This is a nice, pleasant movie, very twee and dated at this point but I can totally understand why it would be one of those that if you saw it as a child, you would remember it incredibly fondly. Watching as an adult, in this day and age, it just speaks of a completely different, kinder but more primitive time. Bernard Cribbins was the highlight for me, although I did think that moment shutting the curtain with his wife was a surprise in a children's movie! I don't remember the book very well, probably need to read it again, but I think there are quite a lot of changes but it all works so no complaints from me.

If you want to watch some educational but entertaining TV, wherein our host travels around ancient countries by train and looks at a lot of burial sites, I have just the thing for you. Alice Roberts, celebrated academic and broadcaster, has produced three series of a TV show for Channel 4 in which she does just that. The first, Ancient Egypt by Train, was the gateway drug that led quickly …

I've recently become a little bit obsessed with Geoff Marshall's YouTube videos, following his stories about railways, stations, the trains that run on them as well as bus routes. It's very London focussed, naturally, but there are excursions outside the capital too. As his about blurb states: You'll find me travelling around London and the rest of the country on public transport, creating stories about stations, trains and buses, as …

My first day reading the Financial Times and the homepage pointed me towards an interview with author Linwood Barclay, who writes detective books, about his hobby collecting model trains. I love model train layouts so this was a very good first day. In the interview, he talks about how he developed the hobby and what he loves about it, and then points towards a video created by his son Spencer. …

I knew it had been a while since I last went on an Alphabet Adventure visit, but looking back now, I’m horrified to find it’s been over three years. Ridiculous. So, I stopped putting it off, and dashed to the Lake District to have a gander at that body of water known as Windermere. It’s famous, apparently, for being the longest lake in the UK, and it’s very pretty, but …

I've caught a couple of trains over the festive period, and whilst this is not particularly exciting news, it has been a while since I've travelled on the railway. I wanted to test out the Trainline app, which recently updated to include in-app purchasing via Apple Pay, and my findings were thus: HOW did any of us manage to navigate train travel without this app? From the off, it is …

A marvellous video from the BBC has emerged, showing three trips from London to Brighton via train from three very different time periods. The journey was filmed in 1953, then thirty years on in 1983, and then this year, another thirty years on. The videos have been sped up and put side by side, and it makes for one of those viewings that I find oddly compelling. I thought more …

Last weekend, Mr C and I took a bit of a break and used the long weekend to visit the coast. It was beautifully sunny, hot and busy, but it was great fun. We used the time to work on a process for taking, editing and sharing photos on the move, which I've written more about over on Sidepodcast. Along with photos, I took some video which I've compiled together …

I've become a little bit obsessed with a new game on the iPod/iPad, and it's called Train Conductor. The premise is quite simple - trains appear on the tracks and you have to direct them to the correct destination. Sounds like a million other Flight Control/Traffic Control style games. There are lots of extras, though. There are two kinds of levels - the daytime shift has you steering trains to …

When I first introduced the concept of the A-Z Adventure to my parents, they instantly knew where I should go for D. They had recently been to the Didcot Railway Centre and suggested it as a potential candidate. My mother is a particular fan of steam trains, so when I decided I would go there, they felt a second visit would be worthwhile. The Didcot Railway Centre is essentially a …

I have just found out about a new park opened in New York called the High Line. I don't ever intend on travelling to New York, but if I did I would want to go and see this. The High Line railway opened back in the 1930s, as a way to stop pedestrians getting knocked over by freight trains. The tracks ran alongside the big warehouses, allowing buildings to have …

We went to Paris at very short notice a weekend or two ago, and one of our main aims was to snap a picture of the FIA headquarters. Yes, fine, people go to Place de la Concorde for the history and the beauty, but we went for the F1. Obviously. Anyway, it was a brilliant trip, but there were just a few tips I wanted to share with the class. …

Who would have thought that getting no sleep, leaving the house at 5am, traipsing around a field for ten hours, then packing bags and driving to Cornwall would be tiring? First task was shopping. A bit of advice for you: Stay away from Truro. Last year we got stuck in roads and roads of traffic, no matter which direction we turned in. This year, we headed to Truro and got …

The writing felt different to any other book I have read before, but I don't know if it is a style known to crime stories. It's told as though you were relating the story to a friend, although with far more detail. Crichton is a master at setting the scene and giving enough background information to aid understanding but not so much you fall asleep. There's a lot of Victorian 'crime-speak' and whilst some of the sentences are translated for you, sometimes it's just left for you to get the drift of what's going on. Nevertheless, it's a great tale, told well, with characters as large as the crime itself.