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.

Generally, I liked it. It was well made, and I was impressed with the CG. The only bit that felt out of place was the bit where he jumped onto the wing. Not so great graphics and didn’t really fit. Considering this is a mash up of high tech aliens and low tech cowboys, that was a pretty hard task to achieve.

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.

Overall, I liked it. I thought the naturalistic dialogue was great, Chris O’Dowd was lovely, and I really found Kristen Wiig delightful. Of course it was Melissa McCarthy who stole most of the scenes, but they were a good ensemble really. The story was a bit of a surprise to me, I had thought it would be more Hangover than rom com, but it wasn’t so much. The dress fitting was flipping awful, and the start of the movie dragged a bit. Once the engagement ring was on the finger, and the cop showed up, it all got going nicely.

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!

Tricky one, this. I like that it poked fun at romantic comedies in general, and I like quite a lot of the dialogue. Some of the surprises were good, the Hollywood sign was ace, and the music conversations were good | or they would have been if I’d have known any of the songs. Trouble is, whilst ripping rom-coms, the movie took the exact same form to an irritating degree and without a hint of irony. There were some weird leaps in their relationships that didn’t seem all too explainable, but I did think they made a great couple, so that’s half the battle I suppose.

I loved it. I was fully expecting to be disappointed and/or bored, but I was not. In the first few minutes, it was chuckleworthy, and then gradually the laughs got louder. I thought the characters were great, I really wanted to see them get their happy ending and felt invested in the twists and turns of their lives. And there were a couple of twists that I didn’t see coming. Perhaps I should have, perhaps I’m a bit embarrassed about that, but at least it means the film wasn’t predictable.

In my ongoing experiment with Terry Pratchett, this one I actually enjoyed. I can understand how it made it onto the Big Read list, and why, therefore, it is on my reading list. Although it isn’t quite time-travel, it does embrace the concept of messing about with the expected pattern of events - and the consequences of doing so.

It’s been a while since I read the Crimson Petal and the White, and although I didn’t realise I was missing the characters, when I spotted this book available for the Kindle, I got quite excited. It’s very short, just a few short stories featuring some of the characters from the main book.

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.

After a fabulous discussion on whether to continue reading the Terry Pratchett books or not, I decided to give the third book in the series a go, and then see how I felt after that. I still wasn’t completely sold on the concept but I must admit I enjoyed it a lot more than the previous one. The characters seemed a lot better explained and it was easy to understand their actions - although I did think some of it was hard to believe of a child under ten years old.

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.

Oh it was so good. So, so good. I love the characters, I love the story, I love the twists and turns and the secret nods and winks, and the appearance of ACTUAL SPOCK. There were a few bits I didn’t like but the good outweighed the bad so much that it still gets a top score.

I’d never heard of this book or the author, and I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t know what to expect as I opened it up, but I was pleasantly surprised. It took only a moment to realise I was reading another children or young adults book, but the story was brilliantly captivating.

The beauty of this book is that Tracy is really a very cheeky, obnoxious little girl, but brilliantly loveable at the same time. I’ve followed her through this book, plus watched her adventures on TV, and you just get under her skin enough to care, but still remain far enough away that she continues to surprise. At times you wonder why on earth Cam keeps coming back, but then you turn the page and the humour and joy of it all makes sense.

I really loved this. I hadn’t known what to expect, and it wasn’t until I read the introduction from the author that I realised not only that this was a long book, but that I was also reading the Director’s Cut style version - extended even more.

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.

It wasn’t at all what I thought it might be. I suspected it might be either funnier | like Ocean’s Eleven | or more serious | like Bourne. It was somewhere in between, but I couldn’t quite figure out where it was trying to place itself. I’m not really a massive fan of Tom Cruise, but he did a decent job, and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen quite such an impressive display of The Rage.

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.

Mr C was ready to watch Toy Story 3 as soon as it was available but unfortunately, I couldn’t remember anything about the first two. Hence we had to wait until we’d watched both the original movie and the first sequel before enjoying this third one. We’ve had mixed feelings about Pixar and their sequels in the not-too-distant past, but Toy Story seems to have done okay so far. I was a bit reticent as I know a lot of people said it was weepy, and I didn’t want to be awkward. But after a hard weekend, we were happy to sit back and enjoy the toys.

Matchett’s three books follow distinct paths - the first an entire year with a championship winning team and the third a look at how to put together a fast race car. This second book focuses on life as part of the pit crew. From getting the job, through winning and losing as a team, to desperately trying to get out, the book expands on its predecessor with more experiences from the F1 paddock.

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:

There’s plenty of whimsy to love in the book, but equally, some of the confusion can be quite frustration. There can be page after page of nonsense, confusion, rhyming and contradictory conversation, people always talking in circles. While there is similarities to the whimsical nature of Winnie-the-Pooh, it’s all quite less warm and cuddly. Alice gets so frustrated with the characters, the creatures answer back to her, and you feel her stubborn nature stamping her foot all the time. She’s more than capable of giving as good as she gets.

Mmm, Jacqueline Wilson. I’m secretly very glad that my reading list is giving me an excuse to consume these books. They only take an hour and it’s always a glorious experience. I’ve always loved Ms Wilson’s work, since I was a kid, but she’s so prolific that I missed out on a lot of the stuff, and then got too old for it.

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.

It must be a reasonably good film for us to have watched it again, and it’s a good action-packed romp with some amusing dialogue throughout. The stereotypes bugged me more this time round. His spy bunker is in the shed, and hers is behind the cooker. Equally, they spent a lot of time saying how much better she was than him, when it really should be a partnership. There were some bits of the story that you could pick holes in, but overall it was fun, and that’s what we were after.

It was good, I really quite liked it. My big concern is that the character works incredibly well in the 1940s setting, but I’m not so sure I’m going to like the character in the present day. It was all so very Forever Young, albeit much less corny. It was much better than Hulk, and just better than Thor.

I wasn’t particularly aware of this book before I started reading it, but I was gratified to see that it was relatively short and delightfully written. In fact, the writing was the best part of it - expert prose, really well crafted and thought out. Not a word appeared to be out of place or without reason. Descriptions were great and it painted a nice picture of the time and place.

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!

I liked the start of the book - it’s always intriguing to have an out of sorts child and take them to a new environment to get fit and well. Similar to the story in Goodnight Mister Tom. It was also interesting to see Mary find out about Colin and help him to change as well, despite them both being the most obstinate creatures that have ever lived!

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.

When I read The Colour of Magic, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to it and was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t the best thing I’d ever read but was entertaining enough. There are plenty more Pratchett works on the Life List reading list, but I thought if I was going to read book four, I should probably try and read the ones in between. I do love keeping things in order.

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.

My Life List is now something like two years old, and rather than the whole New Year’s Resolution thing, I like to have a quick look back at the things achieved this year, and then a quick look forward at what I hope the year ahead will bring. It’s fair to say that this year has not been as full of Life List success as I would have hoped, mostly because it was full of months of soul-searching, making life-changing decisions, and forging ahead with book-writing.

I ran on Christmas Day, and now I have run on New Year’s Day as well. I had plans to run in between but as ever, they didn’t quite work out. Already, amazingly, the daylight is creeping in of an evening. As soon as we had the shortest day, it felt like the difference could be seen - but perhaps that is a psychological thing. I have found a route filled with street lights and such, so I may be able to run during the week sooner rather than later. I make no promises on this front, but it is my intention to up the once-weekly schedule!

I really enjoyed this one, although there is so much Spielberg in it, it’s almost embarrassing. The train crash is absolutely incredible, we watched it several times over, agog every time. The ending was a bit less inspiring and I really was irritated that they revealed the alien. It wasn’t so bad, but I hate that they worked so hard to keep it hidden and then eventually revealed it, with its massive nostrils and everything. Oh well.