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Jonathan Higgs recommended Born To Do It by Craig David in Music (curated)

 
Born To Do It by Craig David
Born To Do It by Craig David
2000 | Pop
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"This was a bit later in my life, around 2000. This signals the end of me having hang-ups really. I remember when 'Re-Rewind' by Artful Dodger came out, and I thought, ""This is fucking cool!"" So much about it confused me. It didn't have chords or a bassline really, it was made of odd sounds like breaking glass that didn't really fit. And then it had this guy on top of it singing this really pleasing, really hooky, catchy little melody. It was the furthest thing away from me at the time. I was into crashing drums and cymbals, but I knew there was something in there that really turned me on musically. When I admitted that I liked that to myself, it really opened up a lot of doors to me, into R&B and Destiny's Child and R. Kelly, lots of stuff that would have been previously out of my usual sphere of influence. I embraced it, and there were things I really liked. With people like R. Kelly, I spend 50 per cent of the time laughing at him and the rest thinking, this is actually good. A huge influence on my music is the singing quickly, and the singing something absurd, and then something serious, hooky, melodic, quick and light. Craig David did that brilliantly. The singles on that album are fucking amazing! He kind of lost his way after that, but I wanted to show that that whole world is very much embraced by me, and to show that we shouldn't be snobby, that it doesn't matter whether the influence is The Cheeky Girls or Pink Floyd, it just doesn't matter where it comes from. If it's good, I embrace it, and I think Craig David is a perfect example of someone who is laughably bad but secretly a pretty good artist."

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No Expectations - Single by Jillian Steele
No Expectations - Single by Jillian Steele
7
7.0 (1 Ratings)
Album Rating
Jillian Steele is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter from New York. Not too long ago, she released a lovely pop tune, entitled, “No Expectations”.

“Maybe I’m talking myself out of love. But I don’t believe that the stars just line up. When you know then you know but I don’t think I’ll ever know. When it’s right, is it right second guessing every time. Yeah, making sure I won’t ever let myself down.” – lyrics

‘No Expectations’ tells an interesting tale of a young woman who decides to let nature take its course instead of always trying to control things.

Apparently, she concludes that everything happens for a reason, and if she allows things to flow naturally, everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.

Later, she admits that it would be best if she became less controlling, stayed out of her own way, and let the pieces fall where they may.

‘No Expectations’ contains a relatable storyline, ear-welcoming vocals, and warm acoustic guitar-driven instrumentation flavored with a modern-pop fragrance.

The likable tune was co-written by Michel Heyaca and James Shelley (American Authors) during a period of uncertainty and confusion.

“Life was happening around me and I was just in it without any control and through this song I gained insight that I do deserve things and I should have expectations of what I want.” – Julia Steele

Jillian Steele’s musical influences include Maggie Rogers, Sasha Sloan, Julia Michaels, and other strong female musicians.

She uses her music to emphasize the importance of self-love and empowerment. A running theme throughout her music is reflection and she hopes her use of thought-provoking lyrics will help others gain insight in times of need.
  
Heartbeat Girl
Heartbeat Girl
Michelle Gross | 2021 | Paranormal, Romance
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
Fabulous vampire read!
Independent reviewer for Archaeolibrarain, I was gifted my copy of this book.

When Jayne's boss disappears, the band she was working with hires her as their PA. But something is off about The Oppressors and Jayne can't figure it out. She also can't keep her attraction to one of them hidden if she's sharing their bus.

It's been a while since I had a good vampire read, and I have to say, this proper hit the spot!

I loved that there was history between Jayne and Liam, but we don't get the full story till much later in the story. And indeed, that it was well past half way before they give into their desires for each other. Loved the sire aspect of this vampire lore.

Liam knew all that time ago, that Jayne was special to him, but it wasn't til he fully opened his soul to her, that he realised just HOW special she was.

I loved all the guys, but now I think Pete has a place in my heart. He does something here that was incredibly brave, and could have cost him his life, but his love for Jayne, even if she wasn't his, pulled him through. Steve too, but to a lesser extent. I want them both to have a story, they need one!

There's a bit on the blurb that says this can be read as a standalone, but that characters from Soul Food are mentioned. And it can, it is totally stand alone, BUT now I WANT to go back and read that book, I really do. Ruth is Jayne's boss and where she ends up? I need to know what happened to her.

First I've read of this author too, I need more!

A very, very enjoyable 4 star read

*same worded review will appear elsewhere
  
Cold Pursuit (2019)
Cold Pursuit (2019)
2019 | Action, Drama, Thriller
Entertaining Neeson revenge-porn offering (0 more)
Bonkers and nonsensical at times plotting. (0 more)
Comments on revenge are best kept on the screen.
I'd completely forgotten the furore about Liam Neeson's comments back last February during the press-tour preceding the film's release. In discussing the destructive feelings of revenge experienced by his character, Nels Coxman, Neeson revealed something he did 40 years ago: after the rape of a friend by "a black man", Neeson went out on the streets to find another "black man" and do them harm. (As a fellow Ballymena-born man, David Moody (from the "Mark and Dave" blog) has an interesting theory about this... that it was not a "rascist" statement in the true sense, but something else entirely. See here -
).

The comments undoubtedly impacted the movie at the box office. Which is a shame. Because in his catalogue of bonkers and violent revenge-porn flicks, this is one of Neeson's more entertaining ones.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. And where colder to serve it than in the ski-resort of Kehoe where Nels Coxman is the local snowplow operative and "man of the year" for his services to the community. But the tracks are about to fall off his orderly life. For his son Kyle (Micheál Richardson) winds up dead through a drugs overdose and his strained marriage with wife Grace (Laura Dern) disintegrates. (One of the most cutting and best-written "Bye" notes ever seen in the movies).

With revenge in mind, Coxman pursues the Denver-based drugs lord Trevor Calcote (Tom Bateman) who dished out the drugs to his son. But he inadvertently manages to stay just below the parapet as he sets in train a gang war between Calcote and a Kehoe-based native-American drugs gang led by White Bull (Tom Jackson). The snow turned progressively pinker as the body count rises.

Calcote (aka "Viking") is painted as a colourful family man, with an annoyingly bright son Ryan (Nicholas Holmes) that he controls with a rod of iron. Viking is estranged from wife Aya (Julia Jones), who seems completely unafraid of him and happily embarrasses him in front of his men. This relationship never really works. Since given all the terrible and irrational things Viking does to people, whether they obstruct him or help him in equal measure, putting a quiet bullet into Aya's head seems to be to least he could do!

Where there is fun to be had is in the "Stockholm syndrome" linkage between young Ryan and Coxman. When his father insists on controlling his diet, feeding him the same insipidly healthy meals morning, noon and night, the alternative of being kidnapped and fed burgers seems eminently more preferable!

The film is at times really difficult to follow. There are lots of inexplicable leaps of logic and really inexplicably bonkers scenes that you can only patch together later. It's as if the filmmakers randomly filmed 5 hours of footage and then tried to edit it all into a cohesive plot!

As one example of this, the relationship between Coxman and "Wingman" (William Forsythe) was poorly introduced such that I was left baffled by a later plot twist.

In another scene, Neeson smashes the head of enforcer "Santa" (Michael Adamthwaite) into his steering wheel, but in the next scene collapses with him utterly exhausted in the snow. There was clearly a significant fight here that was cut out of the finished cut. But as a result the final cut makes no sense at all!

Of course, the local law enforcement team are average at best. Average because although young and keen-as-mustard detective Kim Dash (Emmy Rossum) is hot on the trail of the truth, her partner Gip (John Doman) is f*ckin' useless... wanting to do nothing but drink coffee and eat donuts in true Simpsons style.

Normally with these sort of films, it's difficult to keep track of the body count. No such problem here. Every death is celebrated with a tombstone graphic so it's easy to keep count! Needless to say, there are a lot of tombstones registered.

Directed by Norwegian Hans Petter Moland, it's all good violent cartoonish fun, that keeps its tongue firmly in its cheek for most of the running time. The snowy setting, the partly native-American cast and the presence of Julia Jones brings to mind the truly excellent Jeremy Renner / Elizabeth Olsen movie "Wind River". But there the similarities (and quality levels) definitely stop. It's not a clever movie; it's borderline bonkers for most of its running time (never more so than with a totally bizarre "joke" final shot); but it is entertaining. As a 'park brain at door' action comedy it just about makes the grade.

(For the full graphical review, please check out One Mann's Movies here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2020/03/15/one-manns-movies-dvd-review-cold-pursuit-2019/. Thanks.)
  
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honingwords (32 KP) rated After Mrs Hamilton in Books

Jul 5, 2018 (Updated Jul 6, 2018)  
After Mrs Hamilton
After Mrs Hamilton
Clare Ashton | 2012 | LGBTQ+
10
10.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
It’s an absolute masterpiece.
I’m going to go out on a limb here. I think After Mrs Hamilton by Clare Ashton is my all time favourite book.

Ever.

In any genre.

Normally when I recommend a book to a friend I’ll drop it into conversation. If I really like it I’ll send you a link to a review and follow up a few days later with a question on how you got on with it.

With this one I bought you your own copy, cos you ain’t getting mine, I opened it at the beginning and thrust it into your hands, I took your phone off the hook AND I rang your boss to tell her you won’t be in tomorrow morning.

Here’s a duvet for you too - you’ll be under it until the end.

Did I say favourite book?

Of all time.

And quite rightly so. It’s an absolute masterpiece.

This was my Book Club’s book of the month and it was suggested to me at a time when I was becoming jaded with the sheer number of books set in America, which I’d been reading up to then. It opened me up to an author I’d never heard of before, who sets her books in England and Wales. One who has come up with an original plot that starts off gently unfolding, before twisting and turning to a most unpredictable ending.

I absolutely devoured it.

I wanted to re-open it immediately the last page closed, but forced myself to wait using the interim to read Clare Ashton’s other books in quick succession. I had to see if the absolute need to re-immerse myself in her addictive, easy to read, rich in description, style would continue to be as strong. Also, I needed a clear period of time in front of me to allow for the fact the characters would take over my life again.

After over ten years of reading lesfic Clare Ashton is now the one I use to compare all other authors. I’m slightly worried that I can’t decide which of her novels is my favourite, but as this is the first one I read, it probably takes pride of place.

I’d say there are five or six characters to pay attention to but Clo is the main one. The plot revolves around her friends and family but, more specifically, it is woven around a web of coincidences. Coincidences about people who each have secrets and who may have known each other in the past, coincidences about where they lived and met, coincidences about how their pasts and futures may be intertwined.

Coincidences which prove just how small the world really is, especially if you ever lived in Middle Heyford.

Clare deals with two taboo subjects. The first is that Clo works for Marella as an escort to women. (“Prostitution. You can call it what it is,” says Clo.) She uses the income to allow her to care for her arthritic grandmother Amelia.

The second taboo subject I will let you find out for yourself, but for the record, I am not squeamish about it and think Clare was extremely brave to include it. I found myself nodding along with Clo’s reaction.

The novel begins with Marella interviewing her new client, Mrs Hamilton. Marella is the lynch pin to everything, yet we learn little about her throughout the book and she isn’t in many scenes. She is vitally important; there would be no story without her, yet Clare manages to allow Marella to stay mainly in the shadows. I would very much like to see future stories with her in them and think it is a huge shame Clare has no plans to visit this storyline again.

Clo knows Laura from university and Susan from living in Middle Heyford. Clo’s grandmother Amelia is the mother of Alice who has a special page all to herself in my imaginary book “People I’d Like To Punch In The Face” and Helen is Susan’s dead Mother’s sister. The intricate relationships between the characters are all explained as you go along but it is difficult to keep them all straight in your head, unless you either pay very good attention, or draw an L Word type chart for them, which is what I ended up doing.

Mrs Hamilton tells us she is fifty-four and throughout the book Clare refers to her, and certainly Mrs Hamilton thinks of herself, as an older woman. Clo meets with her professionally at the beginning and it is their mutual attraction which is explored throughout the rest of the book. There is an age difference there but it is not an issue for either of them.

There is a little part of me which wants to rebel against the idea that fifty-four is old though, and I wonder now that since the publication of the book was in 2012, and Clare is five years closer to Mrs Hamilton’s age now, would she still consider fifty-four year old skin to be ageing and mottled?

On that point, with me coming along five years after publication, I have to say there is nothing in the novel to date it. It is as fresh today as it would have been back then. Five years isn't long enough to notice too much, but I’m going to predict that readers in another twenty years will be saying this novel is ‘timeless.’

By necessity, there are a few back stories to wade through - the two main sets of characters could, possibly, have been dealt with in two books instead of one. At 308 pages this is a fairly long book, at the beginning it flows a tad more slowly than in the later chapters, but I’m sticking with my first impressions on it, and I wouldn’t have wanted Clare to have handled it any other way.

I like all the main characters. Amelia is so important to Clo and I am relieved when she returns home after a trip away and want to hug her! I like Laura, but feel she may be a high maintenance friend! I think Susan and I would be friends in real life. Clo’s father, Edward is a frustrating coward of a man, but is in an important scene with Clo’s lover and I melted a little towards him when she blurts out “I’m in love with your daughter’” and he says “Well I had gathered that.” Other than Clare’s well-written sex scenes this, and the few paragraphs leading up to it, would be my favourite part of the book.

One character has to deal with what I would suggest is a ‘betrayal by omission’ - others, those closest to her, know facts about her but don’t let her in on the secret. When it all comes out she seems able to accept this, after only a very short time adjusting. This isn't something I could have coped with and this is the one thing that made me uncomfortable during the book and the time mulling it over immediately after.

There are three points in this story when I spoke out loud. There was an

Oh!

A

Huh!

And finally an

OH MY GOD!

There is a split at the end - one side gets their happily ever after and the other story is one where we are left with a total absence of a conclusion. It was about a day later before I realised I didn’t know what happened with that story line and had to go back and reread the ending! Yup, there is nothing - we are left to make our own minds up!

Clare has been known to say that she is in denial about her breast obsession, but there are no fewer than 50 times the word ‘breast’ is used in this book and I loved every single one of them! I’m hoping she continues to not have any breast obsession in her future work!

After finishing the book the first time I added a category to help me rate books I am reviewing. I added “Should this be made into a film?” because it was a most definite YES! for After Mrs Hamilton.

The second time round I am about to add another category: Would I cherish a signed copy of this book? Errr YES!

My advice is to read this once. Then, with the knowledge you have at the end, go and read it again. Clare has so many clues and references cleverly placed throughout which you may think are just lovely details at the time, but they are actually very important to being able to fully understand the book.

It’s nearly impossible to sleep until this story is fully unravelled. Read it during a weekend when you have no work to worry about because otherwise you will want to pull a sickie.
  
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Lizz Cook (11 KP) Jul 6, 2018

Wow. You make me yearn for the feelings you got from this read. You are a wonderful writer.

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honingwords (32 KP) Jul 6, 2018

Thank you Lizz, you are very kind :)