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Is Spotify Really Bigger Than Apple Podcasts?
Two data points: A Morgan Stanley note for investors is reported to claim that Spotify is now the #1 podcast platform beating Apple. MIDiA Research publishes a blog based on their regularly published tracking report that says “Spotify AND Apple Lead Podcasts – It’s All Down to How You Measure It.” From these two reports…
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View From Waterloo Bridge
Taken just after sunset yesterday. A ten-second exposure, so the London Eye is turning and the “Starflyer” swing ride creates some nice lighting effects. Also nicely visible are a crescent moon and venus. Click through to Flickr for larger versions.
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Boxing Day Radio Times 2019
Nearly made it through everybody! Traditionally Boxing Day might have a really good drama, although both the main channels are showing (good) films instead. I’m not honestly sure that this year has been a bumper year for festive TV. There’s still Dracula to go of course, and ITV tends to keep its powder dry over…
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Christmas Day Radio Times 2019
Happy Christmas all! Here are my usual seasonal choices taken from the Radio Times. A particularly big day if you’re a Kylie fan it turns out. I realise we have Netflix (don’t waste your time with The Witcher), Amazon and iPlayer, but I suspect Strictly, Call the Midwives and Gavin & Stacey will be where…
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Christmas Eve Radio Times 2019
It’s that time of year again, when I dutifully annotate the pages of the Christmas Radio times, pretending that Netflix and Amazon Prime don’t really exist, and let you know my thoughts on what’s worth watching or listening to. This year the Radio Times was perfect bound for the first time – glued instead of…
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When Things Go Wrong: aka Thank Goodness for Amazon Drive
I have a NAS drive, and it holds all my worldly digital goods. That is, it has all my photos, videos, documents and other things. I still haven’t found a cost-effective off-site backup solution beyond the NAS drive, although I do need one. Something that I can back up, upwards of 6TB of data. Amazon…
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The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
This is a review of both Neil Gaiman’s novel, but also of the theatrical production that recently began at the National Theatre. The Ocean at the End of the Lane, published in 2013, is said to be the most autobiographical of Gaiman’s work. The plot starts in the present day as an unnamed man returns…
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The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley
The Hunting Party is very much a traditional whodunnit, but updated to 2019. The plot includes: A remote location with no way in or out A limited list of suspects A group of friends who on the surface all like one another, but that hides some seething resentment between some of them An appealing locale…
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Keep Him Close by Emily Koch
Two mothers: one with a dead son, and one with a son who has admitted to killing the other. Keep Him Close jumps back and forward between Alice and Indigo (as well as occasionally other characters), as they try to understand what happened on a night out in the city when Alice’s son Lou fell…
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Pattern Recognition
I have a confession to make. I’m way behind on William Gibson, despite him being one of my favourite writers. I was recently talking to a friend of mine about William Gibson and his 2003 novel Pattern Recognition. It was a book I loved, except… I hadn’t read it. Instead, I heard a Radio 4…
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Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
Starve Acre is a chilling little book – perfect to be read at this time of year, when the long dark nights are upon us. Starve Acre itself is the name of a house sitting somewhere in the wild Yorkshire moors, miles from anywhere. It’s not a farm, although the land does include a large…
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Blue Moon by Lee Child
I’ve never read any of Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels, and I felt it was about time to put that right. He’s one of the bestselling writers in the world, and although I’ve never read him, I’ve seen and heard him interviewed on multiple occasions. What little I know of Reacher comes from the two…
Podcasts, Radio, TV, Books, Cycling, Photography and More
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Yellowface/All The Lovers In The Night
Yellowface by R F Kuang I first came across R F Kuang with last year’s very enjoyable Babel, an alternate history of the British Empire told in a world where magic exists and is controlled by an elite group of individuals. Yellowface is very different, but no less enjoyable. It’s a book about books, and…
Hadrian’s Wall
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