It’s not easy moving to another country, I only moved from Glasgow to Weymouth when I left home after university and it was a huge culture shock. It took me a while to get used to my new home. Even now, 15 years on, England is still a bit of a foreign country…
Archives for March 2015
Top Ten: Book to Film Adaptations
27 March 2015 by Leave a Comment
You know I love films and I love books, so it kind of follows that I love films based on books. Sometimes the adaptations are quite poor and disappointing (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), much less often they improve on the source material (anything based on a Tom Clancy book) but just sometimes a great book leads to a great film…
I Was A Male War Bride
26 March 2015 by 2 Comments
The easiest question in the world for me to answer is “Who is your favourite actor?” From the age of about six or seven the answer has been the same – Cary Grant. There are others I admire – James Stewart runs Grant a close second, Tom Hanks is always impressive…
I Let You Go
25 March 2015 by 4 Comments
The other day I reviewed Clare Donoghue’s brilliant crime novel No Place to Die and declared it to be my favourite book of the year so far. It really was, until the very next book I read. Clare Mackintosh’s amazing I Let You Go is not just my favourite book of this year (so far) but one of the best I’ve read in a very long time…
No Place to Die
23 March 2015 by Leave a Comment
What’s your worst fear? I’m terrified of flying (or at least I’m terrified of not flying), for other people it’s heights, crowds or snakes. One fear I would expect to see come high on the lists of most popular phobias is that of being buried alive. It’s a horrible thought, the darkness…
Top Ten: Feel-Good Films
20 March 2015 by Leave a Comment
Today is the United Nations International Day of Happiness. So go on, smile. If the UN says we’ve to be happy, then we’re damn well going to be happy. Here are 10 films that are guaranteed to bring a smile to my face and make me feel happy…
August: Osage County
18 March 2015 by Leave a Comment
There’s a very specific kind of acting that I can’t stand. It’s over the top, it’s shouty, it’s showy, it’s very much aimed at getting awards. I refer to it as ACTING with all capital letters, when you speak about it you slip into a loud, plummy accent. ACTING darling, ACTING…
The Abrupt Physics of Dying
16 March 2015 by Leave a Comment
It’s often said “Don’t judge a book by its cover” but let’s be honest, we all do it don’t we? If a cover doesn’t draw our attention then it’s unlikely that we will pick up the book, scan the blurb and read the front page. For some people a pastel cover with shiny text screams “chick lit” and they’ll avoid at all costs…
The Boy In The Book
14 March 2015 by Leave a Comment
I am a child of the 80s. We made our own fun back then – none of this X-box, Snapchat or Facebook malarkey. We had our own imaginations to keep us going. If that makes me sound like an old gimmer then fair enough, I probably am. Unsurprisingly = most of my fun came from reading and for a time in the mid-80s I was fascinated by the “Choose your own adventure” stories…
Maleficent
13 March 2015 by Leave a Comment
A rape analogy, a depiction of insanity brought by the relentless pursuit of power and the message that familial love is more powerful than teen romance. Not exactly what I was expecting from a Disney retelling of one of its own beloved stories but that’s exactly what I got from Maleficent, the live-action version of Sleeping Beauty…