Call me a fool, but I hadn’t realised the Wombles were in a book before they were on television. I’ve enjoyed their programme and I know of some of their ways, I know they wish me a Wombling Merry Christmas but when I saw there was a book and did a bit of investigation, I realised I didn’t know very much about the Wombles at all!

My knowledge of the Thirty-Nine Steps extends really just as far as that image of a man in a suit being chased by a bi-plane. As part of my extended reading list, I picked this one up and was intrigued to see that it was just a short little spy movie, of such popular acclaim. Having read it, I can see why.

As you very well know, we recently got hooked on The Big Bang Theory. One of the very first things that caught our attention, and made us realise this could be a show we can get on board with, was Sheldon’s view on giving gifts. It’s exactly the same as ours, and although I’ve tried to explain it on many an occasion, I’ve never quite had his eloquence. Penny: Uh, Sheldon, I didn’t see your present.

It’s catch up time on the whole trailer front, as I’ve been seeing them pass me by but not quite finding time to post them. First up, The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp. It’s fun to see Depp try new characters, but I’m not at all convinced by this one. I don’t know the original Lone Ranger particularly well, so curious what fans think of this remake. The Lone Ranger

What a wonderful range and variety of stories are contained within the official world of Sherlock Holmes. I’ve read a bit of Holmes here and there before but now an awful lot of what happened on screen makes sense! Contained within this complete works are the four books and 50+ stories that make up a complete chronology of Holmes and Watson’s adventures in crime.

When I last properly baked, I made chocolate butterfly cupcakes, that were very delicious. Pondering what to do with the multitude of cake cases I was left with, I received a suggestion from Lou that I subsequently promised to attempt. The conversation went along these lines, paraphrased, naturally: Lou - Make panda cupcakes! Me - WHA? Lou - They’re easy, chocolate buttons, dash of icing, no probs. Me - Hmm, next time, I promise.

Formula One begins a brand new season, with a lot to live up to. The action in 2012 surprised, delighted and thrilled fans with a host of different winners, a successful return to the United States and a championship fight that went right down to the wire. With Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel securing their third driver and constructor championships in a row, the challenge of trying to beat them is ever-present. Lewis Hamilton’s high-profile move to Mercedes will be a key factor in that team’s fortunes, as they attempt to move forward and join the intense battle at the front. Look out also for Ferrari and McLaren who will both be keen to halt Red Bull’s run of success.

If you pay any sort of attention to the goings on at Netflix, you can’t fail to have missed the introduction of their new original series House of Cards. It stars Kevin Spacey and Kate Mara and follows the inner workings of politics, newspapers, that kind of thing. We’re only three episodes in, so I thought I would just make some notes on the findings so far. Mr C was super keen to watch this. He’s not normally particularly bothered about any kind of TV, particularly after the whole LOST debacle, so this was a turn up for the books. Presumably this is down to the whole TV on demand thing, plus the fact it has a good cast and is, well, very good. But it just goes to show that making your content available and EASY means you get at least one more set of eyeballs.

I liked this one but it was quite hard going. A bit complicated in places, and I think the ’natural dialogue’ thing that is such a phenomenon these days was overdone. The narration was inspired and there were some amusing moments that made it very entertaining. Both Robert and Val were excellent, so, overall, a thumbs up.

Somehow, I’m heading into my fourth year of writing these monthly recaps. I still don’t know quite why I do it, but hey, it’s fun for me! It’s also interesting to look back and see where we were this time three years ago, when I began. January 2010: Helen was fussing over pregnant Annette, Brenda couldn’t find a job to save her life, and Ruth was jumping down Pip’s throat. How times… oh.

This year, I set myself a Runkeeper goal of completing 500 kilometres in twelve months. It’s a crazy goal, but in 2012, I managed almost 450km, so it should only take a bit more of a push to be able to achieve this. It’s one of those that is within my sights but is still going to be a bit tricky. Of course, if January is anything to go by, it’s going to be impossible. First, I was recovering from the stupid cold that ruined my festive holiday. Then it snowed. I had grand plans for getting into a regular schedule but I’ll have to wait until winter disappears for that, I think.

My obsession with weekly baking has faded slightly, but I’m still keen on getting things in the oven and seeing what happens. I’m too much of a coward to dive straight into making croissants by hand, but they’re a popular foodstuff in this house, so I was intrigued when I saw an odd little can from Jus-Rol, the incredible ready-made pastry people. Turns out, it was a roll of dough to make croissants, ready cut, ready to roll, ready to bake. I couldn’t resist.

Bit disappointing as it turns out. It was a reasonable watch, entertaining enough, but Jonah has been better in other things. They made good use of that improvisational feel but at the same time, it felt like they were being crude just for the sake of it. Ayoade was good, I’d like to see him in more stuff. I felt this was very much like Tower Heist - good enough but not special.

It was definitely better than the third, it really seemed to go back to the roots of the first one. There were some chases on and off land, various parties on a quest for something and the big showdown at the end. The mermaid thing was interesting, although it got a bit fanciful in places (can I really criticise THIS franchise for being fanciful? I don’t know). Better, mostly quite unnecessary  but it’s always fun to see a bit more Keith Richards.

Immediate reaction was: Well, that was kinda fun but the plot is absolutely incomprehensible. If there was a plot, I couldn’t follow it at all, and it was really only enjoyable because of the characters that we have grown to know so well. And then, a day or two later, Mr C and I were talking about the film and couldn’t remember it at all. Individual scenes, of course, but what was it actually all about?

I love reading about people taking on crazy challenges, and this - to live a year in the life of an 1800s cottager - was just the kind of thing I enjoy. The book is split into chapters that introduce the concept and the reasoning behind the challenge, then wander through each month of the year, before finishing up with lessons learned. It’s a gentle read, nice enough but it didn’t quite grab me as I’d hoped.

To my surprise, I quite enjoyed this book. I’ve not seen the TV show, but I know of it, and knew what to expect when picking it up. I’m usually more of a fan of the fast-paced action thriller, but actually it was quite nice to read something a bit more laid back and relaxed - if such a thing can be said of a murder mystery style book.

I quite enjoyed this part travel guide/part humourous memoir/part fictionalised version of events as three men quite literally get in a boat. Three men and a dog, in true Famous Five style, so that when they were first introduced I couldn’t work out why there were four names being bandied about.

This is another of a growing list of ‘occupational memoirs’ that I’ve been enjoying over the last few years. Tales from people in interesting jobs - most notably the ambulance service, and hospitals. This time it’s Lysa, who trained as a nurse but craved the excitement of the unknown and retrained as a paramedic.

The amazing thing about the internet is that you can research almost anything and get an answer within a few seconds. There is plenty of questionable information out there, but if you use a sensible head and double check your sources and facts, you’re likely to do well. The difficult thing about the internet is that you can do almost anything when you’re trying to research something. News, video, music, games, social, it’s all there at the tips of your fingers and when procrastination comes easily to you, the internet can be a goldmine.

This was an intriguing one, like nothing I have really read before, although it occasionally reminded me of the two lead characters in Of Mice and Men. Following two brothers as they go on a job for their boss - a job that involves tracking a thief and dispensing with 1800s style justice.

People have told us to watch The Big Bang Theory over and over again. The Sidepodcast comments have been littered with references and quotes for years, and all of them have gone over our heads. iTunes gave away the first episode for free, we downloaded it, and still didn’t manage to watch. It wasn’t a stubborn reluctance, more that we just never got round to it. Now, of course, we are aghast at what we have been missing out on.

It’s a bit on the late side, as the original Killing trilogy came to an end on UK screens before Christmas, but after much thought it feels only fair to review the final series as I have the first (here and here) and second (here and here). I was excited to see how Lund was going to make her probably-not-graceful exit from our lives, and very keen to see what had happened to her in the intervening time between the end of the second series and the beginning of the third. With two dead partners behind her, it’s understandable that she would be starting to unravel, but I wasn’t quite prepared for just how isolated she was.

This week, I passed the Baking recipe app to Mr C and asked him to pick something he might like. The app is full of photographs, so it makes choosing what you want both a) easier because they are some fantastic photos and b) harder because you want to try a little bit of everything. He opted for the Chocolate Butterfly Cupcakes, which I thought looked complicated but weren’t once I actually looked into it.

I didn’t realise this was a book of short stories until the first one came to an abrupt end. Unfortunately, the first one was the best one, and I spent most of the rest of the book wishing that it could have continued, so that we could find out what happened with the grandmother and the missing boyfriend and the magic handbag.

Mr C’s back for his second roundup of the 2012 year. Last week it was all about music, this week it’s all about the visual arts. To recap the rules, initially we wanted this to be a “top five 2012 films seen in 2012” but the problem is we run about six months behind thanks to windowing and all that nonsense. Instead, the rules are relaxed a little to include the 2011 films that we didn’t catch in time last year, plus the 2012 films we have managed to see so far.

Very mixed feelings on this one. As an action/adventure thriller, it’s certainly intriguing enough to sustain interest throughout. It’s a unique style in which the protagonist is the bad guy, and whilst there is almost equal time given to those hunting him down, I think we’re supposed to root for the terrorist here. I suspect he becomes less bad in subsequent books, but here we’re talking about a guy that signs up to kill one or more leading figures in British Parliament in the late 80s/early 90s.

Last year, I added something new to my Life List - completing a puzzle book. It came about after I worked through a crossword with my mum and dad, and realised just how pathetic my general knowledge skills are. I thought a few puzzles couldn’t hurt, and seeing a Puzzler or two lying around reminds me very much of living at home. I picked up one of the monthly editions of the Puzzler magazine, it just so happened to have Princess Kate on the cover - although I’m not really sure why. Does she like doing puzzles?

Off-the-beaten-track at CES 2013 Don’t let’s tell Mr C about the sports cameras!

When I finally started a bit more human after a festive holiday full of cold, I decided to bake something nice and comforting. What better than apple pie? I used a recipe from the Photo Cookbook - Baking edition, and had great fun chopping up all the apples and mixing in sugar and cinnamon. I didn’t have a round dish, so I improvised. They are meant to be leaves on top. They looked better in real life.

We were doing some testing of our internets, browsing random things on YouTube, when Mr C asked if I had seen this version of I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift. As much as he has convinced me of some of her music, I’m not a fan of this song at all. However, when it’s done like this, by Walk Off the Earth, then I’m on board! These people are amazing. We got completely lost in their videos, they’re always doing something new and different, they’re so talented and creative!

I’ve not read this before, and I was quite surprised by the time I got to the end. Although I hadn’t expected this to be about a jolly green giant with a bolt through his neck, I wasn’t really prepared for how depressing the book is. From the start we are thrust into the icy world of a pole expedition, and then through letters to a sister detailing the story told to the brother by a scientist plucked from the wilderness (friend of a friend!) we learn about Frankenstein and his monster.

The past month in Archers-land passed terribly quickly, I can’t quite believe it is 2013 already. To recap on the festive antics of our Ambridge-based friends, we must begin with Lilian and Matt. What is going on in that woman’s head? I don’t understand why she doesn’t just leave Matt if she is so unhappy with him? Why sneak off into the kitchen to take clandestine phone calls? They aren’t married, they have no children. They have a history but it’s a tempestuous one at best. What’s stopping her just running off with Paul? The business, maybe? I don’t get it.

This was a perfectly functional action movie, not bad overall, but with a few detractions. More than anything, it loses points for the epic lens flare fail. I thought that people would have seen what JJ Abrams did and learnt their lesson, but no. This was worse. Awful. Blinding. Irritating. The characters were okay, but Kate Beckinsale was the best thing in it and she was supposed to be the bad guy/girl.

I’ve read most of this before, and also listened to an audiobook version, but as part of the extended reading list, it was time to read the whole thing in one go. It’s a nice little story, but it does come across a bit preachy in places. There are plenty of sections about God and things start going right for the characters after they mend their ways and do the Christian thing.

New Year usually means quite a lot of reviews of the previous twelve months, and things are no different round these parts. At the end of each year, Mr C gets a chance to have his say on both music and films, and today it’s time to recap his top five songs from 2012. We’ve previously listed his songs from 2010 and from 2011, but this time it’s all about the music and melodies that were unleashed upon the unsuspecting public last year. What gems did Mr C manage to find?

This is the story of Martha Payne, a young girl who started blogging about her school dinners and created quite the stir as she did so. I had previously heard of the blog, and read a few of the entries, but I was intrigued to hear the story from the family behind it and see what happened in the end.

I think I tried to watch the relatively recent BBC adaptation of this, but gave up not long into it because nothing was happening. You’d think the title would give that away. The book is much better, however, because with the nice intervals that a diary style gives, you have more natural stops, starts and potentials for fun.

Turbo This is one of the latest efforts from DreamWorks Animation, and features a snail who feels the need for speed. The blurb is bizarre (but then I suppose these things always are): A freak accident might just help an everyday garden snail achieve his biggest dream: winning the Indy 500.

Instead of making New Year’s Resolutions each January, I have a long-running Life List that does the same job, only is a constant reminder of the things I want to, and am trying to, achieve. It’s time to have a quick recap of what has been happening on my Life List over the last twelve months. The Amazing A-Z Adventure I’ve only managed two more visits this year, and now we’re getting to the trickier half of the alphabet. Qs, Xs, Zs, that kind of thing. In 2012, I went for a bit of a walk around a park, and a bit of a walk around a gin distillery. I had a plan for Q that did not come to pass, so that will require some rethinking. 2012 involved a bit of saving money, but 2013 may involve more travel.

We saw the film adaptation of this novel last year, to mixed reviews. The twist at the end was great but the film took an awful long time to get there, and the middle third was not enjoyed in my household. I was keen to read the book to see if it was any better, and I’m glad I did. I couldn’t put it down! Even though I knew the story, knew what was coming, it was just riveting.

The final few weeks of the year haven’t really gone as I had planned. I didn’t manage to complete a 10k in December, which is disappointing but not surprising. The weather has been terrible, either freezing cold or torrential rain. I’m not a completely fair-weather runner, but it’s hard to get the motivation when it is both dark AND raining. I had planned to make the most of my holiday over Christmas to go out several times, but of course, I have got this stupid cold. I went for a run on Boxing Day, and that was that.

I have to tread a bit carefully, as Mr C was ready to put this in his top whatever films of all time. I did like it, it’s good when a film has the space to breathe, and I really thought that scene in the diner was amazing. I just have this problem with films where I can’t really work out who I’m rooting for. I guess you’re meant to get behind Pacino, but he wasn’t exactly that friendly either. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, it’s just something I struggle with. Otherwise, I enjoyed it, even if it was a bit long!

It’s good. It gets off to a bit of a slow start and it takes a while to warm to any of the characters, but then when you do it starts to get interesting. The action ratchets up, and the animosity between Wolverine and Cyclops adds some much-needed humour. There’s a lot of serious messages to be pondered, with regards to this whole other race of people being treated differently, and I can see how this spawned quite a few sequels!

On the reading list, this is a classic book that I hadn’t heard of and probably wouldn’t have sought out. It’s short, but I didn’t get very far through it before I had to give up. I just didn’t know what was going on and couldn’t follow the story at all. Perhaps it’s because I was under the weather, or perhaps it was just in a style that didn’t suit me, I don’t know. Unfortunately, I didn’t get on with this one and will have to chalk it up as unfinished.

I’ve enjoyed another of the History in an Hour series on the Cold War, and previously talked at length about how the format of the book is perfect for me. The facts, given in an easy to digest way, without overloading you with too much content. This book was being given away for free to encourage readers to the series, and whilst I do intend to snap up more in the coming months, I couldn’t resist this one.

The story was a lot tamer than my wild imagination had pictured. Rather than some strange mythical two-faced or two-headed being, it was simply the mystery of two men who were never seen in the same room at the same time. I really enjoyed it, all the way through the mystery, and through the big reveal at the end. I felt sorry for Jekyll, forced to admit defeat and succumb to a fate without knowing what it was.

I’ve always been a bit put off by the whole puff pastry situation. Everyone says that you may as well just buy ready made pastry - even Mary Berry says so - and that it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Making puff pastry from scratch is tricky and time-consuming, so it makes perfect sense just to roll out the ready made stuff. It’s not that I’m snobbish about it, but I just tend to think if you’re buying ready made things, you may as well just buy the finished product - a sort of ‘what’s the point?’ attitude.

My dad often sends me links and things that he discovers on his travels around the internet, and sometimes I think I need to share that with others - but never quite get round to writing a post about it. Instead, here’s a compilation of five recent links and bits that I found quite interesting. A List of Books. I’m working through my own select list of reading material, but I like the idea of this list - compiling together several other top book lists into one giant compendium. It’s also quite fun to look down and see just how many of these I’ve read thanks to my reading adventures! Britain. I’m not sure where this has come from, but it’s apparently the information that was given to GI’s coming over to Britain during World War II - giving them a quick start guide about how odd us Brits are. I particularly like this bit: “If Britons sit in trains or buses without striking up conversation with you, it doesn’t mean they are being haughty and unfriendly. Probably they are paying more attention to you than you think. But they don’t speak to you because they don’t want to appear intrusive or rude.” Best Animal Pictures of 2012. There will no doubt be a heap of “best of” compilations emerging soon, a couple even on this site. But I love the first picture in this group, where an errant sloth tries to get in on the photo action. Cute. Paint Sample Calendar. This isn’t the exact info my dad sent over, but it’s the same idea. And a genius one! A dry wipe calendar made out of the free paint swatches from your local DIY store. I’m very tempted to try this. Smart toaster. This one was sent a while back, a toaster that tells you the weather. Of course, weather forecasts aren’t always top notch, so why not just eat them? It’s always fun when other people curate the internet for you - that’s why I follow blogs like Kottke. Finding cool things without too much effort!

The content is made up of a collection of articles, letters and chapters from various places, all relating to matters of Victorian London. Set out alphabetically, we travel through all kinds of things from advertising through to what goes into London gin, as well as the practicalities of pawnbroking.