What is the Eurovision Song Contest? Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open Continue Reading
Weekend pop art: Exquisitely-rendered models of TV show sets
There are times, many times in fact if you’re a regular devoted viewer of a particular TV show that you feel like you’re living in the show with the characters. Granted some people take this a little too far, getting to the point, where they believe the characters and Continue Reading
Love, business and friendship: Thoughts on Grace and Frankie (season 3, eps 1-4)
One of the great delights of Grace and Frankie from the very start has been the wonderful friendship between the two titular characters that underpins the entire show. In contrast to many other sitcoms that present friendships with all the depth of a shallow Petri dish, with about as much Continue Reading
Cheese Trouble: The glorious fun of Wallace & Gromit meeting the Minions
As fun, whimsical calling cards go, they don’t come much better than director and editor Fabrice Mathieu‘s seamless editing together of Aardman Animation’s Wallace and Gromit, and Illumination Entertainment’s Minions. In his delightful mash-up Cheese Trouble, the Minions forgo their usual food of choice, bananas!, in favour of cheese Continue Reading
Movie review: Voyage to Greenland (Le Voyage au Groenland)
Much as we like to think we can push and pummel life to fit our preconceived notions, the truth is it has an often perverse way of defying our expectations. Try as we might, and many of us try pretty hard, usually in our youth when possibilities seem endless and Continue Reading
Daria is back! And as feisty and authentic as ever
I love Daria. Granted while she was on TV in the ’90s into the Noughties, I was not exactly the core demographic – I was *cough* 32-37 at the time – but there was something about daria’s disdain for the superficial established order and the way she masterfully handled Continue Reading
Book review: Jean Harley Was Here by Heather Taylor Johnson
It’s often not until someone dies that you truly come to understand how deeply connected they were to a whole host of people, all of whom deal with the grief of their loss in their own unique ways. It happened to me last year when my dad died from Continue Reading
Get ready to get deliciously grumpy with The Real Grouches of Sesame Street
I am not a fan of reality TV shows. Apart from a couple of outliers such Survivor and Amazing Race, I generally prefer my drama scripted, well-acted and as unmelodramatic as possible. Which it won’t surprise you to learn rules out watching the mega franchise The Real Housewives, which Continue Reading
Road to Eurovision 2017: Week 5 – F.Y.R. Macedonia, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Lithuania, Malta
What is the Eurovision Song Contest? Started way back in 1956 as a way of drawing a fractured Europe back together with the healing power of music, the Eurovision Song Contest, or Concours Eurovision de la Chanson – the contest is telecast in both English and French – is open Continue Reading
Dust: The fear and bravery of humanity in the apocalypse
SNAPSHOT A deadly new plague linked to a mysterious dust is devastating the countryside around Kabé—the world’s oldest city. Irezúmi, a Tracker living in the abandoned outskirts of Kabé, is hired by a Merchant of the city’s underground medicine trade to study the dust that has begun falling on Continue Reading