Headphones and Notebooks

If there is one television show I always find myself drifting to for fun facts and entertainment, it’s Qi . In fact, I love the show so much that back in 2016 I was in the audience for an episode (the Series N episode ‘Next’, if anyone’s interested). But despite loving the show, I wasn’t anywhere near as familiar with the podcast No Such Thing As A Fish , run by some of the Qi researchers until last year. I had watched their show No Such Thing As The News , however, and eventually dove into the podcast once I started getting more into podcasts in general. The reason I’m telling you this is because I hold in my hands the book The Book of the Year 2019 , written by the fact-finding foursome behind the Fish podcast and News television show. It’s my first time picking up one of these books, even though they’ve been coming out for the last few years. And guys? I think I’m in love with it. What is there to say about this book, beyond its brilliance? The sheer number of facts con

I’ve already discussed here on the blog both the power of using creative outlets to inspire writing , and using visual aids to help plot or develop stories. But there is one thing I haven’t discussed, and that’s the humble notebook. You see, one of the best things you can do as a writer is to make sure you always have something to hand to jot your ideas down in. Of course, not everybody uses notebooks for their writing anymore, and often phones or tablets can be just as handy. But as long as you have something to get your idea down onto, it’s all good. The reason so many writers insist on having somewhere to write down your ideas, whether you’re on the go, in bed, or just pottering around the house, is because so often we forget really great ideas. We need to write them down, else they’ll vanish into the ether never to be remembered again. And that’s frustrating, incredibly so. I’m sure we’ve all experienced that feeling, when we know we should have written an idea down and

Angel #5 review The standout event of Angel issue five was, of course, the arrival of Charles Gunn. With Angel slowly assembling his Angel Investigations team (though we have yet to see if they’ll be called that in the comics universe), things are starting to gather steam a little. Just as with Fred, Gunn’s arrival teased a similar but slightly altered storyline to his onscreen counterpart. He’s been fighting vampires since he was a boy, having witnessed the death of a friend (possibly little sister Alonna, I couldn’t quite tell), and he’s grown up to be an adventurous social media celebrity. A little different to TV’s Gunn, but similar enough that it feels like a natural progression for the character. Similarly, this new 2019 Gunn is a lot more accepting of Angel’s vampire-ness than he had been onscreen. This slight change looks like it’s going to help speed things along in terms of Gunn becoming full-time support for Angel. The meeting between Fred and Gunn was good, bu

This past weekend marked the 20 th anniversary of Buffy spinoff Angel . And I figured now was as good a time as any to take a look at the show’s women. I’ll admit, I didn’t see Angel for the first time until earlier this year. Buffy was always one of those shows I was too young to watch when it first aired, and it had always been at the back of my mind as one I wanted to watch, but Angel somehow flew under my radar. I didn’t have much interest in Angel (David Boreanaz) outside of Buffy as a kid, and even as an adult I wasn’t feeling compelled to watch the spinoff. I ended up watching it mostly because I was intrigued to see how characters such as Wesley (Alexis Denisof) and Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) changed while on the spinoff, as well as keen to see some of the crossover episodes that happened. But when I finished watching all five seasons of the show, there were two things that struck me. Firstly, as much as everyone praises Angel for apparently being ‘darker’ and