Octoberwatch Day 3: yes I know it’s a mangled adaptation of the book. Yes, I know, cgi baby Jack Black should be killed with fire. But still: I love this film SO much, and becoming Uncle Jonathan is basically my retirement plan, screaming queer subtext and all.

Octoberwatch Day 5: Nightbooks. First new viewing of the month. Fun visuals, but somehow disappointing. Worth it, just, for Krysten Ritter.

Saw the new Time Traveller’s Wife musical tonight. Pros: beautiful staging, and it subtly tweaks the book ending. Cons: the musical would have been significantly improved by removing all of its music.

All the cities in “Rotterdam” by Beautiful South are now Eurovision host cities.

Octoberwatch Day 7: one of my all time fav horror films. Watched it on an iPad in a pitch dark room on my own and THIS WAS A MISTAKE.

Octoberwatch Day 8: I further traumatised myself alone in the dark with another favourite rewatch…

Octoberwatch Day 11: the new Hellraiser. Jamie Clayton knocks it out of the park. Cenobite design is great. It’s oddly glossy for a Hellraiser movie, but still better than every other entry in the franchise barring the first, and possibly the second.

Saw The Book Thief musical tonight at Octagon Theatre Bolton — a beautiful adaptation of one of my favorite books (and a lovely theatre I somehow didn’t know existed despite being ten minutes up the road…!)

In fact, I just realised — I read The Time Traveller’s Wife and The Book Thief within weeks of each other as a teenager and both became instant favourites; I’ve ended up seeing the new musicals of both within the same month. The Book Thief is vastly superior.

During lockdown I had a project to design and print one-off copies of my favourites, one of which was The Whitby Trilogy by Robin Jarvis, and yesterday I managed to have the joy of showing him and getting it signed in person at the Whitby bookshop.

This awesome tome was created by the far too clever chap called Matt, as a lockdown project for himself. He came to Whitby Bookshop on Friday to show me. It's the entire first trilogy in one book and look at the terrific cover!