SNAPSHOTAfter being in space for around 20 years, Rocko and his friends attempt to conform to an even more modern life in O-Town, where coffee shops are on every corner, food trucks offer multi-layered tacos, touch-screen O-Phones are being upgraded on a near-constant basis, an instant-print kiosk has replaced Rocko’s Continue Reading
Book review: DEV1AT3 by Jay Kristoff
SOME SPOILERS AHEAD BUT I DO MY BEST TO LIMIT THEM, TRUST ME The apocalypse may not seem like the best place to ask the big questions of life – who am I? Why am I? Who are my real friends and why? – but in Jay Kristoff’s pedal to Continue Reading
Fear the Walking Dead: “Still Standing” (S5, E7 review)
SPOILERS AHEAD … RADIOACTIVE ZOMBIES AND SCARED KIDS AND HOPE DYING … AND NOT … We all like to think of ourselves as good people right? Cross at the lights. Give old ladies our seat on the train. Stand up to demented racists with orange hair (no one in particular; Continue Reading
50 years of Sesame Street: It’s always time to “Sing”, sing a song
Apart from its commitment to teaching kids ABC and 123 basics in a way that’s creative, fun and meaningful, and being the absolute boss of pop culture pop culture videos, Sesame Street has always placed music front and centre over its 50 years of time on the year. A parade Continue Reading
Dialling up the horror and growing pains: Thoughts on Stranger Things 3
That sound you hear as you hit “play” on episode 1 of Netflix’s mega monster hit (literally in ever sense of the phrase) Stranger Things 3 – the Upside Down world of this franchise, you don’t have seasons, just numbers, as if the new episodes are breeding up a storm Continue Reading
Video essay: Buster Keaton – the Art of the Gag
He was, and remains, a comedy legend, and for very good reason. Many, in fact, but one thing that Buster Keaton (1895-1966) did brilliantly well, was execute a gag to near-perfection, his timing always on point and his innate ability to tell how funny something might be, especially done a Continue Reading
Retro French movie review: Hunting & Gathering #BastilleDay
Human beings just weren’t made to be alone. John Donne knew it, Elton John knows it, and deep down, we all know that while solitude and time out is good, being permanently cut off in any kind of meaningful way from the people around us is not good for the Continue Reading
Book review: The Slow Waltz of Turtles by Katherine Pancol #BastilleDay
One of the great joys of plunging into a great deal of French literature is its capacity to be both resolutely true to life and yet quirkily magical at the same time. It’s not an easy balance to pull it off, and while The Slow Waltz of Turtles by Katherine Continue Reading
Christmas in July … Reading Paddington and the Christmas Surprise
Paddington Bear, who first appeared on 13 October 1958, courtesy of creator Michael Bond, in the children’s book A Bear Called Paddington, is precisely the sort of person (and he is in every way that matters) I would want to do anything and everything Christmas-y with. Innocent, free-spirited, determined despite Continue Reading
Christmas in July … Reading Christmas at Little Beach Street Bakery by Jenny Colgan
It’s supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. But ask anyone, even those of us who are so enamoured of the festive season that refraining from decorating in early October takes an iron will and ridiculous amounts of self control, and they will tell you that Christmas Continue Reading