For a novel that quietly and poetically reflects on the nature of human existence, and the way in which we are either adventurous wanderers or quietly domiciled, The Comet Seekers pulses with a relentless energy, a ceaseless push-and-pull quest for belonging and relevance. That energy largely comes from the Continue Reading
On 12th day of Christmas … I listened to Christmas Party by She & Him
There’s an earthy loveliness to pretty much everything She & Him records. With their retro jazz cabaret sensibilities in high gear, and an ability to channel the very essence of Christmas through each and every song, this is on full display on their second festive album Christmas Party kicks off Continue Reading
Santa is coming! No one wants more for Christmas than Pig the Elf
Santa is rightly regarded as a jolly old man with his fingers on the naughty or nice pulse. So on top of the goodness or otherwise of kids around the world we’re told – even it seems their sleep habits and propensity to cry without reason; as “Santa Claus Continue Reading
On 11th day of Christmas … I watched Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas
Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas, a production of the Jim Henson Company based on Russell and Lillian Hoban’s 1971 book of the same title, is a delight in every sense of the word. Packed full of American folk music-inspired songs composed by Paul Williams, who went on to write “The Rainbow Continue Reading
Feel like Christmas is doomed? Best call in Wes Anderson and Adam Brody!
I am usually the king of Christmas, convinced it’s so irrevocably the most wonderful time of the year that nothing can stand in its tinsel-draped, eggnog-soaked, ornament-decorated way. But after a year in which my dad died, easily the most horrible and difficult thing to happen to me in my Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I read A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig
One of the hardest things to do when you grow up is to recapture that sense of can’t-sleep wonder that once gripped you at Christmas time. As December wound its exciting way ever onwards, adrenaline would pound, anticipation would build and you would find yourself enchanted with every last element Continue Reading
Is it alive? Colony season 2 teaser trailer suggests more unsettling surprises in the offing
Colony was one of the standout shows of 2016. A sophisticated, often tense exploration of the political and social schisms that emerge in society when a mysterious race of aliens arrive and take over the Earth, installing a proxy government to rule in their stead, it was never less Continue Reading
Psst! Here’s the the real deal on Santa’s Secret Stories
Oh my but does Santa have secrets! I mean it stands to reason right? He lives in hiding up on the North Pole, spends his time with reindeer and elves, neither of whom are exactly the stuff of everyday life – unless you’re a reindeer herder in which case Continue Reading
On 9th day of Christmas … I finally watched Nightmare Before Christmas
It’s a rare person indeed who hasn’t, at some point in their life, felt bored with their existence, numbed to the once-transcendant novelty of something that used to be an overriding passion. Jack Skellington, the “Pumpkin King” of Halloween Night and the ring master extraordinaire of everything ghoulish, goblinish Continue Reading
It’s a Stranger Things Christmas Charlie Brown!
SPOILER ALERT – ONLY WATCH THIS IF YOU HAVE WATCHED ALL OF STRANGER THINGS ON NETFLIX (optional for you to have read every Peanuts comic strip but c’mon why haven’t you?) I have always felt like I was Charlie Brown. Never quite fully understood, teased a lot as a Continue Reading