The Lord of the Rings Online - Shadows of Angmar advert currently on the front of Amazon features a few shots which couldn't be anywhere other than Park Hill in Sheffield. Mr Frodo is leaving his Hobbit Hole (on Norwich Row) For anyone who doesn't know, Park Hill is a monstrous concrete housing estate in the centre of Sheffield comprising just under a thousand flats. read more...

The last few years we've been in the habit of heading off to Berlin for a spot of conferencing and Christmas shopping, but this year we have other agendas of course and aren't planning to venture so far from home. Fortunately the city of Manchester has come to our aid in the form of a whole bunch of Christmas Markets dotted around the city centre to give us that continental-ish fix. read more...

I've watched a lot of pulp sci-fi spin-off television series in my time and the BBC's latest offering out of Cardiff, Torchwood is a welcome addition - there is never enough British sci-fi. Now the inevitable trouble with these kind of things is the endless recycling of basic plots, so far we have had a few of the classics; some random bod gets possessed by a gaseous alien swirly thing, someone finds a device that lets them see the future / past with bad consequences and one of the staff gets caught harbouring a cyberman. read more...

The new series of Doctor Who seems to be lost in time. Or rather the BBC have decided that they aren't going to tell us when Tennant, Piper et al are due to arrive on our tubes - the trailers say "coming soon" and the press release says "date TBA". read more...

We have been enjoying a good cultural experience or two over the last few weeks - Laurie Anderson at the Lowry delivered an atmosphere soaked night of unsettling stories of her time at NASA and the general oddness of post-September 11th America. . read more...

With Star Wars now complete and Lord of the Rings done and dusted we were happy to see that there are still some potential crackers to look forward to in the near future. Before Revenge of the Sith, we were treated to trailers for the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Four, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and War of the Worlds. read more...

Our trip to see Hitchhikers in the Filmworks 'luxury' gallery seats was something of a mixed pleasure. It went like this. read more...