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May catch-up
Jun. 1st, 2014 07:20 pmI'm not great at posting regularly to my blog, and then when I look back at the big gaps I rather regret it. So I'm gonna go back to doing monthly catch-ups, if for no one's amusement but my own!
My brother took me to see Matilda last week as a belated birthday present and it was utterly utterly lovely. A beautiful story (which I was actually quite happy I didn't know going in), wonderful acting from young and old alike, fun music and stunning set design. My only complaints would be I occasionally couldn't make out the lyrics and it did get a little screechy a times, but the children in the audience loved those bits. I always say I should go to the theatre more and then completely fail to do so, although the price is rather terrifying!
I've been back and forth to Cambridge a few times to visit the Whitfield clan who get more wonderful every time I see them (well the twins do, their parents are a consistent level of wonderful with an increasing veneer of exhaustion). We've had a few adventures to a nearby zoo, the rather lovely Orchard Tea Gardens and have thus far avoided a trip to the hospital! I also went to The Wetlands Centre.
Baking
I've been asked to help out at a wedding in a couple of months, so I've been practising macarons, much to the delight of friends and colleagues who seem to have no problem being experimented upon. I'm still uncertain about attempting to do at least 200, but I think with some ebaying for equipment and something of a production line it should be doable, particularly if I try to restrain myself with flavours. I also tried my hand at decorating for my brother's birthday cake, it meant a lot of food colouring, but I think the minion came out ok.
Couple of other recent new recipes:
A very tasty fruitcake and an interesting idea for a crumbled marzipan topping, but it didn't stick very well so was a bit messy to eat.
A spectacularly simple ginger traybake, not the most gingery of cakes, but the treacle adds and interesting flavour and I liked the candied ginger on the top.
This apricot couronne is still my go to for any sweet bread, either in a crown, as a long plait or sliced into individual rolls, I've done it with apples and cinnamon and recently with orange zest and chocolate chips.
Chcolate, hazelnut and raspberry torte. SO good, so pretty and gluten free!
This apple and cinnamon pull-apart bread was fantastic, this pesto bread was ok but not spectacular.
Films
I'm up to 56 films already this year so I won't mention them all, just some of the new releases in the cinema and some of the older ones that I'd recommend. The rest are all on my website.
I had a day of cinema last Monday and went to see Godzilla (a very poor story, script and casting in the main roles that left me bored and unengaged), X-Men: Days of Future Past (excellent cast, sparky script, solid story and entertaining action, thank heavens Bryan Singer is back!) and Kaze Tachinu/The Wind Rises (beautiful story, gorgeous animation, interesting look at engineering, tiresome love story, but too long). Other recent cinema trips covered The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (an entertaining mess), Muppets Most Wanted (very disappointing, completely lacking the soul of the most recent Muppets) and The Lego Movie (bonkersly entertaining if you let yourself just go with it). Also I didn't manage to catch one of the limited showings of Veronica Mars but I did rent it and absolutely adored it.
I had a bit of an X-Men blitz, partly in preparation for seeing the new film, but I actually only saw half of them before the new one. It did remind me of how good X-Men 1 and 2 are, how less good Last Stand and Origins: Wolverine were and how frustrating the poor supporting cast on First Class was compared to Fassbender and McAvoy (and indeed the original series). I'm also having a bit of a Disney year, re-watching many of the classics. Thus far I've love The AristoCats, been ambivalent about Bambi and very disappointed by Fantasia 2000.
Other films of note, I really enjoyed The Broken Circle Breakdown, The Croods, The Selfish Giant, August; Osage County and The Way Way Back. On the flip side La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) was pretensious gibberish and I don't care what the critics say.
Reading
After reading a truly pathetic 10 books last year, I decided to commit to another reading challenge, targeting 50 pages per day. Unfortunately, April was a terrible month and pretty much blew that goal out the window, so I reduced it to 40 pages per day at which point, following a 'good' month in May, I'm back on track. May was helped out by the 1100 page, immensely readable Blackout and All Clear two volume epic by Connie Willis, unfortunately though despite how easy and entertaining it was to read I still found it hugely disappointing and extremely frustrating. There's a longer review at my website, but basically it was far far too long and relied upon stupid characters and cheap tricks to keep the pages turning.
Other recent reads include Redshirts by John Scalzi and Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher, both very clever, elegant and entertaining. I also greatly enjoyed Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and David Attenborough's utterly charming autobiography Life on Air, he'd definitely be at my dream dinner party!
Other disappointments include Cory Doctorow's Pirate Cinema (a one sided political rant undermined by the absence of an opposing argument), Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson (inferior in every way to Ready Player One) and Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, great characters and story, but reminded me of exactly why I don't read more graphic novels. Oh, and Seventeen Equations that Changed the World by Ian Stewart should be avoided unless you have a maths degree or deep seated insomnia.
Television
I continue to try and post twice a week at Narrative Devices, although it often ends up being slightly less, but I did recently pass the 500 posts mark. I selflessly watched through all the pilots and read all the press releases as the US channels announced their schedules for next year, very little got me excited to be honest, Ascension on Syfy has got actual spaceships, Gotham on Fox has got great material to work with, The Leftovers on HBO looks impressive but depressing, The Strain on FX is by Guillermo del Torro which is enough for me, iZombie on The CW could be fun, Madam Secretary on CBS could be a heavenly blend of The Good Wife and The West Wing and How to Get Away with Murder on ABC may be Shonda Rhimes addictiveness.
A few other reviews:
The Blacklist: Season 1 – James Spader is absolutely fantastic, everything else is a bit meh.
The Smoke Season 1 – doesn't know whether it's gritty firefighting or love triangle soap opera. Either would be fine, both is a mess.
The Muskateers: Season 1 – very uncertain tone, felt like a 6pm on a Saturday show awkwardly transplanted to 9pm on a Sunday
The Walking Dead: Season 4 – not the strongest season, some less than outstanding characters/storylines but also some phenomenal moments. Still one of the best shows on television.
Other things I'm watching and enjoying at the moment – Almost Human, Happy Valley, The Good Wife (omg SO good!), SHIELD (greatly improved, I'm still a few behind) and Mr Sloane.
Gaming
I lost a month to compulsively playing Lego Marvel Superheroes until I'd got absolutely all the achievements (the first game I've done that for!) and was thoroughly entertained the whole time. I was trudging through Thief on the Xbox 360 until I finally decided I just wasn't enjoying it. I was playing a non-murderous non-detected method and was finding it epically slow and frustrating. I seemed to spend far more time sneaking back and forth the same alleyways between missions then actually doing any thieving. Also I was endlessly irritated by his haphazard ability to jump 20 foot gaps and then be flummoxed by knee high crates. I may start a new game with a more bloodthirsty approach, but for now I've given up. I switched briefly to Formula 1 2010 because I picked it up for a quid pre-owned but gave up quickly when it gave me no tutorial and then just told me off for driving into people.
I've just started Batman Arkham Origins, which thus far is entertaining, but I've only been playing for an hour. I'm also hopelessly addicted to Hay Day and Jelly Splash on my phone, but I have at least given up Candy Crush on level 350odd.
My brother took me to see Matilda last week as a belated birthday present and it was utterly utterly lovely. A beautiful story (which I was actually quite happy I didn't know going in), wonderful acting from young and old alike, fun music and stunning set design. My only complaints would be I occasionally couldn't make out the lyrics and it did get a little screechy a times, but the children in the audience loved those bits. I always say I should go to the theatre more and then completely fail to do so, although the price is rather terrifying!
I've been back and forth to Cambridge a few times to visit the Whitfield clan who get more wonderful every time I see them (well the twins do, their parents are a consistent level of wonderful with an increasing veneer of exhaustion). We've had a few adventures to a nearby zoo, the rather lovely Orchard Tea Gardens and have thus far avoided a trip to the hospital! I also went to The Wetlands Centre.
Baking
I've been asked to help out at a wedding in a couple of months, so I've been practising macarons, much to the delight of friends and colleagues who seem to have no problem being experimented upon. I'm still uncertain about attempting to do at least 200, but I think with some ebaying for equipment and something of a production line it should be doable, particularly if I try to restrain myself with flavours. I also tried my hand at decorating for my brother's birthday cake, it meant a lot of food colouring, but I think the minion came out ok.
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Couple of other recent new recipes:
A very tasty fruitcake and an interesting idea for a crumbled marzipan topping, but it didn't stick very well so was a bit messy to eat.
A spectacularly simple ginger traybake, not the most gingery of cakes, but the treacle adds and interesting flavour and I liked the candied ginger on the top.
This apricot couronne is still my go to for any sweet bread, either in a crown, as a long plait or sliced into individual rolls, I've done it with apples and cinnamon and recently with orange zest and chocolate chips.
Chcolate, hazelnut and raspberry torte. SO good, so pretty and gluten free!
This apple and cinnamon pull-apart bread was fantastic, this pesto bread was ok but not spectacular.
Films
I'm up to 56 films already this year so I won't mention them all, just some of the new releases in the cinema and some of the older ones that I'd recommend. The rest are all on my website.
I had a day of cinema last Monday and went to see Godzilla (a very poor story, script and casting in the main roles that left me bored and unengaged), X-Men: Days of Future Past (excellent cast, sparky script, solid story and entertaining action, thank heavens Bryan Singer is back!) and Kaze Tachinu/The Wind Rises (beautiful story, gorgeous animation, interesting look at engineering, tiresome love story, but too long). Other recent cinema trips covered The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (an entertaining mess), Muppets Most Wanted (very disappointing, completely lacking the soul of the most recent Muppets) and The Lego Movie (bonkersly entertaining if you let yourself just go with it). Also I didn't manage to catch one of the limited showings of Veronica Mars but I did rent it and absolutely adored it.
I had a bit of an X-Men blitz, partly in preparation for seeing the new film, but I actually only saw half of them before the new one. It did remind me of how good X-Men 1 and 2 are, how less good Last Stand and Origins: Wolverine were and how frustrating the poor supporting cast on First Class was compared to Fassbender and McAvoy (and indeed the original series). I'm also having a bit of a Disney year, re-watching many of the classics. Thus far I've love The AristoCats, been ambivalent about Bambi and very disappointed by Fantasia 2000.
Other films of note, I really enjoyed The Broken Circle Breakdown, The Croods, The Selfish Giant, August; Osage County and The Way Way Back. On the flip side La Grande Bellezza (The Great Beauty) was pretensious gibberish and I don't care what the critics say.
Reading
After reading a truly pathetic 10 books last year, I decided to commit to another reading challenge, targeting 50 pages per day. Unfortunately, April was a terrible month and pretty much blew that goal out the window, so I reduced it to 40 pages per day at which point, following a 'good' month in May, I'm back on track. May was helped out by the 1100 page, immensely readable Blackout and All Clear two volume epic by Connie Willis, unfortunately though despite how easy and entertaining it was to read I still found it hugely disappointing and extremely frustrating. There's a longer review at my website, but basically it was far far too long and relied upon stupid characters and cheap tricks to keep the pages turning.
Other recent reads include Redshirts by John Scalzi and Nine Goblins by T. Kingfisher, both very clever, elegant and entertaining. I also greatly enjoyed Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and David Attenborough's utterly charming autobiography Life on Air, he'd definitely be at my dream dinner party!
Other disappointments include Cory Doctorow's Pirate Cinema (a one sided political rant undermined by the absence of an opposing argument), Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson (inferior in every way to Ready Player One) and Hawkeye by Matt Fraction, great characters and story, but reminded me of exactly why I don't read more graphic novels. Oh, and Seventeen Equations that Changed the World by Ian Stewart should be avoided unless you have a maths degree or deep seated insomnia.
Television
I continue to try and post twice a week at Narrative Devices, although it often ends up being slightly less, but I did recently pass the 500 posts mark. I selflessly watched through all the pilots and read all the press releases as the US channels announced their schedules for next year, very little got me excited to be honest, Ascension on Syfy has got actual spaceships, Gotham on Fox has got great material to work with, The Leftovers on HBO looks impressive but depressing, The Strain on FX is by Guillermo del Torro which is enough for me, iZombie on The CW could be fun, Madam Secretary on CBS could be a heavenly blend of The Good Wife and The West Wing and How to Get Away with Murder on ABC may be Shonda Rhimes addictiveness.
A few other reviews:
The Blacklist: Season 1 – James Spader is absolutely fantastic, everything else is a bit meh.
The Smoke Season 1 – doesn't know whether it's gritty firefighting or love triangle soap opera. Either would be fine, both is a mess.
The Muskateers: Season 1 – very uncertain tone, felt like a 6pm on a Saturday show awkwardly transplanted to 9pm on a Sunday
The Walking Dead: Season 4 – not the strongest season, some less than outstanding characters/storylines but also some phenomenal moments. Still one of the best shows on television.
Other things I'm watching and enjoying at the moment – Almost Human, Happy Valley, The Good Wife (omg SO good!), SHIELD (greatly improved, I'm still a few behind) and Mr Sloane.
Gaming
I lost a month to compulsively playing Lego Marvel Superheroes until I'd got absolutely all the achievements (the first game I've done that for!) and was thoroughly entertained the whole time. I was trudging through Thief on the Xbox 360 until I finally decided I just wasn't enjoying it. I was playing a non-murderous non-detected method and was finding it epically slow and frustrating. I seemed to spend far more time sneaking back and forth the same alleyways between missions then actually doing any thieving. Also I was endlessly irritated by his haphazard ability to jump 20 foot gaps and then be flummoxed by knee high crates. I may start a new game with a more bloodthirsty approach, but for now I've given up. I switched briefly to Formula 1 2010 because I picked it up for a quid pre-owned but gave up quickly when it gave me no tutorial and then just told me off for driving into people.
I've just started Batman Arkham Origins, which thus far is entertaining, but I've only been playing for an hour. I'm also hopelessly addicted to Hay Day and Jelly Splash on my phone, but I have at least given up Candy Crush on level 350odd.
