I’m completely fascinated by the furore surrounding the new production of Evita in the West End. The choice by producers to take the iconic Don’t Cry For Me Argentina song out to the balcony is causing all sorts of angst. Star Rachel Zegler heads out to the balcony and belts out the song to passers-by, with the ticket-buying audience inside settling for a live stream of the big moment. Hardly surprising that the people inside are a bit miffed at this, having paid a significant sum only to have a key moment of the show completed remotely. For those outside on the street - and they are starting to gather in their hordes, waiting for hours to see the spectacle - it’s a real treat. There’s no real consensus on this one.

I’ve recently read the Anthony Horowitz Bond novels and enjoyed them, then realised I had this one sitting on my to-read bookshelf ready to go. It was good, travelling around the globe and using the author’s experience to portray conflict in specific countries quite well. It was a slightly tamed down version of Bond, which is understandable given how difficult he is as a character, and some of the additional characters didn’t seem to be given much room to grow, but overall a really good Bond outing.

This movie could definitely have used a ‘previously on’ segment, because although I could remember flashes of the first Favor, I couldn’t quite remember how it ended to know where our characters were picking up from. But once it got going, this was a pretty good film. Stylish and twisty, Blake doing her best psychopath and scrappy Anna investigating everything - sometimes more by luck than judgement. Just a bit of fun, really, and interesting that they’ve set it up for the sequel (still think Dante might come back!).

As a birthday treat, my parents and I visited the Bombay Sapphire site in Hampshire for one of their Gin Distillery Experiences. It was a gorgeous day, and although I was driving, I was very in the mood to get my hands on some gin and see how the famous blue bottle came to be. The tour lasted about 90 minutes, starting with the most important thing - a drink. For drivers, there was a non-alcoholic option available, but otherwise it was a guide to making the perfect gin and tonic. There are only four steps to it - ice, gin, tonic, garnish - but it turns out the way I make my drinks is wrong at every single stage. Whoops!

Lighthouse Family have always been a sort of easy-listening run-of-the-mill joke in my mind, particularly because at least three of their big hits sound exactly the same. So I was expecting this album to be pleasant and not much more. You know what? I loved it! Great tunes, great easy listening, High is an absolute tune, and I could listen to this over and over. It’s never going to win any awarsd for groundbreaking music but it surprised me in the best possible way.

I’ve enjoyed the last few albums from Miley so I was going into this one with high hopes but in the end, I didn’t really like it. There are a couple of okay songs on there, but most of it is over-produced - feeling like someone let Miley into a new recording studio and she could press ALL the buttons. Miley’s voice is so effortless and she’s got so much talent but this one just didn’t do it for me.

This one definitely wasn’t one of my favourite Reacher books, which is a shame because it feels like there had been some really good ones in the series over the last few releases. But this one just didn’t quite feel right - the descriptions were very dry, the premise was odd, I’m still not entirely sure what the big bad plot was, or who was telling the truth. And occasionally Reacher was acting a bit out of character - I don’t believe he would have gone along with the plot to pretend to be dead, it was exceptionally flawed. Some are blaming this on the new author, but even the original Reacher books had ups and downs, so we just chalk this up to experience and move on to the next!

This is a summertime Sarah Morgan book, I usually read the Christmas ones so it was a refreshing change of pace. Of course it’s more of the same good romantic comedy work from Morgan, although this one does have a series edge to it. Plenty of discussion around grief and coping, and the difficulties around blended families. I found it enjoyable, the characters entirely believable and likable even when they’re acting up, and it was a really well told story. Top work! I should read more than just Christmas books from Sarah Morgan in future!

The penultimate book in the Bridgerton series and this time we’re focusing on Hyacinth, the youngest of the siblings. It’s actually quite a good adventure, I love how much time we get to spend with Lady Danbury, who is of course, the absolute hero of this series. But there’s a love story with a backdrop of questionable parentage and family dynamics, plus a big mystery and treasure hunt surrounding the whereabouts of some diamonds. Lots going on and lots to enjoy!

So, the dust has settled and I finally have a moment to put fingers to keyboard and jot down some thoughts from this year’s WWDC announcements. I’ve been quite lacking in keeping up with any news so was blind going into the Keynote, and they crammed quite a lot in without there being anything too major.

You always have to be a bit skeptical when a famous name writes their first novel, but I thought this was a really good one. Judy makes no bones about the fact that Anton du Beke basically talked her into it but you can’t fault the tennis story coming from someone who knows what they’re talking about! It’s all a bit predictable, but the characters are a joy and the journey is a lot of fun to go on - just like the actual Wimbledon tournament. Definitely worth a read if you’re a tennis fan. I see that Judy’s second book is a murder mystery… so we’ll see if that holds up as well!

This is the first book where Andrew Child gets involved in the writing, and you can almost immediately feel a bit of a refresh, a new lease of life. However, Jack Reacher is barely in touch with what’s going on as a cyber attack hits a city. Of course there’s more going on behind it, and he gets dragged into the bigger plot, but it’s fun to see him barely understand the technology being discussed. There’s potentially a bit more talking than action which takes away from it a little bit but ultimately it’s the same old Reacher saving the day in impressive style.

The first question is, of course, did I know Proud was a Heather Small song rather than an M People track? If I did, I’d forgotten the fact, so it was a surprise to me that this album even existed. It’s good, although a little bit lengthy. Obviously Proud is a legendary song at this point, and the album finishes on a high with the Tom Jones duet. In the middle things get a bit drawn out, but none of it is bad and you can’t really fault vocals like these.

I loved this. You never really know what to expect with a Pulp album but I feel like this was just a grown up, slightly more existential version of what they used to do in the Britpop era. The music is great, the vocals excellent - I could honestly listen to Jarvis Cocker do that sort of singy-talky thing he does all day. The genres vary without being jarring, and there’s lots of great instrument work in there… I really enjoyed it!

It took me far too long to get into this, there were too many characters initially and we were chopping between them too quickly. But once the pieces were gathered together and the heist story started emerging, then it was really fun, particularly the twist where the safe was empty! The banana obsessed Mrs Shaw was a suspicious character from the beginning but still quite a lot of fun to see how it all played out.

This was a serviceable thriller - the setup wasn’t as convincing as I hoped it would be, just someone turning up in the area is enough to kick start an entire investigation again? Not sure about that. But the characters are believable and the writing is engaging, you definitely want to keep turning the pages and find out what happens next. I sort of guessed where we were going about halfway through and so the second half dragged a little bit but it was still an entertaining read.

The girls are back for another term at boarding school - I hadn’t really clocked that these books only cover one term each… so much happens, it seems impossible that these three books are pretty much covering one school year! It seems so long ago that the twins were the new girls being a pain about everything. At this point, the focus is less on the twins and more on everyone else - Carlotta the circus girl, Prudence the sneak, Bobby the tennis star. Lots of tennis in this one, good stuff! The girls get a chance to mess up but then learn and grow from it. What more do you need from a classic Enid Blyton story?

I really liked this one. Again, just like in the previous Slitheen book, the Daleks seem more scary on the page than they do on the screen. But as always, the humans don’t always do the right thing, and the scenes where the Doctor is battling to stop them terrorising a Dalek for the sake of their humanity, even though they are his sworn enemy, very well done. And the battle rages on, with some interesting temporary companions, and a good ending. I enjoyed this one.

An interesting Doctor novel this one, with another temporary companion in the form of June. They end up running around Ancient Athens and confronting the Slitheen, who are more aggressive than they appear on TV - on screen they’re more ridiculous, but here they want to do some real damage. It’s a good book, plenty of action, lots of twists and turns, and a strong ending.

There’s a bit of a fog in my memory of how I got from enjoying the sports film Friday Night Lights, giving it s score of five out of five, and writing about it favourably, to buying and watching the entire box set of the television series of the same name. The TV show has excellent reviews and I think part of it might have been the participation of Connie Britton who will forever be Rayna James in my eyes but is no less awesome for that… but what could I possibly like about a series focusing on a small US town with an obsession for American Football?

I really didn’t know very much about Dear Evan Hansen when the show rolled into town on its current UK tour. The song You Will Be Found is obviously the biggest hit and pops up on various musical reviews and occasional variety shows, but outside of that I could only have told you that the main character has a cast on his arm, and Ben Platt was in the film.

This was an okay album, but it messes with the mind a little bit. They sound very much like Michael Jackson, both in actual voice and in production - which makes sense as they are related and he mentored them. And then you think this one REALLY sounds like MJ, only to realise he is duetting with them. Very confusing. But otherwise, it’s just some reasonable R&B/pop music that slides along nicely without really making a huge impact.

This was a surprise - it was very good! I’ve found the Jonas brothers together and apart to be a bit hit and miss, but this one was a hit. It’s an intriguing start, kind of mystical and playful and what’s going to happen. Then the pop kicks in and it’s just a joy for the remaining tracks. Not too much falsetto which they are sometimes guilty of, and lots of good guests (although I hadn’t heard of any of them before). A really, solid, pop album.

The Reacher series has its ups and downs but I found this book really enjoyable, one of the high points. Reacher gets involved with an elderly couple who have succumbed to the pressure of loan sharks and are really struggling. He helps them and starts unwinding the mystery and the bigger organised crime problems behind it all, and obviously intervenes at the end to save the day. His straight forward compassion is on display here and it warms you to a character who can sometimes be a bit too black and white, right and wrong. But in this case, it really works.

I don’t often read plays but whenever I do, I always think I should read more of them. You can picture the play happening on stage as you read through the script and this one is a great one. I actually haven’t seen the play performed anywhere but I knew of the story and that it cause quite the furore when it was first written because of its feminist angle. Such a great feminist role model, our Nora, and a surprising story with twists and turns and ultimately an incredibly forward-thinking ending. Loved it, and now need to seek it out on stage.

This audiobook was read by Nicholas Briggs who is the voice of the Judoon in the TV show so it’s really well done and entirely engaging. Plus add to that a great story about a failing travel terminal, private detectives running around trying to figure out what’s going on, and a good mystery to be uncovered. The Doctor is without a companion again but it’s a lot of fun following him on the journey with his Judoon friend, and the plucky young detective adds another fun layer. I enjoyed this one!

This was an interesting story, although it had its ups and downs. I think the way everything kicks off with the book seemed a bit odd, people very quick to judge when there was very little to support such claims. But once everything started unravelling and Laura get in stuck in to help her neighbour and, indeed, open her eyes to real life, it was fun. The ending with even more twists and turns sort of annoyed me in a way but it all shook out and settled down so no real complaints.

This started out as two separate stories that eventually converge. On the one hand, Reacher is digging into his family history, which is always interesting because it’s a fascinating family and one that still holds plenty of secrets. On the other hand a young couple are being kept at a motel, initially by coercion and eventually by force, and it takes a while before we realise why and what kind of danger they are in. Reacher to the rescue, hooray! We learn some secrets, do some heroic stuff, and as always, leave town at the end. Not a bad read in the Reacher canon!

Since Sky took the broadcast rights for WTA and refuse to put any decent replays up, I’ve not been watching as much tennis as I used to. It’s a shame, but it also means when I do get to subscribe to Discovery for a month to watch the French Open, it’s a real treat. Watching the players running around the orange clay courts whilst listening to Radio Roland Garros, what a fab way to spend two weeks.

Oops I Did It Again celebrated its 25th anniversary and I was going to listen to the album but then realised I haven’t even done the debut! So it was back to the Britney beginning, and what a joy this is. It’s wonderful sugary pop done very well by a girl just starting out. Okay, Soda Pop isn’t great, and E-Mail My Heart is already dated and only going to get worse, but the rest of it is fab 90s pop. Oops I Did It Again will not be far behind!

I loved this! The first track on the album is my least favourite and on the first listen through it sort of filled me with dread, but power through that one and the rest of the album is outstanding. It’s led by the incredible vocals of Skin, obviously, but the music is powerful, the lyrics excellent and the whole thing a treat.

Our twins are back at their boarding school and this time joined by a family member - grumpy cousin Alison. This is a bit of a trope for Enid Blyton, in which the family member comes along to be similar to how our protagonists started last year. She needs to learn all the same lessons that we have already learned. But meanwhile, it was very interesting the tricks that were played, the fire and the heroine. How mean an entire class can be when someone doesn’t quite conform to their standards. I wonder what mischief everyone’s going to get up to next!

Hmm, this wasn’t a bad Marvel film, we’ve certainly seen worse. But it was kinda dull. Certainly at the beginning, it felt very boring, politics and stuff. It was very like the TV show that it follows on from, calm and plodding and just getting on with things. But it did start to get better and more interesting as it went along, which is unusual for a Marvel movie, they normally tend to get worse. So, you know, watch it if you want to keep up with the Marvel stuff, but otherwise give it a miss.

This took a minute to get into, as a random doctor ends up getting caught in an escalating plot. He, and we, are never really sure what is going on even right to the end. But the twists and turns are always fun to read, and wow the bird attacks at the end were absolutely terrifying. It’s a quick read, and I wouldn’t say it was one of his best, even in this sub-genre of pulp fiction, but always worth a read!

I love James Acaster, his four-part Netflix special (which is mentioned in this book) was a masterclass in intricately connected, bizarre but hilarious comedy. I’ve read his book about getting into a lot of scrapes so was interested in this new project dedicated to the music of just one year. Having come out the other side, I’m not sure how I feel about it. James writes very well and the memoir sections were great, but I’m not sure if the music obsession and recommendation really works as a book. Is it interesting to read story after story of how a random album you’ve never heard of came to being? Is it more of a reference work than a book? I don’t know.

Alfred finally dies, after threatening to do so for the past few books, and the expected chaos doesn’t really happen. But there are still more skirmishes and plots to try and unravel. Every time I think this book isn’t for me and it’s boring and I’m going to stop reading, something real and human and funny happens, the characters are great, and it just pulls me back in. Bernard Cornwell has such a great writing style - intensely detailed, and full of accuracy, but with enough wit and engagement that you can’t help but want to keep reading.

I so wanted this to be a good film. It feels like ages since we had a good globe-trotting, tomb-raiding, mystery-solving adventure, but this was not it. The start was a bit slow, but once the group got together and started ‘planning the heist’, it was okay. We blew past the twenty minute rule, so there must have been something in it to start with. But it went downhill pretty quickly.

I love that this album is original Jason, back to the good rapid singing roots with guitars and wordplay and fun stuff like that, rather than the more lovey dovey stuff that his later work represents. This isn’t quite as good as the debut album but it’s pretty close, I love Did You Get My Message, and the other songs stand up to the challenge. It’s a unique style which is always appreciated too, you couldn’t get Jason confused with any other artist out there!

I know Self Esteem more as Rebecca Taylor, popping up as guests on shows like Taskmaster and Celebrity Bake Off, but I was intrigued to listen to a full album from her. I’ve got mixed feelings about it. There’s great work in here, huge creativity and excellent production. Focus is Power is a really dramatic and moving song. But it’s also a little bit all over the place - maybe as part of the ‘complicated woman’ thing, it’s designed to be that way. Tonally it’s quite hard to settle in to, and I certainly found it an album that you have to listen to, it’s hard to do anything else. So it’s very good and has place, it’s just probably a bit much for me to listen to regularly.

Ah, a classic Enid Blyton boarding school story with grumpy kids, adventures in class, and of course, a midnight feast. The twins approach going to a new school with a terrible attitude and are quickly put right, and I know it’s for kids and is really outdated, but I did enjoy reading about these escapades. The secret dog! The accidental exam cheat! The prompter at the play! Sneaking out to the circus! So good, and everyone gets what’s coming to them which is always fun.

This was an interesting book in the Reacher series, taking a slightly different approach. Rather than turning up to a rural town somewhere and finding a problem, Reacher goes looking for it after seeing a ring in a pawn shop window. It feels a bit contrived to me, but then I did quite like the way the mystery unravelled and how we followed our heroes finding out the bigger picture. I wasn’t entirely convinced that Reacher would have entered into the relationships the way he did, but it was an entertaining enough entry in this series.

In the previous couple of books we’ve heard about Francesca being widowed and hiding away in Scotland, but now we get to understand a bit more of the details behind that story. It’s a sad start, particularly as you know what’s coming - he goes to bed with a headache, uh-oh! And the rest of the book is the will-they-won’t-they between Francesca and Michael, and it gets a bit creepy in places, but ultimately comes to a happy ending, so I guess we can be happy with that.

I’ve had this in my to read list for a really long time, to the point that I have no idea what made me want to buy it in the first place. It’s an okay police procedural but there was quite a big cast of characters and I didn’t really care very much for any of them. I did like that there were a few suspects for the murder, and plenty of motives for what happened, but to me, it was really obvious whodunit as soon as the detective started being overly friendly with them. An okay read but nothing to write home about, really.

Oh wow, this is exactly what you would expect from a Bob Mortimer novel, and that is a bit of a nutty story but a real heart to it and a genius undercurrent that shows itself as and when required. It’s random in places, and sometimes you wonder what you’re reading and if it’s ever going to come all together, but I loved it. These characters that think and say random things, it’s not really believable as real life (although I entirely believe it’s how Bob thinks and would conduct conversations!) but it’s hugely entertaining. An absolutely enjoyable ride, and I’m very glad there’s a sequel to get stuck in to as well.

I’ve been intrigued by the play The Shark is Broken since I first heard about it, and was very keen to see it when it embarked on a UK tour. The show is set aboard the boat during the filming of the mega blockbuster Jaws, featuring as the only characters in the play, the three actors who star in the movie. They have plenty of time to spare as the mechanical shark, known as Bruce, keeps breaking down. The play spends time with these three as they get to know each other, argue and make up, in these many hours spent trapped aboard.

For the last few years, I’ve tuned in to the Eurovision Song Contest with some trepidation… thinking I’ll watch just a bit and then it will probably be boring and I’ll end up going to bed early with a good book instead. That hasn’t happened, each year is entertaining in its own right, and 2025 was no different. I did think the show was lacking something, that unique camp-ness that makes Eurovision the juggernaut that it is seemed missing. Most of the entries were credible and well performed and pretty sensible, with just a couple showing that quirkiness that we know and love.

If you want to watch some educational but entertaining TV, wherein our host travels around ancient countries by train and looks at a lot of burial sites, I have just the thing for you. Alice Roberts, celebrated academic and broadcaster, has produced three series of a TV show for Channel 4 in which she does just that. The first, Ancient Egypt by Train, was the gateway drug that led quickly to Ottoman Empire by Train and most recently Ancient Greece by Train.

A couple of months ago, Apple launched a new service as part of their news subscription called News+ Food. The additional app functionality appears in the News+ app, bringing together recipes from around the different outlets that appear in the News app, and allows you to save any recipes you might find. As with other recipe apps, it then allows you to make sure you’ve got all the ingredients available, and then follow along as you cook with an easy view within the app.

The first and most important thing to say about this game is that it’s very addictive. You do just want to keep growing your zoo and adding animals, and even when I’m not playing I’m quite often thinking about what I could do next in that small spot of space next to the grizzly bears. The animals are absolutely adorable, it’s cute just to watch them pottering about their habitats. I keep finding new things as well, like recently discovering you can switch to a webcam that is in the underground sleeping areas of animals like the anteaters.

This is an old game that I have previously played and loved on earlier versions of the Playstation, but when I saw it for a super cheap price in a Playstation sale, I figured it was worth a bit of nostalgia. I love racing games but I am not very good at them, so it’s always an adventure trying to find one that isn’t too out of reach for my mediocre skills.