Long Time No Blog

Oops I've already slipped into bad habits of not blogging. To be fair it is of course the busiest time of the year, just before Christmas I came down with a nice bout of Laryngitis which meant I had a rotten time at my works Christmas party. I managed to stay for the three course dinner but after that I had to be picked up and went straight home to bed.

Soon after that Christmas was already upon us. My office is open all the days between the bank holidays but I decided to take them off for some lazy time. This turned out to be a great idea because the 90 minute Homeland season finale was on the night before Christmas Eve. The first hour was dull and nothing happened but I feel that lulled the audience into a false sense of security and then BOOM! (Quite literally.) This has raised some questions for the next series but I'm mostly looking forward to Saul becoming head of the CIA and Carrie basically mirroring the first series but this time she needs to prove Brody's innocence.

Christmas is a bit of a weird one in my house because my mum and sister had to work so we didn't have the traditional dinner or presents until Boxing Day. The morning of Boxing Day I headed to the sales, I wasn't really all that impressed, I was in town first thing and then annoyed that Lush & Cath Kidston didn't open until 11am. I did manage to get a nice half price purse & cushion from Ollie & Nic and I went to Primark but only bought a few non sale items. I also got myself a decent TomTom sat nav so I need to go on a road trip somewhere and the day after I picked up a good few bargains at the George (Asda) sale. I'm more of a giver than a receiver when it comes to presents so I enjoyed watching everyone open what I got them, particularly my younger sister when she realised I got her a ticket to see her favourite singer Rihanna. I have to admit I'm really looking forward to seeing her too and now don't have to worry about accidentally mentioning it, phew!

This afternoon I went to see Pitch Perfect at the cinema. I hate the delay in movies we get here, this film is already out on DVD in the US but only just release over here. It's the same with all the Americans who have already got to see Les Mis and we have to wait until the 11th, I really can't wait to see that! Anyway back to Pitch Perfect, the plot centres around a cappella group college competition, yes basically a more grown up Glee. I enjoyed the film and the musicals geek in me loved all the performance numbers. I think Fat Amy is my spirit animal and I spent the whole film thinking "I'm sure that guy (who plays Jesse) is familiar" and then it turned out to be Skylar Astin from OBC Spring Awakening. If you like a good modern musical number and some comedy then I definitely recommend this film.

It's almost time for New Years Eve. I'm not up to anything myself, does anyone else have any plans? How about plans for the new year? I've booked myself some theatre tickets so there'll be posts on those and I also plan to take part in the 365 project so maybe posts on that too.

Round up

It's that time of the year again when U.S. TV likes to take an irritating mid season break, well I don't know if it's always this time of the year, it just so happens two of my shows are affected so now I'll write about it.

First up I watched Revenge which has taken so many twists and turns now that I feel permanently dizzy but there's something about it that means I just can't stop watching. We've been left with Daniel successfully overtaking Grayson Global meaning the Initiative are now moving in on him, Jack has finally realised the Ryan brothers are bad news and an old flame from Nolan's past could possibly blow Emily's cover. At least we don't have long to wait to find out what bizarre twist the writers will throw at us next.

Unlike The Walking Dead, which is a brilliant, brilliant TV series. Seriously if you're not watching it then you need to question what you're doing with your life. I think I'd be going on forever if I wrote what has just happened in the last episode so my absolute favourite bit would have to be Michonne's fight with the Governor. I was hoping she'd chop his head off with her awesome sword or maybe just kill him once, wait for him to come back as a zombie and enjoy killing him again but unfortunately Andrea had to show up to ruin things. This of course led to him turning on Merle and I somehow missed in all the smoke and gunshots that they managed to capture Daryl. He's probably my favourite character and I'm now going to sulk until February when we find out what happens there.

In recent theatre news, Whatsonstage.com have announced their annual theatre award nominations. Any time any kind of nominations are released it reminds me I never get round to watching enough film, theatre etc. I guess it makes it easy in a way that I've only seen one nominee in each category. To view the nominations and vote click here.

I was going to also write my view on the latest Homeland and Misfits but this post is getting a little long now. So finally in book news, I got sent a copy of The Fault in our Stars by John Green, which I've seen so many quotes and rave reviews over on Tumblr so I'm looking forward to getting into it myself. I got sent it by Spinebreakers who are running a competition to #passiton, basically the person who has passed their copy onto the most people will win £500 worth of books to share which is pretty much my idea of heaven so hopefully my friends will help me out with this. Fingers crossed!