The trailers Seen three good trailers this week, the first of which is for The Monuments Men. This is George Clooney and Matt Damon sharing screen time again, which can only be a good thing. The film itself looks good, one of those that is entertaining if not perhaps completely historically accurate. Next up another trailer for the second Thor film. More of the same, it looks like.

This past weekend, I headed towards Marwell Zoo for something of a family meetup. It was a nice day, the rain held off with just a few spots threatening but then scampering away. I took a few photos but mostly wandered around chatting and wondering why the animals are always asleep when I go to see them. It was slightly disappointing to be at a zoo quite a few hundred miles away from where there’s a potential baby panda going to make an appearance soon. But it’s not like anyone really knows what’s going on there - the panda may or may not be pregnant, with another panda that may or may not be the father, and no one will known until a baby panda magically pops out.

Last weekend, the BBC confirmed just who would be playing the brand new Doctor, the twelfth incarnation. You’ve no doubt heard by now that it is Peter Capaldi who is going to be on the other end of Matt Smith’s regeneration, and the reaction I’ve seen so far has been overwhelmingly positive. It’s a stark contrast to when Smith was presented as the Eleventh Doctor. A startlingly young, unknown actor, which immediately created something of a backlash amongst certain Who fans. This time, the casting is older, established and a very interesting choice.

Another post about how things are made, after the video about Steinway pianos, but this time we’re in the world of automotives. The Tesla Model S is a somewhat revolutionary product, and we know the automotive industry is high-profile in robotics, but this video showed some of the amazing robots at work making the Tesla cars. The machines that move the cars along following magnetic paths are amazing. Plus, the robot that puts the seats in and then changes to put the windows on too actually blew my mind.

As mentioned in my Snowdon post, I had four hours to while away before going up the mountain. Ordinarily, I think I would have gone on to another location, I had plenty of options of places to visit, but I was a bit worried about getting back in time. Somehow, I’d managed to time my mountain trip on the same day as the Snowdon International Race – a crazy event where athletes actually run up a mountain. They were putting up the required barriers and cones as I arrived, and I knew it might be tricky to get back and/or park, and having spent what I did on the train tickets, I didn’t want to miss it.

The trailers There seems to be a trend in Hollywood at the moment to delve behind the scenes and show exactly how other films are made. Along with Hitchcock, we now have a look at the magical world of Walt Disney, and an explanation of how Mary Poppins came to the screen. This trailer pretty much gives away the whole film but it looks really good. Apparently this is the first time Mr Disney himself has been portrayed on screen, and who better than Tom Hanks?

I saw this video on Kottke recently, the making of a Steinway piano. I am obsessed with pianos, always upset when one gets smashed or beaten in a film. I play a bit, and dream of owning something slightly more impressive than the keyboard that is currently gathering dust. I’d never given much thought to how a piano is actually made, and this video is quite a revelation. I love that it is voiced by John Steinway himself, in an audio recording from a tour in the ’80s. It just shows how the procedure hasn’t changed much, and even with so much progress in technology and factory methods, there’s only so much you can automate when it comes to fine-tuning musical instruments.

Let’s start with the good news – Kenton and Jolene are getting married! Such a lovely couple, they are, and it was so much fun hearing David worrying that Kenton was getting itchy feet. It was the exact opposite, and over a packet of cheese and onion crisps, he asked that crucial question. Lovely stuff. Fallon was brilliantly supportive, and hopefully Meriel won’t be too bossy, although purple is a good choice of colour.

Just two simple trailers this week, and both of them with the lovely Sandra Bullock. The first is Gravity, with some clips released recently that have been doing the rounds. When I first saw them, I thought it was for that Defying Gravity film and couldn’t remember Sandra being in that one. She’s not. This looks amazing, terrifying and a bit over-the-top all in one go. The other Sandy movie is completely different. With the ever-present Melissa McCarthy, it’s a good-cop bad-cop comedy called The Heat. I think this may already be out in cinemas but it’s new to me!

There’s a new Lego box about to be released, August 1st I think, and I suspect I might buy it. If I only managed to get my hands on the Flux Capacitor I would be happy, but oh how much fun to build a time machine. I really do think there should be more characters though. Biff, Lorraine, George and perhaps the dog, and we could do an actual re-enactment.

There were a few options for the S of my Alphabet Adventure, but when I thought of Snowdon, there could be no other contender. The point of the adventure is to go to new places, visit different things and get a view of the country I haven’t had before. Going up a mountain fits into all those categories and then some. I opted for the Snowdon Mountain Railway, because I thought climbing a mountain on my first go would be a bit much and… well, it was so hot.

It’s been a while since I took one full week off work, but that’s what I did this past week, and boy did I pack in the activities! Wednesday and Thursday last week, Mr C and I went to Silverstone to watch some F1 cars while they were testing. We shared photos along the way via Twitter, and then gathered everything up at the end of the day in a dedicated post on Sidepodcast. Here are links to those posts, because I really like how creative we got with the photos and think it’s worth sharing - if you haven’t seen it already.

The Girl in the Fireplace takes us to 1700s France, for an adventure in history written by future showrunner Steven Moffat. It’s one that was incredibly popular when it first aired, and has an enduring quality to it - being about the people rather than the science, as is so often Moffat’s style. This time, we’ve got Mickey along for the ride, as Rose tries to figure out the complicated relationships she has with the two men in her life. Mickey is pretty excited about being on board for this trip, until naturally it all starts to go a bit wrong and gets a bit scary.

Since I’ve been catching up with my news and views on Feedly, I’ve been making good use of the “Save for Later” feature - particularly when I stumble across things I might want to blog about. I managed to scrawl out something on that New York swimming pool, but the rest just isn’t inspiring me for a full post. With that and the fact I’m struggling with the heat, I thought it might be better to round up some of the things I’ve saved recently in brief, rather than leave them languishing forever!

I don’t keep an eye on the Kickstarter style projects nearly as much as I should, but recently stumbled across this one - a New York-based initiative called + Pool. They essentially want to build a swimming pool in the river, filtering the natural water and making it accessible to everyone. This seems like such a good idea, although I must admit, I wouldn’t want to walk along that big ol’ access path in just a swimming costume. But if that’s the only drawback, that’s good news!

I can get a bit stressed at using public transport for getting where you need to go, but as a recreational activity planes, trains and automobiles can be a lot of fun. I decided a while back that although my Alphabet Adventure is taking me to a lot of new places, I’m not always seeing what a city or town is really like, concentrating solely on where I have to go for that specific letter. To address this, I thought it would be fun to add a new Life List item, and visit as many open-bus sightseeing tours as possible.

And so, I’m done. If you’ve been following along, you might remember that May was a bumper month for running activities, including an epic 10k. Unfortunately, that 10k was the pinnacle, and the eventual downfall of my running career. Gradually, things got worse and worse, and at the end of my May monthly update, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it. I completed four runs in June. The first was my attempt at a 5k, and it was bad but at least I completed the distance. The next was 1.4km, in which I had to stop and turn round, limping home with a painful thigh. I decided to take a full week off, and returned well-rested to complete a 30 minute run that felt a bit better. However, my last run was less than 3km, because the pain just came back again.

Can it only have been the start of June when Lillian was desperately trying to contact Paul and not getting any response? It feels like so long ago that she was finding out just how grumpy Paul could be, and then before you know it, he is dead. It’s slightly disappointing that we didn’t get to hear a big showdown with Matt revealing he knew all about it, but having said that, it’s also been interesting hearing his manipulation of Lillian as she goes through her own secret grief.

Loving the look of this trailer for Inside Llewyn Davis. Just three minutes of it is gorgeous viewing, I can’t imagine what the whole thing will be like. We’ve been catching a lot of films with bonus John Goodman in, and he always steals the show. I can’t guarantee that isn’t going to happen with this one, either.

Google Reader shut down today, to mixed reactions from: “Finally!” to “Now to see what this alternative is like,” to “It’s 1st July already??” Thankfully, I was one of the middle batch. When Google first announced they would be closing their feed reader, I thought it was going to be the end of the world. Then for a couple of days I didn’t read any feeds at all, and figured that actually I could probably get on with my internet life quite well without them.

There were a range of options available to me for the R stop on my Alphabet Adventure, but when I realised it coincided with a trip I was taking to Brighton, it seemed to make sense that I visited the Royal Pavilion. To make things slightly more interesting, my parents were joining me for the visit too, so I got to enjoy the wonders of the pavilion with company. The Royal Pavilion was built by King George IV as something of a play home, showing off and trying to outdo everyone else in terms of style and decoration. There’s an odd visual straight away because the outside is very Indian in style, whilst the inside is all the reds, blacks, bamboos and dragons of China.

With a trip to Brighton already on the cards, a need to add another sport to my Life List endeavour, and a timely reminder from the fabulous Lou, I found myself clutching tickets to the penultimate day of the Aegon International competition in Eastbourne. I made a slight error in entering the Devonshire Park grounds round the back, rather than the main entrance, which means when I was later in search of the ticket booths, I was too late to snap up any Centre Court tickets.

Every now and again, I like to peruse the world of mugs. When I started this, I was barely drinking hot beverages and didn’t need much in the way of mugs. My tea consumption has sky-rocketed of late, and this week, when I found my Piglet mug, I figured it was time for a look at what was new. As a bit of a change, I decided to look at Etsy, where things get a bit more creative.

Really enjoyed this quote from a not-so-recent episode of the Frank Skinner radio show. On the subject of the Tom Cruise film Oblivion, Frank was less impressed with one of the romance scenes. There’s love scenes in it. Why do they have to have love scenes in films like that? And they’re really cheesy, ooh baby type. I hate love scenes. Here’s the thing, if you like love scenes go see a romantic movie and enjoy. But you know what? When you’re watching that romantic movie, don’t blame me if two aliens come in and blow the couple to pieces…

I’m not a huge music video aficionado, but Mr C tends to point out those that catch his eye whenever he spots them. Recently, a new video from Kelly Clarkson emerged, for her single People Like Us, and it’s worth a look… for the wrong reasons. There’s an odd story about saving a colourful child from a world of black and white, but that’s not what I saw. I’m fully aware that product placement is part of how these things get funded, and I’m totally okay with that - if it is done with a bit of subtlety and/or restraint.

Here’s my random thoughts, in no particular order, about events in Ambridge in May: Kirsty boosts Tom’s morale when he really needs it, let’s hope he’s not going to have any rebound feelings in that direction. It would just be embarrassing for everyone involved. Josh gets a loan from his parents so he can buy a share in the chicken business, which puts Pip’s nose out of joint. She gets a reprieve from them, and still barely manages to spit out her thanks. It made her feel slightly better to beat her brother in the Single Wicket Competition, and I thought it was a fun coming together of characters to hear her complaining about brothers to Ed.

I’ve fallen a bit behind on trailers for upcoming films (or those coming soon to iTunes that I have yet to be aware of). That being the case, here’s a bumper crop of five trailers that recently caught my eye. Elysium A good bout of action, set in the future, with a dystopian Earth and Matt Damon? Sign me up right now. And what do I like just as much as dystopia? Well that would be time travel, and next up there’s a romantic comedy with a time travel element.

Starting with the good news, I reached the halfway point of the “500 kilometres in one year” challenge. It’s quite a big achievement for me to have reached the middle mark, especially considering the slow start to the year I had! The gap between actual and target is also very heartening. The bad news is that running at the moment is a complete nightmare. There’s a big leap in that chart where I completed a 10k. It felt okay at the time, although I was a bit tired afterwards and needed an extra day or two to get back in my running shoes.

It was confirmed yesterday that Matt Smith is leaving Doctor Who at the end of the year, after taking part in the 50th anniversary celebrations and a Christmas special that will feature the regeneration. I had pondered recently whether it was time for the show to have the change and shake-up that comes with a new Doctor, and it seems those in the know are on the same page. Three and a bit series is the magic number!

I’m always intrigued by the desire to live in compact spaces - whether it is seeing how they manage to fit impressive buildings into small pockets of land on Grand Designs, or a great layout on a narrow boat. Today I stumbled across this video from Gizmodo, in which there is some great design thinking on display to make the most of zero space in a New York City apartment. I love these concepts, but I know immediately that I wouldn’t have the patience to pack and unpack everything each time I wanted to use it. I am quite messy by nature and like to just pick things up and put them down so they’ll be right there when I need them next time.

Football is still mostly a mystery to me, but I occasionally find matches on TV and leave them on so I can soak it up via osmosis. This weekend, the Champions League final was on TV, and we watched Bayern Munich - the only German team I have heard of - play another German team. At one point I recognised the name Schweinsteiger but that’s about as far as it went.

Recently, Mr C played me a music video that showed nothing but the lyrics of the song in question. I was a bit disappointed, thinking it was just like Adele’s Skyfall video. Whilst that was quite Bond, and an interesting experiment, I thought a video of only the lyrics was a bit… lazy. However, it turns out that there’s a craze for Official Lyrics Videos that run alongside their more traditional action-packed counterparts. For example, Pink’s Try video was very well received, with her contemporary dancing and beautiful imagery. Then there is the lyrics video which is stripped back, bare with just the words.

When Will Smith appeared on Graham Norton last time, he did the rap from Fresh Prince and it was brilliant. This time, he goes a step further. At first, it’s like… yea, he’s rapping with his kid, that’s cute. Then he does the Fresh Prince bit again. And then, it gets magical. I almost welled up, it was so good.

I vividly remember watching the episode of Sex and the City where they finally revealed Mr Big’s name. It was such an intense letdown that I couldn’t believe it had been given the go ahead to be screened. I was so disappointed, and I wasn’t even that big a fan of Carrie and co. Thus, I approached this episode of Doctor Who with some trepidation, worried they would reveal our favourite alien’s name as Bob or Trevor or something. It wasn’t helped by the big hype machine calling this a gamechanging episode. I’ll be the judge of that, thank you very much.

I always appreciate a unique and amusing way of getting a message across. I also appreciate Matt Damon. This video, and the mission behind it, is win-win!

It wasn’t long into my Film Watch experiment that I faced the question of “What constitutes a film?” I had made notes on something that I watched via the iPlayer and then after a little bit of investigation, I found it was a made-for-TV movie. This made it less appealing to me in terms of Film Watch-ing it, and I decided not to publish it. From then on, I decided that if in doubt, I would check IMDB and if it had a Box Office takings figure, then I would count it as a film. This worked fine until just recently, when I had a crisis of consciousness over the criteria.

A couple of weeks on from watching Mission to Lars, Mr C and I settled down to watch another documentary film. This time, it was Side By Side - a film in which Keanu Reeves talks to a lot of directors, cinematographers, producers, actors and the like about the evolution from film to digital when it comes to making movies. Once again I didn’t think I was going to like it, so I was reading stuff on my iPad rather than paying attention. I wanted to see what it was like, because, you know, Keanu Reeves, but I didn’t think it would suck me in the same way Lars did. Thankfully, I was right this time. I picked up some bits and pieces here and there, and was half-listening for most of it, but I wasn’t in tears by the end.

Expectations couldn’t be anything but high for this episode of Doctor Who. The Cybermen were promised to be back - bigger and better, but hopefully less colourful than the Daleks 2.0 - and it was also a return to the series for Neil Gaiman, after his incredible episode, The Doctor’s Wife. Although the man himself spoke of how different this episode would be, I was still anticipating good things. And mostly, I was not disappointed.

I’ve been joyously listening to the new podcast from Molly Wood and Tom Merritt, called It’s a Thing. They were so good together on Buzz Out Loud and it was a shame when they went their separate ways, but onwards and upwards, the glorious duo are back together! This time, it’s not specifically technology topics, they just talk about whatever they deem to be an up and coming trend, or thing!

It’s been Mr C’s turn to come up with something for us to do on a day out for a while now. With a sunny bank holiday approaching, he said he finally had something in mind, so we hopped in the car. I’m not good with surprises, but he wouldn’t tell me where we were going. After navigating us this way and that, he admitted that I shouldn’t really get my hopes up as we were going to a field in the middle of the countryside. Having grown up in the countryside, I’ve seen my fair share of nature so this didn’t exactly thrill me. I assumed there would be a bit more to it.

I have recently been looking at magazines on the Newsstand, and investigated the digital version of the BBC’s GoodFood magazine. Considering most of my recipes tend to come from the BBC or their GoodFood equivalent, this seemed like a natural extension. In my first issue, I stumbled across this recipe for a lighter Bakewell tart. It being “lighter” didn’t bother me all that much, but I suddenly had a craving for all things Bakewell!

Knowing this episode was written by Mark Gatiss and was set in Victorian Britain, I was fully expecting his brand of gothic horror to be stamped all over it. I hadn’t expected it to be quite so disturbing, but it was an episode that stood up for itself very well, despite very little alien or sci-fi meddling. The highlights of the episode were, of course, provided by Madame Vastra, Jenny and Strax. Jenny had her fair share of screen time, but topped it all with a great fight scene - disarming serveral henchman all by herself. Madame Vastra barely got a chance to get into the mystery but did manage to make a guy faint, at least twice. And Strax, he had some of the best lines, with the horse and preparing for the North, but he was criminally underused. At least he got to save the day.

Helen persuades her mum and dad to think seriously about Tom’s proposal, and after a bit of debate, Pat eventually comes round. The timing couldn’t be better, as they agree to sell the cows and make all his dreams come true just as Brenda decides to break his heart. I thought the break-up was done very well, although slightly weird. Am I the only one who thought it odd they still slept in the same bed for a week after deciding to split up? Eventually they moved out, and as it finally did start to dawn on Tom that his relationship was over, well I did start to feel sorry for him.

Mr C rented the documentary Mission to Lars from iTunes, and settled down to watch it one evening. I sat, aloofly, browsing magazines on my iPad, mostly ignoring the TV. I’ve never managed to get into documentary films - for whatever reason they fail to grab my attention when it comes to trailers and thus I never really get round to giving them a go. The only documentary I can remember watching is Super Size Me, which did stay with me for a bit.

All the videos we’ve seen from those Russian dash cameras have been dramatic/explosive/terrifying. Here, a slice of the nicer side of humanity.

So, having read Les Miserables and followed it up with World Without End, two of the longest books on the planet, I suddenly realised how many books I have sitting on my Kindle waiting to be devoured. I think I’m going to have to pick some of the shorter ones and start ploughing through. Expect more than a few Casual Reader updates over the next while. Whilst on that subject, it was brought to my attention a couple of times recently that Casual Reader can’t be casual at the frequency I’m posting reviews. But I like to think it is casual as in “not an expert” rather than “not very often.”

Hoorah! At last I have managed to not only keep up with the target, but overtake it and get a bit of a healthy lead. Another achievement this month is to have no gap longer than three days. That is something I am looking at working on reducing even further but I am slightly torn. This 5k route I have found myself is becoming routine but I think I would have to do less to run more days, at least to start with anyway. And I don’t want to give up my 5k!

Ghost: Just a Blogging Platform It’s about time there was a bit of competition in the blog-hosting space. I am quite ingrained in Wordpress these days, but always looking to try something new.

My bread-making skills are still very basic, and although I keep meaning to practice more, it is such a stop-start and lengthy process that I never get round to it. Nevertheless, when I bought a loaf tin for my cherry cake, I decided I should probably try and make a loaf of bread - it would be rude not to do so! I delved into my copy of Paul Hollywood’s How to Bake and got kneading. I tried one batch of dough that I left for an hour and it didn’t rise at all. I don’t know what I did to offend it but there was absolutely no movement. I tried another batch and this was better, but it still took about three hours to get to double the size, whereas most recipes suggest an hour. I’m wondering whether it is the cool water I’m using. Paul Hollywood may say that you don’t need to use luke-warm water and that’s an old wives tale, but I’m thinking maybe not.

30 abandoned places that look truly beautiful An incredible look at some former buildings that have been left behind by humans and reclaimed by nature. Some are eerie, some are gorgeous, some fascinating - a great collection to look through.