Video Game: Thank Goodness You’re Here. Bizarre, surreal, and very funny. As a Northerner, I’m offended.

A good cup of tea. Can’t be beat.

Series: The Afterparty (Apple TV). A comic whodunnit, with each episode showing the incident from a different character’s perspective and in a different cinematic style. Animation. Musical. Heist. Jane Austen. Hitchcock. Found footage. Wes Anderson. Film noir. Detective. Romcom.
It’s great fun.

Some more recent simple pleasures:

Game: MapTap maptap.gg
A bit like the round “Where Is Kazakhstan” in House Of Games - but you get fascinating facts about each location. It’s just nice.

Hey America. Might be time to think about putting Racist Grandpa in a home. He’s getting all war-crimey again.

In Gorton and Denton, 706 people voted for the Conservative Party. 700 out of about 37,000 votes.

That doesn’t seem like a lot.

(R-L) Me, my son (the act-y child) and the actual Bryan Cranston off of Malcolm In The Middle. Don't think he's done much else...

I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS

Actually, I'll probably text ahead first to make sure you're in and then find a mutually convenient excuse to cancel that makes neither of us feel too guilty but instead relieved that we don't have to socialise.

Can we please have more ministers calling out twats who noisily espouse “British values” but quietly avoid paying tax here.

Looks like I picked the wrong month to start Dry January

Series: The Studio (Apple TV).

Properly funny. And the cameos. Oh, boy the cameos.

Silliness: the Harry Hill Show Podscarf (YouTube/Spotify).

Off-the-wall ridiculousness, but they seem to be enjoying themselves and that makes it infectious.

The theatre stage set up with a row of football lockers, with England shirts hung to simulate the England football changing room.

Play: Dear England (theatres).

A paean to the best England manager of my lifetime. Not perfect, but very very good.(Intelligent theatre critic voice: Hmmm. Bit like the play’s subject. Hmmm. 🤔)

Series: Slow Horses (Apple TV).

Yes, I’m late to the party. Yes, I only recently got Apple TV. But it’s great.

Film: The Ballad Of Wallis Island.

Lovely, cosy, warm, beautiful.

A Not-In-Any-Particular-Order List Of things Wot I Have Enjoyed So Far In 2026 That I Am Sharing Here In Case You Might Enjoy Them Too (an irregularly-updated thread):

I’m all good, given y’know (gesticulates wildly) everything - hope you are too!

I’ve started listening to news podcasts a week late because it reminds me of happier, more peaceful times.

Donald Trump MUST be a man of peace. He's got TWO peace prizes.

No, never mind how he got them.

Bang on. I very much enjoy #TheTraitors, but the soundtrack is like the people behind the John Lewis Christmas adverts have joined forces with the people behind the music on Homes Under The Hammer.

You know that Christmas movie, “The Santa Clause”, where overnight Tim Allen gets fat and his hair and beard turn white?
Well the same thing is happening to me, but over a much longer time period.

Baritone sheep doing limbo?

That's a low baa.

From off of the top of my cranium
You probably need some uranium
Then do something clever
Like bang it together
But trying that would be insanium

I’m disappointed that my local Waitrose no longer stocks the particular Tiptree marmalade I like and I’m not sure I have ever typed a more middle-class post.

My favourite Simpsons sequence is the one where Sideshow Bob keeps stepping on rakes. And no matter how many times he gets smacked in the face, he keeps on doing it.

Anyway. I see Prince Andrew has been doing his own reputation management again.

Back from work y’day to discover Mrs N out with the dog, & a roast-in-the-bag chicken in the oven, along with spuds, veg, etc.
Perfect.
Except it wasn’t a roast-in-the-bag chicken. It was a chicken. In its plastic wrapping.
Rather than roasting a chicken, she’d shrink-wrapped it.
We had a takeaway.

I'm not saying my local TV news is shit, but the top story this morning is "man who put up 300 England flags in his village says he's almost certainly not a racist".

This feels like a @larryandpaul.bsky.social bit.

What a lovely story.

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like farts in the wind.

Yeah, ok, sure. I’ll grant you, the rain simile is *slightly* more poetic.

Where better to be on the evening of the 9th day of the 9th month than watching the Inside No 9 live show - Stage/Fright.

Like the telly show: clever, fun and brilliant manipulation of audience expectations. They’re just very good at this.

Wait. 9/9/2025. And 2+0+2+5 is…

Last day of the group stages of the Women’s #RugbyWorldCup. And some fool has trusted me to look after the match ball. Feels like a MASSIVE error of judgement.

Done it. And somehow managed to do it in under an hour. I’m basically an athlete. Who knew?

Yes, my legs will feel like they are on fire for most of next week. But I did it for a great cause.

Please help make my intense discomfort worthwhile: www.justgiving.com/page/p10pete...