Month: February 2018

  • Oh lord, it’s snowing

    “Holy sh*t, it’s snowing.” I imagine that statement was uttered up and down the country this morning. Possibly slightly more in the South, where we are rather more shocked by the appearance of the trappings of winter. You see it is one of the great British traditions: we are always surprised by the snow. The…

  • Pippin stuns in Southwark

    The show must go on. Round of applause to the cast of Pippin at the Southwark Playhouse who fought through technical difficulties to give a stunning show this evening. S and I headed to the theatre with little – or in my case no – knowledge of Pippin as a work. It’s by Stephen Schwartz…

  • 19 questions with…me

    I’ve always wanted to do one of these and since this is my blog I figure I can do what I like with it. There is also a bigger point here – two bigger points in fact. The first is that some of the answers to this surprised even me and sometimes it is entertaining…

  • ‘The great laying down of identity’

    I recently started keeping a journal again. I say “again”, I am not really sure if I ever properly kept a journal before. I’ve had notebooks that I’ve written bits down in and I once kept a diary for a whole year of my life to see if anything exciting happened – it did. But…

  • Lessons from literature: Paddington Bear

    “Words, Caravaggio. They have power.” I loved Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient when I studied it at school. This snatched quote here is a perfect summary of how books and stories can contain lessons and meanings for us to take with us after reading. This is rarely more true than when you think about the…

  • Holiday dreams: Scuba diving in Gran Canaria

    My list of places I want to go is already pretty impressive, but I think it just got one name longer. In a couple of months Spain will open its first ever dedicated scuba diving resort and when “spend your days underwater visiting shipwrecks” is on the bill you know you just might be onto…

  • Deadpool: Meet Cable

    Don’t say I don’t do anything for you. Find yourself a comfy seat and kick back for a few minutes with the new Deadpool trailer. We get a look at Josh Brolin as Cable (yep, the same Josh Brolin as is playing Thanos Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War films), Ryan Reynolds is at his hilarious best…

  • Harry Potter has given us a style icon

    I think I’ve stumbled across a new style icon without really realising it. The silver screen has offered us a fair few sartorial leaders over the years. Names that spring to mind include Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair – and everything else, Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada, Audrey Hepburn…

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    31 things I’ve learned

    I’m turning 31 today. I figure in the last three decades I must have learned something useful on top of the multitude of interesting but somewhat impractical academia. So here goes, I am going to get all Baz Luhrmann on my experiences and see what I can come up with. Take responsibility for your actions…

  • Solo: A Star Wars Story – first look trailer

    “I’ve been running scams on the streets since I was 10…” And with that we launch into the first look at the latest installment in the ongoing stories of the extended Star Wars universe. Solo: A Star Wars Story lands this May and this trailer will get people talking. Our last visit to “a long…