Book of the Month: To The Lighthouse

I feel self conscious reviewing "classics". I worry I'm not 'getting it' and will look ignorant. But then, I also feel that if I'm not getting it, that says something too. So, here we go. Bear with me. 

There are some spoilers in this review. But this book was published in 1927, so you've had 98 years to read it before reading my spoilers. 

What I knew before reading the book - it was written by Virginia Woolf, a female author often described as a key feminist writer. No surprise then that To The Lighthouse is written almost exclusively through the point of view of female protagonists, mainly Mrs Ramsay, the mother of eight who narrates the first chunk of the book. Male characters are given short shrift, variously described as shallow, prickly, idealistic, boastful and with sensitive egos. 

The story starts with Mr and Mrs Ramsay on holiday on the Isle of Skye with their eight children and another half dozen assorted guests plus serving staff. It's evening. One of Mrs Ramsay's sons asks her if they can go to the lighthouse the next day. Mr Ramsay says no because the weather forecast is bad. Mrs Ramsay is silently annoyed at her husband for dismissively crushing her son's hopes. 

That takes up the first sixty pages. I was beginning to suspect the title was misleading and the family weren't going to go to the lighthouse. 

There was, however, a surprise reference to Cardiff - as a venue where Mr Ramsay was going to take his lecture tour. So, it wasn't all unspoken angst between the married couple. 

Mrs Ramsay oscillates between a dark pessimism about marriage and progeny, and then expends a lot of energy engineering opportunities for her house guests to get together. There is a proposal as two people are successfully coupled, and then she is on to thinking about the next match she could make. 

I had my hackles raised by some passing references to Anna Karenina. Fortunately Mrs Ramsay stands in stark contrast to Anna. For one thing, Mrs Ramsay seems much more realistic about life and finds joy in the things around her instead of mooning away over some idea that love is "out there".

And then, just when we've got to know Mrs Ramsay, she unexpectedly dies, in a throwaway paragraph at the end of a chapter. I don't know if the author got bored of her, or what. But it's a sudden - and bold - shift in the story. 

What follows is a brief series of vignettes, as the local cleaning lady tries to maintain the holiday home over several years. In the same way that the house declines, so too, Mrs Ramsay's idealised visions of the future are shown to come to naught. One son Andrew, who was supposed to become a famous mathematician, is killed by a shell during the war. A daughter, Prue, who is supposed to grow into a true beauty, dies due to pregnancy complications. The couple who got engaged on Skye get trapped in a loveless marriage. 

The message seems to be that whatever our hopes for the future, life gets in the way. It's pessimistic in the extreme and more nihilistic than I expected. 

The book ends with the remaining members of the family returning to Skye. The kid who wanted to go to the lighthouse finally gets to go, even though by this point he is a pouting teenager who really doesn't want to go. They arrive at the lighthouse but before they get out of the boat the book ends. 

Final point - the cover art. This book was part of a set of ten 'classics' that I was given several years ago. The cover art is deeply uninspiring, although after I read the book it felt very apt. (It doesn't show a lighthouse!) Then a few days after I finished the book, I saw a copy with a very different, and much nicer, cover that makes it look like a completely different type of book! 

(I was tempted to buy it but decided that would be silly.)

January 2025 monthly review

I've seen several social media posts about January being the longest month and people just wanting it to be over. Personally, the month seemed to fly by - helped by a hectic work schedule and a week of birthdays at the end of the month that meant spending a weekend with family. 

In work we are gearing up towards a big conference at the end of February with lots to do in readiness for that. We also said goodbye to two colleagues, one who left for a new job and one who started her maternity leave. So, lots of change to navigate. 

I also had a midweek overnight stay in London, which meant I was able to catch up with my friend Gawain before I got my train home. Because I was getting the late train, I managed to score a special offer on a first class ticket at cheaper than standard rate - a brilliant way to end a long couple of days in London.

I fitted in quite a bit outside of work too. Last year was the year of "quels" at the cinema, and Cathy and I are following a similar pattern so far this year, with a trip to the flicks to see Moana 2. I managed two evenings of Blood Bowl with Bryan - game 1 was a narrow win for my giant rats, game 2 was a hard-fought draw. I also helped out at the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch event in Grange Gardens, organised by the Cardiff Park Rangers. 

A three day weekend in Shrewsbury celebrating three family birthdays included a successful trip to take my Mum sofa shopping. We found some nice new ones that will actually fit into her living room configuration. When we weren't sofa shopping, we were playing games of Scrabble. 

I won both games and Mum has already told me she wants a rematch. My best score was 104 for a word using all seven letters that hit a treble word score (anchore[d], top left). 

I also took my nephew, Zac, to his juniors football game, played in cold wind and icy rain. He was borderline hypothermic by the end, but he earned and scored a penalty and helped his team to a 2-0 victory. He's wearing number 7 in the team now, a bump up from number 14 last season.

I went to two other football matches besides Zac's game. Both games featured Cardiff Draconians - an 8-2 victory at home, and their first league defeat of the season away at Swansea University. Losing to a late goal was tempered by it being a new ground, and my friend Jon joining me and Scott at the game. I am gradually dragging Jon to lower and lower level games. We started at Newport County, then Barry Town and now the Ardal League, the Welsh third tier. Parks football next!

Black orc down - Blood Bowl match report

Two games in a month for me and Bryan. This time I played with my black orc team - a mix of big orcs and runty goblins - with a star player called Varag Ghoulchewer (who finally got to play a game after I built him a year ago). I've called the orcs the Unpainted Horde for now. With any luck, I'll get some time to paint them and they'll get a new name.

Bryan was giving his lizard-men team another go and had borrowed my kroxigor figure (it's a big lizard) to bulk out his team. Not that he really needed Roxy the kroxi, because when it came to tackling, the lizards made mincemeat of the orcs. Five of my team ended up as casualties, including Varag who was badly injured on only the second turn of the first half. A true case of "Black Orc Down" just like the film (that was Cathy's joke, by the way!)

I'm beginning to question bothering with star players because this was the second game in a row when a turn 2 injury meant a star player sat uselessly in the dug out for the majority of the game.

Overall the game was enjoyably chaotic. Possession kept switching. Passes kept being botched. Both teams scored in the first half.

I  thought we might be in for a slew of touchdowns, but the second half turned into a funny and frustrating back and forth that ended with a damp fizzle when one of Bryan's saurus blockers ended up on his face after trying to tackle to clear the path for a long-shot attempt at goal.

With Blood Bowl, you're playing against the game itself as much as the other player. And this time the game was the winner; we had to settle for a draw. 

Another relic of the analog age

While having a bit of a clear out, Cathy found this: the last print edition of the Yellow Pages ever delivered to us. I took a photo before we tossed it in recycling.

I was struck how the front cover shows the architect of the Yellow Pages' downfall, a smartphone. 

Time was, every business had to have a listing in Yellow Pages. It was the first piece of advice given on enterprise courses to people seeking advice on setting up a business. We had one when we ran our own business, although nobody ever called us because they saw us there. 

Businesses that relied on their Yellow Pages listing used all kinds of daft ways to be first in the directory - calling themselves AAAAAAAA111 Plumbing or so on. More successful businesses paid for box ads or half page ads or even full page ads. Spots on the cover cost thousands. 

It was worth it too, because everyone had a Yellow Pages and almost everyone would use it to find a tradesman or check where their nearest branch of a given shop was. Yes, there were competitors, like the Thomson Directory, but Yellow Pages dominated the market, an ultimate authoritative information source and able to name its price to advertisers as a gatekeeper of information.

And then smartphones came along and killed that business model. They tried to pivot online as Yell but as search engines got better there wasn't any need for a directory website any more. 

In their heyday, a Yellow Pages directory would have hundreds of pages. The final edition was a stripped down bare bones affair compared to the fat and satisfied versions in its pomp; the advertisers surely placing their entries out of habit rather than any marketing strategy. 

Like other businesses that cornered their now-vanished markets, no-one misses Yellow Pages. It had a good run but the world changed far too rapidly for it to keep up. It's a warning to any hegemony - your reckoning time may come. Will you be ready?

Blood Bowl match report - the rats squeak a win

Bryan and I have played our first game of Blood Bowl in 2025 and, just like last year, we have resolved to play more often this year!

Our first 2025 game featured Bryan's unpainted Lizard-men team (with a borrowed kroxigor "big guy") against my Skaven team. This was the first game featuring the Skaven star players I built last year, Hakflem Skuttlespike and Glart Smashrip.

Neither star player added much, to be honest. Hakflem got injured on my second turn of the game and was deposited in the casualty box for the remainder of the match. 

Glart spent the entire game grappling with the kroxigor in the centre of the pitch, which at least meant the brute was contained and couldn't wreak havoc on my rats.

Nothing really happened in the first half. The dice weren't with me. The ball got trapped in a melee of players. The lizards inflicted three casualties and that was about it. 

Ball stuck in melee

Things changed in the second half. A successful long pass to one of the skaven line-rats saw the rodent free to scuttle into the end zone and spike what would turn out to be the only score of the game. 

However, the win hinged on a ludicrous piece of play when a chameleon skink pulled off the longest possible pass direct into the end zone, but unfortunately the recipient was a particularly inept saurus blocker who dropped the ball. One of the skaven throwers then tried to pick the ball up and failed on the very last skaven turn of the game. And then on the final turn for the lizard-men, the saurus punched out the skaven player, stepped over its prone body, went to pick up the ball, flubbed the pick up and ended up scooping the ball to bounce harmlessly away.

It was a gutting end to the game because the successful "long bomb" pass required rolling a 6 - and it was rolled! Any other lizard on the receiving end in the end zone and it would have been a glorious last gasp equaliser. 

So, a narrow 1-0 win for the skaven. Next time out I'm going to try playing the black orc team that I built last year. 

Book of the Month - Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody

This is a book aimed at teenagers, but when I saw it in my favourite local bookshop (Griffin Books in Penarth) I was attracted to the illustrations. The one on the back (below) really made me laugh. So I decided to buy it, justifying it by telling myself that it's worth checking in on books written for a different demographic sometimes. 

Something about this made me giggle in the shop

Chronicles of a Lizard Nobody is written by Patrick Ness, author of A Monster Calls, which I read years ago just before I watched the big screen adaptation (review of the movie included here). The illustrations, which are the main reason I decided I wanted the book, are by Tim Miller. The drawings inside aren't all as charming as the ones on the cover, however I enjoyed having a few pictures alongside the story.

The protagonist of the book is Zeke, the titular lizard nobody, who with his two lizard friends, attends a school full of other animals. They are the only lizards who go and even though they are monitor lizards it is JUST A COINCIDENCE that they are asked to be hall monitors in the school. This is communicated to them in ALL CAPS. But the lizards are sceptical. 

There is also a bully in the school, a pelican called Pelicarnassus, whose mother is a supervillain. Zeke also has a very odd affliction. the result of a family curse, to contend with. But this being a Patrick Ness story, the real struggle isn't with the son of a supervillain or the daft annoyance of the curse. There are in fact two other very big themes within the book.

Firstly, the lizards are from the poorer end of town and are therefore outsiders in the school. It's not laid on too thick, but there's a racialist element to the way the lizards aren't included by the majority. I felt that could springboard some interesting conversations with teenagers. 

The second big theme is dealing with loss and post-loss trauma. Zeke comes from a one-parent home following bereavement and his mother is overtaken by grief and depression. So Zeke has to deal with something he doesn't know how to deal with, and, honestly, it's heart-breaking. Similar to A Monster Calls, Patrick successfully captures the reality of living through a shit situation and aching for things to change, without caring if it's better or worse, just wanting something different. 

I wasn't really expecting that theme to come through so strongly. Like I said at the start, sometimes it's worth reading a book that's not aimed at you. It can still resonate. 

There was also an excellent piece of wisdom that I think will be helpful to anyone navigating social situations. Zeke has a confrontation where someone calls him fat. While unpleasant, he considers the following

"...anyone who made fun of someone else's appearance like that immediately lost the argument; if you called someone "fat", then that didn't say much about the so-called "fat" person, but it said a lot about you." (p.99)

I know that probably isn't going to take all the sting out of being made fun of for anyone, but it's still a very good principle to take on board. Later, in another encounter with a mean character, Zeke reflects that when they say things about you that are true, then, again, they aren't telling you anything you don't know, but they are revealing the kind of person they are. 

So, there was plenty packed in this short book aimed at people a lot younger than me. But I thoroughly enjoyed it. There's a hint there might be a sequel on the way at the end and I will be keeping a lizard-like beady eye out for that. 

2024 football round up

This is my last end of year review of things. The calendar year doesn't really fit for a review of football because seasons start and end in the summer. But, still, aided by the handy Futbology app, I have a nice summary of the games I went to and can cover some other football high points as well. 

I went to more games in 2024 than in any previous year - a total of 68 across the tail end of last season and the start of this one. 

Some highlights from those 68 games...

• The first game between Shrewsbury and Wrexham in a long time when they met in the FA Cup in January.
• Seeing West Ham v Bayer Leverkusen in a Europa League game at the London Stadium while in London for a conference in April.
• A hectic weekend seeing Shrewsbury play at Charlton Athletic on the Saturday followed by Colwyn Bay v Barry Town on the Sunday. The game at Colwyn Bay meant I completed the Cymru Premier League, having seen a game at every ground in the league.
• An odd game in Gloucester, watching Truro City v Torquay United, where both teams were over 100 miles from home and the "away" team had actually travelled a shorter distance than the "home" team.
• Seeing Penrhiwceiber Rangers win the Ardal South West league (Welsh system tier three) with pyro on the pitch and the victorious players performing outdoor karaoke afterwards.
• Three Wales women's internationals, including their two home games in the play off to secure a spot at next year's European Championships. 

I went to 16 new grounds across the course of the year, ranging from Huddersfield to Haverfordwest, Coventry to Seven Sisters, and including the epic views of the Transporter Bridge right next to the ground belonging to Newport Corinthians. (Part of a "Corinthian weekend"!) Here are my new grounds on a map:

2025 has already got off to a good start with a goal-fest, which hopefully augers well for this year!

2024 telly round up

Here is a round up of very short reviews of the more memorable telly I watched in 2024.

Bluey - The Sign / minisodes

I love Bluey. It's one of my favourite TV shows. The big thing this year was the release of a half hour episode called 'The Sign'. The big plot point is the impending sale of Bluey's family's house and the family moving to another city. Meanwhile Bluey and Bingo and their cousins Muffin and Socks are preparing to be flower girls at their uncle's wedding. Things go slightly awry and the four flower girls become part of a last ditch attempt to make sure the wedding goes ahead. 

There is a big emotional ending that I'm willing to admit made me cry, and the overall message - that you don't know how things will work out in the end until you reach the end - was positive without being wishfully optimistic. There was also an interesting sub-theme of parents trying to do what is best for their children, but not really knowing the best way forward and reconsidering decisions.

This year there have also been several 'minisodes', very short tales from the Blueniverse. I've found them very entertaining. 'Burger Dog' is probably my favourite. (The way Bandit's eye twitches as he is forced to listen to a terrible song makes me laugh every time.)

Wallace & Gromit ~ Vengeance Most Fowl

We watched this on Christmas Day and laughed a lot. It was packed full of jokes, saw the return of the evil penguin, Feathers McGraw, and managed to find a suitable replacement for the vocal talents of the late Peter Sallis, the original voice of Wallace. I think this is the best one off programme I saw in 2024. 

Ludwig

David Mitchell stars as a puzzle-setter who takes on his twin brother's identity as a police officer when his brother goes missing. Of course, he soon proves himself rather good at solving murders. I found this highly enjoyable and some of Mitchell's lines really made me laugh.

A Man on the Inside

This Netflix comedy starring Ted Danson was written by Michael Schur, whose previous credits include Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine Nine and The Good Place. Those are all shows I enjoyed and I enjoyed this too. Ted Danson is a retired college professors hired by a private detective to go undercover in an elderly care community to try and solve a theft. Stephanie Beatriz, one of my favourite actresses, is the manager of said care home who suspects something is up. There is a deeper theme about loss and continuing to love those we have lost, and learning to live without them, that elevated this above other comedies. 

Nobody Wants This

Another Netflix comedy, this time starring Kristin Bell (who was in The Good Place) and Adam Brody. She's a sex and relationships podcaster, he's a rabbi. They meet. They fall in love. Worlds collide. There are some very funny moments, particularly from their supporting cast. One thing I noticed was the cinematic way of filming, especially in some scenes set at a youth camp. The series ended on a cliffhanger and there was a reassurance that a second season was coming. 

Star Wars: The Acolyte

This was supposed to be the big 2024 reboot of Star Wars. I found it boring. Some Jedi are being held to account for something they did by someone who feels wronged. I found it hard to care. I gave up watching. 

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew

This has been dubbed 'The Goonies in space' and so far it has been brill! (Half the episodes were released in 2024, there are still a couple yet to drop.) A bunch of kids find a crashed starship and accidentally fire it up. They end up on the run from murderous pirates searching for lost treasure. It's silly and goofy and fun and what Star Wars is meant to be! (In my opinion as someone who has been a fan for over 40 years now!)

Doctor Who

I watched the series with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor. It was okay. I feel like I say that a lot about Doctor Who these days. 'Dot and Bubble' was the most interesting episode. The overall story arc for the series seemed to be a whole lot of nothing. Literally. The Doctor's companion, Ruby, was 'special' because she was so ordinary, seemed to be the big reveal. It felt like a cop out. I suspect the showrunner Russell T Davies wrote himself into a corner and then couldn't come up with a satisfactory way out. I haven't watched the Christmas special but haven't heard much positive about it. 

Old stuff...

In addition to the series released this year, I've watched a lot of older stuff. This included:

Both seasons of Gravity Falls - a cartoon about two kids who go to stay with their great uncle (grunkle) who runs a 'Mystery Shack' roadside attraction in Oregon. Started out very funny, then became a story about averting an apocalypse.

All three seasons of Amphibia - a cartoon about some tweens who accidentally get transported to a world of talking frogs, called Amphibia. Again very funny, but the final season was about a war to free Amphibia from an evil hive mind.

The four seasons of Never Have I Ever - a Netflix series set in high school about a girl who is terrified she might never lose her virginity. This actually became quite a sweet story of finding love and growing up. 

All 6 seasons of Spin City - a comedy from the 90s that hasn't aged well and had to go through a hard re-casting when the star, Michael J Fox, had to leave due to health reasons. He was replaced by Charlie Sheen and the show went rapidly downhill. 

All 8 seasons of Psych - a comedy-drama about a guy who pretends to be psychic and help his local police force solve crimes. The pilot for this played it fairly straight, but it quickly became very silly indeed. 

Several seasons of vintage Doctor Who. These are now all available on iPlayer. I started watching them semi-accidentally, and watched a series with the Daleks in the era when Jon Pertwee was the doctor. I then carried on watching Pertwee's final season, then into the Tom Baker era. It's actually great fun seeing actors and trying to work out where I know them from. I spotted Camp Freddy from The Italian Job, but I had to look up the guy who played Chief Bast in Star Wars. (I could have kicked myself for not working out who he was before I googled him.)

New Year's Goalfest

At the very start of this season, back in July, I watched Oxford City thump Barry Town in a friendly. The score was 9-0. I had a feeling that would be the highest scoring game of the season. Since July I have been including my season totals on Futbology in my monthly round ups. That 9-0 has been on every one.

Today it got wiped off, in my first game of 2025!

The game I went to was Cardiff Draconians against South Gower. I was expecting the game to get called off because of the cold weather but apparently they had some club volunteers going over the pitch with snowblowers to thaw it out a bit and that meant game on! 

Although there was a minute's silence first.

The surface was still quite slippy, but that didn't matter to the Dracs as they notched up an 8-2 win. That might seem like a hammering, but South Gower made a game of it. Their heads didn't droop and they were creating chances of their own right until the end. 

The additional bonus - for me - is that the ten goals I saw today meant this became the highest scoring game of the season. And here is the proof!

I closed out 2024 with a 0-0 draw on New Year's Eve, so this was also a tonic to wash away the memories of that frustrating game. My goals to games ratio for 2025 is now on 10, which is unsustainable in the long term but makes for a great screengrab for 2025 so far. 

2024 Cinema trips - all the 'quels

It was a case of all the "quels" in 2024. I saw sequels, a prequel and an interquel. In fact, five of the seven films I saw in the cinema were "quels", and the other two were adaptations of books. Here's what I watched on the big screen:

Dune Part 2 - sequel (although they split the source material in two for the movies so this was a continuation sequel rather than a second story in a franchise). Full review here. 

Inside Out 2 - sequel. I really liked the first Inside Out film, which took a complex concept and explored it in a very accessible way. The sequel continued the story of Riley and her emotions, which have multiplied as Riley grows up. This is probably one of the best depictions and explanations of how anxiety is a protection mechanism that can go into overdrive and become harmful. 

Besides Anxiety, the other new emotions include, Embarrassment, Envy, Ennui and, my favourite, Nostalgia, who pops in and is promptly dismissed for being too soon. Although I think I felt nostalgia as a teenager - certainly I found myself looking back to things I had done a few years previously and having a new appreciation for them. Nowadays I agree strongly with Douglas Coupland's comment that "nostalgia is a weapon" and I know it gets weaponised against me. That's why I end up with things like an A Team van made by Playmobil...

The film has a happy ending for Riley and her friends as they navigate the emotions around changing schools, establishing new friendship groups and playing ice hockey. I like the mix of joy and anger that fuels Riley's in-game activity. There's a good explanation about how our beliefs about the world and about ourselves shape our lives - another deep topic that I felt the film-makers summarised well. 

Harold and the Purple Crayon - the film version of a popular kid's book. So, not totally original but technically not a 'quel. Full review here. 

Alien Romulus - an 'interquel' that was apparently set between Alien and Aliens, the first two films in the franchise. Not the greatest movie in the Alien franchise but I enjoyed it. Full review here. 

Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! - a "legacy sequel" released decades after the first film. Full review here. 

Transformers One - a prequel of sorts. I'm not sure where in the Transformers franchise this animated film fits, but it was expanding on the in-universe lore and would act as a prequel to just about any other Transformers movie. 

It's the origin story of Optimus Prime and Megatron, and why they became bitter enemies. I thought it was very well done despite leaning hard on some over-used tropes - the people in charge don't have our best interests at heart; best friends become implacable enemies; there is a quest for a lost artifact that can save civilisation. 

However, within those well known story arcs, the script was lean, the film was fast-paced with several action sequences that all served the purposes of the plot, and there was plenty of humour in the dialogue and situations but it never got silly. It felt like a grown up kid-friendly cartoon. It also added some depth to other long-established characters, even those with limited screentime like Starscream, who in this was more than just a whining minion of Megatron. 

The Wild Robot - another film based on a book. I watched this with Cathy on her birthday in a cinema that was experiencing temperature issues. It was freezing. At one point in the story an ice storm hits - at that point it felt like we were in a 4D film experience. 

The basic plot was of a robot booting up on a remote island and looking for tasks to carry out. Being a robot it works out how to communicate with animals and gradually develops its self-awareness to become the protector of the wild creatures. This includes teaching an orphaned gosling to fly - which I found was a surprisingly moving storyline. 

The third act of the movie dragged a bit. The most intriguing part was seeing the wider world, with humans living in large hi-tech habitats, with hydroponic farms, hovering over the drowned ruins of cities (San Francisco to be precise). It's a world after the climate apocalypse and the survivors seem to be doing OK with an army of robot servants undertaking menial tasks. Somehow, that felt like the most unrealistic part of the film compared to a robot learning how to talk to a gosling and teach it to fly before its fellow geese migrated and left it behind. 

Looking ahead to 2025, I'm sure there are more 'quels to come. I have set myself a challenge to try and watch more original films next year.