If there is one consistent theme in much of American popular culture, it’s the Manifest Destiny-inspired notion that anything is possible in the land of the free and the home of the brave. This idea, while borne of some truth, is in many ways more ideal than reality, a Continue Reading
On 10th day of Christmas … I read A Die Hard Christmas picture book
Way back in 1988 when I first saw Die Hard, which is as much a love letter (albeit a violent one) as an action thriller – you may recall that John McClane (Bruce Willis) is in L.A. from New York where’s he’s a cop to see his estranged wife Continue Reading
Feeling festively frazzled? Watch this soothing short film of Mojave Desert ghost towns at night
SNAPSHOT SKYGLOWPROJECT.COM presents Mojave Forsaken — a timelapse journey through ghost towns of the Mojave Desert and the magnificent night skies there. Flanking the infamous Death Valley to the north, west and east, once-booming mining towns of Bodie, Cerro Gordo and Rhyolite now sit in decay at mercy of Continue Reading
On 9th day of Christmas … I listened to Gwen Stefani’s “You Make it Feel Like Christmas”
As a recording artist, it makes sense that you’d be tempted to go Full Throttle Retro Festive when it comes to putting together a Christmas album. After all, consumers of festive tunes know what they like, and what they generally like is for your album of Christmas songs to Continue Reading
Movie review: Star Wars – The Last Jedi
There comes a time in every franchise, even one as venerable and deeply-loved at George Lucas’s Star Wars when the old must give way to the new and the characters we know and love hand over, in this case at least, their light sabres and midi-chlorians and fly off Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The serenity of the Fox and the Whale
Even a Christmas-aholic such as myself has to admit that there are times when the wonderful time of the year also feels like the most unendingly stressful. With pressure, internal and external to get everything in the bag, work and otherwise by 25 December – it’s an arbitrary line Continue Reading
On 8th day of Christmas … I watched retro TV ep “Don’t Bring Your Guns to Town, Santa” (The Partridge Family)
If there’s one thing that is always totally and utterly welcome in any TV show’s Christmas episode, especially in a series already delightfully rife with cheesy, heartfelt moments, it’s a happy, cosy, all is well with the world neat ending, preferably one tied up with a pretty red glittery Continue Reading
Festive book review: Five at the Office Christmas Party by “Enid Blyton” (really Bruno Vincent)
If you are of a certain age, and I mostly am, and spent your childhood reading the books of British author Enid Blyton, you will be more than a little aware of her Famous Five books which feature siblings Julian, Dick and Anne, cousin George (Georgette) and of course, Continue Reading
Saturday morning cartoons: Paddington / The Adventures of Paddington
Michael Bond’s Paddington is a delight any way you come to meet him. Whether it’s through the enormously charming books, the first of which, A Bear Called Paddington, was published in 1958 following the author’s purchase of a single teddy bear sitting on a shelf in a store near Continue Reading
On 7th day of Christmas … I reviewed The Man Who Invented Christmas
While it’s safe to say that the justly-celebrated British novelist Charles Dickens (Dan Stevens) did not, in fact, invent Christmas – that honour belongs, I think we can safely say to one Jesus Christ – he was very much its saviour when it came to rescue the holiday from Continue Reading