Leisure
Posts on films, books, music and other assorted leisure activities.
Why was it Europe that subjugated and colonised swathes of the world and not for example the Inca empire that invaded Spain? A simple question that it invites a simple...
If morality and ethics describe how we would like to behave and economics describes what people truly think and feel, can analysing questions about our society from an economics perspective...
The strapline “Discover Your Unique Imprint for Work that Makes You Come Alive” covers what the aim of the book. Does it manage it’s goal? But first a quiz.
Following a visit to Kew gardens I learnt more about artist Marianne North with this book via Kew’s publishing arm.
This was suggested to me by a colleague at work and it proved to be an excellent recommendation. The titular character is one of a rare group of people called...
1872 and HMS Challenger sets sail on a groundbreaking three and half year voyage around the globe to sample and map the deep ocean.
It’s about sand.
So the Daniel Craig era as James Bond comes to a bittersweet ending. From that first thrilling parkour chase in Casino Royale it’s been clear this incarnation of Bond is...
A day trip to Leicester with my sister, nieces and great-nieces was a chance to explore the Rocket round Leicester art trail, which as the title might suggest, involves brightly...
Tokyo Trial is a four-part miniseries that dramatises the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, available on Netflix. It was the equivalent of the more famous Nuremberg trials of...
Sequel? Reboot? Who cares! Once again D-list super-villains are recruited for a suicidal mission in return for a a reduction in jail sentence. What could possibly go wrong?
Scarlett Johansson returns as Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow super-assassin and conflicted Marvel Avenger. As might be expected for the Marvel films, ‘returns’ is subjective as the film events takes...
Picking up where the first film ended, the Parr family of superheroes struggle again to adapt to a world that seemingly doesn’t want them. So when wealthy backers offer to...
Another cycle puncture and subsequent new inner tube was the final push to investigating a change to solid tyres. Are they actually any good? The big concern is that being...
The original Blade Runner is a sci-fi classic creating a highly distinctive visual and audio landscape. How do you create a follow on without trashing the original? The new story...
After years of speculation, a Wonder Woman finally hits the big screen. But with her compatriot heroes of DC comic recently offering rather underwhelming performances, can she beat the odds...
Based on the manga and anime expectations for this big budget hollywood outing were understandably high. Did it succeed? Well … yes and no. The originals are highly regarded, so...
As Autumn approaches the shooting moves indoors. The final outdoor shoot is a handicapped competition, and shockingly I managed to come in third! Considering I’ve only re-taken up the sport...
We all know the plot and this remake is a good fun film, but it can’t quite shake the original. So the internet was awash with possibly misogynist “this will...
Spent a nice if long tiring day at the Husbands Bosworth festival helping at a Have-a-Go archery session. ‘Festival’ would be a tad of an overstatement compared to say Glastonbury,...
A while back I’d attended an archery course, enjoyed it, but didn’t really have chance to really take it up properly. So a course at the local Welland Valley Archers...
1864. The American west. After an attack on her wagon train Sister Thomas Josephine is thrown into adventure and infamy that tests her faith, determination and character to the limits....
This was the last sci-fi novel by Iain Banks before his death in June 2013 and perhaps unwittingly explores the “end of things”. But of course on a grand scale....
An early manned mission to Mars goes horribly wrong leaving astronaut Mark Watney alone and stranded on Mars, presumed dead. What follows is one of the most gripping survival-against-all-odds stories...
Self-proclaimed “America’s finest news source”, but take everything with a pinch of salt on this satire site! Proof that Americans can do sly intelligent humour, Iran’s news agency once believed...
Boring and dull. That’s Law isn’t it? Well not in this series which explores how English law developed over the centuries. Barrister Harry Potter (yes really) describes historical events such...
It’s not often I blog about another site, but this view from the subatomic to the entire Universe is really something else. Visit the website, make the image full screen...
This had been in my reading pile for a while, so I tackled it over Christmas between the turkey and mince pies. Using established and available data the authors show...
Dr. Alice Roberts presents Origins of Us showing how the 6 million year journey of human evolution is written in our bones, guts and brains. What I liked is the...
This programme, available on BBC iplayer, looks at how fossils have been viewed and explained by earlier generations. It’s such an obvious question really, the ancient Greeks also dug up...
Would you like to drive a supercar you’ll never own, yet alone have the chance to put your foot down with? Yes please! And a generous gift meant I got...
Just finished watching the ITV drama Scott & Bailey which you can download via something like filestube.com. This 6 part drama initially registers as Cagney and Lacey in Manchester and...
Inevitable nowadays, that someone spends their time at a concert filming it rather than being there. So much for ‘mindfulness’. The video isnt that great. I was in the “legions...
Rather last minute but got a ticket to see KT Tunstall solo at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. Only one word to describe it and that’s AWSOME!!
What is it about The Apprentice that makes for compulsive viewing? Well for me anyway. The fact it is listed under iPlayers’ ‘entertainment’ and not ‘business’ category gives a hint....
I’d missed this film adaptation of Shakespeare’s final play at it’s release so I was glad to catch it at the Warwick Arts Centre. It’s one thing to read the...
Onkalo in Finland is a repository being built 5km underground designed to store high-level nuclear waste for 100,000 years. This channel 4 documentary provides a thoughtful look at the construction...
Today I did a bit of volunteering for warwickshire wildlife trust whose HQ is nearby. Well it makes good use of time. The tasks are varied and today’s was a...
Lovely weather, lovely woods, lovely company and a seasonal bonus - bluebells in the woods. Considering these were taken by my mobile phone, not too bad as photos. I still...
Beautiful Equations is an hour long programme looking at the use of equations in science and whether they can contain beauty. Abstract artist and self-professed know-no-maths Matt Collings talks to...
Bettany Hughes tackles ancient history in a very engaging and viewable style. So far I’ve seen the Minoans and the Moors in Spain, both of which look at the history...
Clever and surreal comic on science and techi stuff.
My old bicycle panniers, cheap and cheerful, had run their course. They had managed some fantastic trips and been dragged through rivers, but it was time to get a new...
I generally like Tim Burtons films, full of imagination and spectacle and this is no exception. Alice (Wasikowska - a spitting image of a young Paltrow) is now 19 and...
As part of the never-ending tidying up I’ve recently sorted through a cupboard of old software boxes. You know they are old when they have nice boxes, printed manuals and...
Their own strap says it best :- “Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world”. The idea is experts in their fields give a short (10 minutes) talk about,...
Insight and comment on the world of gaming, particularly MMOs. Wrote the rather excellent “A Theory of Fun “ book which is very worth a read.
I think I’ve played the excellent Rome Total War to exhaustion. Many times. Nothing beats a hard day in front of the computer like leading your legions to a crushing...
Lovely short series examining the historical role of diplomats in representing British interests. Since it’s presented by a former British Ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, it takes a...
Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain takes a look at post war Britain. Marrs’ skill is to present not just the facts in a coherent and entertaining way, but to...
How the Navy Forged the Modern World is a really interesting account of the development of the navy and its economic and political interactions with the nation presented by Dan...
Sometimes Horizon is pants, usually brilliant. This episode explores the history of food and science discoveries leading to the current obesity epidemic. A bit slow in parts its a solid...
Picked up a copy of the graphic novel Watchmen from my local forbidden planet during the Christmas shopping. Why is it always so much easier to buy presents for yourself?...
If you grew up with the original Star Wars and then hung your head in disbelief at the later prequels then take a look at this parody explaining exactly why,...
Just finished watching this excellent series. Struck by the similarities between software and financial markets. Both being complex you can never be ‘bug-free’ because the real world has infinite capacity...
Well this is my favourite band of the moment, OK perhaps for the last year or so. Symphonic metal group Nightwish or least the lineup before Tarja left. A reasonable...
In my more mainstream music tastes is this outrageously talented woman. I’ve a lot of respect for those who are songwriter-musicians as opposed to those who are just lip-sync performers....
Part of the No1 Ladies Detective Agency series, the full cupboard finds Mma Ramotswe trying to find a way to get her fiance Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni to actually sort a...
Written by King’s widow in 1969 a year after his death, the account is both authoritative and insightful. What struck me was not the well known history, but the family...
Mysterious events, aliens in the deepest most inaccessible parts of the ocean, ships go missing while ocean currents misbehave threatening the very existence of mankind. We are being replaced. If...
Journalist Norah Vincent disguises herself as a man and as ‘Ned’ checks out the other side of the fence. And that’s about it really. It’s quite impressive that she manages...
Having felt for far too long ‘ooh, I must do some exercise’ but not being enticed by the gym I finally took up cycling again in June 02.
I’m not sure how I stumbled to this book, a ‘you might also like’ click I think. It’s about a man and his allotment. But not the gardening side particularly,...
I’d missed this film at the cinema, you know how fast they flow through, so I was rather pleased to pick this up cheaply. Young Victor Van Dort (Depp) is...
Writing software is really tricky. Most projects (80%?) fail, so its clear that understanding of the process is slim and certainly not as well developed and formalised as say civil...
The subtitle is “for game design” and it takes the definition of ‘game’ widely. The basic idea is that learning is naturally done by games: games to rehearse, games that...
Plasticine doesn’t get much better than this. Wallace and Gromits new company “anti-pesto” is doing a great trade keeping the pests away from the villagers prize vegetables. That is until...
Walter H. Thompson was Churchill’s bodyguard through WWII and before. This account, drawn from Thompson’s recently discovered memoirs provides a facinating account both of the events in WWII but also...
OK I’ll admit it, I like classy romantic comedies. Jane Austin’s Pride & Prejudice meets Bollywood in this bubbly take by the director of Bend it like Beckham. Austin’s main...
A anime classic with some stunning animation. Set in Neo-Tokyo after world war III, a strange power sets to awaken which competing groups want to control. Into this are drawn...
Ursula LeGuin is one of my favorite sci-fi authors, and as you might tell from the cover a winner of more awards then everyone else put together. And therefore rarely...
Having previously read the author’s “The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies Of The Apocalypse” (how can you resist a title like that?) and enjoying it I picked up this title. Its fair...
Sam Vimes is ‘volunteered’ as the ambassador for Ankh-Morpork at the coronation of the new Dwarf Low King (well, how can you have a Dwarf High King?) But his policeman’s...
I think I first read this years ago as a graphic novel and that was my introduction to the Diskworld. So I bought this to fill in the library. As...
Be warned, its a brick of a book. This chronicle of Mao’s life is detailed and makes for a fascinating read. How did someone come to such absolute power? How...
Part of the diskworld series, a seriously loopy assassin tries to kill the Hogfather little realizing (or not caring) about the consequences. Death takes on the role of present deliverer...
The development of the tank through WWI. It could be a very dry topic, but the author makes it come alive by focusing on the at times heartbreaking ineptitude of...
I’ve always fancied a go at archery: it just looks so cool. So in the spirit of ‘stop wishing, got on with it’ I booked onto a 5 week beginners...
Jesminder Bhamra (Nagra), known to all as ‘Jess’ is 18, preparing for University and is mad on football. Problem is her parents are Sikhs who now want her to behave...
OK, panic ‘cos they’ve made a film of the fantastic hitchhikers series by Douglas Adams and …it’s well…sort of okay but nothing special. Arthur Dent (Freeman) is the stereotypical Englishman...
Silvia Broome (Kidman) is an interpreter at the UN. She inadvertently overhears a plot to assassinate the leader of her African home country during an impending address to the UN....
Enter Marinors wet. I’d wanted to read this play since I’d understood it to be the template for the classic sci-fi film Forbidden Planet. And you know what, it is....
Based on the series of books I’d not read or heard of I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this film. What you get is a wonderfully dark tale...
So after the film, I’ve read the first book. With the resurgence of children’s literature its difficult to know what to expect, but this book is definitely for children. Although...
You must be an important author when you only have to use a single name. Of course there were less people around at the time, so surnames hadn’t been invented....
James T. Kirk (Shatner) is now an Admiral stuck behind a desk and the Enterprise is a training ship. But one last routine training cruise turns into a real mission...
In the brutality of war, how do you remain human? This award winning film shows war in all its awfulness, not just by the blood but by how death comes...
Its got swords, monsters, heros, villains and Gods. An absolute classic mostly because of the fantastic special stop-motion effects of Ray Harryhausen. The giant bronze Talos straddling the headland is...
New York is experiencing ghosts, spooks and other strange occurances like never before. Step forward three just sacked parapsychology researchers who, armed with unlicensed nuclear accelerators, form the most unique...
Not the best of the Brosnan Bonds but still good, fast paced and fun and since it was in the bargin bin at Asda… Captured by the North Koreans, Bond...
A flying saucer lands in Washington, and the visiting alien Klaatu (Rennie) is promptly shot. Vainly he tries to deliver a message to governments that Earths violence must not be...
Washed up and past his prime, Steve Zissou (Murray) leads his team of misfits on one last mission to find the mysterious, and possibly non-existant Jaguar shark that ate his...
Scorsese’s biopic of billionaire Howard Hughes (DiCaprio) is an epic in almost every sense - it’s a long film (3 hours) but the effect is to give you a real...
In the future a war rages between humans and the machines controlled by Skynet: a sentient military computer. Skynet is losing to the human resistance lead by John Conner, so...
A young struggling William Shakespeare (Fiennes) is suffering writers block struggling with his next play “Romeo and Ethel the pirate’s daughter” when he meets the unobtainable Lady Viola De Lesseps...
If your wanting a feel good happy ending movie, don’t watch this. At the end nobody in the cinema moved, everybody needing a ‘moment’. Maggie Fitzgerald (Swank) is a female...
Judea, 30AD, around teatime and Brian is mistaken for the messiah. Which he does his best to discourage … but the Jews are very religious and insist he is. It...
‘No prisoners’ detective Frank Bullitt gets seriously hacked off when an important trial witness is shot while under his protection. Add to this being hassled by an ambitious politician (Vaughn),...
Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford) is unjustly convicted of killing his wife, and after the prison bus helpfully crashes and a dramatic pileup with a train, Kimble escapes and must use...
Oh for heavens sake do you need a plot outline? You’d need to be in a galaxy far far away for you not to know this one. This DVD set...
A powerful film well worthy of its acclaim. It follows three women in three time periods through just one day as each has to face up to the challenge of...
1879 in South Africa and 1500 British troops are killed by the Zulus. Knowing this, 139 infantrymen stand to fight at Rorke’s Drift against an approaching 4000 Zulu. This really...
Schoolboy action adventure a plenty as Maj. Smith (Burton) and Lt. Schaffer (Eastwood) lead a commando team to infiltrate an SS headquarters in the Bavarian Alps and rescue a captured...
A gang of terrorists sieze control of a US Navy battleship to steal the missiles, and in the best security tradition, only one man can stop them. Ex US Navy...
Director Terry Gilliam delivers an intelligent sci-fi film, intricate in plot that provides possibly Willis’ best performance (at least of the ones I’ve seen). Is James Cole (Willis) really a...
Terrible film. Appalling thin acting, no plot, cheesey dialogue. But for all that it works into a pop classic, with thumping soundtrack and fantastic red hot aerial dogfighting action. I...
Bad media-mogul guy Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) tries to start a war between China and Britain so that he can cash in on the media rights. As the two countries...
Wow. What a book. What a film of the book. The novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is powerful and deep, so creating a screenplay that does it...
Bob Parr (Nelson) is trying to settle down as an insurance claims specialist following his former life as the superhero Mr. Incredible, after superheros were retired by the government. With...
A classic WWII story based on the real life mass escape from Stalag Luft III. The ensemble cast includes Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence, James Coburn, David McCallum and Gordon Jackson...
Kidnap Churchill? Impossible. Or perhaps not… Colonel Steiner (Caine) leads German paratroopers in disguise on the astonishing plan which almost, almost succeeds. Considering this was (I think) a made for...
An alien device is discovered in Egypt that turns out to be a stargate or teleport to another world. Nerdy egyptologist Dr. Daniel Jackson (Spader) and grieving Col. O’Neil (Russsell)...
This is one of those films that makes it into folklore or common vocabulary. Monroe doesn’t seem to act in this comedy, the sensual dizzy all over the place blonde...
A totally mad sort of story about King Arthur’s knights in a quest for the Holy Grail. Every line a classic, and surprisingly effective filming considering in was done on...
From the opening music and burning fuse you realise this film has a huge reputation to live up to, the original TV series was classic with well defined elements. Can...
Like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , this is a wuxia movie with lots of implausible martial arts fighting alongside the warrior philosophy. Which it almost pulls off in great style...
Having seen 1&2 in the cinema the box set for1,2&3 was great value. I don’t know what it is about the slapstick humour but it has me in stiches. Kevin...
Another wuxia movie, and stunning it is too, the desert landscapes and use of colour are breathtaking. This film concentrates a lot on the ‘xia’ element as an assassin (Li)...
Brosnan takes on the role of James Bond trying to track down the baddies who’ve stolen a powerful space weapon - the goldeneye. And a cracking job he does too...
OK. So its not a film. Just one of the best sitcoms ever, years later it still stands fresh and incredibly funny. The writing is just superb, it’s as if...
The fact its a Coen brothers film tells you this isn’t going to be ordinary. Jerry (William H. Macy) needs money and hires two thugs to fake a kidnap of...
Found a bundle with Die Hard 1,2 & 3. Bruce Willis crawls around in his vest fighting bad guys. Repeat for three films. The first film is the best of...
Missed this much talked about movie at the cinema, so glad to get it cheap on DVD. Its part of the genre of ‘wuxia’ films and this is the one...
Once upon a time there were three very different women… now they work for me. My name is Kevin, sorry Charlie. With lots of martial arts and hi-tech skills our...
George Peppard, without the aid of the ‘A-team’ rescues Audrey Hepburn’s pussy cat from an allyway and they live happily ever after. As sloppy love stories go, this is brilliant....