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Blog · October 13, 2023

A drop of wine

A drop of wine

Earlier this year, Apple TV+ released Drops of God, a multi-lingual series set in the serious world of wine-tasting. I've just wrapped up watching the series, and I want to write about it but I don't really know where to begin. It took a while to start watching, and a while to get into it, and it wasn't a priority series so it took longer than expected to complete the …

Blog · October 9, 2023

Strictly Come Dancing 2023, Week 3 thoughts

Strictly Come Dancing 2023, Week 3 thoughts

Movie week! Disney celebrations. Incredible costumes. And lovely AMY!! Overwhelming and we're only minutes in. Let's go! Nigel & Katya - Jive (Batman) I like the glitterball bat signal but I do not like this dance. I guess expectations were high as Nigel's been so good for two weeks but this just wasn't his dance. The kicking wasn't great, and there were quite a few mistakes. He wasn't put off …

Blog · October 8, 2023

Q4 movies - Something of a magician

Q4 movies - Something of a magician

I'm a little bit late posting this, we're already a week into the final quarter of the year - but the films will wait for me, I'm sure. There's a real mix of stuff coming up, but we're still on a bit of a lull from the various strikes and I'm also wondering what on earth the Christmas output is going to be like this year. But I've avoided the …

Blog · October 7, 2023

Size matters

Size matters

There was a bit of a rumpus recently about certain fashion retailers starting to charge a fee for returning clothes bought online, which on the one hand doesn't seem outrageous (I know there are customers out there that buy heaps of stuff as if they're in a changing room and return what they don't want), but on the other hand is a bit of a swindle when you never quite …

Blog · October 2, 2023

Strictly Come Dancing 2023, Week 2 thoughts

Strictly Come Dancing 2023, Week 2 thoughts

Maybe I was just keen but it felt like the show just dived straight in and got on with it. Opening dance, traditional welcomes, couples down the stairs, and let's go. Of course at this point in the competition, the show is super-size in length anyway, and it was also hugely obvious towards the end when they'd given the judges the hurry up and one word answers were all we …

Blog · September 30, 2023

Music and podcasts

Music and podcasts

There have been a lot of changes to Apple products and softwares around my house recently and I have barely scratched the surface of any of them. I mean, let's be fair, I barely ever manage to scratch the surface of updates before the next lot come out but I'm always determined to try and I think that counts for something. The first thing that has really piqued my interest …

Blog · September 26, 2023

Return of the Doctor Donna

Return of the Doctor Donna

This weekend, the BBC released a new and quite lengthy trailer for the upcoming Doctor Who specials, featuring the return of David Tennant and Catherine Tate as the Doctor and Donna respectively. I was already excited for these specials and this reunion, but now my anticipation is off the charts. I've had mixed enjoyment following the exploits of various Doctors under various showrunners since Russel T Davies left the show, …

Blog · September 25, 2023

Annika finds a challenge

Annika finds a challenge

I've just finished watching the second series of Annika, a police crime procedural starring Nicola Walker that aired on Alibi. On the face of it, it's your standard detective fare - each episode features a murder that needs to be solved, and a group of police at various levels in their career come together to solve it, whilst also dealing with their private lives. But there's more to this show …

Blog · September 24, 2023

Strictly Come Dancing 2023, Week 1 thoughts

Strictly Come Dancing 2023, Week 1 thoughts

The competition has started properly now, with our first full week of dancing - each couple taking to the floor and showing us what they can do. No one gets voted out in the first week, which means they get one more chance to impress us next week, but if I'm honest... I was impressed by almost everyone anyway! The start of the show was lovely, first featuring Amy in …

Blog · September 23, 2023

Top and bottom of the pops

Top and bottom of the pops

I just wanted to celebrate the fact that the Top of the Pops replays have started again on BBC Four, after taking an extended break to make way for the Proms. We'd just dipped our toes into the start of 1995 when the classical stuff took over but now we're back, and it's brilliant! Britpop is starting to emerge and breakthrough the dance numbers, we're still seeing warblers like Celine …

Film · September 22, 2023

Ghost

Blog · September 18, 2023

Worcester & Birmingham Canal - Part 2

Worcester & Birmingham Canal - Part 2

In July, I wrote about the first part of a multi-part canal walk, following the towpath between two cities: Birmingham and Worcester. The first part of the walk was a lot of fun, and I quickly followed it up with a second outing. That was less fun. I was saving writing about it until I could potentially combine it with a more fun third element, but time has been ticking …

Blog · September 17, 2023

Strictly Come Dancing 2023, Launch Show thoughts

Strictly Come Dancing 2023, Launch Show thoughts

I'll be upfront about it - I'm not expecting great things from this year's Strictly. Part of that is that I don't know many of the contestants, although that's not a dealbreaker. The last few years have seen me fall in love with lots of the contestants that I had previously never heard of, so not being too excited about the lineup at first glance might not be a problem. …

Blog · September 16, 2023

Tennis on the blue courts, feeling blue

Tennis on the blue courts, feeling blue

The US Open drew to a conclusion last week with a new champion on the women's side and the same old champ on the men's side. I wish I could say I watched and enjoyed it all but I didn't... the only way I managed to keep up with it was to have a copy of the draws, and read the news and scores each day to keep track. It's …

Film · September 15, 2023

Barbie

Blog · September 10, 2023

Boop!

Boop!

Love, love this comic strip by xkcd - the booping craze is really taking off and I'm here for it. Boop! Also love that these comics are creative commons and available to share so easily. Way to spread the love.

Film · September 9, 2023

Up

Blog · September 3, 2023

The stripped back movie poster

The stripped back movie poster

I've been fascinated by these minimalist movie posters I saw on Kottke. They're by graphic designer Michal Krasnopolski and are a challenge to present a movie poster with the limits of using only lines in and around a circle... and different colours. Something about this really makes me happy - the challenge of it, the idea of summing up everything about a movie to make it easily identifiable with such …