For each and every episode of this year’s Great British Bake Off competition, I attempted to bake my own version of something seen in the show - either a direct recipe from the show, or a recipe that was inspired by what I’d just watched. My previous baking experience includes a loaf of bread here and there, the occasional Victoria sponge, mince pies and simple bits, plus one iced cake extravaganza.

It’s been said over and over, but Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher is plain odd. I haven’t read the books in a long while, so I’m not really able to pass judgement fully, but I know that deep down it doesn’t seem right. There’s a new trailer which puts a different spin on things, because it looks like a really good film! Jack Reacher

If you’ve got a smartphone that does all manner of exciting things, you’ll know that sometimes you run out of battery before the day is out. When I switched to the iPhone, I was pleasantly surprised by the battery power in the device - it would get me comfortably through the day, and just need a charge up at night. If I was to use it as a camera, though, on a day out, or as a map to find my way to that day out, then the power supply is severely depleted. The lighter socket in my car is intermittently functional, so that charging on the go can be a problem.

The final of the Bake Off was so good! The balance of baking power kept swinging between the contestants, so that it really was a complete unknown when the winner was announced. Well done John! Brilliant job. Meanwhile, I was left with a decision to make. I decided, as this is the last “Inspired by…” post, I’d go for it and try my hand at the technical challenge. Signature dish - Pithivier Technical challenge - Fondant fancies Showstopper - Chiffon sponge Mary Berry’s fondant fancies - the recipe had a lot of steps, but I understood pretty much all of it and felt it was something I could get away with.

The final episode of the recent half-series of Doctor Who episodes ended with Amy and Rory together but stuck in time. I wasn’t particularly happy with the episode as a whole, and there are plenty of plot points that still confuse me. Overall, though, it seems like a fitting end for the pair, and we’re now looking ahead to the introduction (re-introduction?) of the new companion at Christmas. Except, there was some unfinished business with the last episode, and that was Rory’s dad Brian. He encouraged Amy and Rory to go off and travel with the Doctor, but was then left behind with no knowledge of what happened to the pair. They were stuck in New York so couldn’t ever come back, and he was left not knowing what had gone on.

Every now and then, I take a quick look at what is available in the novelty mug market. I don’t know why I started doing this, as I didn’t really indulge in hot drinks when I posted the first one. Since then, I do boil the kettle more often, but I haven’t actually bought any of these novelties as yet. I wonder if there’s one I might purchase in this batch.

We’ve seen the music industry attempt the occasional “pay what you feel” initiative, where a song or an album is released to the public, and they get to choose how much to pay for the item - giving what they think it’s worth. These haven’t revolutionised the industry, but it does cause a stir and can be a good marketing technique to draw attention to yourselves. Now, the concept has moved across to ebooks, and I’ve seen it in two different places.

I’m sure it didn’t escape your notice that on Sunday Felix Baumgartner jumped from a capsule at the edge of space to freefall back down to earth, and then landed on his feet successfully. What did you do with your weekend? It was an absolutely inspirational thing to watch. I’ll admit I didn’t sit through the build up, and was a bit of a fairweather viewer - tuning in when he was just about half an hour from the impending jump.

I’ve fallen behind in documenting my exciting adventures out and about, although this first one I have to discuss isn’t all that exciting. It was a while back, when the days were still sunny, and I decided to get out of the house, go for a walk and make the most of the fresh air. I wasn’t really sure where to go, but I had a look online and found a circular walk or two that looked doable. I really like going for walks, following trails, that kind of thing. My parents are really good at reading an Ordnance Survey map and finding the pathways, but I need a bit more guidance than that.

The Bake Off is getting pretty difficult now, with the semi-final last week and the final coming up. I was pretty confident that I wouldn’t be able to make anything they did in the show itself, but I was keen to be inspired. They baked the following: Signature dish - Petit-Fours Technical challenge - Fraisier cake Showstopper - Choux pastry gateaux I figured that chocolate eclairs would be a good compromise, although the recipe confused me a bit as it seemed to have chocolate on the inside and white icing on the outside. All the eclairs I’ve ever had have cream on the inside and chocolate on the outside.

On 13th October 2002, I was cowering in a doorway from the rain, waiting for the arrival of someone the world now knows as Mr C. It was our first date, I’d bought new boots that I was convinced made me walk like a duck, and my friend was sacrificing herself at the garden gate, getting soaked on my behalf to look out for him. Thankfully, as the evening progressed the rain eased off. We ate, we walked, we talked. We decided on a second date.

The month of September was filled with a nightly music extravaganza courtesy of the iTunes Festival 2012. Each evening, one or more warm-up acts introduced a bigger name, and it was all streamed live on the internet, available as a catchup replay afterwards as well. Mr C watched all of them, I saw some of the main ones, and these are some of my findings. There were a variety of different genres throughout the 30 days, and most musical tastes were covered in some capacity. My personal favourite of the lot was Pink. She hadn’t performed for two or three years, and was rusty - forgetting some words here and there. That made the show a little bit more personal. She was chatty, cared about the fans (particularly one who fainted), and did lots of songs that I had forgotten I like and own. Many plus points for Pink. I was also suitably impressed with Alicia Keys, who I thought was going to be a great performer but a bit aloof with the audience. She warmed to it, I think. Now, I’ve always taken a bit of a shine to Noel Gallagher, particularly when compared to his brother, but I’ve not really had any reason one way or the other. I’ve heard him in a few interviews and he’s funny and articulate. However, in his set, he was just a joy to watch. He must have incredible hearing because he was holding conversations with people in the front row, to the exclusion of everyone else. It was weird to see just one side of a conversation but also completely compelling. There was also the Liam-Liam chanting moment, that I quite enjoyed, wherein he bemoaned his own one-syllable name being hard to chant, and a certain sibling’s name being slightly better. On the flip side, I had expected to like Ed Sheeran’s set a lot more than I did. He expected far too much of the crowd, and told lengthy stories that didn’t seem to have much to do with anything. He also went on far too long with “you need me but I don’t need you” to the point where I thought I was being brainwashed. The duet with Gary Snow Patrol was awesome, though. Jessie J was another one who I thought would be better. I’m not her biggest fan, but I like a couple of the songs and she belts them out. Unfortunately, she changed her shoes to big red clumpy things so that she looked like a clown, talked endlessly about how grateful she was, and broke the momentum of the gig to sit down and read an extract from her book. I don’t go to (m)any gigs but this seemed odd, and I gave up watching halfway through.

To celebrate their 80th anniversary this year, Lego created a 15 minute animation recounting the history of the company. I missed this when it first came out in August, and have just got round to watching it now. You have to keep in mind that it’s one massive sales pitch, and the voiceover can get a bit patronising at times, but even so, there’s a lot in here that I had absolutely no idea about.

Over the weekend, the fabulous Stuart asked if I would be reading the new release from JK Rowling. The answer is quite simply that yes, I do think I’ll read it but no, I haven’t yet. I’m a big Harry Potter fan, but somehow this new book from JK Rowling doesn’t worry me in the way other “next projects” for beloved people do. It feels as though HP is such a phenomenon that she a) doesn’t have to write ever again and b) could write nonsense forever and it wouldn’t take away from that world. As long as it wasn’t in that world, of course.

We’ve seen Moneyball and “if you build it they will come” and when I saw the trailer for 42, I really wanted to see it! I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baseball game but I really like movies about it. I should probably see about watching some of the actual action, but in the meantime, this looks good. 42

I know I am very far behind to have only just discovered Temple Run. In fact, I saw the Brave tie-in before I saw the actual game, and because I haven’t seen Brave, I instantly dismissed it. I can’t remember why I suddenly decided to download it, but I was reading through some news feeds and they talked of other games of a similar nature to Temple Run. I opted to head back to the original and download it to see what all the fuss was about.

I was looking forward to this biscuit episode of the Bake Off, but actually when we got to it, it wasn’t all that biscuity after all. The options this week were as follows: Signature dish - Crackers Technical challenge - Chocolate teacakes Showstopper - Gingerbread construction I’m not really a massive fan of gingerbread - I don’t mind the occasional biscuit or nibble but an entire house was a bit too much for me! The crackers were interesting and I’ve stored some ideas for the future, but there’s a sweet tooth in the house that likes things a bit less savoury. So, it was the chocolate teacakes or nothing. Even Paul Hollywood said they were difficult to make, so I lowered my expectations about as far as they could go. I told Mr C I was baking chocolate marshmallow mess, just to make sure we were all on the same page.

A while back, my parents introduced me to the Mimosa pudica, otherwise known as the Sensitive Plant (or my new favourite name Touch-Me-Not). It’s a cute little plant that looks perfectly normal until you touch it, when it all curls up on itself like a hedgehog. I thought it was quite cruel to prod and poke at it, but it recovers in about ten minutes and then it’s hard to resist doing it again.

After the revelations of last month, Mike and Vicky, well, they’re not talking at all. They start to tell people about the baby, so they get advice from all quarters. Then they do talk - a full on two-hander episode that was really good. Mike is still worried, but he’s on board. For now. Elsewhere, Freddie breaks his collar bone because Elizabeth is ridiculous and can’t say no to her son. She blames Shula, and then when she goes round to apologise, she blames Nigel. It’s called responsibility, woman! What Freddie’s injury has done, though, is break the ice between David and Elizabeth, after brother went round to visit nephew and was busted by sister, who didn’t go mental. They were perfectly civil, if not nice, and then Elizabeth got a moving gift/card for David for his birthday. Is that it, then? Family feud done?

It’s been a while since I tried a new tea, I’ve been content drinking my Clipper Ginger and Twinings Nettle. However, that didn’t stop me buying new and exciting teas, to the point where I had four boxes sitting and waiting to be tasted. I finally got round to trying a new one, another Clipper, this time berry flavoured. Clipper Raspberry Leaf £1.69 for 20 teabags A refreshing, distinctive and delicious blend of raspberry leaf and other natural herbs enhanced with natural raspberry flavour. Free from Caffeine.

BBC Four started airing Lilyhammer a week or so ago, and I tuned in to the first episode to see what it was like. Lilyhammer is exciting because it’s a Netflix original - the DVD and streaming company put their hands in their pockets and paid for this show to be created. It’s a bold new move from them, rather than sitting back and waiting for deals to be done with existing production teams, they got on and did it themselves.

After the high of new running shoes wore off (only took a week this time, boo!) I wanted a bit of a boost, so I tried out another Zombies Run mission - it’s always good to try something different. I noticed that the people behind Zombies Run are creating a spin off version based on the Couch 2 5K thing. I’m jealous! Can I go back to the beginning and start again with the zombies chasing me this time?

“I hate endings,” the Doctor declares, as he sits having a nice picnic with his two companions in New York City. Yet, we all know that this story is going to come to an end, and it’s going to do so in the next 40 minutes. The foreboding increases by the minute, as we head towards what was proclaimed as a heart-breaking farewell. I didn’t feel at all right after watching the episode on Saturday night. I thought I’d missed something, or wasn’t understanding it, so there was a need to watch it a second time. Upon the subsequent viewing (along with 12 hours to ponder what I’d seen in between), things began to make sense. It was definitely a rollercoaster of emotion, but for me, not perhaps the one Moffat wanted.

I’ve tried to stick to recipes from the actual Bake Off for the last couple of weeks, but this time I moved slightly away from it. There were a few variations on the Chelsea bun, and I very quickly realised that I wanted to do the bun, but in it’s rather more normal form. It’s worth noting what the other challenges were for this week: Signature dish - Regional buns Technical challenge - Jam doughnuts Showstopper - Celebration loaf The recipe I went for came from the BBC food site, and seemed reasonably simple - compared to some of the ones I have tried so far!

The task this episode had to fulfil was clearly set out from the start. Rory and Amy have been showing increased dissatisfaction with their roles as companions, and the gap between them and the Doctor has been growing week on week. One or other of them usually makes the point of saying they miss running for their lives, but we don’t quite believe them. So, this week, we had to be convinced that the pair really do care about being with the Doctor again, otherwise next week’s final episode won’t be as emotional as the Moffat has planned and we would just be left saying, quit if you don’t want to do it anymore! To get right to the heart of what is going on with them, the action returns to Earth with mysterious boxes falling from the sky.

An admission before we begin - this week I was forced to pick the recipe before I’d actually seen the Bake Off show. My viewing was delayed until Thursday, and I had to order my online shopping before that, so I viewed the episode recipe options on the BBC’s site and decided on the one that looked the best. The options this time: Signature dish - Sponge puddings Technical challenge - Queen of Puddings Showstopper - Strudel I opted for the Queen of Puddings, because it didn’t seem too crazy challenging but still had something new in it (meringue).

A few years ago, I tried out the supermarket online delivery service, because I love the “getting lots of lovely new food” part of grocery shopping but dislike the actual mechanics of it. Back then, I did it a couple of times and revelled in things being delivered straight to my door, but I soon stopped. There were a few reasons, including their odd policy of wrapping single items in bags and wasting them, plus not being organised enough to book ahead.

On Monday night, Mr C and I rocked up to Birmingham’s National Indoor Arena to watch Michael McIntyre do his thing. It’s been on my Life List for a while to watch a comedian live, because it turns out I have never done that before. I don’t remember why it was Mr McIntyre that received the privilege of being my first comedian (there may have been alcohol involved when purchasing the tickets), but he seemed like a pretty safe bet.

This week, we discovered the genius that is Wreck-It Ralph. The blurb says: “A video game villain wants to be a hero and sets out to fulfil his dream, but his quest brings havoc to the whole arcade where he lives.” The trailer says it’s going to be awesome. Wreck-It Ralph

With the iTunes Festival ongoing (and irritating in their only putting up some of the replays and not all), Mr C and I have been having more discussions about music than normal. It’s always good fun when we talk music because we have slightly different music eras, very different music tastes, and what turns out to be different requirements when it comes to background noise. As people that do creative things (writing, coding, designing, etc), having something on in the background can make all the difference to getting things done. Complete and utter silence is okay for a few minutes of concentration but then it starts to become a distraction in itself. I know that I can watch TV programme after TV programme when I am doing things that require my attention but not full concentration, whereas Mr C finds the TV to be pretty distracting.

After the last update, I did go out and purchase some new shoes. They’re in a similar fashion to my old ones - white and Nike - but they’re also quite awesome. They have purple insides and purple laces! How can they be anything but great? Instantly, I wore them and was back on form… if you can call what I do any kind of form. I completed another 10k, which is always fun.

More than ever, this third episode of the truncated series seven was one of those mini-films that Steven Moffat desired. As he has previously said: When we had the pitch meetings for the various stories, I would say ‘Tell me the movie poster. Tell me the title, what’s on the poster and what’s the log-line… Let’s have a blockbuster every single week, no two-parters, every single week is going to be a blockbuster and let’s not have the cheap episode, let’s just make them all huge.’ It has caused some problems, but I think it has worked really well for us. It’s the year of the blockbuster.

After last week, wherein I wasn’t sure I liked anything I’d seen on screen, I knew this would be a much easier week. Mr C is a fan of pastry, and there was bound to be something we liked. The options this time: Signature dish - Wellington Technical challenge - Hand-raised pie Showstopper - American sweet pie I was convinced it was going to be a Wellington on my to-do list, but I’d forgotten about Mr C’s sweet tooth. The blueberry and raspberry pie made my Brendan was one of the early ones we saw, and he was entranced… until the key lime pie appeared. On the official recipes list, though, they only had the berry pie - or Chiffon Pie as it is so-called. I decided to go for that one, fully aware that it is crazy complicated and I was likely to screw it up. The thing with this is, even if it ended up as a pastry case full of raspberry and cream… no one would mind!

I started this crazy Film Watch experiment way back in April 2009 - watching, noting and blogging each film that I watched in an attempt to remember what was good, and not so good. Along the way, it turned into a Life List thing, to watch 500 films. At first the goal seemed a million miles away, but gradually it has seemed more doable, and now I am halfway through! Also along the way, it has become less of a personal thing, and more of a thing that Mr C and I can enjoy together.

[I’m one of the Kindle’s biggest fans, and will buy as much as I can in digital form. But there are a few books I can’t get rid of. This is the first in an infrequent and limited series featuring those physical books that mean enough to earn their place in the box that moves house with us.] I loved The Faraway Tree series as a kid. The idea of climbing a tree and finding a multitude of different lands at the top is so intriguing, and so limitless! I’d be the first to buy these in digital form, except the fact that the new books are all modern-kid friendly. These three editions are quite old…

There have been lots of rumours about who would be participating in Strictly Come Dancing this year, and all I’ve heard for ages is people saying other people would like to do it. The best example was everyone’s favourite Master Baker Paul Hollywood pausing at all the “wrong” moments in conversation with Chris Evans. It was a fine example of the art of misdirection, which only became apparent yesterday when the celebrities were revealed.

Lots of great TV has returned to our screens recently: The Great British Bake Off, Doctor Who, Only Connect, etc. There is still more to come, I believe, but actually it is Only Connect that caught my attention, making me ponder why exactly it is that we enjoy quizzes that are too hard for us? With Only Connect, I wondered if it was simply that the format is completely engaging. The answers are not always impossible (granted sometimes they are unfathomable but not always!) but it is the style of question that is unique to the connecting format. That could be true, and I know that personally I’m in love with Ms Coren which also makes it a must-view show.

It’s not been a good couple of weeks, I’ll be honest. I had hoped to go out for a longer run this weekend but I only had two opportunities - one of them was far too hot to even consider and the other one… well, I went for a nap instead. You know how it is. The last six runs I have done have been thirty minutes each, and have gradually gotten worse. For example, distance covered in kilometres:

The iTunes Festival is currently in full swing - 30 days of live music, held at the Camden Roundhouse in London and streamed across the globe via iTunes and its many apps. There’s a variety of acts available, with warm up artists appearing before more established names, and the diversity is amazing. So far we’ve already heard from the pop name that is Olly Murs, through the more acoustic Ed Sheeran to the dub stepping Plan B.

Presumably, this episode’s title comes as an homage or a satire of Snakes on a Plane. I haven’t seen the film but if it is anything like as mad as this weekend’s Who outing, I’m on board. The action got going straight away, with the Doctor picking up his “gang” and heading straight to the spaceship housing the aforementioned prehistoric creatures. He referenced not having a gang before, but I can’t think that is right. There was a very poignant moment in one of the earlier episodes where every section of the TARDIS was manned for a change - instead of the one man doing it all by himself. If that’s not a gang, I don’t know what is.

As I tweeted earlier in the week, something I had not considered when I dreamt up this idea of trying my hand at things that the Bake Off featured, was the concept of not liking anything within a given week. Each episode is on a theme, but there are three options within each and a multitude of recipes in each option. How is it possible not to like any of it?

When I was posting Trailer Tuesday a while back, the Paddington poster made me want to read the books, so I had a peek on the Kindle store and found many of them (perhaps all?) available for the device. That got me thinking, what other fab books of my youth are also available for the Kindle? The Worst Witch was one of my favourites as a kid, probably because I could relate. Not being a witch, of course, but being terribly clumsy and not that popular at school. I also quite like witches and wizards as a subject, what with Harry Potter and Buffy’s friend Willow and more. It doesn’t surprise me that Jacqueline Wilson has embraced the Kindle age, she always seemed a very forward thinking, “make books accessible every which way” kind of person. There’s a staggering number of Wilson books available in the e-format. As a kid, I read Tracy Beaker and the Bed & Breakfast star and that was about it. Many of the newer ones have passed me by, although there are still a couple awaiting me in the Big Read List. There are Enid Blyton books by the bucketload, although there is talk that they are not the books of old. Some of the reviews suggest they have been amended for a modern audience, and I am not down with that at all. I can understand a name change here or there, although it still seems weird to think of Franny in the Enchanted Wood. If more of it has been altered, then that’s a real shame. While I was browsing I saw that someone has written more books in the Malory Towers series, but a quick peek proved disappointing. I don’t know why, but reading the “frightfully delightful” style of writing but knowing it was written by a modern author took some of the shine away. The Adventure stories by Willard Price were some of the books that got me into reading action and adventure novels. From Price, you move up to Cussler and from there, the world is your oyster. In my mind, I have the image of the boys scuba diving down to a lost world under the sea, and coming up in a hut where the air pressure was such that you could breathe happily. I may have made that up, but it’s enough to make me remember the books fondly. Roald Dahl! Of course. The books are surprisingly expensive, but I’m gradually building up my Kindle collection. I would have read these all again anyway, but it’s good to get a nudge from my reading list. I also listened to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory via audiobook, read by Eric Idle. This stuff just never gets old. Honourable mentions have to go to Paddington, obviously, as he kickstarted the entire thing. Also the Choose Your Own Adventures, which I was staggered to find on the Kindle. However, as my previous review suggests, they just aren’t as good as I remember. The format is workable, although does avoid the flipping back and forth and holding pages and suchlike. It’s just the writing is nowhere near what I remembered it to be.

I just recently finished playing a new, actually old, game on the iPad called The Island: Castaway. I can’t remember why I bought it, except that I love islands and the concept of being cast away on one. That’ll probably do it. There’s a video ad for the game that explains it better than I could. It’s really very simple, you just run around picking things up, and interacting with other characters. They tend to send you on missions to go and pick other things up or talk to different characters. It’s not hard and you can’t die, and that makes it pretty much perfect for a lazily playing when you don’t have time to fully concentrate.

I’ve been catching up on some RSS feeds recently (where I am getting down to a reasonable number of unlistened podcasts, my unread items has been creeping up), and I spotted this crazy little item earlier in the month. A DeLorean that is also a boat. It’s cool, and fun, but I took umbridge with the concept almost immediately simply because of this, in the Engadget story where I saw it:

A lot has happened in a month for Vicky and Mike. Vicky couldn’t contain her excitement over the news, announcing it at Phoebe’s coming home party. Everyone seemed to take it very well - I was expecting a lot more shock and gossip, but we didn’t really hear any of that. (In fact, when Lynda learned of the news, she was incredibly supportive, beautifully so!) Instead, the focus of the storyline has been on less flippant things. Vicky was plunged into despair upon hearing that she may have an increased chance of a baby with Down’s Syndrome… which then was confirmed. It’s a topic I have absolutely no right to talk of, except to say the acting was superb throughout. The confusion, the fear, the determination, the yo-yo of emotions, all played out perfectly.

Doctor Who is back on our screens as the seventh series began yesterday. With Daleks, divorce, a delightful Doctor plus a surprise special guest, this first episode had a little bit of everything. Actually, it had quite a lot of Daleks. Before we get onto the episode proper, it’s worth a quick mention for Pond Life - the pre-series build up mini-episodes that featured on the BBC’s Doctor Who webpage every day last week. Each one was only a minute or so long and featured the Doctor trying desperately to get back to Amy and Rory, whilst real life tore them apart and galactic troubles kept him away.

Mr C and I had something of a discussion/disagreement after the last baking adventure. The flatbreads were nice enough, but he was disappointed they didn’t match anything that he’d seen on his TV screen. I hadn’t realised it up until this point but the BBC do actually put selected recipes from the Great British Bake Off on the site, so for this week’s challenge, I promised to do something that he could relate to the TV viewing experience.

There hasn’t been too much to report for the last two weeks, I’m afraid real life has just got in the way of my dreams of Olympic stardom. In reality, I have been training at work for two weeks, with another still to come, and it’s amazing what a difference this change of pace makes. Firstly, I’ve been getting home from work a little later than normal. With time such a precious commodity in our house, this has a significant impact on my opportunities for running. Secondly, work-style training is really quite tiring!

I was ever so slightly disappointed that this week’s topic was breads, as I had such fun with the cake last week, I was hoping for more sweet treats this time round. Nevertheless, the theme was bread based, and the options were as follows: Signature dish - Flatbreads Technical challenge - Plaited loaf Showstopper - Sweet and savoury bagels I was very, very tempted by the bagels because as we watched the show, we craved what we were seeing. However, I hadn’t realised they were poached which is a) a bit beyond me at the moment and b) a word that puts me off food for some reason (eggs!).

To tie in with the Olympics, the Kindle store held a Reading Marathon sale. Oh, how I love a Kindle sale. I delved right in, clicking my way through book after book, pondering some new purchases. I spent more than I would have liked, but equally, came out with plenty of books for my money, so I can’t complain. It wasn’t until I synced them with my actual Kindle that I realised quite how many unread books I have. Since I’ve been doing this 100 Books project, I’ve been trying to work through them as a priority, reading only the occasional outside novel when in need of a break. That hasn’t stopped lots of potential good reads passing in front of my eyes though, and when I have seen them, I’ve added them to my Wish List. Occasionally (or quite often, if the backlog is to be believed), I’ve had to snap up a title when it’s a good deal.