On the plus side I guessed 18 out of 24 right, and two of the ones I didn't get right went to my preferred choice anyway. On the other hand two of the ones I got wrong were two of the biggest - best film and best actor. Best film I was rather disappointed with that it went to Birdman because I really didn't think it was that outstanding and ( Read more... )

Every year I try to watch as many Oscar nominees as possible so that I can guess the winners and get on my high horse about who should have won. This year there are a total of 121 nominations across 24 categories and 60 films, or 42 feature length films if you exclude the shorts and films only nominated for a song. I only saw 18 of those films, ( Read more... )

144 films this year, which is a total I'm pretty chuffed with given that I've had to suffer the horror of actually being employed most of the year. The 187 of 2013 was only thanks to a few months of unemployment which is great for the film lists and mental health if not the bank balance ( Read more... )

41 books this year! a massive improvement on last year's utterly embarrassing 10, but a little behind the previous year's count of 49. All of the books were new to me, although there's a number of things I want to re-read it always feels a more pressing task to read new things ( Read more... )

( Read more... )

This is my second visit to London Zoo this year and I wouldn't usually return so frequently, but the lure of tiger cubs was too strong. The cubs were very obliging and were out playing and one even suffered the indignity of a thorough washing from mum. Frustratingly the visitors to the zoo were slightly less obliging and I did spend a fair amount ( Read more... )

August, a month I largely remember as being depressingly grey and miserable. I once again find myself between jobs (or 'practising for retirement' as someone described it. My contract came to an end at Espresso Education after almost a year, which given I was only supposed to be there 2 months, isn't bad going! So I'm having a bit of a break and ( Read more... )

For once I've had a relatively busy month! Aided by having the last week and a half off work I've done a bit of a tour of the southern counties visiting the Whitfield's and their increasingly adorable offspring in Cambridge (twice actually) and the Moore clan in Wiltshire. Both visits involved cream teas and sitting in the sunshine, which I ( Read more... )

I was asked to do a wedding cake for my housemate's sister. This was a little daunting as although we've met a few times it felt a little more like a job than a favour for a friend as was true with the last time I helped on a wedding cake. The below account includes some of the stuff I learnt which will hopefully be of use if I ever have to do this ( Read more... )

( Read more... )