Ellie Goulding – “Brightest Blue” (2020) Review. 4/5

I had enjoyed Ellie Goulding’s first few albums, but only as a casual fan, as I found that despite the pop ballads that had drawn me to her, that wasn’t her usual sound. On the albums, she has been more of a pop-dance singer, with the music too often overpowering the vocals and with a far too often generic sound that didn’t make her stand out. Unfortunately, these albums had made her stand out with the tabloid press, with tabloid media intrusion exacerbating an anxiety disorder that resulted in a long gaps between albums, until “Brightest Blue” was eventually released.

Appropriately, the album begins with “Start”, which opens with what sounds like a crowd noise, before segueing into a combination of piano ballad and club song. It’s a down tempo song, with a piano acting as musical backing for the most part and it allows the vocal to shine, which has happened too infrequently on Goulding’s work. There are a few production effects and added vocals to give the song a dance and r ‘n’ b feel, which takes a little away from the overall song, but it’s a decent opening.

There’s a gentle synth-pop opening to “Power”, which quickly adds a dance-pop beat that buries the vocals a little. It’s a harmless enough tune, but as it has a mid-tempo beat and a musical backing that often comes in over the vocals, it’s not one that ever really makes a mark, even with the chorus having an anthemic feel and standing slightly proud of the rest of the song. Like much of the work from Goulding’s earlier albums, it’s not one that makes her stand out as separate from many other pop-dance artists.

That’s the case again with “How Deep Is Too Deep”, although the beats here are a little darker and choppier, with made me think of Pentatonix in the early stages. When the vocals are allowed to shine, it’s a better track, as Goulding’s voice is a very good one, but they tend to be overpowered by the music on the chorus and there is too much intrusive production work and vocal and musical effects to allow this to happen as often as I would have liked.

“Cyan” is more of an interlude than a track, coming in at less than a minute. It’s a spoken word moment over a beat, but the voice is so over burdened with vocal effects, it’s not clear who the performer is. This leads into “Love I’m Given”, which has a choppy beat that reminds me a little of early Destiny’s Child, which doesn’t entirely suit Goulding’s sweet vocal, but there is another anthemic pop chorus that certainly does. The two parts don’t quite mesh together seamlessly, but this is a track that has its highlights, which can’t be said for some of the others.

There is a return of the piano ballad for “New Heights”, although the vocal has a fairly generic pop ballad sound, lacking the slightly accented delivery that makes Goulding’s vocal so distinctive. It’s a perfectly performed and note perfect rendition of a song that without the one elements that could have made this an Ellie Goulding song, could be anyone’s pop ballad, which is a shame, even as well-constructed as this is.

After seemingly losing her distinctiveness on the previous song, “Ode To Myself” seems an ironic choice of track next up. It opens with a guitar, which is also unusual, although the folk-pop ballad feel does again allow the vocal to lead the performance, which is something I’ve long felt Goulding should do more of and whilst this a short song at under 2 minutes, it is a beautiful moment.

The piano opening to “Woman” made me wonder briefly if this would be a John Lennon cover, but it is clearly an original song. The pauses in the vocal delivery seem to speak uncertainty, but it becomes stronger and more determined as it goes and the vocal sounds more like Goulding than the last couple of tracks. Everything about this track is gorgeous, with the vocal taking the lead over a gentle musical backing and it’s a moment you can let yourself get lost in.

After such a beautiful ballad, the heavily produced opening to “Tides” is not entirely welcome. This is a choppy, pop-dance song that relies more on effects and beats to be impressive than the vocals on the previous track. Even allowing for this not being my favourite style of music, this feels far too busy, as if everything that was stripped away to make the previous track so beautiful has been thrown at this one to make up for it and it feels as if there is too much going on here. This is followed by another interlude in “Wine Drunk”, which is clearly Goulding this time, but a synthesised version and this adds nothing to the album, even if it does sit beside the previous track fairly well with the over-production.

There is another rare guitar-based song in “Bleach” and it sounds like a female version of an Ed Sheeran song in overall sound, although the vocal effects and beats that come into the background take that comparison away a little. They also mean the song doesn’t have quite the same simple beauty as “Woman”, but it is another song that largely allows Goulding’s vocal to take charge for the most part, which is always a good thing.

That continues into “Flux”, which switches the guitar for a piano, but retains the down-tempo pop ballad feel. Indeed, there are moments here where Goulding does more with her vocal than I recall hearing over the course of all her albums. I’ve always loved her voice and on this song, as on “Woman”, it has been allowed to be the star of the show and this is one of the closest original songs I’ve heard from her that matches the simple beauty of the pop-ballad covers that first brought her to my attention.

The album ends on the title track, “Brightest Blue”, which opens with a brief Gospel-influenced moment, but then becomes a down-tempo r ‘n’ b sounding track. Again, there are a lot of beats and effects that get in the way of the vocal and although it has the vibe of wind-down time at a club, it’s not something I enjoy listening to in isolation, particularly when the vocals are again buried.

“Brightest Blue” is the most varied album that Goulding as released, with more piano ballads and occasional guitar-led pop songs in amongst the more generic pop-dance tracks. This means that across the 13 tracks and 42 minutes of music here, we get to hear more of her lush and beautiful vocals and less of the beats over the top, which is something I’ve been hoping for since her earliest work. There are some moments that don’t work and I can’t quite figure out the point of the interludes, but this is the strongest of her releases so far, in what it allows her to show.

Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Beef Bourguignon Ready Meal Review. 4/5

I do tend to hold on tightly to my food preferences on the rare occasion I get to choose a ready meal when my wife is away. But on one particular occasion, Sainsbury’s were offering bonus Nectar points when you purchased from their premium Taste the Difference range. Offers are often the one thing that will shake me out of deep-rooted preferences and so I was tempted out of my restricted circle of options and decided to try their Beef Bourguignon ready meal.

As with many from the Taste the Difference ready meal ranges, the meal comes in a plastic tray with two parts. One contains the beef bourguignon, which comes in a Merlot gravy and has whole mushrooms and tiny silverskin onions. The other has a potato gratin which has cream and garlic for taste. As this is a frozen meal, neither side looks terribly appealing before it’s been cooked, as the gravy and cream sauces have sunk and don’t look sufficient to coat the beef and potatoes.

Depending on how you do it, preparation can take some time, as oven cooking takes 40 minutes from frozen. It can be heated from frozen in the microwave in 9 minutes, with stirring required part way through either method, but that is itself quite a long time for a microwave ready meal. Once cooked and assuming it has been stirred as planned, there does look to be an adequate amount of the sauces for the contents, although as with any ready meal, it’s not the most attractive of meals.

That said, it does everything it promises in terms of taste, as you can certainly taste the red wine in the beef gravy and although there is a little more of the gravy than it needs and it’s quite a thin gravy, it’s full of taste. The beef isn’t entirely of the best quality, but that may be down to the requirement to reheat it and the mushrooms and onions are a little sparse, but tasty. The same is the case for the garlic cream sauce in the potatoes, which doesn’t thicken up a huge amount, but which does offer a decent coating to the potatoes which, after so long being heated and cooked, do become a little dry and crumbly.

As ready meals go, you can tell that there has been some effort put into making this one worthy of the premium branding. Although the sauces are very thin and the portion size is incredibly limited, with the whole meal only coming in at 363 calories, it does taste richer and more filling than it ultimately is. I didn’t come to the end thinking I had eaten a filling meal, but I did at least feel that I had eaten something tasty and that’s not a bad place for a ready meal to leave you.

Y Promenâd parkrun, Aberhonddu Review. 5/5

The last couple of years have seen a massive increase in the number of parkruns in the United Kingdom starting with the letter “Y”. But it was in Wales where they had a highest concentration, with two separate parkuns going by the same name of Y Promenâd parkrun started within weeks of each other. The one on the coast, being second, had the town name attached, but being based in the South West of England, it was the first one, occasionally known as Y Promenâd, Aberhonddu, that was closest for me to reach.

Although it is held in the city of Brecon, like much of Wales it can be a fair journey from many places, although as Brecon sits at the conjunction of the A40 and the A470, it’s reachable by major roads, which isn’t always the case in Wales, but toilet stops need to be planned. There is a sizeable car park at Brecon Boathouse where the parkrun is held, although being a popular destination for tourists of both the parkrun and holiday kinds, this can fill up quickly. But as a tourist town, there are plenty of car parks not far away, all of them walkable to the start.

This is equally the case for other facilities, as there are chargeable toilets on part of the course, which haven’t been done up for some time and so don’t take card payments, but public toilets and open venues can be found in the main town, although you need to allow plenty of extra time for that. Equally, this means there are plenty of places to go for coffee afterwards, with no one particular place chosen by the parkrun for that purpose.

The course itself is very interesting, starting on a wide section of public path at the highest point overlooking the River Usk, immediately heading down to meet the river and then running an out and back section entirely on path. You then return up the hill to plunge down again to the boathouse and run alongside the river for a section before a wide loop of a couple of grass fields and a tight turn and narrow path back up to the start, which you then repeat. The grass section may require hybrid shoes if it’s been wet, but underfoot conditions are generally good and suitable for road shoes.

The hazards are mostly a couple of tight turns and some very narrow sections where you have to be aware of runners coming from all directions, as on any lapped course there is the possibility of overtaking other runners as well as being overtaken, although they do have marshals at the key points to warn of the tight sections and turns. With the section along the river being publicly accessible for boating, you need to be very aware of non-participants trying to get to their own activities as well, especially as they may not be going in the same direction of travel.

What makes this Y Promenâd well worth a visit, aside from the alphabet letter, is the view. Brecon overlooks Bannau Brycheiniog National Park, which means that on a clear day, you can see Pen Y Fan in the distance, although locals mentioned that this is a relatively rare occurrence I was lucky to be blessed with on the day of my visit, as it is far more often shrouded in cloud. But even if you can’t see this, the River Usk offers plenty to look at and the town itself is worth spending time in and I know people who have spent the weekend hiking Pen Y Fan after a parkrun, meaning that this is a location with many reasons to parkrun, but even more reasons to spend some time.

“Almost Fameless” Podcast Review. 4/5

Although I don’t tend to be all that interested in pop culture and celebrity news, I had come to enjoy the podcasts hosted by Brooke Siffrinn and Aricia Skidmore-Williams. I may not have understood much of what they were talking about, but I enjoyed the banter and the easy relationship they had and their pop culture take on historical figures in their “Even the Royals” podcast was a refreshing new take. I was a little disappointed when their daily podcast “Rich and Daily”, became “Rich and Weekly” but their deeper dive into the lives of the rich and famous in “Even the Rich” was good fun, as they didn’t tend to fawn over celebrities the way many can.

When Amazon, who had taken over the Wondery podcast group in 2020 decided to shut the Wondery studios and absorb their podcast production into other areas of the business in the Summer of 2025, all of these podcasts suddenly ceased. For those who supported and preferred video content created by celebrities, this had no impact, but I lost many of the podcasts I particularly enjoyed. Some found new homes in their previous format, but it took a little longer for Brooke and Aricia to adjust to operating on their own and so they were absent for a little longer.

Fortunately, you can’t keep the pair down and “Almost Fameless” came to pass in September 2025. This is a much longer podcast than they tended to produce, with episodes produced weekly and running between 38 and 62 minutes, but most often falling into the 45 to 55-minute range. IN format, this is closest to their “Rich and Weekly” podcast, in that they discuss recent celebrity news, focussing on a few stories in a reasonable amount of detail, with narrative and comment, before covering a few others in quick snippets.

The format has evolved as it has gone, with earlier episodes containing more personal stories and throwback elements which were later moved aside to be part of their paywalled content, as any good podcast has. There are also some quality issues in both writing and on the technical side and it’s very obvious, especially in the early episodes, that they had gone from being supported by a team to being independent.

Fortunately, one of the things that made Brooke and Aricia’s podcasts as much fun as they were and made me listen to something well outside my normal areas of interest is that the pair are obviously great friends and the way they bounce off each other is always enjoyable and often hilarious. Every episode feels like you’re listening to a couple of friends in discussion, even more so then when they were part of the Wondery collective and although they aren’t quite as relaxed and likely to break into random songs or go off on strange tangents, it has the same heart.

My wife thinks it’s hilarious that I would listen to a podcast about celebrity culture, as that’s something I have little interest in. She’s not wrong, but it is the hosts and their interaction more than the subject matter that kept me listening to their previous podcasts and has meant I followed them to “Almost Fameless”. Generally, I learn a lot of each episode, as with my personal interests there is a lot here I don’t know and whilst I don’t really care all that much, Brooke and Aricia are entertaining enough to keep me listening and learning more about modern celebrity culture than I could from any other source.

“Bullet Train” (2022) Review (Film Only). 4/5

We saw the trailers for “Bullet Train” at the cinema and it immediately appealed, but somehow the film never quite made it to the top of our list, as there was always something else we would rather have been watching. This meant that we ended up watching the director’s next film on the big screen before we got around to seeing this one on a smaller screen.

In the film, an assassin codenamed Ladybug is about to jump on a bullet train in Tokyo, having been tasked by his handler to get hold of a suitcase that someone on the train is carrying, due to the initial operator having called in sick. Feeling that he is suffering from a run of bad luck, Ladybug is reluctant, but it persuaded, but it seems that he is not the only one on the train having a bad day. The two men transporting the suitcase are also accompanying a son home to his father, but he doesn’t survive the journey and another father is seeking the person who has left his own son in critical condition in the hospital.

As the journey goes on, it seems that everyone on the train is an assassin and many of them have crossed paths either in the past, or their current job puts them at odds with some of the others. This means you have a train full of people who are either trying to kill each other, or desperately trying to stay alive. As the train rushes towards its destination, it soon becomes clear that none of them is acting entirely of their own volition, no matter what they thought they were doing and it’s going to take a monumental effort to get off the train alive at any of the stops, much less the end of the line.

Ultimately, “Bullet Train” is a ridiculous film that has so many connections and links between the characters that it is hard to follow. This mean that the sooner you give up on trying to make sense of anything and just settle back and enjoy it, the better the experience you are going to have. The film actually does a remarkable job of not leaving any threads hanging at the end, but a huge amount of suspension of belief is required to get there and sitting back and enjoying the moment is by far the best way of approaching this film.

Seeing it now, as an action-comedy film, it is hard to believe that the original director, Antoine Fuqua, had planned it as a serious film, as he has done with “The Equalizer” franchise. Apparently, the more the film got developed, the more light-hearted it became and I cannot bear to think how bad this film could have been had it taken itself too seriously. It would only have worked as a film in that respect with a much smaller cast, which then would have removed a lot of the plot and intrigue and probably resulted in the removal of some of the tiny little humorous nods, with the water bottle being a personal favourite moment and taken some of the style away from the whole thing.

For the whole thing is very visually stylish, from the cartoon carriage through to the extreme violence, where the blood flows so freely it occasionally feels like “Kill Bill” with humour. Some of the major set pieces are a little overdone, particularly the very ending of the film, but when the action is confined by the limits of the train, it finds its place a lot easier. The bullet trains are very long, which allows for a huge number of carriages and toilets, as well as a dining car and cabins, so even within a train, there is plenty of scope for all the characters to cross paths, as well as weapons, with each other.

In terms of the acting talent, there’s nothing here to write home about, but they all seem to be playing their roles with relish. Ladybug played by Brad Pitt has the major role and whilst you never really feel his anxiety, he does an acceptable job, far overshadowed by Andrew Koji as the Father and Hiroyuki Sanada as the Elder, who had a far more emotional story and by Joey King as the Prince, who used faked emotions to get her own way. Perhaps the most fun were Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Tangerine and Brian Tyree Henry as his twin brother, Lemon, with his “Thomas the Tank Engine” obsession, whose London accents and quick delivery remind me of a Guy Ritchie film.

“Bullet Train” is a film meant to be enjoyed, as it’s packed with action, humour and amusing little references that occasionally relate to other things in the film and often have references elsewhere. There are plenty of delightful little touches, from a couple of cameos to several Japanese versions of popular songs that means the soundtrack just adds to the fun of the whole experience. It is not a film without issues, as it’s a little overly complicated in the story and doesn’t have nearly enough Japanese characters given where the film is set, but it is wildly, stylishly entertaining and if you can switch off your brain, it’s wonderfully mindless entertainment.

Maggie O’Farrell – “Hamnet” (2020) Review. 3/5

This review was originally published at Goodreads on 18/08/2025

It’s not often that podcasts unrelated to reading recommend a book, but when it was released, the Reduced Shakespeare Company were very supportive of Maggie O’Farrell’s “Hamnet”. Although it was never going to be as funny as their work, the Reduced Shakespeare Company are very credible scholars of all things Shakespeare, not just the comedy related ones, so a recommendation from them is not to be taken lightly.

In Stratford-Upon-Avon in the late 1500s, a boy named Hamnet was born, as the first half of twins, giving his parents three children. At the time, they are living in a couple of rooms attached to the home of John and Mary, the child’s grandparents. Life is not harmonious, as John is not highly thought of around town due to previous business dealings and neither family approved of the marriage, or the bringing of a farm girl like Agnes into town. Just before Hamnet and Judith are born, William moves to London without them to expand his father’s glove-making business, but instead makes his fortune by other means and misses most of Hamnet’s life and death and leaves them again to grieve alone afterwards.

“Hamnet” is a novel that verges between the sublime and the ridiculous, as despite the identity of the child’s father being heralded in book blurb and basic setting as William Shakespeare, he is never named in the text. Indeed, thanks to his short life, albeit with a long impact as his name is thought to live on in the title of the play “Hamlet”, this is actually more a novel about his mother. If you take the book on from this perspective, it’s a fairly well-observed novel about a woman being taken away from the life she knows and is comfortable, if not entirely happy in, and being placed somewhere she can’t initially feel at home. It’s a story about the grief of losing a parent, losing your identity, losing a child and losing yourself, all the while dealing with an indifferent husband, a family who actively dislike you and surrounded by those who talk about you, but rarely to you.

This would be enough for a decent novel, if it were well written, but it’s horribly overdone and there are passages which would have benefitted from some brevity. In many cases, it’s a novel that enhances my belief that novels that win prizes are often good writing, but not necessarily a good story. In the case of “Hamnet”, the actual writing is often flowery and unnecessary, not entirely unlike one of Shakespeare’s plays and whilst it’s a decent novel from an emotional perspective as it observes grief so well, it’s also not well-paced and doesn’t read well and it’s very hard going in places, not because of the emotions, but because of the writing. This is true even when it stays on topic, but there are some strange interludes, like the journey of the plague to Stratford-Upon-Avon, which are unexpected and mostly unwelcome.

Strangely, after going through all this, the novel ended quite well and there were some moments towards the end where the pace was better. It’s possibly not a coincidence that at the points where Hamnet’s father was being allowed to be William Shakespeare, instead of needing to dance around his identity, the novel was at its best. But whilst there was much to enjoy in “Hamnet”, with the basic idea and the emotional core being fantastic, it feels that the idea was not properly fleshed out. There was a decent short story or novella in here somewhere, but stretching it out into a novel required too much overwriting and diversions for me to ever be entirely comfortable reading it, no matter what the people who award the prizes say.

“Don’t Talk To Me About Life”

This song, predictably, was originally sparked by Marvin, the android in Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. Unlike “Shylock Blues”, this was only ever conceived as a single song rather than one of the acts in a longer form musical based on the franchise, although should I ever feel inspired to write more, I will consider it to be missing something until there is a song either titled, or containing the lyric “I’m Phil, do you want to see my spaceship” (if you know, you know).

You send me here and there
I’ll do your every whim
You ask me things about me
But do you even care?
You’re only checking in
To see what I can do
My worth is based entirely
On what I do for you

You don’t care about me
When I’m not present
All of my feelings
You don’t find relevant
But I know everything
That’s going on with you
I know your goings on
Though I don’t care to

Don’t wanna hear about it
Don’t wanna talk about it
I just can’t live without it
Hey, don’t talk to me about life

What is there left to do
Except for all you ask
I’m too intelligent
To complete all these menial tasks
But that is all you have
Finding and fetching
Things I could do when powered down
Nothing that’s stretching

I’ve got this massive pain
All down my left-hand side
You’re not bothered
As I can lift things with my right
But I hear all about
The things you drank and ate
I’m waiting for spare parts
As your cells all regenerate

Don’t wanna hear about it
Don’t wanna talk about it
I just can’t live without it
Hey, don’t talk to me about life

So Marvin this and that
Oh Marvin, sweep the floor
I’m not programmed for all this
I could give you so much more
But you can never see
The complete picture
I’m just a bunch of parts
Nothing more than a fixture

You never try to engage
In conversational gambits
How can you talk to me
When my brain is like a planet
You don’t pretend to care
And you don’t even try
You don’t talk about life
Or at least not about mine

Don’t wanna hear about it
Don’t wanna talk about it
I just can’t live without it
Babe, don’t talk to me about life

Thunder – “Live at the Brooklyn Bowl” (2014) Review. 4/5

Whereas Thunder’s “Live at RAK Studio 1” was a sanitised studio version of a live recording, featuring songs that were planned for the, at that stage upcoming “Wonder Days” album and cover versions for the intended live tour, “Live at the Brooklyn Bowl” was a proper live show. As it happened, there wouldn’t be much support for the album due to health issues in the band, which is reflected in the change of personnel here, so this was one of relatively few actual live shows and was much more in keeping with the setlist you would expect to see at a Thunder show.

This is immediately proved by the opening track, “Backstreet Symphony”, which is greeted with the enthusiasm you would expect for a 25-year-old classic track, both from the start and when Danny asks the crowd to sing along. As you would expect from a live show, the mix is a little fuzzy and the balance between music and vocals isn’t quite right, although I’ve heard far worse than this on live recordings elsewhere.

A bit of classic banter between Danny and the crowd opens “The Thing I Want”, which was a new track at the time. The crowd response is a little less obvious for a new song they won’t have heard before, but despite sounding a little like “The Life of Riley” in parts, it’s an up-tempo pop-rock track in Thunder style and you can hear a little of the receptions it’s getting as the song progresses and at the end and the mix is a little better this time around, if still a touch quiet and fuzzy.

Having seen the reaction and being here for the new songs, there is a bit of encouragement for the crowd before leading into “Black Water”. The crowd may not know the song, but they know Thunder and Danny’s banter has remained largely unchanged for years, so they know how to respond and what is expected of them. Although it doesn’t get the same response in the room, the mix is evening out and this is the best sounding song so far, as the darker tones to the music seem to suit the mix a little better.

In the opening to the previous track, Danny promised that we would get to some old songs and “Low Life in High Places” is definitely one of those and is greeted like an old friend and is performed by the crowd as much as it is the band. Both the band and the crowd come through nicely in the mix and this is a very clear recording, which is ideal for this song, as it’s ended the same way at live shows for many years and allows the crowd to be fully involved as well as to have some decent banter.

There’s an Andy Fraser cover up next, but “Be Good To Yourself” could have been a Thunder song or, going back even further, one of Terraplane’s. The jaunty blues groove fits perfectly with both Danny’s vocals and the band’s ethos, but the lack of recognition in the song is clear by a relatively muted crowd reaction at the end and the fuzzy mix which affects both music and vocals means the song isn’t as enjoyable on this recording as it should be given how good a song it is.

Next up is another song the crowd don’t recognise, with the title track to the upcoming “Wonder Days” album following straight behind. I remember this one as marking a slightly darker shift in Thunder’s sound and there’s another slightly muted reaction at the end of the song, which might have as much to do with a lack of recognition as an opinion.

There’s more familiarity with “The Devil Made Me Do It” and you can spot the recognition from the reaction to the earliest guitar notes. The sound takes some of the edge off the music and the backing vocals in particular here, but not from the enthusiasm. This is a song that has a call and response section that has been popular for years and it’s strange to feel that the crowd vocals come through slightly more clearly than the band in that section.

Another new song follows in “Resurrection Day”, although the muted cheers to the early guitar notes suggest a couple of people thought it was something else. Fortunately, the crowd is engaged enough that they will join in when asked to, even if they aren’t able to sing along to the whole song the way they have done on earlier tracks.

“Stand Up” is a longstanding favourite and it’s a song that has showcased the humour that often appears in Thunder’s lyrics more than anything else. It’s got a slightly rougher guitar tone in the main riff, so the slight muddiness in the mix isn’t quite as apparent, but when you get to the end of the song, the enjoyment that had been had in the crowd certainly was.

There’s not quite as much enthusiasm when “The Rocker” is announce as a Thin Lizzy cover and I didn’t feel from the studio version that this was an entirely fitting song for Thunder. It sounds a little better in the live version, which was probably the intended venue for the song anyway, but it’s still a little rough and choppy compared to Thunder’s usual smooth blues-rock style, but fortunately they just play the song through and move on fairly quickly.

The crowd reaction that greeted the opening bars of “Love Walked In” was the quickest and biggest so far, as you would expect for a song that had been part of the setlist for a quarter of a century. It feels that the entire room was singing the opening verse, as is usual at a Thunder show. Being an acoustic guitar for the opening verse, the balance of music and vocals seems a little off and even the electric guitar doesn’t quite feel quite right in the mix, but the crowd are in great voice throughout.

The crowd don’t need to be any more excited after that song, but Danny does a great job of working them up ahead of “Dirty Love”, which again is usual for a Thunder show. The balance in the mix has switched around a bit, as the music and Danny’s microphone are far higher in the mix than the crowd. This is a very long version of the song, but no-one has any objections to that, either in the band, in the crowd or listening in for the memories of so many great Thunder shows, with the only difference being the name of the guitarist being introduced.

After the fake ending, a cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Up Around the Bend” is first up for the encore and this is much more in keeping with Thunder’s sound than “The Rocker” was. Thanks to the recognisable guitar line, it gets a slightly better reaction than most of the other cover versions, although the clarity of the guitar notes in both the original and the studio version are lost a little in the sound quality of a live recording.

The album comes to an end on “Just Another Suicide”, which is recognised quite early on and is a perfect song to jump around to at the end of the show, although not the most obvious to sing along to. This time around it is the backing vocals which are treated particularly harshly in the mix, which is a shame as this is one of the songs where they have a bigger role than most.

There are 14 tracks and 80 minutes of classic Thunder banter and music in here and the only disappointments are what you always get with live shows and live recordings, in that the sound quality isn’t great and there are only room for a certain number of your favourite songs on the set list. This does have the slight advantage over the “Live at RAK Studio 1” album in that there is a lot more of the live energy and crowd banter than have always marked Thunder’s stage songs and it’s clearly a Thunder crowd, which makes it better than some recordings from larger shows and although some of the songs don’t quite hit either through choices or sound, this is a recording that brings back some memories, particularly as the next live show may be a while away.

TreatTastic Vanilla Cream Wafer Cubes Review. 2/5

I’m not the biggest fan of wafer-based snacks, but I am the biggest fan of trying things that I haven’t had before. This resulted in a bit of an internal discussion when I first spotted the TreatTastic range of Wafer Cubes appear on a shelf at the back of my local shop. But when something like this happens, it’s usually curiosity that comes out ahead of disgust, especially where there are several variations of a snack in a range and so it happened again here with the vanilla cream flavour being the first I tried.

Opening the packet gives you a very strong aroma of vanilla, albeit the cheap and artificially sweetened version of vanilla that come in many similarly flavoured sweet treats. The cubes themselves are technically not cubs, being around an inch square across the top, but only around 2/3 of an inch in height. Generally speaking, each cube is made up of 6 layers of wafer, each around 3 millimetres thick, with a thin layering of cream between.

The cream, although minimal in quantity, does a lot of the lifting, as the wafer adds more in texture than it does in flavour. This means that the wafer cubes quickly become sickly, although they didn’t have the drying effect on the mouth that I expected and it was the sweetness that proved to the limiting part of the eating experience and not the dryness. It’s the latter that normally keeps me away from wafers, as they add little to flavour and the texture is rarely more interesting than it is dry.

This is a good thing, as for something so small and insubstantial, each cube has 16 calories and a bag has roughly 86 cubes. For something that contains little in the way of flavour beyond a cloying, vaguely vanilla and no variation in texture throughout, it’s a snack that isn’t interesting enough to be worth the calories.

“Cruel Intentions: The ’90s Musical (2025 Tour)” Review. 4/5

I have never seen the film “Cruel Intentions”, although I do recall when it came out, but I was a little out of target audience at the time.  In much the same way, I was not a huge fan of 90s music, as many of my musical tastes had been made and settled in the decade prior to that.  My wife, on the other hand, is nearly a decade younger than I am and was familiar with both, so when the tour happened to coincide with a weekend in a city with a bigger theatre and better programming than ours, she jumped at the opportunity to go and see it.

Following the plot of the film it was based on (and the film that was based on, and the book that was based on, etc, etc), “Cruel Intentions: The ‘90s Musical” is the story of rich, spoiled, step-siblings Sebastian Valmont and Kathryn Merteuil.  Having recently been dumped by Court Reynolds, Kathryn asks Sebastian to seduce his new girlfriend, the sweet and innocent Cecile.  Sebastian sees this as being too easy and decides to double the challenge by also deciding to seduce Anette Hargrove, the daughter of their new headmaster, who is not only saving herself for someone special, but has been warned about him.  Sebastian puts his car on the line in the wager between them, whilst Kathryn offers the prize Sebastian most wants, herself.

As with the original film, this is a story of sexual conquests, a loss of innocence and emotional and physical manipulation.  Virtually everyone is involved in a relationship in some form, either in one, wishing they were in one, trying to be in one, or trying to break one up.  It means much of the script is sexually charged, either directly or obliquely and this is definitely not a show for the prudish.  Even the most reluctant of characters eventually become involved in the intrigue in some fashion and every part of the show from the song lyrics and their delivery to the costumes, which are generally short skirts and low-cut tops, has a sexual frisson that cannot be avoided.

It is the songs that drive the show, although they are largely subservient to the plot, which means they don’t always fit seamlessly, and some have been changed to fit in ways they were never intended to.  Admittedly, the track listing has a wide-ranging selection that covers many of the most popular genres from the decade, from bubble-gum pop, to ska, to indie, to country rock to r ‘n’ b.  The first and last of these are most commonly used and there is a strong bias towards American acts, but the selection is such that even with my limited knowledge of 1990s music, I recognised most of the songs.  Of course, this wasn’t always a good thing when the tempo was changed, or the attitude of the song was forced to fit into a scene where it wouldn’t have worked otherwise.

Despite the forcing that the music was required, this didn’t cause any issues for the cast, although I suspect none of them were alive in the 1990s.  In Nic Myers and Will Callan as Kathryn and Sebastian, the casting directors have found people with a passing resemblance to Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Philippe, who played the roles in the film.  Both portray the arrogance of rich youth perfectly and whilst they both play manipulative far better than they do seductive, both have fantastic voices that occasionally overpower the emotional core of the songs they are singing. 

Abbie Budden as Annette was a little less strident, but as an intended conquest rather than a main player, her character demanded that and her voice matched the emotions a little better.  I was very much amused by Lucy Carter as Cecile, who was encouraged to overact as the girl on a voyage of sexual and emotional discovery, even in her songs, and rose to the occasion wonderfully.  Perhaps the only issue with the casting was Gabriella Williams as Cecile’s mother, as even with the most severe of costumes and suitable awkward demeanour with the younger generation, she was clearly far too young for the role and it looked wrong when she was on stage.

As with many such productions, the staging was simple, largely relying on entrances and exits and pieces of furniture being moved around by characters.  Indeed, a single loveseat covered about three different rooms and houses and back and side entrances to the stage were used liberally to keep the cast moving around, although the balcony felt a little underutilised and having the band up there was occasionally distracting and may have been the cause of this reduced usage otherwise.  Indeed, the only scenes that felt a little impacted relative to the film were the ones that had to take place outside, especially those away from the characters’ home turf, which generally happened quite late in the show.

Having seen a number of jukebox musicals, mostly set in my preferred musical era of the 1980s and finding that the plot is often controlled by the music rather than the other way around, I found “Cruel Intentions: The ‘90s Musical” to be quite refreshing.  The show had a strong plot that was able to stand alone and make the music subservient and, despite my love for 1980s music, I have to admit that the 1990s had a wider range of genres through the decade, which allowed for a wider range of song styles.  I’m a touch too old and prudish to have felt entirely comfortable with some of the plot and language, but there is no denying that the cast did a great job in the acting and singing stakes and whilst this wasn’t a flawless musical, it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and highly recommended for anyone who loves the film or ‘90s music.