Read
IQ By Joe Ide
This LA set, modern take on the Sherlock Holmes story riffs on the Hound of the Baskervilles. The book is populated by a cast of weirdoes including a drug addled rapper, his coterie of hangers […]

Read
Dogs of War by Adrian Tchaikovsky – I rarely read SciFi but this one piqued my interest. In a near future, bioengineering has created militarised versions of animals that are being used to fight wars ( […]

Read this at the weekend (in a sci fi novel about bio engineering, of all things).

“Change hurts, but it hurts most those who shackle themselves to the past.”

Seemed apposite to Gill’s commentary about those […]

There are plenty of films that I would happily sit through on multiple occasions, but they aren’t on the telly very often.

Of the ones that seem on hard rotation on ITV / film 4 I can easily get caught up […]

Does ‘Hats’ by The Blue Nile count?

D’oh!
Wishful thinking I guess.

Seen
I’m enjoying The Good Place; a high concept sit-com in which an admin error results in a feckless woman being sent to heaven by mistake. Weird, imaginative and inventive with writing credits by Dylan M […]

Got the heads up from Goodreads. I knew the book was on its way this year and was looking forward to it – so went to the sneak peek expectantly.

The summary and the excerpt were meant to whet the appetite but […]

I liked when Baker launched into a game of hand shake poker (i.e. who is the most famous person you have met) and threw down his hand – the Beatles. Which I guess he uses to bulldoze most rooms.
Then Lineker said […]

And ‘we fear change’

Danny B mentions the show regularly on the podcast he does with Gary Lineker. Recently talked about how Alan Sugar had plod come round his house to threaten arrest (Danny had been telling […]

Shiny Happy Monsters, the version they recorded on Sesame Street is pretty special, though. Even super serious Stipe cracks a smile.

Another Spurs fan – born in the hospital just down the road. All mum’s family from that neck of the woods and all Spurs fans. I had a season ticket for about 10 years – which started with Klinsmann and the […]

True, the plot is transparent and the jeopardy part is resolved in moments. But that’s OK as I thought that the heart of the film was the grief that the family was feeling after its terrible loss. And that Mary […]

Seen
A Star is Born got some rave reviews but I found it a little too melodramatic for my tastes. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga had a nice on screen chemistry, the concerts were well staged and the final scene […]

My favourite:

I made a conscious decision because of Stevie Wonder not to be superstitious.

Paddington 2 is lovely and Hugh Grant is splendidly caddish as Phoenix Buchanan – I still laugh at his song and dance number over the closing credits.

Leave no trace is a gorgeous film; wonderful acting, striking cinematography and thoughtful script. There is a real chemistry between the actors playing father and daughter; so much so that I fond it a little […]

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout.
Olive is a strange character – in some situations she’s cantankerous, difficult, selfish and thoughtless. Yet other times filled with good sense and empathy. There’s one […]

A few thoughts:

Another pyrrhic victory for our Strong & Stable PM?
One of the theories swirling round yesterday was that should May win, the DUP would abandon her and trigger no confidence in the government. […]

I’d also recommend both Power of the Dog and The Cartel. The first is a thunderingly good thriller wrapped around a howl of anger about US involvement in the drug trade. The Cartel is almost a horror novel – in […]