There are quite a few festive things that, right at home in the depth of a northern hemisphere winter, are almost comically out of place in a southern hemisphere summery Christmas. Take chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Or walking in a winter wonderland perhaps? Or even dashing through the Continue Reading
#ChristmasInJuly book review: Window Shopping by Tessa Bailey
Christmas is, however you choose to view it, a time of rebirth and redemption. The overwhelming message of Christian theology is that on this day, with the birth of Jesus as the saviour of the world, humanity had a chance to start again, freed off the sins of fallen Eden Continue Reading
The frontier awaits again: Thoughts on Strange New Worlds (S1, E 6-10)
Anytime you talk about fate, it feels incredibly, oppressively, inescapably final. Some may see a comfort in the surely of preordained circumstance, but for many of us, what we will be, if it not left up to the exciting possibilities of self-determination, feels like a noose around the neck, cuffs Continue Reading
Comics review: Are We Lost Yet? by Will Henry (Wallace the Brave collection #4)
There’s a lot of things we gain on our headlong rush to adulthood – increased self-choice, that special someone (hopefully), personal and career fulfillment; all of them mostly good and wonderful things – but there are some very precious things we lose. One of them is that sense of carefree Continue Reading
Book review: Gone to Ground by Bronwyn Hall
The review copy was supplied by NetGalley / publication date is 3 August 2022 There are novels, the sole motivation of which is to push the pedal to the metal and go hell for leather towards the narrative finish line, characters sacrificed on the altar of a thrilling story; then Continue Reading
Movie review: Cha Cha Real Smooth
Pretty all of us, at some time or another in our lives, have felt rudderless and lost, uncertain of who we are, what we want or where to head next. Those sorts of trapped in the wilderness periods can realistically strike at any time but as Cooper Raiff’s artfully tender Continue Reading
Tomes to add to the TBR #2! The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin and August Kitko and the Mechas From Space by Alex White
There’s a meme that keeps popping up on Facebook that runs something along the lines of “I said to myself ‘I won’t buy any more books until I’ve read the ones on my TBR … and then I laughed and laughed and laughed”. Honestly, if you paid me a dollar Continue Reading
Book review: The Near Daphne Experience by Alison Reynolds
Farcically brilliant as Alison Reynold’s sparklingly clever debut novel, The Near Daphne Experience is – the inspired title alone is frankly worth the price of admission alone, one thing must be said from the start … you really should get as far from Daphne as you can. Quite why is Continue Reading
Run! It’s the headless snowman! Getting scarily festive with A Scooby-Doo Christmas
Who doesn’t love a traditional warm and cosy Christmas? You’d think the answer would be a resounding “Nobody!” but in the festively besieged town of Winter Hollow, established 1764, everyone is afraid to celebrate Christmas, all too aware that when they do, a giant headless snowman – strictly speaking the Continue Reading
Merry Un-Christmas! I put 5 new ornaments on my #ChristmasinJuly tree – the Flintstones, Encanto, Mary Poppins, Mork from Ork + National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
Christmas is such a fun, wonderful, warm-spirited, cosy and nice time of the year that it really needs to be celebrated at least twice, right? Right! So, Christmas in July is increasingly a festive thing, and while it’s not as big a deal as the main event in December, it’s Continue Reading