If you were to take a look at my bookshelves, you would soon come to realise that I own an enormous number of books., I mean, a LOT. Many of them are read, kept because of some emotional attachment or love of the book itself, but many, much to Continue Reading
Douze points? Mais non! 12 Eurovision entries that didn’t score a single point
There are many things that are memorable about the Eurovision Song Contest. The songs. The costumes. The staging – pyrotechnics, key changes, costume reveals, wind machines, odd props and back-up singers that look like in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then, of course, there are the Continue Reading
The Way Old Friends Do: ABBA reunite to sing on stage
At last ABBA has reformed! Well before we, and by we I mean I get completely carried away – with ABBA this is extremely easy to do such is my four decade long devotion to the musical cause of four talented Swedes who made some of the best pop Continue Reading
Read with Amy Schumer: The Girl With the Lower Back tattoo
It pretty much goes without saying that Amy Schumer is a very funny lady. The creator, co-writer, co-producer and star of sketch comedy series Inside Amy Schumer and the writer and star of last year’s hit romantic comedy Trainwreck, Schumer has an enviable gift of combining humour with poignancy Continue Reading
Wayward Pines: “Blood Harvest” (S2, E2 review)
Are you having a really crappy day at work? I’ll hazard a guess and say though that it’s nowhere near as the bad as the ones suffered by Dr Theo Yedlin (Jason Patric), Ben Burke (Charlie Tahan) and Kerry Campbell (Kacey Rohl), and to a lesser extent Jason Higgins Continue Reading
The short and the short of it: The slapstick hilarity of Voltige
I have always loved and adored slapstick. Done well, and with a suitable every-gathering momentum in place,it can be a real joy to watch; not to mention a laughfest par excellence that builds in intensity to the point where your sides ache, bits of food go flying out of Continue Reading
Book review: When the Floods Came by Clare Morrall
Humanity is nothing if not predictable. Faced with a civilisation-ending event, we tend to either band together for greater strength and survivability, embark on a means-justify-the-ends campaign of selfish aggrandisement or hide ourselves, willing the world to abandon us to our self-sufficient bolt-hole. It’s this final option that has Continue Reading
Dachshunds go indie: Weiner-Dog, Todd Solondz’s latest offbeat masterpiece
SNAPSHOT From director Todd Solondz (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness), Wiener-Dog is a dark, starkly funny story of a single dog and the many different people she touches over her short lifetime. Man’s best friend starts out teaching a young boy some contorted life lessons before being taken in Continue Reading
Poster Me This: Bright arty Star Trek Beyond characters posters
SNAPSHOT Star Trek Beyond, the highly-anticipated next installment in the globally popular Star Trek franchise, created by Gene Roddenberry and reintroduced by J.J. Abrams in 2009, returns with director Justin Lin (The Fast and the Furious franchise) at the helm of this epic voyage of the U.S.S. Enterprise and Continue Reading
Movie review: Now You See Me 2
The loss of the novelty effect, that deliriously exciting sense of discovering something new and different, is the Achilles heels of any sequel. And it is a rare sequel indeed that manages to keep this spirit of newness alive while advancing the storyline in ways that honour the original Continue Reading