This week, the one run I’ve got up on Runkeeper isn’t quite fair, but it has been a rather pitiful seven days. Monday, I went out for a run but after about ten minutes, I knew my calves weren’t having any of it. A further few minutes on and my app cut off midway through a pace update and when I checked, the time had gone all weird. I decided to call it a day and half walked, half jogged my way back.

This episode begins with David Tennant as a science teacher. He writes physics on the board and then struts around muttering a little bit. I absolutely detested science at school because they managed to make it as hideous as possible despite potentially being one of the most fascinating subjects. However, if I had a science teacher like DT, things could have been a lot different!

I didn’t write an update last week because I got a bit mixed up with the days, given the two bank holidays. Before I knew it, it was Tuesday, and I figured it could wait for a double update today. I’ve also not been running as much as I would have liked, after some rather busy days followed by some more reluctant days. I’m still working through the 10k class, and have completed four runs in two weeks. Not great, but there’s still forward progress.

If you haven’t heard about Caine’s Arcade and haven’t already seen the video, then you must watch this. I found it a bit slow starting but you have to stick with it because a) this boy is a genius and b) people are brilliant. I love the arcade, although I think it could do with a little bit more colour to distinguish one game from another. Then again, this is me - a person unable to open a packet of biscuits sensibly - passing judgement on a boy who figured out a system to verify his Free Pass tickets.

Advertising doesn’t work on me. Not really. Except for when it does. Many, many adverts on TV are irritating, depressing, stupid, or a mixture of all three. This, however, is the cutest thing I have seen in a long while.

I almost missed the Boat Race this year. I love it enormously, and tweeted a reminder to others (and to myself) earlier in the week. I even had it in my mind to make a live commenting thread for the event. However, then I lost track of what day it was. I didn’t realise it was Saturday and the Boat Race couldn’t have been further from my mind. Thankfully, the fabulous Pat reminded me and I switched on the TV just in time to see the rowers begin their arduous journey down the Thames.

My Archers roundups get later and later, it seems, but it’s okay because the goings on never stop in Ambridge. This month, we’ve had misplaced compliments, completely pointless handshakes, and the never-ending saga of John/Rich, the long-lost grandson. Why on earth Sharon gave in and allowed the boy to find out about his extended family I do not know. That visit from Helen was about as disastrous as they get.

I managed a quick visit to my parents over the weekend - something long overdue. We’ve had some unseasonably hot weather recently (although what is seasonable these days?) and it really felt like spring and summer were here to stay. Of course, today it’s cold, but that makes looking at these photos all the more pleasant. It’s always nice to visit my mum and dad’s garden as they put a lot of effort into it and the results are clear.

It doesn’t take long before my attention span wanders. I had that plan, run thirty minutes in the evening, a long run at weekends. Then the clocks changed, and there was all this daylight in the evening, and I wanted to do something a bit more focused. So, I went and signed up for another Runkeeper Fitness Class. Actually the same one I did before, the 10k one. I could go right ahead with all the excuses and things now, but really all I need to say is that I’m just taking it as it comes and not pressuring myself to do anything out of the ordinary. I’m not always going to be able to spare the time for the distances in an evening, but I’ll do my best and see what happens.

A while ago, I tagged on the end of a mish-mash post a paragraph about Being Human. The fourth series had yet to start, and I was speculating on whether it would be any good - given that significant cast members were going to change. I’ve always liked the show, watched it since the beginning, and been impressed with how they have embraced the online world. The blog, in particular, this year has kicked things up a notch with exclusive scenes, bonus goodies after each episode, and some kind of scroll/parchment game that I have not invested in but like the idea of anyway.

I have been waiting for Harry Potter to be available on the Kindle since I first heard about the concept of an eBook and this crazy device from Amazon. I understood that JK Rowling wanted to do it properly, in her way, but the waiting wasn’t good for me. The Harry Potter books that I already own are some of the very few that I have kept hold of. I didn’t think I would want to read the physical copies again - reading a real book is such an odd experience these days! - but I didn’t want to get rid of them in case they really never did appear in digital form.

A couple of good runs this week, but no big one at the weekend. I was mentally prepared to do it, but then the race went on a bit longer than imagined and I ran out of time. Oh well, gearing up for it, I suppose. During the week, I found myself listening to my own music, rather than those big running megamixes I have downloaded. At some point, it clicked over to this Doctor Who soundtrack, and it was awesome. It’s like I was training to be a companion! Very motivational.

I have a couple of scarves in my wardrobe, and I love them. It totally could become an obsession, but I haven’t let it. Yet. I’m almost partly sad that spring and summer are heading rapidly towards us as it often gets too hot to wear them - particularly in the office. Anyway! I love this video, partly because of the inspiration but also because it’s very well made. I love that at the end the individual screens become links!

Back to running again, which was a good feeling. The first run back was great! I thought it would be tough, but as it turns out, it was pretty much exactly the same as the one I left off with - and that was a good one! I had intended to go out today, but it’s been a bit of a busy and mixed up weekend - what with the start of the F1 season. After an extended nap this morning, it suddenly started bucketing down outside. I figured I could probably leave the running for another day!

No running for me this week, and boy do I feel guilty about it. I’m seeing tweets of people running super speedy 10k distances, or beating their personal bests, or Jenson Button’s girlfriend completing her first marathon and I just feel awful. Physically, I probably could have managed a week of running but mentally, I was all over the place. Job stuff, car stuff, work/life balance stuff, podcast stuff, it’s all taken over. Some of it is fine, some of it is fantastic, some of it is tough, but whichever it is, it then comes to Sunday and I haven’t done any running and I’ve got a blog post to write to keep my “running diary” up to date.

My relationship with tea thus far has been limited. As a child, I just didn’t participate in any hot beverages - except for the occasional hot chocolate, and a hot orange squash when I was under the weather. Since I’ve been with Mr C, I’ve drunk more tea but still not really enjoyed it. Recently, I tried some tea without milk in and liked that a lot better.

On the 7th January, I went into town and visited the Post Office and the bank. I remember the date specifically because I had been trying to get to the bank for a couple of weeks, but their opening hours were not coinciding with my free ones, and they also shut over Christmas. I had to send a letter overseas, and I had to bank a cheque that wasn’t in GBP. Not too hard, you would think. The bank took my cheque and gave me a receipt. The Post Office took a bit of money off me, and gave me a tracking number so I could watch my letter get to its destination. They call it AirSure. Because it goes by air and you can be sure it gets there.

Despicable Me 2 Mr C said: “You’ll love this!” and played me the video. Unfortunately, the first time I heard it, I was listening audio only, and I was not impressed. “Turn it off!” I squealed. Then, of course, I saw the actual video itself, and - MINIONS!

So, Tony had a heart attack. I don’t think anyone saw that coming, did they? Even on the official Archers blog they had to admit that it was a rather anticipated event. It happened right at the end of the month, after another couple of busy weeks for Bridge Farm. With launches, more talk on the long-lost grandchild, Tom’s never-ending obsession with pork-based ready meals, and Pat’s animosity towards Brian over the mega dairy, it’s been yet another month full of this branch of the Archers clan. When will they get a break? Perhaps now.

I’ll admit it, I’ve been pretty hopeless with the running this week. With all kinds of healthy activities really. It’s just been hectic, and excuses, excuses, excuses. Today should have been my long run day but I woke with such a headache, I couldn’t face it. This is the first day in a long while where I have just had the entire day free to do what I want, and resting seemed more of an important option than running.

I think I’ve blogged on several occasions about my love/hate relationship with hairdresser. Mostly, it falls on the side of hate, I will grant you. The trouble is, that I don’t really like being made a fuss of in such a fashion, and having strangers riffling through my hair isn’t fun. The answer is to not be a stranger to a salon but with life how it has been for the past few years, I’ve not managed to find one that a) I’ve liked and b) I’ve stayed living next to.

Last time I checked, the new Formula One season was still something like 80+ days away. The beautiful off-season stretched luxuriously ahead of us and there was all the time in the world to knuckle down to some projects. Then I blinked. Now there are 20 days left. That’s like, three weeks. The off season is all but over and what do I have to show for it? Well, actually, I have a book. I wrote a new book all about the upcoming season. We’ve publicised it all over the place, but if you haven’t heard about it yet, do check it out - Pocket F1 Handbook: Guide to the 2012 Grand Prix Season

During the week, I managed two runs which isn’t quite up to the amount I want but is close enough. Finally, my new shoes are broken in and the problems I was experiencing are all gone. The only issue I’m left with is that the flat of my feet feel a bit weird once I take the shoes off. I’m assuming this is something I will get used to. I don’t remember it being a problem with my first shoes but it was quite a while ago.

Formula One enters its 63rd year in 2012, with a packed grid of 24 drivers, 12 passionate teams, and a calendar bursting at the seams with 20 races across the globe. Pitting brand new drivers against returning faces and defending champions against title hunters, the sport will cross five continents in nine gruelling months to discover who is the best of the best. By year’s end we will see a driver and constructor champion crowned, and learn who can handle the pressure and who needs to return to the drawing board.

It’s been an interesting week, running wise. It started off with the first run for six days on Monday. It wasn’t very good, my ankles and calves hurt. My knees started protesting after the event, and it just all felt very wrong. I tweeted about it and got a few good responses with ideas of what it could be - a lack of practice, the requirement for new shoes, the cold weather. I suspect that first run may have been a mixture of all three.

The new Windows 8 logo was revealed today. I love Windows, I truly do, but it is an eyesore to say the least. I like that it’s a window instead of a flag. That’s a good thing. Previous iterations of the logo have not necessarily made sense. If my window was wibbling about the way those logos did then I’d be seriously concerned. However, the single colour is a radical change, and not particularly one for the better. Going mono-colour can be a good thing, but you have to choose your shade carefully and I’m not sure this blue monstrosity shows many hours of thought. Equally, the window, which is showing some fabulous perspective, also totally isn’t.

The BBC aired a documentary about the new panda couple at Edinburgh Zoo, covering why and how they arrived at their new home, how their handlers were trained up, and what the zoo expects from the happy pair. Naturally, I was their target audience, and although there was nothing groundbreaking in there, it was a cute way to spend an hour or so. Here are my notes, although, again, nothing we don’t already know… except perhaps the cost of bamboo!

Again, it was a bit of a dull week, as the weather played a big part in keeping me indoors. I tried to make up for it by using our newly acquired exercise bike, and I was intrigued by the results. I thought my legs would kill afterwards, but actually they weren’t too bad at all. I presume that is something to do with all the running, perhaps my legs are actually stronger.

I’m going through one of those phases where I’m working on so many projects, that this here blog falls lower down the list. I know when I’m just posting Film Watches and Casual Reader reviews that I’ve got a little bit busy all of a sudden. I’ve got several items I’ve been meaning to write about, but there isn’t time, or I’ve written myself out of words on something else, or I’m just too darned tired. The topics are there, but they’re not inspiring me into whole posts, so I thought, instead, I’d capture them in note form. I’m not usually a massive fan of multi-purpose posts, but if I don’t get these down, they’ll just sit in my notebook instead. Better to publish and be damned!

There’s not much to report this week. I ran twice - the first was an excellent workout, I felt good and strong and capable of taking on the world. The second was the complete opposite, slow and muggy, and ended in tears. I was disappointed and frustrated and figured it was all pointless. You know how it gets sometimes. I posted my immediate thoughts on RunKeeper and had some brilliant feedback, although I was a little embarrassed by my over-reaction when I read it back. However, it was worth it to get this fabulous supportive comment from Ron:

Ambridge has brought in the New Year with a successful wedding, a disintegrating family, the potential for a big betrayal and some very tired people. It always amazes me how each episode of The Archers can pass without major incident, and yet the stories keep on moving stealthily forward. At Bridge Farm, preparations for the relaunch overshadowed everything else - including the now seemingly forgotten fact of John, the grandson. Pat seems a lot happier, particularly after her birthday party, and the grumpy mood has moved to Tony. There are far too many references to how tired and overworked he is, which raises the “health problems” alarm bells. Either that or he’s just going to explode and refuse to do any more work.

Our fierce rate of consuming movies has abated somewhat, as we face a hectic start to 2012. It’s all good but it does mean we haven’t been keeping up with Film Watch as much as we had been towards the end of last year. The slower pace has given me pause for thought, however, and it occurred to me recently how much the process of completing a Film Watch post has changed.

Earlier this week, I caught sight of this amusing video featuring Kristen Bell on the Ellen DeGeneres show. I’m only vaguely aware of who Kristen is, but she’s telling a cute story about her boyfriend introducing her to a sloth, and how she flipped out over it. At first, I raised a judgemental eyebrow, but then I considered what would happen if a panda came to my house. Then I was right there with her.

This past week only involved two runs, which was pretty disappointing. However, they were both much better than any of the other weekday runs I’ve done this year, I reckon. I also think I know why. On Monday evening, I suddenly decided that it was the time to start eating properly. There were three main reasons I decided to get an app. The first was to find out more about the foods I was eating (have been surprised at the calories in some things and the lack of in others). The second was accountability, as knowing you have to programme in the food you eat makes you think twice about excess snacking. The final reason was encouragement to have breakfast, of which I have never been a fan.

Once upon a time, before blogging was popular and Twitter even existed, I used to learn PHP. I had my books, I had my LAMP setup, and I had an expert at code sitting not too far away. There are various mentions of it on this site, until at one point, I gave it up in disgust. I had ambitions beyond my ability, and more importantly, beyond my patience. When it comes to learning code, I understand and enjoy the logic but get bogged down in the detail. My syntax often fails, even if I have all the right bits in the right order.

I finished up my last Sherlock review with a note on the writers trying to force emotions on us, which I don’t necessarily appreciate. However, I thought they handled the logistics of this final episode very well. We all knew what was supposed to happen, so starting the episode with a grieving Watson addressed that straight away. The story was not about the end result, it was about how we got there. (And afterwards, how it was done.)

After last week’s enforced break thanks to some poorly timed germs, it was hard going to get back into it this week, but I didn’t do too badly. Went out on Monday and Tuesday - both of which felt like I had wooden legs and had forgotten how to use them. It was bitterly cold, and in places it was frosty, and as it is quite dark I was stepping carefully. That wouldn’t help my speed, but I can’t pretend I was capable of anything spectacular anyway.

Last weekend, I wrote up my reaction to the second episode of the latest series of Sherlock (got another post coming on the final episode just finding the time/gathering my thoughts), and prompted this reaction. Thank you for the wonderful SPOILER. GOOD JOB. Ever heard of a spoiler warning? Thankfully, I have a pretty prominent spoiler alert at the very top of the post, so I feel like I did my part in trying to avoid this exact situation. Even so, I do feel slightly dismayed to think I’ve spoiled someone else’s enjoyment of the show - it’s such a good one.

I used to always tune out when I heard talk of Netflix. They are prominent sponsors of a lot of good podcasts I listen to, but the service was never available in the UK. It sounded like heaven - pay a reasonable monthly subscription and get access to anything you want to watch. Films and TV, you could watch the same thing over and over, or whizz through fifty different TV shows. It’s flexible and it sounded ideal. But it wasn’t available in the UK.

The first series of this adaptation of Sherlock featured something of a sandwich of episodes, where the first and last were epic, and the centre episode was a bit of a letdown. We’re talking letdown in ridiculous terms, of course, where the worst Sherlock is still far better than the best of other TV, but when compared to itself, it was a bit of a dip. As it turns out, I reckon this series is going to take the same shape. The first episode was incredible, and by all accounts the last is going to be amazing too. This second one, however, did not have me quite convinced.

This week has been a complete bust. I came down with a sore throat that developed into a cold and kept me indoors all week. I was starting to feel better on Friday, and thought I might get out today, but I think it might be moving into my chest and I want to be a bit more precautionary than reactionary. I know January hates me, and I don’t want to give it any more opportunity.

We’ve had a look at Mr C’s top five films of the 2011 year gone by, and now it’s time to put those 12 months firmly to bed with his top five songs released in 2011. It was not such a great year for music in our household, with very little grabbing our attention. In fact, Mr C’s shortlist was only seven in the first place. However, we’ve pulled out the top five and these are his:

Following hot on the heels of the Friends edition, Celebrity Mastermind featured a set of questions on The Archers, courtesy of politician Jacqui Smith. She had chosen to answer questions on the long-running soap from the 1980s to today, and I did not do very well at all. I got 5 questions right, and whilst I knew a few more of the answers but couldn’t think, I really wasn’t particularly good at this one. But, hey, how did you get on?

After running on New Year’s Day, I started my new regime - which essentially was “running more.” I wasn’t sure exactly what the plan was, but I had found a suitable route for the less than daylight post-work hour. Having said that, it’s amazing how quickly the daylight extends once the shortest day of the year is out the way. So, I ran on Bank Holiday Monday to try and get in a routine, and then I ran on Tuesday to make sure running after work really was part of the deal. I must say that I really loved getting back to running at that time of day - I think that’s the hour that suits me best.

The end of the year is always a bit review heavy, but you’re bound to have room for just a couple more. It’s time for Mr C’s annual look at his favourite films and music of the year. You know what I think about all the films we watch because I blog them incessantly, but Mr C lives through most of them as well, so it’s only fair that he gets a word in edgeways.

I became aware of the latest series of Celebrity Mastermind because someone tweeted about a contestant this very evening choosing The Archers as their specialist subject. I had a quick peek at what the other celebrities have been choosing as their subjects and was super duper excited to see someone had picked Friends, the first two series. If there is something I know more about, I can’t think of it!

My Archers posts are always a few days late, which means in Ambridge, Will and Nic are already married. I, however, don’t listen to the new month until I’ve published this (it’s kind of an incentive) and thus I am left on the eve of the big day. We’ve heard far too much drunk rambling from Nic on her hen night, and we’ve heard Ian and Caroline take custody on the cake. Moments later, she slipped over and fell on it. Apparently, there’s room for a bit of slapstick at Grey Gables, of which I heartily approve. Especially if it means Ian can play the hero.

A week or so ago, I posted a picture of my bulging to-do list with the promise that I would get lots of things done over the Christmas period and shrink it, substantially. That was the plan. Of course, I was unexpectedly working over Christmas, which didn’t help matters, so it’s no surprise to see that the list still looks rather large. However, I did manage to complete a lot of the items on there, and although it looks almost the same as it did before, it’s had a bit of a shake-up. The trouble with completing items on the to-do list is that they invariably lead to more items, and thus it is a never-ending circle. So, I am embracing the list in all its new and shiny glory.

I’m not the first to say it, but it bears repeating. It is not fair to every other TV show on earth that Sherlock is on this early in the year. What a standard to be setting. The series returns for a second run, and whilst I am still not 100% comfortable with the 3x90 minute schedule, it certainly allows for some of the best possible storytelling.

I had intended to write a wrap up of the 2011 Strictly Come Dancing competition, but sort of didn’t and then it was too late. However, by popular demand, and given that Strictly is in the news today, it seems worthwhile finishing up the batch of posts with a belated summary. In my half time report, I predicted the finalists as Chelsee, Jason and Alex. Two out of three isn’t bad but of course, it was Harry that made it in instead of Alex. She and Holly were knocked out in the semi-final, and that was probably the right result in the end. I was disappointed that Holly couldn’t push herself further but there always seemed to be something holding her back. She seems to have done quite well out of the deal now, though, becoming the face of the Euro Millions lottery.