Ask most people what springs to mind when you mention musicals and you’ll likely be peppered with words like “romantic”, “fairytale”, “escapist” and “otherworldly”. And it’a true that a lot of musicals do tend to live up to these word pictures, evoking a magical sense of wonder at the Continue Reading
On 2nd day of Christmas … I spent festive time with Simon’s Cat
If you have been owned by a cat, and I have been fortunate to have been owned by a number of delightful feline companions, you will be well aware that they are hilariously contrary creatures who possess a pleasingly perverse ability to know what you don’t want them to do Continue Reading
Book review: A Very Special Year by Thomas Montasser
You would be hard pressed to find an avid reader anywhere who doesn’t possess an enduring love affair with bookshops. They are a magical place, full of ripe possibility, opportunities without number to pursue lives wholly different from your own, to become a pirate, a 18th century tycoon of Continue Reading
On 1st day of Christmas … I decorated my tree with pop culture ornaments
I am both a Christmas tree addict and a pop culture junkie. All of which means that with the arrival of the most wonderful time of the year, my thoughts tend to go to covering my delightful artificial pine tree – when I was growing natural pine trees were Continue Reading
The Walking Dead: “Sing Me a Song” (S7, E7 review)
SPOILERS … AND WAY MORE SOCIOPATHIC POSTURING THAN IS GOOD FOR ANYONE FRANKLY Yes Carl (Chandler Riggs), there is a Sociopath. Granted that’s not as festive as the traditional “Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus” but then the eight year old girl who was the subject of that Continue Reading
Think monsters have it easy? Even Godzilla has a Bad Day
It would be easy to assume that a creature as big and fearsome as Godzilla could never have a bad day. Sure every time he dares to step on shore he’s shot at, attacked, harassed and electrocuted but surely after all this time – he first appeared in Ishirō Honda’s 1954 Continue Reading
Deck the Daleks … Happy holidays from Doctor Who! (Christmas special trailer)
SNAPSHOT The Christmas episode this year will have the Doctor join forces with a masked Superhero for adventure in New York. With aliens poised to attack, the Doctor and Nardole link up with an investigative reporter and a mysterious figure known only as The Ghost. Can the Doctor save Continue Reading
Book review: Don’t Let Him Know by Sandip Roy
No matter how open someone may appear on the surface, the odds are that somewhere with them lurks secrets unspoken, some possibly even unacknowledged, that may never see the light of day, regardless of how close they may be to their loved ones. This idea, that we never truly know Continue Reading
“[He] speaks for us all”: The innate truths of Sam Klemke’s Time Machine (documentary)
SNAPSHOT In 1977, Sam Klemke started obsessively documenting his entire life on film. Beginning decades before the modern obsession with selfies and status updates, we see Sam grow from an optimistic teen to a self-important 20 year old, into an obese, self-loathing 30-something and onwards into his philosophical 50s. Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The yin and yang of Jinxy Jenkins & Lucky Lou
One of the oft-quoted truisms of love is that opposites attract. While that’s true to some extent, it’s probably more accurate to say that opposites attract who are complementary to, and bring out the best in, each other. That’s very much the case in Jinxy Jenkins & Lucky Lou, Continue Reading