She’s a lovely, lovely writer – her novels are full of characters rich in empathy and wisdom. I too have a special place for Olive Kitteridge, both the character and the novel (although it’s more a collection of […]

After a brutal summer we entered the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, and I found myself in a lachrymose mood. What’s caused this? It’s the end of the holidays, it’s seeing kids dressed in stiff and scrat […]

Another vote for TFTM. Sam Delaney is indeed a funny guy. And Andy Dawson must be something of a genius for helping create 2 brilliant podcasts.

Does help if you know the names of the players / managers. But I think you can still enjoy stories of Steve McLaren & Caspar the snake and Roy Hodgson’s obsession with Warhammer even if you have only the […]

Seen Spiderman – Brand New Day Post Endgame, the MCU has leaned heavily into grief, with our cast of super chums suffering from the loss of loved ones. Here we have a mournful, isolated and depressed Peter P […]

Yep – I had fun watching it. Can’t say I remember a whole lot about it, although the car/train sequence has stuck. Also, the idea that empathy is humanity’s superpower is sincere, if a bit hokey. Forgot to […]

I’ve not posted here for a good long while, so I have included a round up from the past few months Read American Dirt – Jeanine Cummings This has been sitting on my Kindle for years, but I finally read it whi […]

Honey bee by Grinderman – plays over the end credits of True Detective episode 4, season 1. It’s like a hit of adrenaline that perfectly fits the final, frantic moments of the episode.

Read You’re Next by Gregg Hurwitz This is a rollicking thriller, but I found that it suffers from over written action scenes. The really good crime writer (I’m thinking the likes of Pelecanos, Leonard, Wil […]

Jaws. Every single role in Jaws in perfectly cast.

Well, that’s uncanny as I have been thinking of just this topic for a few days now as I have strolled into work. On any given day I can reel off a list of favourite books, categorised by genre, era, even l […]

I read it’s the 50th anniversary of the first episode of The Muppet Show, which can’t possibly be right as that would mean that I’m…oh. Anyway. I watched the new episode and it was all rather fab. I […]

Seen Knives Out – Wake up Dead Man. I enjoyed the first 2 films in this series, but I found this latest one a bit of plodder. Although I very much enjoyed Daniel Craig’s sartorial choice. He was rocking a nic […]

Agree whole heartedly on the Max / RUTH moment. It comes in the episode called Dear Billy, one of the most exciting episodes of any show, let alone Stranger Things. There’s the prison escape, and the visit […]

The play’s great fun and I’d happily go again. If you’ve not watched the TV show before, I would definitely watch at least the first series as some of the characters from the show appear in the play. There’s a […]

Yep – I get it was all a bit bloated, and that on too many occasions things ground to a halt for some exposition / explanation. But – some of those action scenes were extraordinary. The attack at the Wheeler […]

I’ve not posted one of these updates in a while, so this is a bit of an indulgent end of year review / catch up from the past few months. The Holdovers It’s set at Christmas in a prestigious boarding sch […]

Seen Cheers I caught a few episodes of Cheers over the summer. Channel 4 are currently in the Kirstie Alley era, which is my favourite. It had been years since I have seen an episode, but it remains eminently […]

Loveless by My Bloody Valentine. For me this is very vibey – and I always appreciate it most on those bright blue brittle days you occasionally get in November. Plus the cover is beautiful and looks handsome a […]

Well now I have retrospective jealousy… In mitigation to my parents, I was only 7.