At The Trough by Adam Knight [Book Review]
At the Trough by Adam Knight My rating: 4 of 5 stars I was offered an ARC of At The Trough. It took a bit of getting into, partly because At The Trough swaps between several point of view characters, one per chapter. So it took 2-3 chapters for each character to properly hook me into the story. Once I'd got there it kept me up until 2am on a work night! At the Trough At The Trough is a very dystopian near future, a warning of what could happen if the super-rich managed to take control of education. The scenario is close enough to reality that you can see a plausible join into the present. It's a plausible, if very dark, future. This is part of what made it compelling to me. At the Trough is like Fahrenheit 451…
Farewell Facebook
Just a short note for the record that I've now deleted my Facebook account. I've not logged in regularly for a couple of years. My blog has been auto-linked to it, and many of the blog posts shared via Facebook when I've published them. Facebook's Usefulness I've missed some bits of Facebook. It's a great communications medium with my family, especially as I don't live near any of them. I've also missed some of the social groups, although my wife still uses Facebook, so I get some of the highlights second hand. Facebook's Failure That said the reason I stopped logging in regularly was because there was a lot more noise than signal. It was also clear that I didn't share values or understanding of the political situation with many of those that appeared on my timeline. Mostly they were…
Dad’s Guide to Styling A Daughter’s Hair
I'm pretty rubbish at styling my daughter's hair, but since I mostly do the morning school runs I need to be able to. If Lucy is lucky she gets a pony tail or bunches. So my wife decided to book me on a quick hair styling course with Lucy was run by the very nice Beth Finch, at Warlingham Park School. Beth, and the other mums with daughters, were very friendly and encouraging. I certainly learnt a fair amount about how to do my daughter's are some of the things that I learnt, partly so that I will remember, and partly I case they help anyone else style their daughter's hair. Tips for Styling Your Daughter's Hair Here are some general tips that I picked up that will help me style my daughter's hair. Put a teaspoon of conditioner in…
Horrible Histories the Movie – Rotten Romans [Review]
The pre-preview Q&A before Horrible Histories the Movie (photo: James Kemp) I went to see Horrible Histories the Movie with my children Lucy and Alexander on Sunday morning at the BFI riverside. They had a preview screening of Horrible Histories the Movie as a combo of their monthly kids shows and also as part of the London Comedy Film Festival (LoCo). Ahead of the screening we had a short Q&A with Caroline Norris (producer & writer), Sarah Hadland and Sebastian Croft (Atti). Horrible Histories the Movie The subtitle to Horrible Histories the Movie is Rotten Romans because the core story is the interaction between Orla (a young celt, played by Amelia Jones) and Atti (a young Roman, played by Sebastian Croft). This story is set in the backdrop of Boudica's revolt against the Romans, see the synopsis below for non-spoilered…
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman [Review]
Michael Sheen and David Tennant as the stars of Good Omens (image: Amazon) I recently watched the Amazon Prime show Good Omens and then went back and re-read my ancient paperback copy from about 1991. I've missed Terry Pratchett, but I've been fortunate enough to see Neil Gaiman a couple of times recently, and I've got some of his books signed. Although Neil would probably be the first to remark than perhaps the unsigned ones are Good Omens on TV As a long time fan of a book, I've read Good Omens several times, I always worry about film and TV adaptions. However I had no worries about this one as Neil Gaiman was directly involved as a producer. I had a lot of confidence because it isn't his first opera. American Gods has been spectacularly faithful to the book,…