Making an enduring love affair, especially one thwarted by time and circumstance feel wholly and immersively believable is no easy feat. Especially when you are also trying in the grandest of all romantic comedy traditions to keep the escapist magic alive and well too. But Josie Silver manages it with Continue Reading
During #ChristmasinJuly I listened to The Christmas Present by Robbie Williams
Such have been the virus-riven rigours of 2020 that many people have joked we should simply fast-forward to December and the attendant delights of the festive season and forget the horrors of COVID-19 amidst a delightful cloud of caroling, eggnog and gathering with those we love around a brightly-decorated tree. Continue Reading
A terrific trio of TV shows: Away, Muppets Now (new trailer), The Rain (S3)
TV is a LOT these days. Like, literally, a LOT. You can’t move for streaming platforms and scripted shows and analysis of those scripted shows which makes deciding what to watch an increasingly Solomonic proposition. Accepting that you literally can’t watch everything, not if you’d like to eat, sleep, see Continue Reading
Book review: Writers & Lovers by Lily King
It’s not until all consuming grief hits you that you realise how tenuous your grip on the world around you is and how easily it can shaken. Throw in any additional kind of emotional destabilisation such as moving, a stressful job or a break-up and suddenly what seemed certain, stable Continue Reading
He’s Back! Gary Larson returns with new The Far Side material
The Far Side is alive! Granted, it never really died in the hearts of fan everywhere who have kept the quirky faith and a sense of the ridiculous intact during the 25 years since creator Gary Larson release any new material. Now it’s back! Well, kind of … As Larson Continue Reading
A marvellous mini-mass of movie trailers: Summerland, Radioactive, Project Power
Getting to see movies in the cinema this year has proved all but impossible thanks to COVID-19. It still remains the case that seeing movies on the big screen is more difficult than it used to be with cinemas selling a vastly reduced number of tickets due to social distancing Continue Reading
Movie review: The Half of It
Love, of the kind that resides with Cupid, in endless romantic comedies and more than a few Hallmark cards and Valentine’s Day rose bouquets, is a fairly polarising thing. While there are those who sing its praises with lofty, rose-coloured glasses abandon, believing firmly, like Plato, that we are separated Continue Reading
Way way away from the Bridge: The challenges and fun of Star Trek: Lower Decks
SNAPSHOT“Lower Decks is developed by Mike McMahan, creator of Hulu’s Solar Opposites and co-creator of Rick and Morty. It focuses on the support crew aboard an insignificant Starfleet starship, the California-class USS Cerritos, shortly after the Next Generation era, in 2380, after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. “The cast Continue Reading
Book review: The Life of Elves by Muriel Barbery
For most people in the heavily secular 21st century, the world begins and ends with the things we can touch, see and taste. We live, as Madonna observed, in a material world and the majority of us are content with boundaries that are physical and see no need to venture Continue Reading
The delightfulness of Charlie Brown’s Christmas Stocking #Peanuts #ChristmasInJuly
There’s no question that Peanuts makes Christmas special. Spending time with Snoopy, Charlie Brown. Lucy, Sally and the rest of the thoughtfully lovable cast of characters brings not only a richness to proceedings since these are kids who really think things through, but a quirky delightfulness as they pose the Continue Reading