The first track of this album almost immediately put me off as it was just a lot of screaming. But then once that was out the way, it was better… some pretty standard 90s hard rock. I don’t know that it’s an album that will live with me or I will particularly remember in future but it was fine to listen to and was an energetic start to the year!

The way artists release music is continually changing and evolving and so I keep adapting the ‘rules’ of this album adventure to try and keep up. I don’t think in the past I would have even considered listening to EPs, but these two were branded as the first and second half of a singular album, so I’m saying it counts. In terms of the music, it’s just good solid nice country pop music - nothing hugely groundbreaking and not the big focus on storytelling like some of the other country singers, but enjoyable songs that are nice to listen to.

It’s a great film, combining humour and action in the best way and with Arnie doing exactly what he does best - marching around with either his muscles or his guns and somehow managing to keep hold of a beautiful wife along the way. It doesn’t feel like a James Cameron movie, too quirky for that really, there’s a car chase with a horse for goodness’ sake. And the end twenty minutes or so are just about as far-fetched as its possible to get. But it’s so likeable that you can’t help going with it and hoping for that happy ending.

While we’re talking about books, one of the new year resolutions I haven’t specifically talked about is the one about not buying any more books to take up space on my digital bookshelf. I don’t want to talk numbers because I’m embarrassed, but I’ve built up quite a collection of books for an excessive TBR (to be read) list, and it’s going to take some time to get through them. Instead, I’ll make good use of wish lists and revisit when I actually have made good use of what I’ve already purchased.

These live-action remakes are really asking for trouble when they are trying to re-invent such stone-cold classics, and this one sadly doesn’t live up to its predecessor. At best, this movie is okay, but it veers into irritating territory and Will Smith as the genie is a choice that I just can’t get on board with. The songs are the only thing that make this worthwhile and they are obviously straight from the original… except for the new musical moments which are then just jarring against the brilliance of the old ones. Overall, just meh.

I’ve seen Celia in plenty of film and TV over the years but didn’t know a lot about her life so this was an interesting read. It starts with a turbulent childhood, including a real struggle with eating disorders because of the body pressures on being a dancer, and then through a lengthy and varied career on stage and screen. Every moment is told with humour but there are the occasional reality checks and moments where Celia realises something about herself. It’s fun to hear about the moments behind the scenes of much-loved creations, the Exotic Hotel, working with Victoria Wood, and of course some of Britain’s best-loved TV. Not all of it is great but all of it is a lesson. A good read, this one.

I read a lot last year, in all sorts of formats. Along with the poetry and comics that I was trying out for the first time, there were the regularly scheduled books, audiobooks, reference books, shorts and a great mix of genres through them all. I’ve noticed a few more physical books creeping into my life, mostly as gifts but occasionally because that just is the best format for reading something in. Digital is still my go-to though, if only because having a book on hand to dip into at any given moment is a big driver behind how I’ve managed to read so much.

I’ve written about previously stumbling on Richard Hammond’s Workshop, the Discovery+ programme that follows Mr Hammond trying to get his new classic car restoration business off the ground. A second series just finished in December, and I enjoyed the second just as much as the first, although found it just as frustrating. Hammond still likes to throw money at a problem before actually sitting and thinking about the consequences but you can’t fault his enthusiasm. And to be fair, by the end of the series, business was picking up, so something must be working.

Thanks to a Halloween binge and the inevitable Christmas slush-fest of films, we just about managed to watch 100+ movies last year. That’s always the aim, but it was a close run thing. There just haven’t been many that really grab attention, aside from the regularly scheduled Marvel and Star Wars releases. But it’s always worth keeping an eye on what else is coming up and these are the movies that are due to be released over the next three months that I’ll give a second glance.

I have not been very good at following global news over the last couple of years, mostly because the news tends to focus on all those things that are, you know, the end of the world. I find it hard. But I’m maybe starting to lift my head out of the sand a little bit and do want to keep up with events where I can, so have been approaching news outlets that focus on more than just the obvious topics.

To kick off the new year, my first challenge is a health and fitness related one - to stick to a Les Mills challenge schedule. I was in two minds about this because, you know, the new year resolution to keep fit and change your life and be the absolute epitome of health is such a cliché and I am fully aware of that. But when I sat down and thought about it, the timing is perfect.

I feel like I must have read this as a kid, it has that sort of friendly familiarity you get from books of your childhood. But I really couldn’t remember any of it - that it starts in the current time, all that happens as Carrie remembers her past, being evacuated to the countryside and getting caught up in the middle of a family row, and the devastating end that has traumatised her for so long. There’s ultimately a nice ending though and it’s all so realistic and well drawn that you can’t help feeling as if you’re there.

Wahey, we have reached a new year and there’s a fresh 365 days awaiting us. Last year was a bit of a rollercoaster on many levels, and although this is just another night turning into another day, it’s nice to have that clean slate feel of a New Year. I usually take this space to talk about what my aims and goals are for the year but for 2022 I mixed it up with a whole heap of 30 day challenges instead of twelve months concentrating on one thing. In my round up post, I already discussed how brilliant this was - not every task was a success but I learned something from them all and really enjoyed having a structure to the year. Some of those habits have stuck, as well, which is even better.

There are some good nuggets of self help in here, great wisdom and advice for living your best life. It’s written very well in terms of approachability and friendliness, Laura’s great, chatty, lovely personality shines through. I just feel like it’s a bit of a muddle of thoughts thrown down on the page, which have been tried to be wrangled into different chapters and themes but are still quite messy. Topics jump around, particularly in the first chapter/introduction style, and I sometimes think they haven’t all been explored to their full depth. But, if you can live with that, it’s a great book with lots in there to think about, and some examples from Laura’s own life to make it relatable and worth reading.

I can be a snob when it comes to reality TV, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Oh, of course I was on the bandwagon when things like Big Brother, The Apprentice and I’m A Celebrity first appeared, but have long since given them up (or they themselves have given up). I love a Bake Off or a Strictly, as you well know, but the jungles and islands and Chelseas and Essexes of this world pass me by.

The festive holidays have previously been a time when stand up comedians release some of their recent content for the public to buy. It used to be DVDs that could be given as gifts, but of course, more recently that has been a show popping up on streaming services to be enjoyed from the sofa. The pandemic put a bit of a hold on stand up comedians doing what they do best but it feels like the humour train is rolling back into action.

As a way of clearing the palate from Christmas reads, I opted for a rom-com book set firmly in the sunshine. This one features our main character going on her honeymoon alone and getting tangled up with various romantic threads including a famous film star, and the inevitable reappearance of her almost-husband. This was easy to read, funny and friendly with good characters and interesting twists and turns along the way. I quite liked that Lila was a romance fiction author so there were elements of book within books and plot within plots. And it was a happy ending, so hooray for the final book of the year.

There was no Christmas Day edition of Top of the Pops this year, which was both completely understandable and also a real shock. The show has been drifting further and further from the TV schedules and therefore the public consciousness that it was inevitable it would one day drop off the festive TV guides. But it was still a shame to see it was missing. However, BBC Four is still dedicated to showing old episodes of the music show and the 1998 Christmas Day special has been available for a while. It’s a great show, stacked with 90s pop hits and some surprises along the way, all capably helmed by Jamie Theakston, Kate Thornton and Jayne Middlemiss. SO NINETIES!

Lovely Bill Turnball wrote this in 2010, giving some insight into his hobby of beekeeping, with a few stories from his life along the way - his time on Strictly Come Dancing, a visit to New Orleans after the hurricane, and time spent in Northern Ireland. But the point of the book is to give an insight into what it is to be a beekeeper, good or bad. What it takes, whether you should do it, and what an important role it can be. A lovely book.

Yay for another Emma Roberts holiday movie! This one was quite similar to Holidate but with a focus in on one specific time of year - New Year! It took a minute to get going, I thought, with us all having to get through the trick of them looking like they were talking about and to each other but actually not, etc, etc. But once they properly met and the evening began, it was fantastic!

Yesterday, I wrote a very short post about photos of the moon that didn’t have a lot of point to it other than ‘wahey, photos of the moon!’ I realised that previously, I might have just tweeted something like that, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Twitter is going through some stuff right now.

I like Simon Brett’s work and hadn’t indulged in the Charles Paris series before. I want to listen to some of the dramatisations but thought I should check out the original novels first. I listened to the audiobook of this, read by the author, and annoyingly it’s the second in the series as the first one isn’t available. But it was good. A murder takes place during the Edinburgh festival, and Paris, an actor/detective, starts investigating. It’s an interesting mystery, with a handful of good characters, and I’m interested to read more.

I’ve been looking forward to this and although I feel like it’s a bit of a weird time to watch a mystery movie set in the heat of summer on a Greek Island (not so festive!), I had to watch it soon after being released because of spoilers. I’m glad I had to make the effort though because it was as brilliant as expected.

The main aim of the Artemis I mission this year was to test out the Orion ship and the SLS rocket in an unmanned capacity, to make sure it would be fit for future missions with humans on board. It succeeded in its testing, but along the way, it also managed to take lots of fantastic pictures - particularly of the moon. I love a moon photo and there are a good few to peruse on the Artemis I collection on Nasa’s image gallery.

I quite enjoyed the other books in this series featuring Van Lifers travelling around in their little vans and having cosy encounters with their movable bookshops and bakeries. This one was similar but featuring a new set of characters as Flora left her life behind and started over in a Christmas shop campervan in Lapland. It’s a nice rom-com with funny moments and plenty of fun characters to follow around.

I wanted to watch this after suddenly hearing about the meme that Kermit is responsible for 9/11 (in the alternate universe without him the towers are still standing) but unfortunately, I didn’t get that far. It was all just a bit scrappy, the various muppets were all over the place and I only got about half the references anyway. If there was a story, it was taking its time to get going… plus Whoopi and David were watching from a summer meadow which wasn’t very Christmassy.

My seventh year of listening to albums has drawn to a close and it’s that agonising time where I need to decide on a top five. Each year I listen to 100 albums, one new and one old each week for fifty weeks, and they each get two listens to make sure I really get a feel for the sound. Then, at the end of the year, I pull together my top five from the new albums. It’s always a hideous choice and this year’s shortlist of ten albums made it really difficult to decide on the final five. But I’ve done it, so here goes!

There’s no getting away from the fact that this is a slightly oddball movie - the fact that the brother immediately starts hitting on SJP’s character is supremely uncomfortable, but then Elliot wasn’t exactly subtle once the sister showed up. It was never quite clear what the focus was or where it was going, or what the main aim was, but perhaps that’s because the main point of the whole thing was that families are weird.

Mm, couldn’t get past the twenty minute rule on this one. We flicked between lots of different characters without really getting a good sense of who they are and how they relate to each other, somehow there was a lot of scenes but the story didn’t progress at all, and more than anything, the main guy just didn’t seem sympathetic at all so I didn’t care what was going to happen upon his homecoming. Pass.

When I heard there was going to be a tv series continuing the Santa Clause film franchise on the small screen, I was… bemused. I watched the first film a long while back, and thought it was okay, but hadn’t got round to watching the next two so it obviously wasn’t that special. And I didn’t know they were popular enough to warrant a return of the characters to the world of Santa, elves, and the North Pole.

I listened to the audiobook of this, ready by Gareth Southgate himself. It’s a book aimed at young people to help inspire and guide them, and give them some tips and tools to start goal-setting and really making progress in their lives & careers. But this advice works for anyone, and is dispensed in a really clear and concise way, with solid examples from Gareth’s own life experience to illustrate the points. Very good, I particularly enjoyed the short and long term goal setting section.

Sometimes I write about festive episodes of series that I like but this time I thought it’d be fun to focus on every Christmas episode from ten years’ of Friends. They spend more time on Thanksgiving, obviously, with some really classic episodes in November: the football game, Brad Pitt, Joey with a turkey stuck on his head, etc. But Christmas does crop up every now and again, quite inconsistently, through the decade.

This was a different book to the one I was expecting - it wasn’t just a festive rom-com, I mean, it was hardly that at all really. Emma splits up with her partner and has an unfortunate accident that means she heads home to recover and re-connect with her family. It had elements of magic and long family feuds and that village mentality where everyone knows each other’s business. It reminded me a lot of Practical Magic (the movie, I haven’t read the book yet), so it was good but it wasn’t quite what I had hoped.

Mixed feelings about this one - it’s a great cast (except, you know) and the concept is interesting and fun. I like that it’s a slightly darker take on festive stories, to balance out the sugary sweetness of many others. But I feel like it could have been so much better. Vince’s babbling didn’t quite fit, for me, I’m assuming a lot of that was him improvising. And the CG to make the elves smaller fell a little bit into that uncanny valley so that it was a little bit creepy. But it was entertaining and certainly a lot better than many other Christmas films around.

I started this when we had a bit of a cold snap, thinking listening to people in slightly colder conditions than me would make me feel a bit better. This is one of those adventure thrillers that has a deep underlying mystery about it but you’re so busy going through the rollercoaster of dangerous situations you don’t have much time to think about whodunit. This has many elements I love, most being the perils of travelling on a submarine, but also the survivalist aspects of being near the poles. And ultimately it’s a great thriller ride right to the end.

This is a lovely gentle little movie about people finding the meaning of Christmas in connecting with other people. At first, you’re really uptight with all the commuters and thinking there’s no way this party can work, but gradually as the film unwinds, you start to relax into it too. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to talk to commuters all of a sudden, but it’s a great message not to judge people as you never know what’s going on in their lives.

Terrible, terrible film! The guy is basically one step away from being a serial killer, and the woman is completely unflexible and holding a grudge for something that didn’t really sound like much of a problem at all. The film spends a good 15 minutes in the American sunshine, which is never ideal for when you want a Christmas movie, but it does eventually get near the festive season.

This time last year, I wrote a quick review of the first series of Acapulco which was good and bright and fun, and exactly what we needed in the dark winter months. The second series has just finished being released on Apple TV+ and I had to come back to say this new collection of ten episodes is even better than the first.

This is another take on the Shop Around the Corner/You’ve Got Mail story where people are rivals in real life and falling in love via their writing - this time it’s app messaging. That part of it was kinda fun, it’s a good storyline and they update it quite well. The leads do better when they’re bickering than when they’re getting on, but that’s okay. The other part of it is the whole business side, which I think is a fundamental flaw to the whole movie.

Ah, this was a pretty dull movie, to be honest. It started okay, looked like it might have something interesting about it, but then it felt like all the threads that were set up didn’t go anywhere. What was the point of the viral video? And what was the big deal about the dad knowing before the girl about the casting? For a movie about dance, there wasn’t a lot about dancing. All a bit odd. The only chemistry in the movie was between father and daughter - because they are real life father and daughter! The rest is completely forgettable.

I’ve been on the Sarah Morgan festive book train for a couple of years, and enjoyed them. This one was another very good Christmas rom-com, with a family coming together with very different viewpoints and learning to forgive and respect each other’s choices. I liked the story, I liked that the big confusion of Lucy’s arrival was actually dealt with quite quickly and just set up everything that happened next rather than being a big plot point. I did think some of the dialogue was a bit clunky and it was a little bit drawn out in places, but these are minor complaints for another entertaining read.

Yay, a new and decent Christmas rom-com. This one took a minute to get going, at first I wasn’t sure either of the characters were going to be engaging (she was getting excited about Eureka lemons, etc) but it didn’t take long for the action to get going and their real personalities to shine through. I thought the lead two had brilliant chemistry, to the point that it felt so confusing what they saw in their other partners. But a great journey to get them together, even if his phone forgetfulness was just a little bit contrived to help up the stakes. Otherwise, perfect, and with a Say Anything reference at the end, too.

A batch of proper cheesy Christmas movies appeared on iPlayer and with a spare ninety minutes, I figured it couldn’t hurt to watch one of these babies for free. This one was actually pretty respectable for a Hallmark movie, although not a patch on some of the better festive rom-coms we’ve watched. Some of the story choices didn’t really make sense, and the sentimental nature of it sometimes veered into irritating, but the male lead was great and I think they had the beginnings of some good chemistry.

I think I liked this more than the previous one, although it’s all still more of the same - these stuffy British characters trying to hold their own in an era of servants and class that is quickly dying out. But I did like the mystery of the Countess, and I thought the silent film turning into a ’talkie’ and that being a threat to the stars was really interesting. A good couple of hours, I hope they do more!

Ripped through this in super quick time, the 13th book in the Jessica Daniel series. I loved that it was a sort of standalone, concentrating on one story - the disappearance of Bex - and in one new location - Blackpool rather than Manchester. Lots of new characters appeared as Jessica couldn’t resort to the usual gang and it was an interesting mystery that worked itself out really well. The author sums up this story afterwards by calling it the end of Jessica’s second season, so I might pause my reading there until we know what the future of this series is going to be.

Another good entry into the Jessica Daniel canon, with our hero pulled into a secret investigation over some crimes that may be a copycat or may be a prisoner just released back into society. I liked the growth of relationships in this one, with Jessica working closer with her new superior and of course relying on Izzy and Dave to do a lot of the legwork. There are moments of danger for the wider group but it all comes good in the end, with another clifthanger right at the last moment to leave me diving into the next book.

Agatha Christie’s second book features the duo Tommy and Tuppence who I hadn’t heard of before, really, and at first thought it sounded like some kind of Enid Blyton kid’s adventure. Of course it’s not that. I liked the set up, and how these two sort of fall into an adventure by accident, or simply by not saying things they know and managing to bluff their way on things they don’t know. The stakes get higher and the back and forth and whereabouts of everyone gets more confusing, but it comes to a happy ending and I enjoyed the ride!

I’m going to be honest, going into this final I really wasn’t very excited. Two of the four finalists weren’t my favourites. I feel like they’ve all been so good at the dances that we’re not going to learn much by seeing the same dances over again. And we all knew right from the start that Hamza was going to win. The guy was trending first thing in the morning, it was never going to go another way.

This has to be the album of the year in terms of classic songs being brought back into the modern consciousness - thanks Stranger Things. It had to be the one I closed the year on. Kicking off with Running Up That Hill is a brave move as it is an absolute tune, but the rest does stand up. The album is in two halves - purposely - with the first being a collection of great songs and singles. The second half is a bit more of an experimental work, a woman falling through the ice and experiencing… something. I was less enamoured with that but actually considering it’s a bit out there, I liked it.

This album came out of nowhere for me, I wasn’t expecting it at all and it’s come right at the last minute for the album adventure. And I loved it! So, so, SO GOOD. Every song is an absolute tune and it manages to try lots of different styles without being too much of a ‘just pick one and pipe down’ hotchpotch of things. There’s a bit of George Ezra, Imagine Dragons, Sam Smith, all sorts in there, but it’s also its own thing with Sam’s incredible vocals. A contender for the top five, right at the last minute!