A teenager’s view of social media

. There is no denying that social media is a big part of our life as a family.  Okay, admittedly I am the biggest user of it, possibly on a scale completely incomprehensible by friends and family who don’t have Twitter or Facebook accounts, let alone blogs.   For my close family though it is just a way of life now and they are quite used to getting texts from friends

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American Beauty Review and Where Eagles Dare

. I kicked off the “New for 2015” Film Club last week with American Beauty and have now seen it for the first time.   What can I say?  Wow.   It’s an incredible film and one I would definitely watch again because I am sure each time you watch it you see more.  It’s heartstoppingly brilliant.   I will watch it again.   And if you watch it and

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Film Club — American Beauty

. This is it, this is really happening then.   I mentioned late last year that I was going to kick off a film club on the blog (and blogged about it here:  Announcing the Film Club) in the hope I could see “must see” films that I haven’t seen but the rest of world have, or revisiting films that I adore and think others might not have seen such

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Ranty Friday — New Year New Meh

It seems wrong to be kicking off the new year with a miserable blog post but this blog is nothing if not honest, and to be honest right now I am feeling pretty miserable.   I hate New Year.  There I have said it out loud.   And I apologise to all those around me for whom this brings down the general mood of celebration. But that is just it.

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Ending the year on a high

Like so many blog posts I write the post you are reading is not the one I planned.   Today’s post was going to be a look back at the year to see just what BB Towers had been up to.  Holding the FA Cup in our lounge (no you shut up, we so did) / a trip to Tanzania / Mr B putting up with me saying “we are

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Mummy Barrow Film Club

Late last year I happened to mention that I had never seen Rita, Sue and Bob Too.    What turns out to be an  iconic film.   When I mentioned this fact on Twitter people were amazed I hadn’t seen it and raved about how fantastic it was.   One lovely friend then sent me a copy of it to prove just how magnificent it was. This sparked a big

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Ten Years ago today

The world changed ten years ago today.   Many people just learned what a tsunami was, so many of us hadn’t even heard the word, for hundreds of thousands more their lives were devastated when a tidal wave crashed onto land following a massive earthquake.   Family members were lost, villages wiped out, livelihoods destroyed.    And in amongst all that destruction were two of our greatest friends:  Sam and

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Is “Live Reporting” a bad thing

It was during the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami in 2004 that I first became acutely aware of rolling news.   That constant rolling news footage beamed live into our living rooms from the disaster zone.   I am sure it happened for Princess Diana’s death and funeral but I was living in Saudi Arabia then and things were a bit different.   The Tsunami was something I had an

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Last minute Christmas presents

We have had Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Mad Friday, which presumably was followed by Hangover Saturday, and also Panic Saturday and now I am introducing Oh bloody hell this is really happening and I have done bugger nothing Monday”. Or I was really organised and ordered it all on line weeks ago but now thanks to useless delivery companies I have no idea where any of the stuff is and

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Getting some me time

Exhausting isn’t it?  This holiday season.   That and the shorter days.  And the end of term.  And it feeling like forever since you had a holiday.  Or even a proper day off.   And all you can see ahead of you is a chasing your tail with getting ready for Christmas with present buying and food organising. One thing you won’t be doing, I am sure, is making sure

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Gift ideas for teenage girls

So you are stumped.   You need to buy a Christmas present for a teenage girl and you have no idea what to buy.  I know this because I have two of them.  Teenagers, that is, not presents.   The teenagers themselves are no use, you ask them and they just say “money”.   Buying for younger kids is so much easier, they either give you a list of items

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What are your must see films

It was during Abigail’s Party recently that it happened.   Not an actual party at Abigail’s, I don’t know anyone called Abigail.  Let alone Lawrence.  And don’t get me started on olives. Now you see if you haven’t seen that film, that last paragraph makes no sense to you.   As the references to “frozen sausage” didn’t when people on Twitter then started talking to me about Rita, Sue and

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