Chindie

I'd kill for a FF9 remake...To this day my favourite Final Fantasy.

I'll listen to anything Sam Beam does, and Ben Bridwell is from Band of Horses who I love. So shocker, this album of covers is a cracker.

The Cosgrove Hall adaptation of the BFG is one of the staples of my childhood, to the extent that David Jason basically is the BFG in my head. This is Spielbergs take, with Mark Rylance playing the eponymous character. When I first heard about this I was terrified they'd **** it up, but I'm cautiously optimistic on the basis of the above. It's not set in America for a start. The BFG and Good Omens are 2 stories that just wouldn't work if translated to a US setting. We've won on the first, if ever the second ever gets adapted we can but pray...

Might be one of my albums of the year. Guilty pleasure music, Calexico, when they're on form they're fantastic.

Strangely I thought the 4th series of Arrow was an immediate and immense improvement on series 3. Which was shit. The only problem so far appears to be they've spent half the episodes setting up the other series they're spinning out of it, Legends if Tomorrow. Oh and they had Constantine turn up for a cameo, which just reminds you that MAtt Ryan is bloody good as Constantine, and they **** it up so we'll never see him do a proper show again . But besides that it's been a decent series to date. Decent series villain, hamming it up at every opportunity, as opposed to some no mark barely on screen playing Ra's al Ghul, and some nice action sequences. The Flash is... up in the air this series. They've doubled down on 'comic-ness', going full Earth-2, but the series formula is showing up badly, and having another Speedster as a villain is disappointing, even if he seems genuinely threatening. The formula becomes really irritating when you notice it. And it's staring you straight in the face that they are going to do some 'crazy' twist with the villain.

Well she is a rabid right wing civil liberty infringing power hungry bitch so Trump is probably uttering the words she'd love to say. We already know you disagree. And I don't think anyone will change their stance. So the discussion isn't worth the effort for a moment of humour.

The best Rush song I've ever heard was performed by Metallica. They covered Astronomy on their Garage Inc. album.

Donald Trump is only interested in what's good for Donald Trump. He's simply spouting nonsense that sells to his audience dependant on where he is, and whatever keeps him in the headlines.

Lasan is very nice. It feels slightly odd to be having curry style food that isn't in the traditional format but it surprises you and is gorgeous. Saying that the last time I was in there I managed to order the only thing on the menu seemingly that actually was a traditional curry. Just an absolutely jaw droppingly good one.

Simpsons in Edgbaston is always spectacular. I've never really heard anyone talk about it but the everything about it is exceptional. The food is never less than stunning.

Sky are on record saying they believe they can make more money from subscriptions. Your Sky service WILL become more expensive. Their UHD offering is being pegged as a premium top premium level service which will also have an appropriate price increase, which is also clearly the road Virgin will go down following their recent survey. UHD's future is interesting. It has the problem of becoming ubiquitous. It needs a lot of content, and it needs to be good value, and it needs to clear up standards and features in the shape of HDR. At the moment the cost for a good set is slightly too high, and there isn't enough content readily available. BT Sport, YouTube. some of Netflix and a bit of Amazon Prime don't sell sets to the man on the Clapham Omnibus. We have a lot of new tech just starting to become more widely available at the moment. OLED, UHD, HDR... Of those, I think you can only back OLED to become a significant player in the near future, simply because you can plug it in and its telly that does everything you want a telly to do. Hopefully 4K does take off though, as, in combination with HDR particularly, it brings great picture quality. It needs to be taken advantage of though, and that means more content from the places the average Joe uses, and for a reasonable cost.

Inside Out is a children's film that's not for children. All the ideas (which aren't groundbreaking and, as above shows, have been in a popular British comic for decades) are for the adults watching, and the framework of the film that most kids are going to take away from it is pretty lacklustre, which also makes it ask rather unsatisfying for the adults as well. It's a 'nice' movie, but Pixar at their best make films that are spectacular for all their audience.

Making it episodic let's them nickel and dime it to the nth degree. Given that this is about the holiest of holy cows Square has, there's not really any surprise they're going to milk it dry. Expect it to be DLC'd out of its arse as well.

Heat is a masterpiece.

Cui bono? Why does the Californian police force benefit from killing 2 'innocent' Muslims when there's 3 evil white guys who like killing the disabled and their carers running around? Why does a garage filled with weapons being separate to the property that owns it add any doubt to the identity of the perpetrator? And so on and so on and so on... I don't think this Facebook post adds a damn thing to any debate, besides the shocking revelation that in shocking and sensational situations, media and police sources get things wrong, as do witnesses. Oh and that most journalists have no sense of decorum or procedure when it comes to getting some kind of scoop.

You might be surprised. I doubt you'd like his music, but you can get a good idea when you take into account that he was basically the replacement for Axl Rose when all the other Guns n Roses members decided to make another band, Velvet Revolver. Largely because he's a very similar presence, just minutes a lot of the ego and extravagance. https://youtu.be/BKz2U4fvA4U He was a very good rock front man. Unfortunately fell down the rabbit hole of heroin and coke. He stopped being able to really perform so kept getting dumped by bands, and looks like he relapsed terribly this year after being things together for a while.

I walked in to Game the other day, for the first time in ages. I used to work for the company (though thankfully in a Gamestation, which wasn't quite as bad) and immediately could see the company hasn't changed. £60 for a controller, 'cos it's Christmas. Latest big release at as close to full retail price as possible, making it at least a tenner more than literally anywhere else, 'cos its Christmas. I'm astonished they've managed to survive.

Not finished it myself quite yet, probably will tonight, but I think it's been a strong but very different show to Daredevil. At the moment I'd have Daredevil just ahead, but Jessica Jones is still very good. I don't know yet how it ends obviously but, given how prominent Luke has been, and how Jessica's story on the page goes, it makes sense to meld then together in a sequel. It raises a small problem in that Luke's closest ally is always the Iron Fist, as Heroes for Hire, so having Luke in with Jessica might mess up any ambition to go down that route. Iron Fist was rumoured to be causing Marvel and Netflix problems as its the only one of the series so far they've not got any cast or crew sorted on and they really should be nearly filming it. But Marvel have said there's no problems and things will be announced shortly. We'll see I guess. That's a very, very, very difficult show to cast and produce successfully IMO. The team up series that follows is the Defenders, traditionally a fairly odd bunch of characters that don't really work as a team necessarily fighting bizarre supernatural enemies. Basically a low key weird Avengers team.

Rodney Marsh was arguing it should be in the top 3 goal the other day... I can assume he's not watched the other goals. It's not fit to hold a candle against any of the others, at all. If that goal is scored in... Stoke's game this weekend, for arguments sake, the only debate would be how much of a howler the goalkeeper had. Absolutely stupid.

I saw the Lady in the Van last night. Surprisingly funny, an exceptionally good Maggie Smith performance, and quite touching. It's pretty good.

Virgin Media have sent round a survey tonight to customers that very, very obviously tells you what they're thinking of with the future of their services, notably 4k and streaming. The survey asks a little about your services before basically asking you to gauge interest in a series of features before asking how much you would be prepared to pay for a theoretical set top box with this feature set. Basically, they photocopied the Sky Q feature list and added on a couple of bits nobody will care about. It also looks like they want to charge a fortune for it. They also seem to gave either a second, lower spec box in mind, or want to see if people really care about the showy features of the premium product and could get away with a new non-4k product with some modern bells and whistles (streaming, mostly)... The whole thing is so specific I wouldn't be surprised to see an announcement in q1 2016...

I genuinely thought Weiland was already dead. Combination of famously being an addict and never hearing anything about him after Velvet Revolver binned him just made me assume he'd popped his clogs. Great front man but the drugs took their hold and that's tainted his career and now, no doubt, taken his life.

LeelooDallasmultipass!

Even Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man so Tory you could probably read the party history embedded through him like a stick of rock, in a moment where he was unusually likeable for a fleeting second, said of Corbyn on HIGNFY recently that it was admirable that he was a politician with principles that he stuck to. Can't really disagree. It makes him anachronistically old fashioned though, in today's politics, which further won't win him favours because you need to malleable and slippery to succeed now.

Corbyn will be knifed. There are too many influential figures in the party that fundamentally hate the man, it will come to a head and he'll be deposed. At the moment it seems to me that they're simply biding their time for a convenient matter that will cloak the knives when they strike. That's why any talk of Labour being unelectable under him is a bit ambitious. It's exceptionally unlikely he'll stand in an General Election as leader, there's not a chance they won't be rid inside 5 years. I think Corbyn somewhat knows it too, his aim seems largely to drive the party Left before being booted with the hope some of it sticks.