Lynne Truss is an author with many feathers to her (detective’s) cap. She is the renowned grammarian who wrote Eats, Shoots & Leaves as well as a journalist by trade. Her latest release is The Man That Got Away, her second crime novel. It’s another offbeat book starring some bumbling Bobbies, Brighton Belles and British bandits….

With the conclusion of Game of Thrones, it was inevitable that mythical, semi-medieval source material with an established following would be pushed by networks and studios alike, hoping to be adopted by its worldwide fanbase hungry for more. The Witcher ticked all those boxes; this time being both a successful book series, and a much…

Situated a five minute walk from 42nd Street in Times Square, on the corner of 36th Street and 7th Avenue, is the world’s largest hotel in Marriott’s boutique chain, Moxy Hotel. Moxy Times Square is one of four of the brand in New York City (also Downtown, Chelsea and the East Village), and opened in…

For a book that attempts to celebrate the magical power of the medium, The Girl Who Reads on the Metro is certainly underwhelming. Although written by a prolific French author, the results appear lost in translation. What could have been an exciting and energetic meditation on the restorative power of these delightful things, is instead,…

Spent big over the Christmas holiday? January (and early Feb) doesn’t have to be a month of not eating out at Australia’s best restaurants due to tight budgets. A new festival, which debuted earlier this year to great reception, is making it (a lot) cheaper to eat out by recruiting hundreds of restaurants across the…

2020 is primed to be a big year for cinema, both in the realm of big-budget blockbusters and under-radar indies. Each month we’re going to be taking a look at five upcoming films that you need to see in cinemas, encouraging Aussies to get out and experience these stories on the big screen. The year…

There are many ways to tell a story. We all have varying perspectives and world views. The Truth (La vérité) is a film that explores this notion in a smart and philosophical way. The result is a slow and gentle look at some complex human emotions. This film is written and directed by Hirokazu Koreeda…

South Australia’s Adelaide Hills is one of the premier winemaking regions in the country and has been supplying Australians with fine quality drops for decades. Unfortunately the region has come under crises within the past few days, with many wineries obliterated by the unstoppable bushfires. With holiday season always being a busy wine-buying period across…

Helen Garner is a Virginia Woolf fan. This is especially apparent in her latest release, Yellow Notebook: Diaries Volume 1 1978-1987. Woolf once said, “Examine for a moment an ordinary mind on an ordinary day. The mind receives a myriad impressions – trivial, fantastic, evanescent, or engraved with a sharpness of steel.” This quote amply…

Earlier this month, I jumped on board Virgin Australia’s Boeing 777 five-times-a-week service from Melbourne to Los Angeles, and was surprised to find a number of enhancements to their Economy service – which mainly floated around the quality of their meal services. Read on to see what a VA trip across the Pacific Ocean is…

Stoned, is a collection of images that have never been seen before by the general public. Consisting of over five hundred photographs, notes, artwork, newspaper clippings and other ephemera put together by Jo Wood documenting life behind the scenes of The Rolling Stones. Photographer and hoarder (thankfully) Jo Wood has kept thousands of polaroids and…

In our new travel series, our resident thirty-something-going-on-five year old takes us on an adventure around the world to the best theme parks. The ones that even after we lose that childhood awe and wonder, still get the heart racing; gleefully removing us from the mundane existence that is adulthood. Along the way you’ll be…

Fitbit are now as ambitious in the world of smart watches as they are dominators of the fitness industry. Ever since 2017’s Ionic product line started the brand who had been, up until that point, only known for fitness tracking wearables started to move towards something bigger and better. They made the mistake of trying…

Amazon haven’t really reinvented anything with their latest line-up, which began rolling out in Australia just a few months ago. They added a brilliant LED display to their budget-friendly Echo Dot, introduced raw power with the Echo Studio, and have simply just refined and polished the standard Echo to prepare it for a stronger Alexa…

French director Céline Sciamma is one of the best writer/directors in French Cinema working today. She specializes in coming-of-age dramas and this reviewer has been a fan of her work ever since he saw her film Tomboy. From fantastic directorial work like her directorial debut Water Lilies and her prior film Girlhood to stellar screenwriting…

A tender coming-of-age story about a 10 year old boy learning to navigate a Nazi summer camp and fantasising about being best friends with a slapstick version of Adolf Hitler. How the hell did Taika Waititi pitch this, successfully? The Kiwi auteur seems to have made the most unlikely (and, to some, offensive) film he…

Beach, sales, and movies. Boxing Day is wild in Australia, and some perfectly planned combination of all three activities is usually the way to go after you’ve shrugged off any Christmas Day hangovers/food comas. You’ll be lugging yourself along to the cinema at some point, so it’s best to know what you’ve got ahead of…

Amazon claim that the Echo Dot is the best-selling speaker of all time. I haven’t looked into that, but I haven’t doubted it either. It’s ridiculously affordable, offers incredible value and looks fantastic sidling up to everyday furniture, whether that be on a bedside table or in the kitchen. Since 2015, the device has been…

The Surface Laptop series has proven to be a big success for Microsoft, pulling them ahead when it comes to traditional clamshell laptops and placing them in direction competition with Dell and Apple. Most importantly, it has given the company a new identity in this race, and arguably won them more than a few legs….

Sorry We Missed You is the latest film from acclaimed British director Ken Loach. Loach has made many great films over the years that delved into social realism. Great works like I, Daniel Blake, It’s a Free World…, Vera Drake, The Wind That Shakes the Barley; all examined the gritty undertakings of the British environment…

Where smartphone photography is still bread and butter for all companies now, Google have admirably sought to refine what it means to own a smartphone in 2019. They’ve looked at the entire experience with the Google Pixel 4, which has given us some pretty cool features that should hold great influence over smartphones in 2020….

We bring your our final Track of the Day for the year.  It is only fitting that we finish with a Christmas song. Or perhaps it isn’t. Nonetheless, here goes. Enjoy the catastrophe that is Rick Sextant’s ode to the festive season, entitled “Mingle with Kringle”.     Feel free to follow Rick on twitter in case…

Horror films have had a banner year in 2019. They crept under the audience’s skin, lingering in the mind long after the credits had stopped rolling. But none of them seemed as haunting as the first theatrical trailer for Tom Hooper‘s Cats. When the trailer was released, the public opinion was overwhelmingly negative. Many viewers were…

Time to admit it: you need a gift guide. It’s a few days to Chrimbo and you’ve only just realised because you’ve been playing Death Stranding. You’ll be at the shopping centre this weekend to see Star Wars which presents an opportunity to do some last minute Christmas shopping. But what do you get the…

We’re excited to introduce a new Spotify playlist, designed to take you down memory lane, looking at a selection of songs that you might have forgotten about, or missed when they were first released. Our first Re-Discovery playlist looks at the last decade, taking you through some of the best music between 2010 and 2019….

Rum, whisky and wine. Clear spirits take a backseat when it comes to ideal Christmas pairings, and wine is infallible given the multitude of flavours in a silly season feast. You might as well be across your best options, right? We’ve rounded up some of the best for you to go grab in your last…

It’s going to be a massive year in 2020 for those who enjoy theme parks, with a number of brand new, highlight anticipated parks and expansions opening up all over the world. There are also new museums, IMAX cinemas and even hotels that are worthy of getting excited about here in Australia and overseas. Here’s…

It’s been a couple of days since Stu Larsen wrapped up his South American tour, including taking on a support slot with Passenger. This self-styled musical nomad never stays in one place for long, have been on the road for nearly twelve years, moving across five continents. And his talents don’t stop on the stage…

GoPro have favored redesigning and updating their software with numerous minor upgrades in-lieu of one stand-out, marquee feature for their latest release, the GoPro HERO8 Black. In years prior, each flagship release has come with an industry changing feature. The HERO4 debuted 4K/30fps, the HERO5 was waterproof without a housing unit and last years HERO7…

Who would have thought that the space opera that is Star Wars would span 42 years, multiple generations of fans and be the tentpole blockbuster series and franchise behemoth that it is today. It began with A New Hope in 1977 and the introduction of Luke Skywalker. It ends with The Rise of Skywalker in…