions, read them on your device and then continue to access them later.

Major changes to the makeup of the grid set the tone for a promising 2015 Formula One season. Two World Champions have opted to switch teams in order to reinvigorate their careers following lacklustre results last year. Fernando Alonso returns to a team he almost destroyed back in 2007, while Sebastian Vettel makes a clean break from the team and personnel that have been responsible for his F1 success to date.

Browsing through the BBC iPlayer, I saw that the final episode of Miranda that aired over Christmas was about to time out. It reminded me that three of my fondly admired sitcoms came to their conclusion this festive period, and surprisingly, all three went out in style. It may be that LOST burned me and that I hold a grudge for too long, but it feels like most TV shows captivate their audiences and then end in disappointment. Not these three!

Box of Lies with Channing Tatum

The history My experiences with Harry Potter have been something of a rollercoaster. I enjoyed the books during their first run, but wasn’t hugely passionate about them - happy to wait for the paperback version, rather than stand in line at midnight for the final book’s release. I somehow ended up owning just six of the seven physical books, so was super keen to own them as ebooks so I could a) complete my collection and b) ditch the last standing physical books I owned. JK Rowling finally capitulated and I was able to plow through them all, on my Kindle, for a second read.

Following swiftly on from the films of 2014, Mr C turns his attention to music. The playlist to choose from was up to 17 songs at one point, and narrowing it down to five proved to be a difficult task, but one which was great fun for me to watch him agonise over. You can view previous years via the handy links at the end of the post, but for now, let’s see what the end result of the hours of weighing up country against girl groups against guitar bands were.

It’s that time of year again (a little late actually), the one where I force Mr C to decide on his top five songs and films from the year just gone. Usually, this is a fun process in which we discuss music and movies and have a bit of a laugh. This year, it’s been less enjoyable because there have been so many good songs and films that it’s been a bit of a wrench to cut the list down to just five. Nevertheless, we begin with films.

I’ve talked before about how much I liked Crashed Ice, the sport is simple and pure - four guys on skates racing to the bottom of a tricky ice course. You have to have skill, but there’s enough luck involved to know that every single trip down the course is unpredictable and unmissable. This year, the sport is taking in four spots around the globe including Belfast, which is tantalisingly close. They’ve also ramped up their promotion tools with a great video series following three of the well-known racers through the season. The first was released this week, with the inside story on what makes Marco Dellago, Cameron Nasz and Scott Croxall hungry to win in 2015.

I was catching up with some recent Desert Island Discs episodes and the most recent conversation was with Julie Bentley. Ms Bentley is the Chief Executive of the Guide Association and she spent much of the talk with host Kirsty Young defending the concept of Girl Guides. Are they still relevant? Should they be modernising and discussing sex education as they apparently have recently, or rather preserving the youth of today?

If you listen to podcasts in any capacity, you’re unlikely to have missed hearing about the new spin-off from This American Life called Serial. It’s a documentary series focusing on one story and following it for as long as it takes, rather than the multi-storied This American Life style episodes. And whereas TAL is all about the radio with podcasts attached on the side, Serial is designed to be a podcast first and foremost - variable lengths, both in individual episodes and potentially seasons as well.

Despite this being an advert (although it’s for free popcorn so who can argue?), it’s worth sharing because the minions get all Christmassy and start singing carols. If you watched their last attempt at singing and were put off, understandably, then do give them a second chance. I’m so glad the minions have their own film coming out, although do wonder if they will be required to communicate better and thus lose just a little bit of their charm.

The first trailer for Jurassic World was released yesterday, and I hadn’t realised I was going to be excited about the film until I saw it and gasped. A lot. The music! Chris Pratt! The gates! The shark! When I first heard about another Jurassic Park sequel, my heart sank because, let’s face it, they already ruined it enough with the second one. But then watching this trailer - which is both brilliant but with all the cheese of the first one that makes it a classic - I realised that it already being ruined wipes the slate clean. They can’t do any worse, so why not try?

The connected life. Wearable tech. Automated homes. The internet of things. All these names cover the next wave of technological interest and advancement, and whilst they may all be less than desirable monikers, the actual concepts and gadgets that are being created are absolutely fascinating. I’ve been a keen gadget hunter for a long time, particularly over the last few years, and having barely scratched the surface of research regarding wearable technology and digital home products, I think the next few will be particularly expensive!