Top of the list would be Das Boot, but otherwise, some more recent ones include Le Bureau De Legendes, Pui Pui Molcar, Parlement, Dark, Anxious People & Beforeignors.
Beach with other people? Nope. No interest at all.
Deserted beach, where you can roam, explore cliffs and rockpools and so on? Well, they have an atmosphere, so maybe sometime.
Forest? Yes, definitely. Hiking will take you away from anyone else, and there will be plenty of opportunities for wildlife spotting one way or another.
Adrian Tchaikovsky's latest: Shroud. So far, it hasn't grabbed me in the same way that Children of Time did, but I'm enjoying it and am interested to see how the worldbuilding goes.
What does this have to do with UK nature?
Written by a UK based writer, for the UK Wildlife Trusts and including such things as:
- Join local nature-based projects: Across the UK, many community groups focus on conservation, tree-planting, and wildlife restoration. Organisations such as the Wildlife Trusts, Sustainably Muslim, and The Conservation Volunteers offer opportunities to make a difference.
It's based on the Hillary Mantel novels - a fictionalised biography of Thomas Cromwell and his role at Henry VIII's court.
Ripley wins hands down. That would be true if only for the cinematography, but it is for so much more too.
Another comment mentions Slow Horses, and I'd agree on that. Great fun.
Wolf Hall is another with excellent writing and performances.
And Shrinking, which has far exceeded my expectations.
Then a single episode of Agatha All Along stood out. Ep 7, I believe, without checking. Great use of non-linear storytelling. The rest of the season was entertaining, but nothing more.
Baby Raindeer also had a standout episode. You'll know it when you hit it. Despite the controversy about the events this show was based on, it contains plenty of truth of its own.
Finally, we are rewatching the 1979 Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Both this and the more recent film version are excellent from the first scene. This one still holds up fantastically well decades later.
As far as I understand it, the only monitoring that they have for the majority of the outlets is a simple logger that shows when an outlet valve is open or closed. In most cases, there is no record of how much is passing through that outlet - just that it was open for X hours. Obviously, they will already know which are the main problem areas, but I doubt that they have detailed records for most of them.
To be honest, even getting to the stage where (almost) all outlets have some kind of monitoring at all is no small achievement - so I wouldn't want to underplay that - and I am aware that installing flow meters to all the outlets would cost a fair bit.
Overall, I would rather they spend the money on stopping the sewage being discharged in the first place, rather than spend too much on measuring exactly how much there is.
I work for a national charity in the UK. The organisation's policies have been dragged into the culture wars, but have not succumbed so far.
My role isn't directly involved with that side of things though. When planning, I am considering things like potential future supply chain issues, security of/access to services, potential threats, likely changes in resource use, likely changes to legislation and so on, all of which can be affected by national and international politics but, day-to-day, politics doesn't have a great effect beyond those.
During WWII, my dad was posted to guard a munitions factory in Worcester. Mum worked in that factory. Evidently dad was initially interested in one of mum's friends, but they hit it off shortly afterwards.
After they married, dad brought her back to a smallholding in rural East Anglia, where he lived with his parents and three siblings. They apparently thought that mum's Worcester accent was Welsh.
Film
- Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) - An early Scorsese very much of its time. Ellen Burstyn's performance holds up well, but it is difficult to find much else of enduring value in this one today - other than a portrait of the times.
- Moana 2 (2024) - Entertaining and wholesome enough, but adding nothing new.
- Minikillers (1969) - a short film without dialogue starring Diana Rigg immediately following her role in The Avengers tv show, and playing on her Mrs. Peel character: pitting her against a criminal gang that uses killer dolls. Rigg shines, and there are a couple of Avengers-like moments, but this is largely a curiosity for fans.
TV
- Miles From Nowhere - kiwi Moslem comedy not a million miles from We Are Lady Parts.
- Whiskey on the Rocks - Swedish satire based on an incident with a soviet submarine in the '80s. The first episode was great, but not sure whether it will hold up.
- Thou Shalt Not Steal - excellent aussie comedy that improves with each episode.
- Obituary - Irish dramady with a cold-case mystery underneath, Siobhán Cullen puts in a fine performance.
Overall pretty good, but inexplicably exhausting - but then, I'm getting older and everything is inexplicably exhausting half the time.
Meal out with friends, car washed and headlight fixed, went to see a Bach choral performance complete with theorbo and crumhorns - there's posh. There is a haze of green on the branches now, and the blue-tits are definitely building in the nestbox.