I've forged ahead and watched a lot of Trying episodes in an effort to finish my rewatch before the fourth season begins. I really can't express how much I love this show, and how much I relate to Nikki. I found the last few episodes of the first series were lighter on hilarious quotes though, as the drama ramped up a bit, so I have gathered together three episodes in …

I was on something of a leadership course this week and they mentioned the book Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet, which I have previously read. We were played the below video which illustrates a talk from Marquet in relation to this book and I just love it - both the animation as it's very engaging, and the message at heart as well.

Incredibly, it was a year ago that I posted the last of these quotes from the amazing Apple TV show Trying. Last time I said 'in preparation for the new series, I started rewatching the show' and hey, guess what? A new series of coming so I started dipping into the back catalogue again! Genius can't be rushed, that's what I say. In case you're not aware of the show, …

I wasn't expecting it, but the first couple of months of this year have seen a real uptick of movie watching in this household. There's no rhyme or reason to it but suddenly the bug to watch ALL THE FILMS is back and that means keeping an eye on what's upcoming actually feels like it has a purpose again, rather than just adding to an overlooked list. April Monkey Man …

I do find some of the headlines on The B1M videos to be a bit extravagant - it's the biggest this, the greatest this, the worst of this, etc. etc. But this one about the "world's most remote infrastructure project" caught my eye because, well, of course it did. The video takes a look at a network of undersea tunnels that is connecting the disparate Faroe Islands and it's a …

Lydia West seems to have a knack for picking incredible TV shows to appear in - Years and Years was terrifying, brutal and brilliant. It's a Sin broke me so badly I still struggle to think about it. And now Big Mood, where she stars alongside Nicola Coughlan who is taking the world by storm since first appearing on Netflix's Bridgerton. With two such strong actors in the lead roles, …

I really didn't think The Completely Made Up Adventures of Dick Turpin was going to be any good. A new comedy series on Apple TV, launched at the start of March, the show features Noel Fielding as the title character and it leans in to his brand of nonsensical, kind of dream-like situations and comedy. You obviously have to like what Fielding does to get on board with this show, …

Today the UK shifted forward an hour into British Summer Time and I continue to hate the concept. Every year that passes, the time change seems to rock my foundations more and it takes longer to get back to a sense of normalcy, but never mind, I'm in a privileged enough position to have nothing to do today but get over it. The humour in this post on the Guardian …

The first actual item of clothing I knitted was of mixed success so it's taken me a while to try again. This time I went for a cardigan, as I'm a big cardigan wearer, using this free pattern. There are SO many cardigan patterns out there but I started with this one because it said all the good key words 'easy', 'beginner', 'everyday'. It's actually come out really well! Knitting …

Really love this post from earlier in the month that celebrates the fifty year anniversary of Dolly Parton's I Will Always Love You. It's an incredible song and means different things depending on the version you listen to - Dolly's soft-spoken heart-felt love song is the original and best, but Whitney's passionate belting out of the track is absolutely iconic. The highlight of this celebration for me though, is the …

Just a thumbs up to Flexi-Hex, a product I pulled out of a recent delivery box and was pleasantly surprised by. Rather than the usual plastic and bubble wrap that you find when opening a box of, let's be honest about it, gin bottles, Flexi-Hex takes recycled paper and makes a kind of accordian style cardboard thing that does just as good a job of keeping deliverables protected. They have …

I enjoyed the first two seasons of Girls5Eva, a short and sweet comedy series about a girl group who had a brief moment of fame in the past and are now back in the public consciousness (sort of), thanks to a feature in a new song. They regroup, literally, deal with the fact there are only four of them now, and start tentative steps towards a career. Which already sounds …

I've recently become a little bit obsessed with Geoff Marshall's YouTube videos, following his stories about railways, stations, the trains that run on them as well as bus routes. It's very London focussed, naturally, but there are excursions outside the capital too. As his about blurb states: You'll find me travelling around London and the rest of the country on public transport, creating stories about stations, trains and buses, as …

I was subscribed to Paramount+ through their app and happily watching my way through Yellowstone and Frasier and other such high profile releases, when Apple TV released an update to their platform that integrated usability with certain streamers. From the outset that was already confusing, because you could add a channel, such as Channel 4, Paramount or Disney and it would bring in the traditional gallery of potential watches that …

We're definitely seeing signs of spring everywhere, and if I'm honest some scary signs of summer even during February. The tentative blue skies mean it's time to start thinking about the garden. I tried to be patient this year, just because there was a nice sunny day in Feb, I didn't suddenly rush out and plant everything. I waited until March, until a couple more frosts had passed by, and …

I recently finished watching the new streaming show The Artful Dodger on Disney+, a show that takes that fabled character from Oliver Twist and shows what he may have gotten up to in later years. We meet Dodger, going by his real name Jack Dawkins, in Australia setting up a new life for himself as a successful surgeon but his rogueish tendancies keep coming back to the fore. I watched …

During our second 90s evening (it's becoming a thing!) I noticed something during the Gladiators episode that was so smoothly done, it hadn't even registered in my mind. The men's and women's events were swapped in order throughout the show and for each episode. For example, who was introduced first, sometimes the men, sometimes the women. Who took to the Eliminator first at the end of the episode? This time …

Just a word of appreciation for the third series of The Morning Show, which I recently finished watching - a little bit later than it's first release, but better late than never. There's something about this show that is just endlessly fascinating, even though most of the people in it have a bit of a screw loose and aren't at all relatable. Sometimes even within an episode, I wonder why …

I make no secret of my love for the 90s, and often enjoy a bit of culture from that time. However, a certain confluence of events occurred yesterday that meant I somehow went back in time and was living my best 90s life all evening. First, after hearing that Carl Weathers had died, we wanted to pay tribute to him by watching a movie he’d appeared in. Having already completed …

I haven’t made a podcast in a good few years now but one part of the process I had a love/hate relationship with has been made so much easier by a new Apple Podcasts feature - auto-generated transcripts. I loved creating the transcripts in collaboration with our incredible community because it was an accessibility feature, it meant we could refer back to the text rather than audio to settle future …

A year ago, I reluctantly watched the first series of Traitors in the UK and was instantly hooked, binge-watching the whole thing in a very short space of time. I, like many others, eagerly awaited the second series which came to a dramatic conclusion yesterday, one finalist walking away with just shy of £100,000. I found this series harder to watch than the previous one. It was brilliant, don’t get …

It's been quite chilly in the UK recently, so it was a good time to finish off my latest scarf. This Kallik pattern was such a good knit, super simple but requiring an element of concentration to make sure the pattern didn't go awry. It's just four stitches knit, four stitches purl but shifting each row to make the diagonal pattern. At first, I had to diligently read the pattern …

I’ve had a vague draft for a blog post about the warm hug of familiar media for a while now, but as ever Kottke has written about it better than I ever could. In this post, the question is posed: What’s Your Go-To Comfort Media? > I reckon most of us have certain books, movies, TV shows, music, podcasts, and other media that we turn to when we need some …

Tennis has rolled into a new year and already we are into the first Grand Slam, with the Australian Open under way and as fascinating as ever. As a UK viewer, the last couple of weeks have been pretty disappointing, as Amazon dropped their coverage of the sport via their Prime streaming service and Sky have picked it up instead. We got a taste of this during the US Open …

I don’t have a good track record with Godzilla movies, I always go into them thinking they’re going to be great and then they disappoint. My shortened review of one of them tells you everything you need to know: So I wasn’t that bothered about the new TV series streaming on Apple TV+ that was a kind of sequel-prequel situation between movies, I’d been burned before. The only interesting thing …

A new year and new films. My count of films watched last year was a little low, partly due to less time but also because the time I did have I used to watch so much amazing TV. How can films compete with such great short-form content? Well, we'll have to see how this year goes and the next batch might help! January The Boys in the Boat A good …

This year my list of new year goals was very short and revolved quite a lot around the Playstation, but actually I have been thinking about areas I can reset and get organised, gaining a little bit of control. The first one is subscriptions. I don't know about you, but I find that subscriptions to various apps, streaming services, and even physical things, can get lost in the wilderness and …

I've done it, I've decided, phew. It's taken my a week or two longer than it usually does to decide my top five albums of the year just gone but finally I'm ready to put pen to paper, or pixel to screen, and talk about my finalists. There were only eight albums in the shortlist anyway, which somehow made it harder. I narrowed it down to six but then deciding …

My traditional new year post comes with a wrap up of the year just gone and a look ahead to my aims and goals for the next twelve months. The year just gone can be summed up quite simply as chaos - there was so much going on in both work and life that I was supremely grateful to have time off over Christmas just to rest and recuperate. And …

It's been another year full of reading and it's been wonderful, the only downside being I don't seem to be making as much progress on my bookshelf backlog as I would have liked. But nevertheless, each year I like to pick out ten of my favourite reads from the year. These are the ones I have hand picked, listed in the order that I read them, as I refuse to …

It seems like I’ve been saying this a lot recently - this thing from the past is coming back or being rebooted in some way, and it sounds like a really bad idea. And, just as with most of the other things, it’s actually turned out so much better than I was expecting. In this instance, the subject in question is the Paramount reboot of Frasier. It seemed so unnecessary... …

I was not necessarily as geared up for this final as I was hoping - it all just seemed so predictable, and I knew it wasn't going to be the emotional rollercoaster that other finals have been. However, I kept telling myself that stranger things have happened and Ellie might not just run away with it, right? Great opening dance, by the way, so lovely to include both Amy and …

Hooray, it's time for another Mastermind specialist topic that I think I could have a good go at if I was sitting in the hot seat. It was a few episodes ago and Amy's chosen topic was the sitcom MIRANDA. Yay! If I'm being completely honest, I only knew this had occurred because Miranda herself took the quiz on Tiktok. She did pretty well, not 100% though! Amy got ten …

The Graham Norton Show is legendary on British TV screens - a chat show that is hilarious but friendly, mixing unexpected celebrities together so that you never know when a fascinating moment is going to happen. I dip in and out, the quality of the show naturally depends on the selection of guests, and your enjoyment varies depending on your knowledge and liking of them. This week's show featured a …

After a very minor scalding incident with a hot water bottle, I realised that there was a lack of HWB covers in the house and that I could probably whip one up quite quickly with a bit of leftover yarn. I sourced this super easy pattern, and even though I was using slightly different weight yarn, it worked out so well. The pattern is so easy, increase a little, knit …

After the slightly disappointing quarter final in which an injured Nigel withdrew and no public vote was held, we're back at the sharp end again. With each couple doing two dances tonight, there will be three scores from the judges added together, although our remaining couples are so close, you have to wonder how much difference that will make. We're at that point where the start of this competition seems …

I had previously talked about how excited I was for the Doctor Who specials celebrating the 60th anniversary of the show (sort of), and seeing my personal favourites David Tennant and Catherine Tate return. Well, we have three episodes done and dusted and was it worth it? YES! Here are some thoughts from the shows short run, spoilers obviously within: Bifurcating the Doctor! We now have two Doctors running around, …

I wanted to try knitting in multiple colours, having previously done a bit of stripe work on full rows but not mixing it up mid-row. I found these patterns for Marvel icons in squares and thought that looked quite a fun place to start. The Captain America shield was my first attempt and I couldn't really get my head round it, somehow it is both too loose and too tight …

So close to the end now and the show descends into chaos! We were all really looking forward to five brilliant dances on Musicals week that would then send four couples through to the semi finals, only to find that Nigel injured himself and couldn't perform. This late in the day, that means he's out of the competition! There are contingencies in place for this, of course, and instead of …

I’ve had a couple of mental health revelations this year, simple things that I’ve learned about myself. They mostly fall under the category of things that you read tips for all the time and think, well sure that’s just common sense, then realise you’re not actually doing it and that might be why you’re bending under the stress. Meanwhile, recently, Apple launched a new element to their health tracking platforms …

We're at the point now where the floor suddenly seems very empty even when all the couples are there - just six dances to get through tonight, and then only five couples making it through to next week. But hooray, the next show is the musicals special and with the quality of dancers we have left, we should be in for some brilliant entertainment. But that's next week, let's focus …

The big ol' Blackpool ballroom is our home for this week and it always feels like it really should just be the home of Strictly anyway, it is a really beautiful place, the atmosphere is amazing, and sure, we want it as a one off special occasion, but also, imagine opening and finale episodes here? Oh well, for now it can be our mid-season treat, and talking of treats, Kelvin …

Way back when this James Bond spin off project was announced, I thought it was a crazy idea. Some kind of reality show where people do some challenges and answer some questions to try and win lots of money... what does that have to do with Bond? The show, 007: Road to a Million, was recently released on Prime and I watched the first episode with a similar amount of …

I've been using and writing about Duolingo and their excellent language lessons for a long time now, but was not expecting the wise old language owl to branch out into other areas, particularly maths and most recently music. The team have said they get asked a lot to expand into other areas, and it's always been their mission to make the best free education possible so perhaps it was always …

The only intro I can offer for this post is the same as Claudia said in the actual intro to the show: Blackpool. That is the fifth mention, we have been on air for two minutes. Krishnan & Lauren - Samba I like Lauren's teaching method of bow and arrow for helping Krishnan understand the shapes. Initial thoughts are only yellow trousers and fists for hands, but once in hold …

Hooray, a new section has appeared on this website and it's dedicated to games and gaming! I'm a fair-weather gamer, usually dipping in and out of iPhone apps until the next Tomb Raider adventure is released. Tomb Raider and Spider-Man have been the two most recent games I've been obsessed with and they were a while ago now (haven't started the new Spider-Man yet!) I want to do better, at …

The second season of Loki drew to a close this week, and I'm going to be honest, it was a pretty big disappointment. The whole series, in fact, hasn't lived up to the fun and glory of the first one, even though this time out the stakes were higher and the time travel even more prevalent. The biggest problem I had with it was not enough time spent with the …

I'm sure last week they were referring to the half point of the competition but that appears to have been this week - they may have mentioned it once or twice, you'll have noticed! We're coming down from the stress of Halloween week and are without a theme for a couple of weeks now until everything heads north to Blackpool. We're left with some really good dancers, and although there …

The BBC just added all available classic episodes of Doctor Who to their iPlayer streaming service, meaning they have the entire collection of Doctor Who series old and new all under one roof. This is superbly exciting. It's always been in the back of my mind to watch some old Doctor Who episodes, partly because I do feel bad at being one of those 'new Who' only fans, but also …

I quite liked the intro to this week's Halloween show, particularly where Krishnan got to have a go on Dave's keyboards - what an honour! Anton wins the costume competition amongst the judges, Shirley's was a bad choice as it restricted her ability to talk, and Motsi's hair was flipping about all over the place. But the contestants had great costumes throughout, although is it a rule that someone has …