January 22, 2025 – SparklyPrettyBriiiight

This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2025. Once upon a time, a certain reader devoured all of Agatha Christie’s novels in one roughly year-long go at the suggestion of his book-loving dad who saw the works of the masterful English crime writer as Continue Reading

Songs, songs and more songs #122: Maribou State, Moncrief, Hylite, Mild Minds and MYRNE & Shallou + all 37 songs from the Eurovision Song Contest 2025!

(via Shutterstock) INTRO “All I Need (w/ Andreya Triana)” by Maribou State (courtesy official Maribou State Facebook page) acidstag.com/2025/01/maribou-state-all-i-need-w-andreya-triana/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=this-week-diplo-and-miguel-kyle-dion-and-tkay-maidza-felix-cartal-and-elohim-odesza-slouch-online_200 “Want You More” by Moncrief (courtesy official Moncrief Facebook page) OOOO “Songbird” by Hylite (courtesy official Hylite Instagram) OOOO acidstag.com/2025/01/hylite-songbird/?utm_source=mailpoet&utm_medium=email&utm_source_platform=mailpoet&utm_campaign=this-week-diplo-and-miguel-kyle-dion-and-tkay-maidza-felix-cartal-and-elohim-odesza-slouch-online_200 “I NEED U” by Mild Minds (courtesy official Mild Minds Instagram Continue Reading

Book review: Jane and Dan at the End of the World by Colleen Oakley

(courtesy Hachette Australia) If you were a cinemagoer in the ’80s and ’90s, when big budget action blockbusters were at their inarguable height, you would well acquainted with what it’s like for innocent people to get caught up in a situation far bigger than themselves. These are usually not the Continue Reading

AFFFF25 movie review: Meet the Leroys (Nous, les Leroy)

(courtesy IMDb) The end of something is always bittersweet. Even the final moments of something awful comes with a sense of mourning for what otherwise might have been; but when it’s something like a marriage between two people who were once genuinely in love, that sense of loss and grief Continue Reading

Road to Eurovision 2025: Week 1 – Albania, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Croatia + Cyprus (semi-final 1, part 1)

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 to Continue Reading

Book review: Upon a Starlit Tide by Kell Woods

(courtesy Harper Collins Australia) It has oft been noted that there is nothing new under the sun, and while the Bible got the ball rolling on that one, plenty of others have taken up the cry that try as we might to be creatively original or to dream up a Continue Reading

Old friends. New Roommates. Thoughts on Mid-Century Modern

(courtesy IMP Awards) It’s all too easy form some people to dismiss sitcoms as disposable TV, something you watch for an escapist laugh and nothing more. And while there’s nothing wrong with losing yourself in quick gags and sparkling quips that punctuate storylines that only run to 22 minutes or Continue Reading

Movie review: Bob Trevino Likes It

(courtesy IMP Awards) People need people. No, that is not inspired by the 1964 Barbra Streisand track of almost the same name but by the simple recognition of the innate sociability of the human species. We need to belong. We need to matter, and at a profound level, and when Continue Reading

Book review: My Hot Housemate by Susannah Hardy

(courtesy Hawkeye Publishing) Let’s get one thing clear right from the start – we love literary romantic comedies because, and yes, there will be a lot of this particular word, we love LOVE. Who doesn’t want to read about someone battling insurmountable, wretched circumstances, crash ‘n’ burn existential hell and Continue Reading

Chef. Spy. Lover. Carême tells the story of arguably the world’s first celebrity chef

(courtesy First Showing) SNAPSHOTCarême follows the thrilling story of the world’s first celebrity chef, Antonin Carême (starring Benjamin Voisin), who rose from humble beginnings in poverty in Paris right up to the height of culinary stardom in Napoleon’s Europe. While he dreams only of becoming the most famous chef in Continue Reading

Book review: The Lamplighter’s Bookshop by Sophie Austin

(courtesy Harper Collins Publishers Australia) Challenging the status quo is never an easy task. Especially when it’s 19th century England, where Victorian propriety of the most suffocating kind rules, at least for those in the upper classes, and where one small step, however intentional or unintentional, can mean social death Continue Reading

A revolution begins … Thoughts on Silo season 2

Book review: The Serial Killer’s Guide to San Francisco by Michelle Choiunard