Current Favourites

(Can you tell my concealer exploded over my make-up bag?)

So, I haven't done a favourites post in a couple of months, and after a bit of a iffy few weeks (in which I lost my debit card, lost my SD card and certain government actions made me want to cry) I thought it would be nice to put together a little list of things I've been enjoying.

Bourjois Air Matte Foundation

I'm forever on the hunt to find a foundation that I can put on and just feel really happy with. One of my real favourites is the L'Oreal Infallible Matte foundation, but I have to use it sparingly as it appears my skin is not quite as crazy about it. This new release from Bourjois has impressed me a fair bit though. Although it does run a tad yellow (like most of the brand's foundations) and is attracted to dryness; it lasts really well even on my oily skin and doesn't feel or look cakey which is something I always hate when my skin isn't feeling too great.

Benefit They're Real Lash Primer

I got this as a sample with Elle magazine, and I'll admit to being a little sceptical at first. The They're Real mascara doesn't really work on my lashes, it tends to flake and leave my eyes feeling really irritated. However, this primer is seriously amazing. It can be worn by itself as a brown natural mascara which still gives really good length or as a first layer under pretty much any mascara. I'm a bit obsessed with giving my lashes length so I really, really love this.

Yankee Candle in Fireside Treats
It's a candle that smells like marshmallows. What's not to adore. I know I should probably be burning Christmas scents, but I like to use them after Christmas to try and keep the season going.

London Spy

I'm so hoping that some of you watch this, so I can talk conspiracy theories with you but London Spy is a definite favourite. It’s a new BBC drama starring Ben Whishaw as Danny who has a chance encounter with investment banker Alex (Edward Holfcroft). Alex is awkward and this appears to be his first proper relationship and they fall in love. Until Alex ends up dead inside a trunk in a sex attic, leaving Danny reeling. When he learns that Alex, real name Alistair, was actually worked for MI6 he is convinced of foul play and sets about trying to find out what really happened. It’s written by Tom Rob Smith who is the author of Child 44, and thus far I have literally no idea what is going on but the acting is seriously fantastic (and it’s one of those shows where literally everyone pops up) and it’s excellently filmed. [Edit: I wrote this prior to watching the last episode, which was SUCH A DISAPPOINTMENT, let me know what you thought in the comments]

Master of None

This is Aziz Ansari of Parks & Rec fame’s very own series streaming on Netflix. It’s the story of Dev, an actor in New York as he attempts to negotiate the perils of adult life. There’s some great stuff about racism and immigration in it, and Ansari is a really engaging on-screen presence (although it’s pretty hard to tell where Dev ends and Aziz starts). Just fun watching, and a nice antidote to London Spy!

Hamilton

I'm kind of surprised that I haven’t mentioned this anywhere yet, but we need to talk about Hamilton. It’s a musical currently on Broadway which tells the story of the first Treasury Secretary of the United States, Alexander Hamilton, who was also the first politician embroiled in a sex scandal and was killed in a duel with long-time friend Aaron Burr. Written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also plays the titular character, it’s a hip-hop musical and stars mostly people of colour playing historically white characters. The lyrics are so smart and the music is catchy, the vocal performances are obviously all fantastic and you also learn a ton about the early days of the United States. You can listen to the cast album on Spotify, or download it from iTunes if you are properly keen. And then we can all cry together to “It’s Quiet Uptown”.

Welcome to Night Vale

This is a rediscovery favourite; I got into Welcome to Night Vale quite a while ago (I think when they had about 30 episodes) and then somehow fell out of habit of listening to them. Welcome to Night Vale is framed as a fictional local news station, but it’s quite clear that some very bizarre things are happening in Night Vale. It’s funny and completely weird.

The return of Serial
IT'S BACK. Whilst the first series focussed on a little known case, the new series features one that dominated American news last year, and judging by the comments on the Facebook page-one that many people still have strong feelings about. It's the story of Private Bergdahl who spent five years captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan and who was released in a prisoner swap for five Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay. However, within days of his return to the US it was revealed that his disappearance was maybe a little more complicated, and he was accused of desertion and is currently awaiting court-martial by the army. It's pretty different to the first season, but I'm really intrigued in the media/government/army angle that this story is likely to have.

Amy
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A Month in Books: November

So....November was a bit of a fail when it came to reading, though I can't really put my finger on why. I think I just simply didn't feel like reading, then got ill and didn't feel like doing much of anything. So, I read one very good novel and one...okay one.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (2014, Oneworld)
I'm always keen to check out winners of the Man Booker prize, especially when they're a novel that I would never have normally picked up. A Brief History of Seven Killings is the story of a group of individuals; from gang members to politicians, whose lives are all touched by the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in Jamaica in 1976. James writes largely in a stream-of-concious style which makes every character a truly complex one, even when they do pretty reprehensible things. The book is incredibly engaging (and eye-wateringly violent) and really worth a read before it inevitably becomes a HBO miniseries.

The Watcher in the Shadows by Carlos Ruiz Zafon & trans. Lucia Graves (2013, Phoenix)
Carlos Ruiz Zafon is one of my favourite authors. I usually love his tales of gothic mystery, so I was pretty sad that this novel didn't quite win me over in the same way that his other work had. The Watcher in the Shadows is the final in Zafon's young adult trilogy which was originally published in Spanish in the 1990s. It follows the Sauvelle family, who move from Paris to a rural sea town when the mother becomes a housekeeper for a local reclusive toymaker. Here, the daughter Irene falls for local boy Ismael and the son Dorian becomes fascinated by the toymaker, until tragedy strikes. The story just felt slightly too young, with the writing feeling clunkier than usual. The insta-love between Irene and Ismael also bothered me. It does just feel like this was a dry-run of concepts and even characters  that re-emerge, in a much better way, in Zafon's Library of Forgotten Books series for adults-which I'd recommend reading instead.

Did you do better than me this month? I'm at the stage where I've completed my Goodreads challenge so I'm not too stressed about my lack of reading.

Amy
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A (Unsurprising) Pause | Blogmas #10

Soooo.

Blogmas went well.

It's frustrating because I have a bunch of posts written, but no SD card to take photos on and no daylight to take photos in :(.

Hopefully I'm going to use this weekend to sort some posts out-I promise!

Amy
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Thoughts On: Mockingjay, Part Two | Blogmas #4

This is probably going to be a little brief, as its hard to talk about this film without referring tons to the films before it. If you've been living under a rock, The Hunger Games is set in a dystopian future where years before the Capital brutally suppressed an uprising, wiping out the 13th District and enforcing a 'Hunger Games' where children fight to the death on live TV.  The series follows Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) who survives the Hunger Games and becomes a symbol of rebellion. 

Mockingjay focuses on the fight from the actually undefeated District 13 against the Capital, in order to remove President Snow (Donald Sutherland). This film picks up with Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) who has been rescued from the Capital having to reconfigure what his reality truly is. He soon joins Katniss and Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and others as they march on the Capital, as Katniss focuses on her own plan to get rid of Snow personally.

First of, I will say that I really don't feel that Mockingjay needed to be split in half at all. It's a pretty bleak book, and making two two hour films out of it did make this a little emotionally exhausting (at least for me). I also felt like some of the scenes could have been cut and still retained their emotional pull. However, I do like the move to a focus on the dark side of rebellion and this film does carry that focus on. Also, the central love triangle in these films is the worst. I didn't like it at all in the books, and I didn't in the film either. It's really hard to care too much about two ultimately dull guys when they're fighting over a character as fascinating as Katniss, who is wonderfully played by Jennifer Lawrence.

The majority of the performances are still fantastic. Donald Sutherland and Julianne Moore are both fantastic as playing the definitely sinister political leaders, and even people like Mahershala Ali as Boggs and Elden Henson as Pollux who aren't necessarily in the film that much are really great screen presences. I am also irrationally pleased when I see people from the world of theatre making it on the big screen, so seeing Patina Miller (who starred in the stage version of Sister Act) playing Commander Paylor made me very happy. Obviously the performance that lingers over this film is that of Philip Seymour Hoffman in his final film and I couldn't help but feel just a little bit sad every time Plutarch was on screen. 

Really though, this franchise has rested on the very capable shoulders of Jennifer Lawrence, whose performance as Katniss is really just great. Any problems I've had with the films are also problems I had with the books (like the hideously annoying epilogue), and I'm sure people who are more hardcore fans than me will be very happy to have seen these film adaptations. 

Amy
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Thoughts On: Spectre | Blogmas #3

James Bond films are a little bit of a guilty pleasure watch for me. I grew up going to see the Pierce Brosnan generation of films, and have seriously loved the Daniel Craig generation of films. Casino Royale and Skyfall are possibly two of my favourite films in general. So I did have fairly high expectations going into Spectre.

This film starts with Bond causing something of an international incident in Mexico, against a backdrop of changes to the security services which sees M (Ralph Fiennes) coming under increasing pressure from the new head of the combined service (Andrew Scott) to close the 00 programme. However, Bond becomes desperate to solve the mystery of Spectre, an international organisation that seems to have its fingers in many pies and is run by a shady character from Bond's past (Christoph Waltz).

This basically ticks all the standard Bond film tropes; the opening scene in Mexico City is really something to watch, there's a chase scene across the Tyrols and a car chase featuring a gorgeous car. Craig is great at playing a Bond who is definitely more worn down by his job than other generations, the throwbacks to Vesper in this film were really good. Despite the dark elements of his performance, there were also a lot of quippy one liners in this film too which prevented it from being too dark.

I also really liked that whilst Bond was having his adventure, the 'home' team at MI6 were given pretty ample screen time. Ben Whishaw's Q is adorably nerdy (and also gets a lot of the humour) and it was fun to see Fiennes and Naomie Harris (as Moneypenny) having a little more work to do in the final hour of the film against the serious creepy Scott, who seems to have made a career out of playing pretty creepy powerful men.

I do kind of wish that the central relationship between Bond and Madeline Swann (the lovely Lea Seydoux) had stayed platonic, rather than becoming a romantic relationship, especially as he appears to have been friends with her father. Though in all honesty, Bond films aren't really known for their stellar gender roles. I also would have preferred it if Waltz's character had a slightly different motivation, as it seemed rather similar to that of the bad guy in Skyfall. 

However, if the rumours about this being Daniel Craig's final film are true, then it is a really neat tie-up of his time as the face of the franchise. And we can all get excited about who could be replacing him (Idris Elba...PLEASE)

Amy
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Thoughts On: Mumford & Sons @ Genting Arena | Blogmas #2

Mumford & Sons are hands-down one of my favourite bands. I know they come under fire for being a bit middle-class and twangy but I honestly think Marcus Mumford's voice is really something else, and they're all incredibly musically talented. I saw them at probably my favourite concert experience, in Hyde Park in 2011 alongside Arcade Fire and The Vaccines when they'd only released Sigh No More, and at the LG/Genting Arena on the Babel tour. So it was a bit of a no-brainer to snap up tickets to see their Wilder Mind performance.

I will say that I didn't love Wilder Mind as an album as much as their previous works, although there are some really lovely songs on there. However, any long-time fans will be pleased to know that Babel and especially Sigh No More are given ample time in the setlist and still seem to be the songs that get the best reception although sons from Wilder Mind like 'Ditmas', 'Believe' and of course 'The Wolf' went down very well. I was also thrilled to hear them perform 'Ghosts That We Knew', which is one of my favourite quieter songs from Babel. 

They also did a really lovely acoustic few songs which was a lovely surprise, if slightly marred by some audience members who don't seem able to handle quiet songs (if you can seriously afford to spend £40 on concert tickets & then talk all the way through it you probably earn too much money).

If you're a fan of Mumford & Sons or just really great musicians I would really recommend going to see them as they are completely brilliant live (my Mum described them as being joyful, which is a pretty good way of putting it in my opinion); if you can manage to get a ticket to any of their tour dates. I'm currently trying to talk myself out of booking to see them in Hyde Park as well!

Amy
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Top 5: Favourite Couples from Books | Blogmas #1

Emily from The Book Geek did a really fun video talking about her favourite fictional couples; and I really wanted to do a similar thing here. However, when I began to think about couples that I really liked, it did lead me to realise that a lot of the books I read don’t exactly feature positive relationships. There may be some some spoilers ahead.

Beatrice & Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare

The ultimate fictional couple in my opinion; starring in basically the world’s first rom-com. They have some kind of history and now hate each other, so their friends and family decide that they’d actually be a perfect couple. Hilarity and a fake death ensue. Beatrice is a fabulous character, especially when you consider just how old this play is and her sparring with Benedick is just perfect. The Emma Thompson/Kenneth Branagh film is pure fun (also ft Denzel Washington! Keanu Reeves! The guy from Dead Poets Society), and so is the recorded stage version starring Catherine Tate and David Tennant. Just a fab play with a fab central couple.

Max & Fang from the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson

So slight disclaimer, I haven’t actually read all the books in this series as by Book 3 I felt that it was 

pretty well wrapped up, but Patterson decided to drag the series on probably a lot longer than it really needed to go. However, I read these books as a teenager and was totally enamoured with the relationship between Max and Fang. This is a Young Adult series focusing on children who were genetically modified and are attempting to live a normal life away from the clutches of the evil organisation that imprisoned them. Max is kind of a Katniss Everdeen mark1 and Fang is the standard broody YA male that I really dug when I was younger. Part of me is tempted to read the next six (6!?) books in the series but I’m scared that I’ll hate them (Goodreads seems to).

Emma & Dexter from One Day by David Nicholls

This book broke my heart into many tiny pieces. Whilst Dexter is definitely bit of a tool, he’s a tool with his heart in the right place and Emma is just such a lovely character and I have never wanted a couple to get together and just be happy more. Even the film, with Anne Hathaway’s dubious accent, gets to me. Such a great story.

Christabel La Motte & Randolph Henry Ash from Possession by AS Byatt

Okay, so this is a definite spoiler for Possession but I had such a ridiculous crush on a fictional poet when I was reading this that I had to include it. The novel focuses on two academics one a specialist in La Motte and one on Ash who realise that these two Victorian (I think) poets; one a suspected lesbian, the other who was long believed to be a family man had in fact had an intense love affair. Their part of the novel is told in gorgeous love letters and poetry and I think I would die if I was sent a letter like those in this novel.

Petrocles & Achilles from The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

This falls into a couple whose story doesn’t end particularly well, which you would know if you’re familiar with Greek mythology. However, Miller writes a really beautiful story between the two of them and this was another which really got me too. I really recommend checking this out, both for the love story which kills me, and the really interesting take on the familiar myth of Troy.

Do you have any particular favourite couple?

Also, I am going to attempt to give this Blogmas thing ago, because why not? 

Amy

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