Most of the personalities in House of the Dragon are horrible people.

There’s no Arya nor Jon Snow to cheer.

Closest to someone I might like in the first episodes is Gavin Spokes as Lord Lyonel Strong.

My favourite character is Milly Alcock as the young Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen.

I found her very believable.

Emma D’Arcy is perhaps equally believable as the adult Rhaenyra. But life has gone to crap by this point.

It’s difficult to end entertainments. I’d say the ending of season 1 was about as good as any TV series or film I can recall. The highlight moment.

Film students will be studying that scene.

At times I liked Matt Smith as Prince Daemon Targaryen even more. But that role confuses me.

Similar to his turn as Prince Philip in ‘The Crown’, he’s got the look. Charismatic? Evil? Both?

Perhaps the most impressive performance is Paddy Considine as King Viserys Targaryen.

What a complex and nuanced role.

Produced for a fraction of the cost / episode of Games of Thrones or Rings of Power, this TV series is pushing limits for television. Sex. Violence. The dangers of childbirth before modern medicine.

Not always easy to watch, but #respect for the creators.

Also — the dragons are cool.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The legendary Canadian comedy has been on TV for 28 seasons.

But it launched with not much budget. No real plan.

It was to be a Mary Walsh project, but at launch she was in bed with terrible back pain.

The first episode was 1993 during Canada’s 35th general election.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. Episode 1, season 1.

It includes the first Rick Mercer rant.

Recovering from injuries in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he’d only imagined possible. 

Until his friend Clara seeks him out, when her artist husband fails to come home.

Together with his former second-in-command, Jean-Guy Beauvoir, a group of the regulars goes on the road to solve the mystery of the disappearance.

There’s far less action than usual. More philosophy.

Though different than the usual Gamache fare, I still enjoyed the book.

A Great Reckoning (2016) is the 12th novel in the Inspector Gamache series. …

Well written and engaging.

As usual, a dumb and impossible-to-believe plot.

At the start of the novel, Gamache begins a new position as the head of the Sûreté Academy, where new cadets are trained for the police force.

Of course a murder mystery is presented. Ganache is one of many suspects.

More interesting to me was finally learning the history of the 3 pines in Three Pines. And finding out why the small village is not on any official Quebec maps.

There’s a film based on these books called “Still Life“.

Click PLAY or watch the location for the film on YouTube.

Manabu Yukawa, the physicist known as “Detective Galileo“, is speaking at a small coastal town on whether or not to approve an underwater mining operation.

The night after the tense panel discussion, one of the resort’s guests is found dead on the seashore at the base of the local cliffs. The local police at first believe it was a simple accident-that he wandered over the edge while walking on unfamiliar territory in the middle of the night. But when they discover that the victim was a former policeman and that the cause of death was carbon monoxide poisoning, they begin to suspect he was murdered, and his body tossed off the cliff to misdirect the police. …

Amazon

This time the police don’t ask Yukawa for help. But he decides to solve the crime on his own.

As always, there are subtle and surprising twists and turns.

This book was adapted into a film.

Click PLAY or watch a trailer on YouTube.

Instead of doing Wordle online once a day, I downloaded a free app and have now done the challenge thousands of times. It’s relaxing.

I used the same strategy every time:

1. ADIEU
2. PORTS

All the vowels — but not “Y”. (I consider going WINGY if it seems a Y might be needed.)

I usually get a good idea of the word at that point. And next guess a word

If not, I go FLOCK or FILCH or FLUKE or FLUNK or some variation.

Most often I can solve it on the 4th guess.

Each time I’ve failed after 6 guesses with the ADIEU / PORTS start I write down the word.

The only words I’ve failed on twice are EERIE AND ENJOY. My brain seems to block words starting with E.

Here are the other words I’ve missed once. Sometimes due to laziness or lack of concentration.

style, humor, raise, relax, kills, maker, visit, maybe, wages, abyss , beard, dikes, years, along, exile, urged, ovary, gaily, gates, media,  shone, cacao, array, robot, gonna, imply, ought, occur, bowed, faces, snoop, eerie, candy, handy, boxer, hedge, stays, outdo, madam, judge, comma, rigid, schwa, grows, hears, hobby, wings, sands, valve, lyric, myths, texts, table

Grisham’s 2022 book is actual 3 novellas:

• “Homecoming” 
• “Strawberry Moon” 
• “Sparring Partners”

Great story telling, as always.

I’d say Strawberry Moon is the best insight to Death Row I’ve ever seen.

The “Sparring Partners” Malloy brothers, Kirk and Rusty, two successful young lawyers who inherited a once prosperous firm when its founder, their father, was sent to prison.

All good.

According to the back of this book, Keigo Higashino is the “ bestselling and most widely read novelist in Japan.”

Only SOME of his books have been translated into English, however.

Malice is the first book in the Detective Kaga series.

Famous novelist Kunihiko Hidaka is brutally murdered days before he is relocating from Japan to Vancouver.

He is found in a locked room of his home by his wife and best friend, Osamu Nonoguchi.

Police Detective Kyoichiro Kaga sets out to solve the baffling case, playing cat and mouse with an always present and cunning killer.

It’s slow paced. Thoughtful. Very Japanese.

The murderer is revealed early. Most of the book is Kaga methodically revealing the truth.

Recommended.

I didn’t particularly like Coldplay until I saw them LIVE in Glasgow.

That turned me into a big fan.

Chris Martin. is great as frontman.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Our hero, D.C. Smith, had a mysterious past.

In the 5th book of the excellent series we learn of his role as a mole for British Intelligence during The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Again, it’s Smith’s humour that makes this book so entertaining.

30 years later he returns on a personal holiday after being asked to find where the bones of an IRA friend had been buried.

The family wants closure.

Unfortunately, the IRA twice tried to kill Smith once it was revealed he was a snitch. And decades later there are some who want to finish the job.

Peter Grainger self-published for Amazon Kindle to start. And even today goes unrecognized as one of the top murder mystery authors alive.

Highly recommended.