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And which country are you king of, again?

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Continuing my trip up Empire's top 20 TV shows of 2025 #3 :   Alien: Earth 2025 has very much been the year for rejuvenating beloved (but long in the tooth) IPs. Tony Gilroy worked his magic on Star Wars, Dan Trachtenberg put Predator firmly back on the hunt, but only Noah Hawley could have pulled off a reinvigoration of all things Alien with this perfectly crafted prequel series. After all, who else would have thought to filter Giger’s biomechanical horror through a Peter Pan fable meditating on the nature of self, while simultaneously introducing a menagerie of other extra-terrestrials somehow just as horrifying as the Xenomorph itself? The MVP of this show is doubtless The Eye (Eyelene to her friends), and the malevolent sheep it takes up residence in, but while there are monstrous new pieces on the board, the alien itself also gets a new lease of life, a deepening of its lore (they speak?) and a near perfect fifth episode (‘In Space, No One…’) that so perfectly captures the aes...
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So today, I whisper tears

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Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 02/10/26 : Put A Smile On For Me - Keo  Our first ever mention for Keo and I've never heard of them - I initially thought they would be R&B, but then realised I was thinking of Ne-yo, so I had no idea what to expect from this. But I really quite liked it - it's the sort of indie-rock I'd have loved back in the 90s and whilst I rarely listen to it now, if I catch this sort of thing at a festival I love the throwback feeling I get from it. Think Nirvana and Pearl Jam with hints of Radiohead (and it's a very Smashing Pumpkins album cover) - it's all well put together and I'm pleased they've succeeded with it. Because succeeded they have, being a new entry at #2 in the charts this week. And who's kept them off the top? Only Taylor Fucking Swift with her bajillionth rejig of The Life Of A Showgirl - there should be a law against such things. She's also at #1 in the singles chart and let me t...
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She sings songs for the lost and the lonely

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Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts. 06/12/81 : Pearls - Elkie Brooks There's a strong argument that this should be ignored because it's both a covers and a best-of album, but I think it was successful enough to be included as culturally significant - I like "Pearl's A Singer" but I'm expecting to find the rest of it a bit "meh". Well, I still like "Pearl's A Singer" (although it was less energetic than I remembered) and I quite liked her version of Chris Rea's "Fool If You Think It's Over", but the rest of it was very "meh" indeed. I suspect Elkie has some quite interesting stuff in her back catalogue, but it was all very definitely exorcised from this collection - it was firmly located in the middle of the road.  We're at #5 in the charts this week on her fifth week of a 79 week run, with it peaking at #2 in its fourteenth and fifteenth weeks, kept off the top by Barbra Streisand, whic...
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The problem is not Tourette's, the problem is that people don't know enough about Tourette's.

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Continuing my trip up Empire's   top 20 films of 2025 #9 :     I Swear Easily the most heartwarming film to prominently feature the phrase “Spunk for milk” you’ll see this – or indeed any – other year. Kirk Jones’ I Swear tells the true story of Scotsman John Davidson and his experiences both growing up with and advocating for those living with Tourette’s syndrome – and for all the hardship he experiences, the film is, in a word, lovely. Robert Aramayo is on extraordinary form here as Davidson, managing not only to nail the physical and vocal characteristics of the real John, but also the emotional depths and impish humour of the man. It’s an inspired performance, perfectly befitting of a truly inspirational person and, ultimately, a truly inspirational film. This is another one I've heard good things about (and it obviously got a bit of not such great publicity after the BAFTA awards) - I'm not sure if I'd have watched it or not. But here goes... Ah yes, I can tell I d...
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Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

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Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts. 13/12/81 : Prince Charming - Adam & The Ants I really like their main singles, but I've never listened to a single A&TA album - I think my concern is that the quality of the non-singles somewhat  tails off, but I guess we'll see. Well, "Stand And Deliver" and the title track stand out a mile in comparison to the other tracks on this album - they both have a strong theme and rhythms and hang together well. Everything else (including "Ant Rap" which was also a single) is just a mess, with weird instruments, sounds and beats thrown into the mix with no obvious aim or attention to detail. All in all, it's a most peculiar album which I imagine resulted in quite a bit of head-scratching from those that purchased it.  We're at #5 in the charts this week on their sixth week of a 21 week run, with it having peaked at #2 for its first three weeks - it spent the first ten weeks in the top five, so I...
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I guess it's just what I must do

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Continuing my trip back through the 1981 album charts. 20/12/81 : Dare - The  Human League Our first visit with The Human League and this is considered by many to be a seminal album of the 80s electro-pop era, which is an era I'm pretty familar with - and so, I've obviously never listened to it. I wouldn't say I've actively avoided it, but "Don't You Want Me" was somewhat ubiquitous for far longer than strictly necessary and, whilst I didn't mind it, I didn't love it and I just never felt the need to check out any more of the album than the other singles I heard. You'd still think I should have caught it at some point in the intervening 45 years though... Yeah, I didn't mind this at all - it's of its time, but it also hasn't really dated. It's interesting to remember that THL came out of Heaven 17 because you can hear those roots in there, but Phil Oakey et al have just popped things up a bit and they've done it pretty well....
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Great marshalling, Angela!

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Something new! 03/10/26 : Holywell King George V Playing Fields  Back in the olden days, I used to get up at 8:30am on a Saturday, pop over to the local park to do parkrun and be back home by 10. But then my eldest got involved and she discovered the joy of the app and the challenges therein - and things got a bit more complicated! In my first 100 parkruns, I attended four different events but in the 15 since, for a variety of reasons, I've attended six further ones. And it's been a whole load of fun and interesting to see how different events are organised - which I'm obviously going to forget unless I take some notes. So here we are! Today's trip was a 15.7 km journey taking us to  the twelfth closest event to us which  is the "other Watford" parkrun (the main one is a BIG one, which we'll be covering later) - and, as you might guess, it's in the King George V playing fields in the Holywell area. The reason for this particular trip was to allow Emily...
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