The Man with No Time

Last night I went to my first live gig of the year, at the Institute in Birmingham. I went to see Pentatonix , who are an a capella vocal group that I discovered on Youtube towards the end of last year. About a month ago I saw on Facebook that one of my friends from St Andrews was attending their gig in Glasgow, and wondered if they were playing near me. They were, and I was lucky enough to get a ticket (which wasn't too expensive either). I'm so glad I did, because it was amazing. Getting artsy with my camera. The stage was simple, and didn't detract from the music (Credit: David Brown)

In something of a departure from previous years, I've actually managed to get to a race meeting before  I go to Le Mans this year! I suppose that's one of the benefits of living in the West Midlands rather than Fife - lots of tracks in easy range (there are four within an hour's drive of Coventry). Easter weekend is traditionally a busy time for motorsport, with the four day weekend allowing tracks and series to run events over various combinations of Friday to Monday, meaning that if you plan well you can get to see more than one race meeting. This year you had British GT at Oulton Park and BTCC at Donington on the Sunday (both of which I considered going to), and British Superbikes at Brands Hatch on the Monday. But with my love of sports car racing I was always going to go to the endurance double header at Silverstone - European Le Mans Series on the Saturday for four hours, and World Endurance Championship on the Sunday for six hours.  The new pit complex, kn...

The events of Batman: Arkham Asylum have had dramatic repercussions for Gotham City. With the asylum declared unfit for purpose, the city's slums have been segregated by giant walls and turned into a super-prison where criminals are free to roam. Various gangs have sprung up with allegiance to the main supervillains of the Batman mythos, and fight for control of Arkham City. Enter Bruce Wayne, who declares his opposition to the scheme only to be arrested and thrown into the mix. As Batman, he must try to find out what the prison's governor, Hugo Strange, is planning, discover what 'Protocol 10' entails, and thwart the plans of his arch-enemy, the Joker, who is fatally ill after his Titan formula overdose. Arkham City is the second entry in Rocksteady's Batman franchise, and builds on the hugely successful Arkham Asylum to create a larger, free-roaming, sandbox environment. All of the hallmarks of the first game are present and correct: the hard-hitting, viscera...

It's been a long time since I had the opportunity to go to a decent gig. Almost five years in fact; the last one was Feeder at the Warwick University Student's Union in 2008! St Andrews isn't exactly blessed with decent opportunities, and I never knew what was going on in Dundee. Edinburgh and Glasgow weren't even worth looking at until I had a car. But now I do, and several months ago my friend at work asked if I fancied going to see "We Are Scientists" in Glasgow. It seemed like ages away but gradually snuck up on us, and yesterday the two of us made the trip across Scotland to go see the band. We Are Scientists on stage at the Oran Mor, Glasgow. It was an awesome gig. (Credit: David Brown)

One of the staple television shows of my early childhood was "Power Rangers". I remember watching the original "Mighty Morphin" series right up through "Power Rangers in Space". I even watched "Lightspeed Rescue", "Time Force", and "Ninja Storm" before I fell out of touch. I think that's where my love of giant robots started. I then moved on to Mecha-based anime, with "Big-O" and the various "Gundam" series getting me hooked. Giant monsters also started with Power Rangers, and I have a curious soft spot for the mid-90s Godzilla film that everyone else seems to think is rubbish. There's something about giant fighting robots piloted by plucky heroes taking on giant monsters (or other robots) that's inherently cool in my mind. So you can imagine how excited I was when I first heard about "Pacific Rim". The fact that it was being directed by Guillermo del Toro was even better; I'...

The second of the early blockbuster releases is another sequel, and one that I was even more excited about than Iron Man 3 . In fact I was so excited that I took the chance to go to a midnight release showing (it was totally worth it). The follow-up to the hugely successful reboot of the Star Trek franchise has a lot to live up to. The second instalment in the original series of films was “The Wrath of Khan”, which is widely regarded as the best film starring the original cast. J J Abrams did a good job pleasing both diehard fans and casual viewers with his first film, but how does this one measure up. The official release poster for Into Darkness (Credit: rogerebert.com)

Today was a rather sad day. But also, in another way, a rather awesome one. At lunchtime today I took part in my last St Andrews Bassoon Quartet concert (or at least, what should be my last one if everything goes to plan). It's been three years since the quartet formed, initially just to do some Christmas busking, and it's been a blast. We've put on some great concerts in that time, and have repeatedly pulled them off with limited, or accelerated, rehearsals. What's more, most of the music has been arranged specially by our members.