TV

Taskmaster: we were pretty late to the Taskmaster game (and only started it in 2022), ended up absolutely blasting through the first 14 seasons and getting a little tired of it (those COVID seasons really were sub-par). After a bit of a break we’re back into season 15 and I am fully a Taskmaster convert once again, I now understand the appeal of Ivo Graham and Jenny Eclair’s presence is a lovely reminder of a youth spent listening to Radio 4 comedy (I was a wild child).

PODCASTS

Hot Money Season 2 - The New Narcos: for someone who actively avoided a career in finance after finishing a maths degree, I sure do like stories of dubious financial goings-on. The first season of Hot Money was about the finances of the porn industry - I listened to it a few years back (and found it very interesting), but only recently remembered they did some other series about different topics. I raced through season two, connecting drug money with murder and government activity.

MUSIC

Glastonbury: am I now at the point of ordering to watch massive festivals on the telly rather than attending then. I think I might be, because the crowd at Glasto looked unfathomably huge. Some very good sets to watch from the sofa though - Loyle Carner was (obviously) fantastic, it was amazing to see Self Esteem drawing a huge crowd, and I really enjoyed the Ezra Collective having never heard them before.

Deftones: bad outdoor sound mixing slightly spoiled Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away) among others, but getting to sing along extremely loudly with my pals made the rest of the set still enjoyable. The main highlights were Jamie looking in physical pain trying to hit the high “tonight” in the Sextape chorus, and Rogan yelling “oh my god I forgot about Minerva”.

Lucy Dacus: only an idiot would book tickets for a gig in London on a Sunday night followed immediately by a gig in Edinburgh on the Monday night. Well, I guess I’m that idiot. Extremely thankful for having booked seats for Lucy (and for the very nice stage show), not thankful to the UK train system and its inevitable delays meaning I didn’t even get an hour at home before having to head out again. Will I plan better in future? Almost certainly not.

GAMES

It Takes Two: Cara and I have been enjoying this recently - a very specifically two player couch co-op game that’s about working together to solve puzzles (but that also throws entirely competitive minigames into the mix on occasion) and is much stranger in storyline than I expected. The mechanics change fairly regularly, which does a great job of keeping it from getting stale.

BOOKS

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner: I’m not a big fantasy guy in terms of the fiction I enjoy (definitely more sci-fi in the main), but I read a positive review of this a while back, picked it up for cheap and was trying to find an opportunity to read it. I finished it within a week. The basic hook is “gods exist in the world”, but it’s hard to say too much more without giving a lot of it away, as the first few chapters throw you into the main bit of the story quite fast. There’s another two books in the trilogy - I’ve already started the second. I’ll inevitably report back next month.