December 31, 2013 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

I love new years! I am most definitely not one of those cynical old souls who reaches New Year’s Eve, harrumphs with Scrooge-like intensity and balefully glares at the next 365 days, convinced they will be just as awful as I imagine them to be. While I am old Continue Reading

Movie review: Falling Into Place

(courtesy IMP Awards) Most romantic comedies (romcoms) would have you believe, and honestly this kind of escapism is why we loe them so much, that all you have to do to move beyond the pain and trauma of your past or present is to meet someone special and suddenly, WHOOSH!, Continue Reading

Stream, stream my televisual dream: Top 25 TV / streaming shows of 2024

(via Shutterstock) In many ways this was a very good year for my consumption of TV/streaming shows. I got to watch a lot more than 2023 but while lists were ticked off and shows enjoyed, it also began to feel, not for the first time, like watching TV is now Continue Reading

Fire up the playlists and let the music fly free: My top 25 songs of 2024

(via Shutterstock) People often talk about music soundtracking their life but in my case, it really is what happens. I listen to music on the train. On the way to and from the train station. In shops. When exercising. When I need to just chill out and escape a very Continue Reading

Popcorn and wine and a comfy seat in the dark: My top 25 films of 2024

(via Shutterstock) This was a year in which I still watched a lof of films but where I was just as apt to watch them on a streaming platform as at a cinema. It’s not that I’ve fallen out of love with seeing movies out in the cinematic wild, and Continue Reading

Conquering the TBR like a mountaineer: My top 25 books of 2024

(via Shutterstock) I’m not going to sugarcoat – this has been a tough year. Not because someone died or my world imploded dramatically in some way; it just felt like all the pressures of work, which was ridiculously and unrelentingly frenetic, ganged up on me, to the point where I Continue Reading

Merry pop culture Christmas to all … and to all a good streaming-reading-listening night! (Bonus The Penguins of Madagascar Christmas Special)

(courtesy Pinterest (c) Peanuts) Merry pop culture Christmas everyone! Another year has somehow zoomed right through, around and past us, offering up far too many books and movies and TV/streaming show and songs and graphic novels to consume in one lifetime, but reminding us as we gobbled what we could Continue Reading

Festive children’s book review: The Christmas Carrolls: The Christmas Competition by Mel Taylor Bessent

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) Is it possible to celebrate Christmas too much? That’s not something the titular characters from Mel Taylor-Bessent’s The Christmas Carrolls might ever have said; after all, they mark the most wonderful time of the year every single day with endless roast dinners, legions of Christmas Continue Reading

Festive holiday short review: The Boy & the Octopus

(courtesy IMDb) SNAPSHOTThe film follows the journey of a child who discovers a curious octopus has attached to his head during a seaside vacation. After returning home, the boy forms a true friendship with the octopus by introducing his new companion to his life on land – harnessing the power Continue Reading

On 12th day of Christmas … I read Christmas at the Little Bookshop by the Sea by Eliza J. Scott

(courtesy Storm Publishing) Whenever you plunge into a festive romcom, you rightly expect that you will feel like you’ve given the warmest and cosiest of hugs. One made of love and redemption and healing and all the trappings of the season from decorations and mulled wine, snowmen and wreaths string Continue Reading

Festive animated feature film review: Santa’s Apprentice

If you watched a fair amount of festive programming, you will be well familiar with the idea that there are not a lot of new ideas under the Christmas storytelling sun. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; we like our festive tropes and cliches held close and to pop up Continue Reading