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The Tour According to G: My Journey to the Yellow Jersey by Geraint Thomas
For many people, Geraint Thomas was the surprise of last year’s Tour de France. He had gone into the race as joint leader with Chris Froome with Team Sky. Having spent years as a loyal lieutenant, he’d be a protected rider. While Froome had triumphed in the Giro d’Italia earlier in the year, to become…
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One Way Ticket: Nine Lives on Two Wheels by Jonathan Vaughters
As the Tour de France is underway – as I write, they’re on the first rest day – I thought I’d catch up on a few cycling books, both new and ones I’ve been sitting on for a few weeks/months/years. First up is One Way Ticket: Nine Lives on Two Wheels by Jonathan Vaughters. Vaughters…
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Champagne Superova: Sport and TV
Sunday was an incredible day for sport. Personally, I spent quite a lot of time flicking between ITV4 and Eurosport’s coverage of Stage 9 of the Tour de France, with South Africa’s Daryl Impey winning from a breakaway on France’s national day. But I was also watching quite a lot of cricket – especially early…
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Tour de France 2019 – Brussels Grand Depart
Sometime during Glastonbury (a blog still to come), I suddenly realised that it had been far too long since I’d been to see the Tour de France in person. 2015 was the last time I’d been there, when I’d taken my bike to the Pyrenees to both watch the race and do a little cycling.…
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Then She Vanishes by Claire Douglas
A mystery about secrets and families set in the West Country. It seems like an open and shut case. Heather has been seen walking into a house and killing a man and his mother, before attempting to take her own life. Now she lies in a coma. Jess was once Heather’s best friend although something…
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RIP Flixster
At the start of this year I noted that buying a digital movie or TV series in the UK was an absolute mess. You can buy movies or TV series from a number of sites including: iTunes, Google Play Movies, Amazon, Sky Store and Rakuten. But if you buy something in one of those places,…
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Podcast Day 2019
This week I attended the third annual Podcast Day organised by the Radiodays Europe team. I attended the first conference a couple of years ago in Copenhagen, but this year’s event was on an altogether bigger scale. The event in King’s Place, London, was sold out. I presented a pithy session entitled “The State of…
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Hire Bikes and Hire E-Bikes in London
There are now at least four major public bike hire schemes across London. There is the original TfL run Santander Cycles (aka Boris Bikes) using docking stations, the Chinese-owned dockless bike system Mobike, the electric-assist Lime bikes, and now the electric-assist Uber Jump bikes which launched this week in London. There was also Ofo, another…
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Conviction by Denise Mina
Anna is living a double life; a true crime podcast is exploring the sinking of a luxury yacht. How are these two things linked? That’s the set-up for the superb new crime thriller from Denise Mina. Anna is having a bad day. Her husband is about to run away with her best friend, taking her…
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The Biggest TV Show in the World
A question. What is the biggest TV show in the world? That’s a good question. And, despite the image I’ve put at the top of this piece, I don’t think the answer is Game of Thrones, the series that has just aired its last episode (Don’t worry – no spoilers here). But what does the…
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Walking to Aldebaran
This is the first work I’ve read by the Arthur C Clarke winning Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s a novella told in the first person about a trip to explore a strange alien artefact that has been detected from Earth. A motley bunch of crew members, chosen largely along political lines, has been chosen to explore this…
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RAJAR Q1 2019
This post is brought to you in association with RALF from DP Software and Services. I’ve used RALF for the many years, and it’s my favourite RAJAR analysis tool. So I am delighted that I continue to be able to bring you this RAJAR analysis in association with RALF. For more details on the product,…
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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