Mmm, I love Bourne! Considering this is at least the third time I’ve seen it, the film doesn’t get old. It gets funnier towards the end as well, I don’t remember laughing out loud before, but I did. In a good way. Matt Damon is at his best when he’s going about doing heroic things without really knowing why.

I treated myself to the first series of Miranda, and after watching the first episode I found myself ever so confused. The iTunes version has the Channel 4 logo at the beginning. How odd, I thought. Miranda couldn’t be more BBC. Created by BBC Productions, broadcast on the BBC. The show came about because of a radio comedy that was on… wait for it… BBC Radio. But there it was, large as life, a Channel 4 ident.

I liked this. It got off to a really slow start, and it wasn’t at all as action packed as the trailer made out, but the slow burn really made you wonder who it was and what was going to happen. I loved the gory bits at the end, and I’m so happy that I guessed the twist. I’m on a really good streak with this guessing business at the moment. It wasn’t exceptional but it was intriguing.

It wasn’t a good film, I would not go so far as to say that, but I did enjoy it. I did end up liking Tom Cruise’s character, which is something I wasn’t expecting to do at all. The stunts were silly, the story was unbelievable, but it made me laugh throughout, and as a bit of escapism, it didn’t go far wrong. Thankfully there is no room for a sequel!

Just cuteness today. Credit: Ross Manges/Flickr

Today I braved the supermarkets to pick up ingredients for the mammoth piece of gammon we received. I told you about it yesterday, and the fact that I am even blogging about the results means I didn’t burn it. That is a bonus! I was following this BBC recipe, but I sort of modified it for my own results, due to constraints with both time and the size of the dishes that I had to work with. I’m not good at photographing food, it turns out, but I’ve got a few illustrations along the way.

Very beautiful film. Nice and slow-paced, with plenty of time to appreciate all the nature going around. About halfway through the over-dubbing started to annoy me, and the child kept doing stupid things to intervene in the foxes life, but even so, it was still quite fascinating.

Just as good as the first one, unfortunately. There are some interesting bits and bobs scattered along the way but as mentioned, the fight scenes are far too long, and it’s hard to understand why everyone adores those kids quite so much when they really don’t seem all that special. Still the lion is quite good.

Last night, there was a Celebrity Mastermind episode in which one of the contestants chose the Back to the Future trilogy as their specialist subject. Thanks to Alex for pointing this out to me, these questions could have been made for me! As is becoming a bit of a tradition when there’s a subject we know about on Mastermind, I thought I’d gather the questions for others to see how they got on.

It’s an interesting enough story, but the film felt long and drawn out, like the content could have been covered in about half the time. The two don’t look like sisters, and the relationship between Anne and the King makes no sense because he never really showed any signs of actually liking her. Still, it made me curious to learn a bit more about this bit of history, and that can only be a good thing.

This was an insight into a world that I know precious little about, and the entire Diana thing was a bit of a surprise to me really. I know about the conspiracies, obviously, but I never really thought about what went on inside the palaces. Anyway, I thought it got off to a bit of a slow start, but then I realised it was never going to be action packed, but was more of a fascinating, if fictional, glimpse into a life that you’d never normally see.

Someone gave us a gammon joint! Mr C is partial to a bit of gammon, and I normally buy the ready made slices that just need grilling or frying up, with a bit of pineapple thrown in for good measure. Now I am faced with this: I didn’t have a clue what to do with it, but after a quick search, I found a nice, simple recipe. It starts with having to soak the joint overnight, so Mr C is going to have to wait another day for his gammon. The good thing about that recipe from the BBC is the Shopping List option, which gives you a list of everything you’ll need, in the categories you will find them in the supermarket. That makes me very happy, as I may have to brave the supermarket tomorrow.

I liked this one far better than I liked the Corpse Bride, although there are a lot of similarities between the two. The story is interesting and unusual, and the characters are fun. The songs are catchy, particularly the Christmas Land one that is repeated throughout. There are some amusing one-liners, and some great emotion. All it is missing is a bit of Helena Bonham-Carter really!

For the first half of the film, I was not convinced. Pierce wasn’t scary enough to be a bad guy, and I wasn’t 100% convinced about the situation. It got a bit better as the twists and turns started, and by the end I was intrigued. As you can see, I guessed the first twist about half a second before it happened but I didn’t get the last one.

This film had me all confused. It was clearly trying to be a modern take on a slasher film, with a tiny political edge, in the form of it being people from an arms company. However, I couldn’t quite work out where it was pitched. At times it was almost a satire, particularly the head rolling bit, and the leg in a fridge thing.

Remember a while ago I was blogging about my Rubik’s Cube? That is still in progress, by the way, but I am in the same predicament I was before - keep trying to achieve something but messing it up and finally scraping back to having just one side complete. At some point I will just go ahead and buy the book to attempt to move on, but I am not willing to admit defeat just yet.

When they announced that this year’s Christmas Doctor Who would be based on the Charles Dickens novel, I thought that sounded quite interesting, particularly as I knew they would be incorporating time travel and that’s my favourite bit. Then they made a big deal of announcing the name, drum roll please, A Christmas Carol. I felt a bit deflated. That’s not very creative at all, is it? Naming the story after the very book you are borrowing from.

I really just have to point out this amazing food blog called Zoom Yummy. I think perhaps I discovered it via Wordpress’s Freshly Pressed feed - a daily selection of the best posts from anyone using Wordpress, and it turns out that’s quite a lot of people. I usually only scan through the list and see if anything catches my eye, and this blog certainly did. I can’t really do it any justice in words, so I’m just going to point you in the right direction. The photos are amazing, the food looks so good at the end, and it makes me want to bake. I haven’t yet, I haven’t even picked out any of the recipes to try. At the moment, I just like ogling the food that Petra makes.

At the weekend, Lukeh posted a great item on his blog, the age-old game of who you would invite for a dinner party. It never gets old because your tastes change, there are always new people to discover, and mostly because it is always fun. At the bottom of the post, Lukeh warns to give it some serious thought - if you’re going to be spending an entire evening with these people, you want to make sure they’re the right ones.

Part of the BBC’s festive output this year will be a one-off special comedy show from Ronnie Corbett, quite sadly entitled The One Ronnie. I don’t particularly like the naming convention of the show, and I wasn’t at all convinced about watching it. There are times when these comedians really should hang up their hats, you know? However, Mr C pointed me in the direction of Engadget, who particularly enjoyed a YouTube preview of one of the sketches. If you like gadgets, there will be something in it for you, as an unhappy customer trying to return his tech-related goodies. Maybe.

Travelling in and amongst the snow is a nightmare, but I refuse to moan as I know plenty of people have had it a lot worse than me. What I would like to do is plug the RAC Traffic App, available via both Apple and Android. It is super duper useful, pointing out the tricky situations on the roads - from slippery bits, to hefty delays due to accidents, to roadworks and closed motorways. It’s really useful for UK type people.

So, yes. It is a really good film. There are plenty of bits that are unbelievable, and there’s no way you can like every single one of the stories, but it is a great piece of work. The way that you can have the smallest story (such as Stacey and him from the Office) and that is just as important as the big Hugh Grant moments, it’s fabulous. At the start, I mentioned that I forget what an epic cast this film has, and now I’ve realised that I also forget just how funny it is too. It doesn’t make my cry, which is more than can be said for other members of the household, but it’s good stuff.

I wanted to do something to commemorate all the snow we have been having recently, and I pondered the idea of taking a photo of the white stuff, but didn’t find it all that inspiring. Instead, I went in search of some snow-related brushes and found some really good ones. With a bit of adjustment to the scatter patterns, this is what I came up with. Made with: Pixelmator Font: Plantaganet Cherokee Brushes: Snowflake Vector Brushes

This morning, Mr C pointed me in the direction of the Quest Visual site, where they demonstrate a brand new iPod/iPhone app called Word Lens. It is crazy! You open up the app, hold it up in front of some signs and it translates them on the fly. At the moment it only does English to Spanish, or the other way round, but I would imagine there are more dictionaries coming soon. Here’s the excellent video, showing off the astounding app:

I must say, being back on Wordpress is just like putting on your favourite jumper. It may not be pretty, but it’s warm and comforting. The Squarespace adventure was a bit of a disaster. I have never known such unfiltered spam to be allowed through. At first I thought I was doing something wrong, missing some kind of obvious step but no. The commenting system over there just isn’t up to scratch.

It’s getting to that time of year when the inevitable will happen. It’s unavoidable, you will be sucked in. It’s that dreaded period of indulgence known as: Christmas TV. Actually it’s not all that bad. This is the one time of year that I buy a TV guide to help keep track of what is on and when. Most of the year I can rely on perusing the iPlayer and keeping tabs on some excellent TV blogs, because I’m likely to be relying on the On Demand services more than live programming. When Christmas happens, the channels start bringing out the big guns, and I have more time to sit around and flick through the channels. This requires some extra information.

How to write this in a few sentences? Basically, Robert Langdon is framed for murder and to prove his innocence has to chase around France and Britain and discover the real story behind The Holy Grail. Robert Langdon is pretty brave and clever, a Harvard professor and Sophie Neveu, although not striking as an agent of the French police, is just as smart and the granddaughter of a major part of the puzzle. I love this as a brilliant thriller that keeps you reading from beginning to end. I really enjoyed reading this one, and the story behind it, likely with no truth in it at all, really fascinating.

Bill Bryson moved to England and on returning to his home country he was asked to write a weekly column about what life was like in the big country. The results, combined here to make a book, are funny and insightful, making you snigger. Full of descriptions and statistics. Bill is very funny, gets his point across in a humourous, sarcastic way and can laugh at himself and his own home town. It’s very good, some of the statistics started to get wearing but it was amusing to read about some of the American characters.

I had a few minutes to spare, so I browsed to the App Store on the iPad for a new game to play, and there was iPad Jenga - a featured game just pleading for me to buy it. So I did. It’s brilliant. For £2.99, you get to play Jenga without having to stack up the bricks every time, without the noisy clatter when they fall down, without having to have the patience to try and fit them all back in the box at the end of the game.

I thought I was doing really well following the whole thing, but I think I can pinpoint it going wrong when the winter dream started to fall apart. I couldn’t quite get to grips with the ending, and I think I’d need to watch it again to have another stab at it. I’m not sure I could sit through another two and a half hours though. I did say to Mr C at the time that it was a long old film but I wasn’t bored, however I don’t think that would hold true for the second viewing!

This really wasn’t a very good film at all, but I do have to give it props for not being completely and utterly predictable. It wasn’t all about the big giant crocodile, there was a lot of human vs human angst going on as well, and the added problem of the killer croc was just there to make things that much harder. I can’t say I would recommend this onwards but it was a good way to spend 90 minutes.

It wasn’t scary in the end because it was good! Phew. I can’t say I liked all of the characters, and there were a few of them I could barely understand anyways, but Kevin Spacey was excellent as per usual. The story was good and fascinating, but as you might have gathered from above, I was slightly bemused by the ending. The twist and then double twist was excellent, but after that it didn’t quite add up. Nevertheless, it was good stuff.

Thomas of Hookton’s village was ravaged by the French so to take revenge, he travels with the King’s army and takes part in several battles, becoming very popular in Will Skeat’s band of archers. Oh, and he has his own score to settle as well. Thomas is a regular guy who turns out to be a bit of a hero. I rather prefer Will Skeat, though. There’s a lot of history, very inclusive, typical Bernard Cornwell. I really enjoyed this book and when I’d finished I was keen to read the second one. Recommended if you want to see historical justice prevail in the end, and lots of clever archers winning battles for their army.

Remember last week I told you about the Natural World Special that was to be shown on BBC Two on Tuesday? Well, I watched it and here are my findings. “We have pushed the symbol of conversation to the brink of extinction.” Hehehe, he said International Rescue. Around 2000 giant pandas remain. How can it be a carnivore but only eats grass? Founded with just six pandas. AWWWWW. That woman looks really happy to be carrying the panda. Wouldn’t you?? They say the ultimate goal is to release them into the wild, which seems odd. The pandas aren’t that good at looking after themselves normally, let alone after having been bottle-fed. When they reach 300 pandas, they will start to reintroduce them - so that there’s a good base to start from. None of the right kind of bamboo grows near Chengdu. Doh. Some people are climbing into the mountains to cut down the bamboo for the pandas. It might have made more sense to build the panda base near the food. Apparently the pandas reject two thirds of what is brought back. Ungrateful beasts! A giant truckload of bamboo lasts the pandas only one day, so there are lots of cutters who have a regular income from the greedy bears. One panda is just sitting and eating. A worker puts another piece of bamboo in, it grabs it and starts chewing on that instead. They are so cute and lazy. There’s one 12-24 hour window for pandas to get pregnant in a whole YEAR. They are making the male pandas do special exercises to strengthen their legs specifically for the act of mating. You know that whole thing of animals leaving their scent to scare off others? Pandas like to climb their back legs as high up a tree trunk as possible to pretend to be taller. They ain’t foolin’ no one though. One panda is unfortunately called Pin Bin. It could be Pin Pin. It could even be Bin Bin. I’m not sure. I should have put subtitles up. They have tested one female who is ready for mating and brought Pin Bin into the cage next door. They have tried to use bamboo to tempt the male towards the female, but he just sat down and ate it. They’re saying it’s the first time she’s ever been near another adult panda. And then seem surprised that they don’t know what to do once they are thrown together. They have had to give up on the whole mating thing. Silly pandas. “It’s a myth that pandas aren’t interested in sex. They’re just picky about their partners.” They ran out of time trying to get the two pandas to mate so they’re doing things artificially instead. There’s quite a lot of pressure all round, considering they only get this chance once a year. He has just blown a tranquiliser dart at the panda. Kinda like in the movies. Although then it’s not pandas, and more people. It’s taking 15 vets to do all this. Madness. But then again it only takes five minutes for them to do it, so the panda can be woken up again in good time. They’re so fluffy and cute. They’re not going to know if the panda is pregnant or not until just before she gives birth, and that could be anywhen between 11 weeks or 11 months. I’m beginning to think these pandas are just plain awkward. Now they’re talking about family inbreeding, and freezing bits and pieces.

Rachel is a bright and likeable heroine, Michael Tolland the gallant and heart-wrenching hero. They’re predictable but nice enough characters who keep you wanting more. But you don’t really mind if something bad happens to them - which it doesn’t. A thriller of the highest kind, there’s lots of cliffhangers and moments when death seems inevitable, except you know it won’t happen otherwise the nasty people will get away with their plot. A good read, but a little too formulaic. I did like this book, but after the brilliance of The Da Vinci Code, I was left a little disappointed by this one. It’s hard to be irritated by the lack of realism, especially after the DVC, but it was too obvious that all was going to turn out good.

A really interesting little book, in a sort of Agatha Christie style, it tells the story of a murder and a detective who just happens to be there to solve the mystery that the inadequate local forces can’t fathom. There’s a variety of romantic fiction writers, who are very over the top and the author makes fun of them in a very funny way. The detective is not really an interesting fellow, but he solves the mystery well enough. It’s comedic writing, the way he can poke fun at the situations he is writing about and the characters that he portrays are amusing. Overall it was good, if not spectacular.

I know I am late to the complaining party regarding the latest iOS upgrade on the iPad, but I have to get my rant down in black and white, otherwise it will just swirl around in my head forever more. The iPad used to enjoy the luxury of a volume switch on the side, alongside an on/off toggle that would lock the orientation of the screen. If you’re swinging the iPad around a bit, it would stop the screen switching direction like a mad thing. As I primarily use the iPad for reading books and watching TV which are best not flailing around, that switch was very useful.

Bill Bryson is always learning and when he’s not travelling around the world, or compiling a book about the history of the world and all the science that goes along with it, he’s correcting all us writers on our grammar. Just Bill, 26 letters of the alphabet, a bookful of words and several grammatical theories. It’s written as a dictionary but each section has varying amount of information along with it, from how to spell particularly tricky words to a whole interesting concept behind grammar. I read it as a book but it will also sit on my shelf alongside the dictionaries as a reference work.

I don’t know how die-hard A-Team fans feel about this, but it certainly didn’t ruin anything for me. The relationship between the guys was amazing, and even though I got a tiny bit confused in the middle of the story (hush up Mr C, please), it really didn’t matter. The CGI was amazing, all those fireworks and the containers at the end. And I STILL can’t believe he said Call of Duty. Just brilliant.

I’d forgotten actually how much I enjoy this film, from the very opening credits. It’s just slightly too sentimental for my tastes, which is why I have knocked a point off, but there is so much good stuff in there, it’s hard to know where to start! The acting is great, and I’m always amazed at how diverse Robin Williams can get. Even Pierce is good, when you see those little moments of him humouring Mrs Doubtfire just so he can get close to the family.

I didn’t think I’d like it, given that it’s not really writing, it’s more a hotch potch of messages telling a story, but it’s actually really interesting. Sometimes the format seems a bit forced, and it can be hard to know who is saying what. It is quick and fund to read, though. I liked it, didn’t take long to get through.

This one started when I was investigating the Quartz Composer, and found the option of radiating circles outwards. I can’t quite remember which one it is, but once I had that and I added in some of the best colour in the world - purple - I had it set. Made with: Pixelmator Font: Didot Brushes: Nature (I think these came with Pixelmator)

Dirk Pitt is loveable, if a little too able to escape death James Bond style. But he’s joined by his good friend Giordino who finds love in this novel. There are plenty of bad guys to boo at as well. I find that he tends to put in details that are unnessesary, just because he knows them, like boat engine sizes and things, not essential to the plot. I really enjoyed this book, although it seemed to go on a little bit after the disaster had been averted, and by then you’re too relieved to concentrate.

A fascinating month in Ambridge this time out, with lots and lots of little bits and pieces helping to set things up for Christmas, and keep the longer storylines bubbling along nicely. I have no idea how I’m going to cover this all in a reasonable space, but let’s just dive right in. Ed, Emma, Will and Nic What used to be a complicated love triangle has now become more of a hate quadrangle. Ed and Will are still at loggerheads whenever they bump into each other. Emma is wary of getting involved with anything to do with Will, but Nic is keen for them all to get along nicely.

I just don’t know where to place this film. They say it will do for skiing what Jaws did for swimming, but that’s wrong. The silly people got themselves into the situation by being idiots, so I have no fear that going on a ski lift would see that happen to me. There are so many plot holes that you can’t really buy into it fully, but I have to say that what you could see on screen was good, the reactions and conversations drew you into the predicament, some of the acting was great. Sadly, the story and the situation let it down.

Now, I’m going to have to be upfront and honest here, it’s not proper whisky. It’s a whisky and cola, pre-made and sold to me in a can. I’m sorry in advance. I was browsing in the supermarket and stumbled across this whole section of alcohol that I hadn’t noticed before - the sort of pre-mixed cans as pictured above. There’s everything from rum to Jack Daniels to gin and tonic, and I was impressed. When I told Mr C about it, he was also impressed. In his day, kids drank cider. In my day, we drank Smirnoff Ice. Now there is a whole heap of choice out there.

There are a lot of people throughout history detailed in this book but my favourite are the crazy scientists, one who likes to taste a little of each chemical he experiments with and is so found dead at his desk. Another, who discovered something immensely important to the world as we know it, and then kept it secret for a decade. It’s written in a very people friendly way, each sentence is understandable and fun to read. But after about six chapters, your brain is spinning with facts and details. Not good bedtime reading.

Sometimes, when I load Google Reader, it turns Turkish. It’s been happening for a long time, and I have no idea why. All the settings I can see are set to English, but I must have hit a button at some point in the distant past that pointed it towards Turkey. It happens on all different types of browser, on various gadgets, and on various internet connections, so it’s definitely a Google thing and not me.

You can’t blink without seeing talk of WikiLeaks at the moment, and I have little to say on the political side of things. Mr C, though, pointed out this video of where the controversial site is now hosted - deep in the heart of Sweden. It really looks like the kind of spy bunker you will see in James Bond films, take a look. I particularly like the moon room, although for meetings it must be just like sitting in a fish bowl. I also like how much greenery they have going on, and I am wondering if there is any particular reason they have painted the floor blue.

If there are tales I like as much as time-travel, then it is those that are set in a distant future - post-apocalyptic or just plain society-gone-wrong, they all make for good reading. I wasn’t really sure where this Brave New World one was going, it starts out with such a long description of how babies are made in this modern era. Eventually, we start to get glimpses of the underlying story though.