Album of the Month: Creeper, Sanguivore II

A new feature for the blog, mainly because I got some new CDs for Christmas and I thought it would be fun to review them a bit like my Book of the Month posts. I'm not sure how I'm going to format these posts so I can't promise there will be consistency in how I rate the albums if it does turn into a monthly series.

My first album of the month is Sanguivore II: Mistress of Death by Creeper.  

It's an unusual concept album in an emerging genre called "horror metal". The story arc is supposed to be about a vampire rock band on tour leaving behind them a trail of victims, and hunted in turn by an avenging dark angel, the Mistress of Death (who I presume is pictured on the album cover). The band dress as vampires for their live shows. 

I must admit, the first time I heard one of their songs playing on Planet Rock I thought it was a joke. The song was Blood Magick (It's a Ritual) and when the lead singer, William Von Ghould, intones "Drink the Blood!" at the end of the chorus, I burst out laughing. But then I heard the song a second time and realised this wasn't just a silly spoof. There is some real musicianship behind the speed metal riffs in that song and it was catchy. Vampire lore generally is a fine line between gory and silly and, in a way, I was impressed how much they committed to the bit.

Then Planet Rock played the title track Mistress of Death and I got the soaring chorus stuck in my head. By the time Prey for the Night was on the Planet Rock playlist, I decided to add the album to my wishlist and my sister-in-law, Abby, bought it for me for Christmas. 

There is plenty of ambiguous wordplay throughout the album, reflecting how vampirism is often metaphor for sex. The gap between 'so give us head' and 'stones' in the chorus of Headstones, feels deliberate. Even more blatant is the command to "Suck" Suck! Suck!" in Parasite. The incredible chorus of The Black House includes this couplet

Come night fall, I want to hold you like a hammer in my hands

I want to nail you on the cross at your command

It might just be me hearing the double meaning of nail there, but I doubt it. I feel what shines through on this album is a group of accomplished musicians who know exactly what they are damn well doing, lyrically and musically.

This is theatrical rock metal. The story canters along, layering riff on riff before cutting away into a fuzzy lounge number (Razorwire), and a final confessional track that starts off as a mournful song of regret and climaxes with an operatic sign off for the album (Pavor Nocturnus). 

Like all successful vampires, Creeper are very much playing with their audience. The tunes for all the songs are mesmeric and strangely uplifting when played at high volume. This isn't gloomy goth music, it's life-pumping bloodrush music designed to get your heart rate up and your vigour fizzing. 

It's a short album too, romping through at less than 45 minutes. Which means, you can hit repeat on your favourite tracks as the album plays without extending the run time too much. I like to listen to The Black House at least twice each time it comes on. 

Details

Year of release: 2025

Tracks: 12 (including a narrated introduction to the album and a short interlude at track 9)

Favourite track: The Black House

Tracks to skip: none, although I have been known to skip the narrated intro and get straight to Mistress of Death, which is the first proper song on the album.

Irredeemable rewards (In memorium of Borders)

Looking in an old drawer, I found this sad memento of a lost place. RIP Borders Cardiff. Fondly remembered. (It was the first home for our Book Group, which outlasted it by over a decade.) 

Also, look how close I came to getting £15 off a purchase! You never know which loyalty stamp might be your last.

Blog history - Borders closed ages ago. But I chronicled when it first opened, when it entered into administration, and the forlorn empty shop. 

Ratpocalypse: our first Blood Bowl game of 2026

A 5-0 win for the skaven (coached by me) over the lizard-men (coached by Bryan) in our first Blood Bowl encounter of 2026. 

We used the new pitch that Bryan got in his season 3 box (which we unboxed last month) and also his new dice.

I like the new dice. The dice were very good to me! Almost immediately one of my rats had put the big kroxigor into the infirmary. The krox was crocked!

I feel like I've got the hang of my gutter runners now. They ran in 5 touchdowns with plenty of hand offs between them and successfully evading multiple opponents. You shouldn't be able to score when surrounded by four vicious lizards, but this guy did. 

My star players had mixed fortunes. Glart Smashrip did okay, with some successful blocks. But Hakflem Skuttlespike was badly injured again. 

He still needs painting...

Bryan's dice were horrid to him. His players tripped up while trying to rush an extra yard, fumbled the ball right to my players, and generally flubbed their attempts to block and tackle. However, the lovely dice treated me well almost every roll. Right at the end of the match I was able to foul one of the big saurus blockers and severely injure him. Literally adding injury to insult, there. 

A full box of injured lizards

So, a winning start for the new year. In February I'm hoping to debut a new team. So check in next month to find out what carnage ensues.

A drove of dragons

It's Appreciate a Dragon Day according to one of the calendars we have up. So here's a drove of dragons to celebrate.

Gradually I've gathered up quite a collection of pics of dragons. Like this selfie taken in the fanzone at the 2025 Welsh Cup Final.

Here he is in action at a Wales game.

Barry Town also have a dragon occasionally in attendance. 

Channeling Edvard Munch,
or having trouble with the costumes head?

There are lots of dragons on flags at football matches, of course.

Although sometimes other animals replace them.

There's a dragon on the flag on my Plaid Cymru membership card.

And in April last year, at the March for Independence in Barry, I got this fridge magnet from Rebel Dragon Designs, which combines the Welsh Dragon with the Rebel Alliance logo from Star Wars.

I like the way artists put their own spin on the Welsh dragon. The artist Revealist has created this "dragon in a bally" which can be seen in a few places around Cardiff. The best one is in Grangetown, though.

Meanwhile this print caught my eye at an art fair in Canton last year.

When the new Lego Shop opened in Cardiff in September they had a massive, very impressive, Lego dragon installed outside.

It feels like dragons are spottable any and everywhere!

And if you're very lucky, maybe you can grow your own pair of dragon wings!

Happy Appreciate a Dragon Day! I hope you enjoyed seeing this drove of dragons!

Book of the Month: The State of the Art

My first book of the month post for 2026 represents one of the shortest time lapses between me getting a book and reading a book. This was a Christmas gift from my brother and sister in law. 

The State of the Art is a milestone book for me because reading it means I have now read all the science fiction books written by Iain M. Banks. There are three stories relating to the Culture - the galaxy-spanning utopian society that features across most of Banks' sci-fi - but the handful of other stories aren't directly Culture related.

A rejig of the shelves will be necessary

The title novella, The State of the Art, is about a review and exploration of Earth by a Contact team from the Culture. The main protagonist is recalling their visit to Earth at the tail end of the 1970s. There is a vivid description of divided Berlin and travelling through abandoned underground stations in parts of the city under communist control. 

Another stand out segment is the protagonist visiting the Memorial to the Deportation on Ile de la Cite in Paris. I first visited the memorial as a teenager and remember being really struck by it's profound simplicity. The protagonist in the story is similarly struck, and also feels anger that humans could do something so terrible to other humans and then create something so beautiful as a way of marking it. 

"I was angry at their stupidity, their manic barbarism, their unthinking, animal obedience, their appalling cruelty... but what really hit me was that these people could create something that spoke so eloquently of their own ghastly actions; that they could fashion a work so humanly redolent of their own inhumanity."

I felt the emotional juxtaposition was probably Banks' own feelings about it, and I get what he is trying to say. If that is him sharing his own feelings, then I also remember the impact of that monument on me when I visited it. I felt a connection with Banks through his description of his character's reaction.

Eventually the Contact team decides to leave Earth without making contact to see what happens to the human society left to its own devices. They hope the planet will be OK, but sense doom for this "backwater rock ball infested with slavering death-zealots on a terminal power trip." (Another eye-catching, brain-snagging, angry description.)

Being blunt, the other pieces of writing in the book aren't too great. The first story, The Road of Skulls, starts with a joke that I found quite funny and then meanders out. Odd Attachment is grisly dark humour. The rest are just a bit meh. The two stories set in the Culture don't really add much. 

Sometimes, though, a book isn't satisfactory in itself but provides satisfaction in another, meta, way. For me, reading this means I can 'tick off' the Culture books, almost 35 years after I read the first one in the series. That's a pleasing way to kick off my reading for the year.

Trying something new - an unboxing video

Watch me unwrap and open a Disney Doorables Death Star on the tube of you! (I was looking for an "ultra rare" figure of Boba Fett.)

Cinema viewing 2025

In 2024, five of the seven films I went to were 'quels of some sort. My cinema trips in 2025 started in the same vein with a Disney sequel to one of my favourite films.

Moana 2 (Odeon, Cardiff Bay)

I'd put Moana in my top 5 Disney films, no question. So this sequel had a lot to live up to. My overall sense was that it was a decent attempt, but some aspects didn't really work. 

This time Moana is trying to raise a sunken island, which for some reason is keeping the various peoples scattered across the ocean's island chains separated. She connects with Maui, the demigod again, and they team up to raise the island to the chagrin of a storm god who sunk it. 

It's always difficult when sequels feel they need to go more epic and don't quite pull it off. It's also a fine balance between preserving the aspects of the story and characters that made a film work first time around and introducing some new aspects that keep things fresh and interesting.

I felt they didn't quite get the balance right with Moana 2. This time Moana has a motley crew of islanders helping her, but none of them were developed as characters. It was a stereotypical 'crew' with the talented but clumsy one, the grumpy curmudgeon, and so on. More could have been done with those extra characters as opposed to just being extra hassle for Moana to deal with. 

So, yeah, a decent attempt that fell slightly short of a very high bar. It was worth seeing and I enjoyed it. 

The Penguin Lessons (free preview at Showcase, Nantgarw)

Cathy scored us some free tickets to go and see this film that was based on a true story. Steve Coogan isn't my favourite actor, but he does dramatic non-comedy roles pretty well. He plays a teacher called Tom who is moving around South America and winds up in a school in Argentina just at the start of the crackdown that established the brutal junta dictatorship in the 1970s. 

He also acquires a penguin after a drunken holiday over the border in Uruguay. The penguin becomes attached to him and won't leave and the story then follows a fairly familiar story arc as the initially hostile Tom becomes very attached to the penguin in turn, becoming a better person along the way.

While Coogan plays the character well, the penguin is cute, and Jonathan Pryce is excellent as the headmaster of the school, I found the historical setting of the film the most compelling bit. The film managed to capture the slow descent of an unstable country into scary totalitarianism. The scenes where the secret police disappear people off the streets - many of whom are never accounted for - are shocking, and Tom's inaction in the face of such shocking brutality is captured incredibly well. The remorse he feels at his cowardice, as he confesses his shame to his penguin friend, lifts the film out of the 'human saved by an animal' genre.

It poses that question of 'what would you do?' if you were in a situation like that. In the film Tom intervenes on behalf of one character, but apparently that sub-plot was added to the script and wasn't something that happened in real life. There is a poignant note at the end about how many mothers were still waiting for news of their disappeared children.

The unexpected serious side of the film made it a much better watch than I initially expected. 

Elio (at Y Galeri, Caernarfon)

Pixar films have been quite hit and miss of late. This had moments that really made me laugh. It fell a little bit into the animated story trope of kid losing their parents and the adult trying to care for them really struggling. Within that trope, the main character, Elio, inadvertently makes contact with an alien having family troubles of their own. They become friends and find a way forward together. 

The alien antagonists that threaten Elio are suitably scary, but there is a point to their martial aggressive natures. The subtext that trying to hide your soft centre behind sophisticated battle armour is laid on a bit thick, but the point is valid and Pixar make sure to hit several other moral compass points along the way - dishonesty leads to disaster (for others if not for you), authenticity matters more, expressing love isn't weakness. 

I don't think the film did particularly well in the cinemas, which is a shame. There weren't many in the showing we went to - at the little arts cinema in Caernarfon that we try to go to when we are on holiday in the area. But even though it didn't seem to get a lot of press, I'd prefer Pixar to carry on creating original stories instead of just adding more instalments to successful franchises. (Yes, of course I will watch Toy Story 5 when it comes out, but that's not the point...)

Sketch (free preview at Showcase, Nantgarw)

More free tickets, for a decidedly odd film that is best described as 'horror for kids'. It would score highly on the kid's film bingo card. Dead parent, check. Unexplained supernatural situation, check. Conflict with adults who don't believe the kids, check... until they do believe, check. 

I don't want to put too many spoilers in this, but the story is basically about two kids who have lost their mum and don't want their dad to sell their house. They find a place with magical powers and inadvertently trigger an invasion of monsters. Which they then need to stop. 

The adult roles are played by Tony Hale as the dad, and D'Arcy Carden as the kid's aunt who is helping the dad sell the house. D'Arcy is, frankly, a bit wasted in this. She is a supremely funny actress but this felt a bit flat. 

There are some good action sequences and comic moments, but the story is a bit weak. It's the kind of film to put on while ironing as you don't need to be paying it full attention. Some of the kids in the screening we went to got quite bored in the slow bits. 

Zootropolis 2 (Odeon, Cardiff Bay)

We went to this with a group of friends to celebrate Cathy's birthday. Another Disney sequel to a film I rate highly. The original Zootropolis is a very enjoyable, narratively complex story about politicians generating misinformation to stir up fear between different groups of people for their own benefit. That theme is still very pertinent.

The story in the sequel is along the same lines but this time the villainy is perpetuated by wealthy citizens of Zootropolis. So, it's a little more cliched than the first movie. Unlikely cop duo Judy Hopps (a rabbit) and Nick Wilde (a fox) pursue the case against all odds and against direct orders. Will they succeed in bringing the bad guys to justice? Well, this is a Disney film so you can probably guess the answer. 

There are plenty of callbacks to funny moments in the previous film, and multiple nods and homages to other films, both Disney and otherwise. Special highlights were jokes about Ratatouille and The Silence of the Lambs. Overall the film was excellent and I would rate it as probably the best Disney sequel I've seen. I definitely want to watch it again. 

The Muppet Christmas Carol (Cineworld, Shrewsbury)

A Christmas Eve treat for me and Cathy, watched with my brother and three niblings in tow. I saw the film when it was originally released in the early 1990s, then many times over the years on VHS, DVD and latterly streaming. I was delighted this was the original cut with Belle's song 'The Love is Gone' in it. The song adds such emotional depth to Scrooge's visit to Christmases past. 

I would argue this is both the finest adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic novel and probably the best Muppet film as well. It has lost none of it's vitality and it was great to see it in the cinema again. 

2025 Sports Round Up

2025 was a decent year for sport for me. It will come as no surprise that football was the sport I watched most. I went to 53 football matches - which averages out at a smidgen over one a week for the year! Here's my 2025 report from Futbology.

The highest score of the year was in my first game of the year: Cardiff Draconians v South Gower back in January. This year the Dracs were my most watched team. 

Here's my map of new football grounds I went to this year. I saw Shrewsbury in Oldham, Exeter, High Wycombe and Swindon. The Northernmost ground was Ainslie Park, home of Spartans in Edinburgh. Most of the new ones in South Wales were from watching the Dracs away and a couple were from watching Caldicot Town, the club for whom my friend Ben plays. 

I went to four cup finals in April and May, including seeing Shrewsbury Town's under-17 team win a cup in a final played at Cardiff City Stadium. Shrewsbury's senior side had a poor season and were relegated from League 1. Meanwhile, Cardiff Dracs got promoted to the Cymru South (the Welsh second tier). Both sides have continued their form into the 2025-26 season, Salop hovering dangerously near the drop zone in League 2, while the Dracs finished the year sixth in their division.

My favourite football photo of the year -
 Trefelin v Cardiff Dracs (Welsh Cup)

Along with live football, I enjoyed watching the women's Euros on TV over the summer. I thought it was a great tournament. England won - their second title in a row. Wales found it difficult in their first appearance in the finals. (Here's a full write up.)

However, it wasn't all football! I went to a rugby international in Edinburgh. It was my first rugby game for almost 3 years and my first ever visit to Murrayfield. I was very impressed with the stadium even though the game was a blow-out. (Blog post about the weekend.)

I also made it to two Cardiff Devils ice hockey games. One was a friendly against Concordia University from Montreal (pics on my bank holiday sportsfest post) and the other was on our wedding anniversary. 

My sports participation this year was minimal. But Cathy and I had two full rounds of mini-golf. The first was at Legoland and we also played underground mini-golf in Blenau Ffestioniog during our North Wales holiday. 

But I have been getting my fix of table-top sport. I played 12 games of Blood Bowl with Bryan in 2025, which averages as a game every month, although when we met up in December we spent the time unboxing the new updated version of the game. 

My final Blood Bowl record for 2025 was played 12, won 5, drawn 5 and lost 2. I used several different teams in the course of the year including three teams I built and painted - the black orcs, the wood elves and the Norsemen. You can see all my match reports on my Blood Bowl index page. 

I have a few aims for 2026. I'd like to do some more activities, watch a few different sports, and keep up my football-going, if possible. I have an overseas trip lined up with a football match on the itinerary already. Hopefully more opportunities will come. (If you want to challenge me to a game of mini-golf, get in touch!)

2025 Review of the Year

As we head into the new year, I decided to post a quick month by month summary of the year gone by.

It was a busy blogging year - 99 posts, with a Book of the Month post every month of the year for the first time (see my list of Books of the Month on my index page). I've included lots of links to posts that I blogged along the way, so if you have a lot of free time, you can enjoy those too! 

January

Work was full throttle from the get go, and there were some changes in our team. We also have a trio of family birthdays in the same week so I spent a celebratory weekend in Shrewsbury. (More stuff in my round up of the month.)

February

I spent the best part of a week in Glasgow working a big national conference. It was tiring work and at the end of it I hopped a train to Edinburgh for my first ever visit to stay with my sister and her family. 

Glasgow sunrise

March

I spent St David's Day weekend in Edinburgh, taking in the sights and catching a football match - it was my Scottish nephew's first ever live game! The following weekend I was at the opposite end of the country with Cathy for a weekend in Exeter. 

My March travels weren't over and we ended the month at the Lipodystrophy UK support day in Cambridgeshire. Cathy appeared in the awareness video for World Lipodystrophy Day, which premiered at the conference. 

April

We went from Cambridgeshire to Buckinghamshire for a week's holiday over my birthday, including a trip to Legoland on the day itself, a nostalgic visit to Bekonscot model village, and an encounter with Nev the tapir at Beale Wildlife Park at the end of the week. 

A couple of weeks later we returned to Cambridge for a specialist appointment and then drove to Manchester to see comedian Nate Bargatze at the 02 Apollo. This was the first of three trips we made to that venue in 2025. 

In a year where I got increasingly political, I went on the Yes Cymru march for independence in Barry at the end of the month. 

Finally, I had some disappointing medical news. Almost ten years after successfully reversing my type 2 diabetes, I was symptomatic again. So I made the decision to lose weight and have been eating mindfully and trying to be more active since then. 

May

I was all over the place again in May. I went to the NEC for the big Europhilex stamp exhibition. My work involved another trip to Exeter and a couple of nights in London.  My commitment to be more active meant I did some London Wandrin'.

June

A big life change in June. After 11 years with Marco the Polo, we got a new car - Vincent, a Mazda 3. It has been quite an upgrade both in comfort and gadgets. 

Vincent's first big trip with us was to North Wales. We spent a fab week in Dinas Dinlle. 

July

In terms of life impact, the biggest event for me in July was joining Plaid Cymru. It's the first time I have ever been a member of a political party. I launched straight into canvassing for the Grangetown council by-election and things really haven't stopped since!

We also had another weekend in Manchester, mainly to see comedian Taylor Tomlinson. But while we were in town we also went to the National Football Museum, which I have wanted to do for ages. I was travelling again for work - this time to Warrington and to Cotswold Wildlife Park where I met Darwin, a giant tortoise!

August

I learned that delivering leaflets and canvassing can really help a person lose weight during the Grangetown by-election. I was disappointed we didn't win, but it was valulable campaigning experience. 

More travels - a weekend in Shrewsbury (where I succumbed to football nostalgia) and a football trip to Swindon combined with a visit to STEAM, the museum of the Great Western Railway. 

September

Cathy and I celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary with a trip to the ice hockey!

Politically, we were straight into another by-election, this time in Caerphilly for a Senedd seat. Campaigning started in September and would conclude the following month. More great exercise for me! I also ran the quiz at the Yes Cymru Caerdydd branch AGM. 

October 

My political involvement included attending my first ever party conference (in Swansea) and more canvassing in the Caerphilly by-election, which Plaid Cymru won!  

I had some encouraging medical news as my six months of mindful eating and increased activity had resulted in me reversing my diabetes for a second time. All that canvassing helped me no end. 

Cathy and I paid our third visit to Manchester, this time to see Counting Crows at the Apollo (again). The football fixtures favoured us and I was able to go and watch Shrewsbury Town play at Oldham the following day. I had my third trip to Scotland at the end of the month, heading to Dundee for work and stopping in Edinburgh into November...

November 

Just like in March, I started the month in Edinburgh. This time I got to go to Murrayfield, the home of Scottish rugby and watched Scotland overpower the USA in a record international victory. 

It was a big birthday month! Cathy turned 50. We went to a local wildlife park on her birthday and met Roly the armadillo. The following couple of weekends we had a family gathering in Shrewsbury and met up with friends in Cardiff Bay.

The local Plaid Cymru Senedd campaign kicked off. I spoke at the campaign launch about getting involved in canvassing and invited everyone there to get involved. 

December 

December has been the usual end-of-year whirlwind, with getting ready for Christmas and seeing lots of people. We spent the festive period in Shrewsbury before returning home in time for New Year. 

And now it's 2026...!

Post-Christmas December round up

As it's New Year's Eve, I thought I'd round up the month's activity before launching into the year-end posts. 

I covered the first three weeks of the month in a previous post. My final day in work was Monday 22nd. On "Christmas Eve Eve" (the 23rd) we headed up to Shrewsbury and we stayed until "Boxing Day Boxing Day" (the 27th).

Christmas Eve morning, we went with my brother and three niblings to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol in the cinema. I don't think I've seen it on a proper cinema screen since it was released in the early 90s. It's a film that seems to get better with age. It was only the second time my youngest niece had been to the cinema. The film was a bit long for her, but she did very well at not being too bored. 

Later on Christmas Eve I went with my brother to the midnight communion service in the village Anglican church. We have done this as 'brother-time' for a few years now, with a stop in the pub on the way, and it's something I look forward to as part of the Christmas experience.

My sister and family drove all the way from Edinburgh to spend Christmas Day with us. We managed to fit 8 people round my mum's dining table for Christmas dinner. 

Auntie Cathy and Scottish niblings 

Mum's Christmas Cake

There were some exciting presents.

I will be blogging about this!

And some family members were completely tuckered out by it all!

On Boxing Day we had another brotherly outing as the two of us went to a local derby football match - Shawbury United v Haughmond FC in the United Counties League. Haughmond play on the north edge of Shrewsbury and Shawbury is less than 10 miles north of Shrewsbury so the two clubs are in close proximity. 

I was impressed by the set up at Shawbury. They had a nice clubhouse and a lovely pitch. The Haughmond Ultras (4 pre-teen boys with a flag and a drum) had ensconced themselves in one of the small stands and kept up a noise throughout. They went home happy, having seen their team win 3-1. 

I've been fortunate enough to be off work during betwixtmas, so have had a relaxing few days since coming home, sorting some life admin and things. Today (New Year's Eve) I went to my final football match of 2025, watching Barry lose away at Briton Ferry. 

I went with my friend Paul and we arrived to find the pitch was still very frosty in places. Kick off was moved back an hour in the hope the pitch would thaw out enough to be playable. It passed the pitch inspection but Barry will wish it hadn't as they were second best all game and lost 2-1. They also had two penalties given against them, with goalkeeper George Ratcliffe saving both of them! 

Frosty pitch!

Moonrise over Briton Ferry

And that concludes a busy December!