Internet highlights – w/c 1st January 2023

7 01 2023
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Internet highlights – f/c 18th December 2022

31 12 2022
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A Christmas Cornucopia – by Mark Forsyth

29 12 2022

Absolutely brilliant! My brother got me this for Christmas and it goes through the history and reasons behind so many things about our traditions at Christmas. From carols, to boxing day, to the life story of Santa Claus (who is a different person to Father Christmas), there was SO much to interest! I had to stop myself reading out every other paragraph to anyone who’d listen!

It even dispels the urban myth that Santa didn’t wear red and white until Coca Cola got involved. In fact it rubbishes various theories you often hear about many things, including why we celebrate on 25th December. I even learnt about why we shouldn’t ever be singing the words or tune we currently do for Hark the Herald, which made me sad.

I won’t spoil any more of it for you, but the tone is very light-hearted, and at only about 150 pages, it’s a lovely little read for this time of year – highly recommended!





A Boy Called Christmas – by Matt Haig

24 12 2022

Last Christmas my parents got me the trilogy of Matt Haig’s children’s Christmas books. This is the first (although I believe they’re separate stories anyway), so once December came around it seemed a sensible time to read it!

It’s a Father Christmas origin story; Nikolas lives in Finland with his father, who is sent off on a mission to find the elves in the north. When he doesn’t return, Nikolas decides to see if he can go and find him, and the adventure begins from there. He meets a reindeer who he names Blitzen, who helps him on his way, he has his father old red and white hat – you can see the hints of where it’s going the whole way through.

It’s message is “an impossibility is just a possibility you don’t understand”, which isn’t really my way of thinking, but for a story about Father Christmas, of course it’s lovely.

And then the film version of it is on TV this afternoon, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they did with it!





Internet highlights – w/c 11th December 2022

17 12 2022
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Internet highlights – w/c 4th December 2022

10 12 2022
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Friday Five Favourite – Christmas Adverts 2022 – the runners up

9 12 2022

Last week you had my winners this year, hear are those who didn’t quite make it!

Disney – The Gift

Marks & Spencer – Fairy and Duckie

McDonalds – The List

Argos – They’re coming, be ready

Lidl – Lidl Bear





Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, The Original Screenplay – by J.K. Rowling

5 12 2022

I picked this up in a charity shop last month. I haven’t yet seen the film, but have been considering a Harry Potter re-read at some point having not read them in years, this seemed like a fun way to head in that direction!

It’s certainly a quick read, not a lot of text on each page so you fly through. There are plenty of stage directions, but not a lot of description which is what often slows me down!

This is set in New York City, so it’s fun to hear a bit about the American equivalents of Hogwarts, and the Ministry of Magic – didn’t really think about that side of things before!

I did struggle to keep track of who some of the characters were, and what some of the beasts were, I wonder if this is because there aren’t introductions in the same way, because they’d rely on you seeing their faces on screen really.

There were good characters, fun moments, and plenty of drama and suspense too.

I hadn’t really been keen to see the film before as I couldn’t be bothered to learn a whole new set of characters, but I think I’d like to give it a go now!





Internet highlights – w/c 27th November 2022

3 12 2022
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Friday Five Favourite – Christmas Adverts 2022

2 12 2022

Here we go again! Here are my five favourite Christmas adverts this year – feels like a pretty strong showing this time around. Runners up will come next week.

Asda – Have you Elf a Merry Christmas

Tesco – A Christmas Party Broadcast

Aldi – Feast of Football

Aldi – Home Alone (finishes the story)

John Lewis – The Beginner

O2 – The Snowgran