Luvan 2 Litre Stainless Steel Thermos/Coffee Pot

Double Walled Vacuum Flask
I was thinking about the number of times that in a routine day I boil the kettle. I drink a lot of coffee. So I was trying to work out how long it would take me in saved electricity to match the £20 outlay on this large thermos!

Before my brain exploded on that, I bought it anyway and now I can fill it up from the kettle in the morning and it becomes my hot water supply for the duration, until lunchtime.

There's not much to say about it really except that it feels fairly sturdy even if the 'top' and lid are clearly plastic. The lid has a two-axis pivot so that it can be taken out of the way for filling but just opened a little for pouring. The lid 'stopper' seems to seal sturdily and well.

The hot water retention is pretty good (not tried the cold yet) and certainly lasts all day staying hot enough to make a drink. As the day gets longer it does of course drop off, but I left some in from lunchtime then overnight one day and in the morning it was still hot enough for washing up water. They claim 24 hours!

There doesn't appear to be any jaded-taste thing even after some hours. Don't know if the FDA approved 18/10 food-grade steel thing helps, but worth noting, I guess! I suppose you could make the coffee first and put it in if you were picnicking etc. Maybe that's what you're supposed to do, given that it's called a Coffee Pot!

Dishwasher safe, no glass involved, so no chance of breaking, light and portable (when empty, obviously!), it seems that the trick is the gap between the walls acting as insulation. I'm sure many of you physics bods can explain that more fully, but for me, it seems to work well, keep the water hot enough for drinks and saves electricity not repeatedly boiling the kettle.

I'm sure that there are many other options out there of similar function (and probably cheaper), but I focused on this one partly because it was a nice big 2L matching a family-sized kettle and it reviewed quite well at Amazon. Recommended.

Whatever Works

This 2009 comedy written and directed by Woody Allen stands out for me as one of his more engaging and character-rich films with more one-liners than you can shake a stick at, an intricate plot meandering all over the place with crazy situations and outcomes! You might get the feeling that I like it!

The ageing Woody wisely decided to replace the role he’d historically reserve for himself, placing a substitute in place do ‘be him’. He did this is various films, including Celebrity (Kenneth Branagh), Irrational Man (Joaquin Phoenix), Midnight in Paris (Owen Wilson) and so on. In this case, he secured the services of the very funny and deadpan Larry David. In the UK, we haven’t really had much exposure to David - his writing and acting reserved mainly for American audiences in shows like Sienfeld (which I have still never seen an episode of!), Saturday Night Live (ditto) and Curb Your Enthusiasm (which I have seen, but only since Whatever Works).

He’s a very funny man and has those same miserable, neurotic, cynical, sceptical, nihilistic and pessimistic attributes in his role that Woody himself has made a career out of portraying! David has been very well picked to fill the shoes and delivers beautifully, as if he was the man himself.

The story is about Boris, the middle-aged hypochondriacal misery with suicidal tendencies, broken marriage in his wake, trying to make it through to his funeral without too much pain in a run-down bachelor-pad in Manhattan. He hangs out with a handful of acquaintances at local cafe spots and street corners ruminating on the meaningless of life and existence!

One ordinary night as he heads for home, he stumbles upon a young woman who’s run away from her home in Mississippi, and is desperate for somewhere to stay and get off the street. Unlikely as it seems, Boris takes her in - initially for a cup of tea, but she ends up staying of course. Melody is played very well by Evan Rachel Wood (True Blood, Westworld, Thirteen), making her own acting mark as the naive, uneducated, heavily-accented southerner presenting with charm and a humour of her own. She’s a cute little character who the audience immediately warms to and don't want to see exploited by the likes of the miserable git!

However, the longer she stays with him, the more he influences her and she starts to see the world through his eyes. Events unfold and develop as various characters are introduced from her past and their present and Allen gets the chance again to exercise social commentary through humour and bizarre situations in the usual storytelling way, which at times verges on pantomime! It’s all great fun though and if you’re an Allen fan you’ll love this outing.

Allen ensures that David uses the ‘fourth wall’ technique that he himself is a master of, taking it even further in this case - even engaging the other characters in the story with the unseen cinema audience, the other side of the camera. It’s very cleverly done and on a trivial level allows for narration of the story, but on another, a very funny opportunity for glances and quips to us, the exclusive audience ‘on set’ in the same way as Miranda Hart does in Miranda, the BBC Comedy. When it’s done well, it’s fabulous to watch - all about timing, gesture and facial expression.

As always, the direction, sets and atmosphere is executed beautifully, from open spaces to small apartments, art galleries and street scenes. The photography is very interesting, as I’ve said before, enveloping a European style of film-making by delivery and production. He’s good at that and has made a study of European cinema to develop the craft.

It’s a great film, full of rich characters, funny dialogue, ludicrous situations and off-the-wall conclusions. The supporting cast are all very capable including some Allen regulars like Patricia Clarkson (Vicky Cristina Barcelona) and Michael McKean (Curb Your Enthusiasm), injecting their own personality on various roles in the story. Well worth checking out if you get the chance - and for the fan, a must! For more of Larry David in a similar role, go get Curb Your Enthusiasm!

Rabone Chesterman Tape Measure

We've been trying to date this and reckon somewhere between 1930 and 1960. It's a beautifully made measure which has certainly stood the test of time, being used by my dad and previously his uncle, we think. Or maybe his mum (who, believe it not, was a carpenter for a time!).

The device is encapsulated in high quality leather and has proper old fashioned brass fittings, which work as well now as they did when new. The stitching is sound and has never been touched up or needed repairing. The tape is 25 feet long (no mention of metres here!) and the roll-up/rewind mechanism with entrance rollers works perfectly.

Back in the days when stuff was made properly, this carpenters' tool is a delight to still have in the family as a slice of yesteryear - and remains functional. Indeed - it's a measure of Whatever Works!

Cardinal

This Canadian crime drama/thriller comes to us in the UK just now via the BBC and currently shows the first series (on the iPlayer) with the second, piece by piece (two so far) as it’s broadcast on BBC4 on a Saturday evening. The second series looks promising so far, but it’s the first I dwell on here. Not sure why it’s been relegated to BBC4, but I guess they have their reasons not to place it in prime position.

The first series is a dark drama set in the snows of Canada and features a couple of cops trying to track down a serial killer. Billy Campbell (The Killing, The 4400, Helix) plays the lead - and guess what - a cop with personal problems and a complicated history and home life! Fortunately the time spent on his background and home life ends up being intertwined into the plot to some degree, so is not a total filler. He plays the lead with a style of his own. I’m not really sure if I like his almost whispered delivery and purposefully gravelly voice, but I guess he was doing what he was told!

The star of the show though is certainly the French/Canadian actress Karine Vanasse (Midnight in Paris, Pan Am, Trench 11) who shines. She is very convincing in her role, rising from lowly cop’s assistant to a central pivot of the proceedings, both as an actor and in her role. She, too, is at times understated, but by now one is getting the impression that this really is a style thing!

The audience finds out about half way through the 6 episodes who the killer is, why he’s doing what he’s doing and who he currently has in his lair. This allows for the viewer to become a voyeur of the grizzly and dark nature of his activities, though delivery of his antics is never gratuitous. The level of exposure attempts to give us an insight into the mind of the killer, played by Brendan Fletcher (Freddy vs. Jason, Rampage, Air Bud). He plays it pretty dead-pan in a controlled way, which at first makes it feel unconvincing, but his facial expressions and dialogue with those around him reflect a dark interior which, again, has been embraced as a style.

The style is a lot of what this is about - think of Scandinavian thrillers, again set in isolated snowy situations - and to some degree this follows that lead. The storyline holds it together though and the sub-plots, instead of feeling like they’ve been bolted on to make it complicated and more interesting, actually serve to enhance the production and envelop the main thrust.

The photography couldn’t fail to be interesting, I guess, given the landscapes available, though I think it could have been made more stylish - in keeping with the genre - with more compelling focus effects and interior shooting being injected by the director, for example.

It’s certainly worthy of the time invested in watching and I am keen to watch the second series, which I have started. With Nextflix and Amazon Prime Video stuffed full with an awful lot of under-par offerings, it’s nice to find something which, though not earth-shattering, is a jolly good thriller.

Sony Xperia XZ2

Since toying with my third XA2 recently, I’ve been hankering after a Sony model higher up the range, but have been put off by the logical route, by this XZ2 being £700. In 2018 with the likes of the Nokia 7 Plus, Moto G6 Plus, Honor 10 and many others offering so much for so much less, it seemed like madness to consider. However, a temporary sale price of £499 at CPW in the UK had me snagged.

Style and Design
Those who have followed my ramblings will know that over the years I have loved Sony stuff. I love the name, the style, the design, the attention to detail - and this across most devices, not just phones. There has also been a love/hate thing with Sony phones, though. I don’t like the way that they have pushed the user into their marketing, in-device and pre-installed apps and services, some of which can’t be disabled and/or uninstalled. So I usually get wow’d by the Sony hardware, get one in, then return or sell it because I’m so disappointed by the UX. I wonder if this was destined to head for the same graveyard.

Physical
What it has got going for it, first and foremost, as far as I’m concerned, is style and design. I bang’d on about the Nokia 8 Sirocco for a while being similarly lovely to hold and a delight to own - without the need for it to actually use it! The XZ2 is reassuringly heavy in the hand at nearly 200g and unfashionably fat - a bit like me! I like that! At 11.1mm it’s over twice as fat as my Moto Z! I really like the size of the Nokia 8, which is a reason why I keep going back to it, and this is a similar height and width to that. Slightly smaller, but certainly less thin! It’s certainly far less tall than the Nokia 7 Plus and not as wide. There’s a class of device emerging on size that is just right in the hand for usability but just big enough to comfortably see and pocket.

Million Dollars
Over and above all this technical sizing stuff though, is the style and design, as I was saying earlier. It feels like a million dollars in the hand, the smooth curved glass on the back and front disappear under the aluminium ring around the device. It feels classy and, dare I say, worth, even, the ‘proper’ price! Yes, OK - we all bang on about the pitching of devices that do 90% of the stuff of flagships for less than half the price, but when you get a nicely designed flagship in your hands, the argument slips away! Sometimes, as I said about the Sirocco, it’s just lovely to own something which gives so much pleasure, regardless. Note that you won’t get away with using this with no case! It rocks on surfaces because of that curve - and you will break the glass on the back!

Sound Advice
The other attraction for me was the stereo speakers which reviewers around the circuit had said were very good indeed, if not Razer/Marshall standard. I needed to hear them for myself. I’ve been testing the forward-facing stereo speakers, obviously against the Razer, and it really does very well. The stereo separation has been done well, but I don’t really get the point on that with a pocket-sized device. I was trying to watch a Netflix video with the phone in front of my face and in order to get the smart stereo surround sound, blah, blah, I have to get the screen closer to my face than my eyes will let me focus. What do I do, get a huge magnifying glass! Maybe younger people will do better, but for me, it’s about the overall sound output when held or placed a couple of feet in front of me.

Bedroom Filling
The sound is actually very good. It’s pretty loud when left untweaked by the plethora of tools which Sony supply. It’s not in the same league as the Razer - and in order to beef out the low-end, as usual with phones, compromises need to be made on volume. But it’s much better than most anything else out there (that I have personally heard) and more than adequate for casual listening, certainly of voice, in a relatively noisy environment or filling a bedroom with music. Could be better, but it ain’t bad. I’ve been using it now for a couple of days and I’ve not been annoyed at not being able to get it loud enough nor winced at a horrible tinny high-end.

Shake, Rattle and Roll
Whist exploring the sound output from the phone, you’ll discover one of the unique features of the XZ2, that being Dynamic Vibration. It’s a bit of a gimmick really, as it vibrates at three adjustable levels of intensity along with the peaks of output from any sound or video being played. It starts off as a bit of a fun novelty, but actually after a while I realised that I didn’t want it to be off! It continues to work even when pushing out sound elsewhere via bluetooth (which is a bit odd) and with headphones too. When watching a film, again it seems a bit odd to start with but over time it becomes quite natural. I’ve ended up liking it being on, though I wonder what it’s doing to the battery and/or structure of the internals vibrating so much!

EC270 to the Rescue
There’s no 3.5mm audio-out, incidentally, but I won’t go on about that again. You know how I feel! There is a USB-C to 3.5mm adapter in the box. There’s also a revolting-looking in-ear set of earphones - which, incidentally, have a 3.5mm plug on the end! What?! Either go with USB-C or don’t! There was a promise of a EC270 USB-C/3.5mm/Charging adapter from Sony in European sales, but there isn’t one here. And there’s a suspiciously big box in the packaging with just a couple of leaflets inside. They obviously changed their minds! I’ve ordered one, so will report back.

Not Bovvered
Fortunately, I hardly ever use ear or headphones, so personally, I don’t care! I understand that you might though and I can report that testing the setup with my AKG headphones, the 24-bit audio output works well, except there’s no control of the audio settings. You get basic shaped output as they have, presumably, decided on a generic default - much like Honor/Huawei have done with Histen. Still, it sounds great to me! It seems like Sony have done something to their 24-bit dongle, output, digital/analogue etc. which means that they are heavily encouraging people to buy their accessories. Everything works perfectly with bluetooth, incidentally, with all the devices I’ve tried, with all the latest supported features and technologies, as far as I can tell. We have an analysis and conversation going on between the Community members at https://goo.gl/CJHGpU if you want to see and understand more.

Flagship Specs
The Snapdragon 845, IP65, IP68, Qi Charging and 6GB RAM certainly qualify the Sony Xperia XZ2 as a flagship. The in-vogue (and first for Sony) 18:9 ratio 1080p IPS LCD Triluminos 5.7” GG5 display and X-Reality Engine adds to that ticket along with the aluminium frame and glass all round. Android 8.0 is present with July 2018 Google Security Update, just in time for Android 9 to outdate it! Sony have a fair record, better than most, of updating firmware in a good timescale. We’ll see!

Glorious Technicolour
This is Sony’s first shot at an 18:9 screen and thankfully they’ve not notched it, nor have they ‘rounded’ the corners. It’s a clinical rectangle, the way a screen should be! The bezels left and right are small, but not stupidly so. The chin and forehead have been reduced, though still leaving space for the two speakers, making the device just right in the hand, as I said earlier. The screen is an LCD but what I found, similarly to the XA2, is that it’s as near-gorgeous as AMOLED. Sony seem to sprinkle some magic dust to make this happen via their Triluminos technology. The blacks are deep and colours rich. For those who wish to saturate their experience the colour profile can be changed from Professional Mode (as you see it), Standard Mode (like most people expect in a phone) or Super-vivid Mode (with glorious technicolour)! Out in sunlight, with auto-brightness cranking it right up, the screen is certainly usable though not in the class of the Nokia 8.

Middle Ground
One of things that no reviewer can get past it seems, is the fingerprint scanner being (almost) in the middle of the back of this phone. Firstly, hurrah for Sony sticking with the back and not returning (yet) to the side. Secondly, in just two days with this device my brain has totally got used to the lower position of the sensor after, admittedly, keep touching the camera lens. I have no idea why they took the decision to put it there (maybe with thoughts of landscape use) but it’s OK - like most design variations, people get used to them if they have to use them. Thirdly, it works as fast as lightning here with the slightest touch, the setup is quick and accurate and it’s nicely sized as a circle.

Tour
Above the scanner is the camera cluster and down the bottom, the subtly etched word XPERIA. On the base is a USB-C socket, around the perimeter is various microphone holes and antenna breaks with a SIM Card Tray at the top (in my case Single SIM and microSD Card) which, in the usual Sony way, reboots the phone when pulled out. On the right side is the volume-rocker high up, power button in the middle and shutter-button low down (hurrah)! I was trying to work out why anyone would need the option in settings to double-press the power button to launch the camera, when the shutter button does this. Bizarre! Sensors and camera in the forehead of course, along with the top earpiece providing half of the stereo and a very slim slot right at the base of the chin pushing the other. All buttons are metal, good quality, firm and solid in use - classy as you’d expect for a phone in this class.

Electric!
I was very dubious about the 3180mAh battery and held off for quite some time, even at this sale price, because of that alone! Reviewers around the circuit reported that the battery performance was disproportionately strong and along with the fact that the device has QC3 and Qi charging, this pushed me over the edge. I can now report that they were right! I don’t know if it’s more Sony magic dust or the kudos belongs to Qualcomm for the SD845, but yes - amazing performance for the size. Tested over two days and mixed use (quite heavy while reviewing) and we’re looking at 24-30 hours between charges with a staggering 8 hours of SoT during that time and auto-brightness. How do they do that! So for me, no fears!

Saturated Vanilla
The usual experience with Sony phones these days is that there’s much less third party bloat than there used to be, a goodly sized helping of their own apps and services, some of which can be uninstalled, some disabled - and some the user just has to ignore! This situation is better than it’s ever been, but it still needs to be sorted out. As far as I’m concerned, the only useful additions in terms of apps are Music and Video. Unlike Vanilla, using these two apps makes it clear and clean for files held in memory on the device and gives a good quality Walkman-style experience for media consumption. Paired up with good bluetooth headphones or using the phone’s speakers, the experience is top notch and stuff is one place, where it should be, not littered around in Photos or Music apps elsewhere, Google!

The Sony Ideals
The rest of it, though forms the following list - deep breath... 3D Creator, Album, AR Effect, AVG Protection, Bokeh, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Email, Facebook, Facebook App Manager, Files, Kobo Books, Lounge, Movie Creator, News Suite, Amazon Prime Photos, PlayStation, Sketch, Style Cover, SwiftKey, Themes, Video & TV SideView, Weather, Xperia Assist, Xperia Home and Xperia Transfer Mobile. Now apart from the camera, which I’ll come to, all of that is bolt-on stuff that is not needed and mostly serves Sony to lock users into themselves and their partners' services. Excusable from Honor, to keep down the cost of a handset, but from Sony - charging £700? Come on! Anyway, with careful use of launchers and App Trays, the user can, if they know what to do, get it all out of sight.

Look and Feel
The default launcher is as Vanilla as Sony ever got! Layout is good, options in (Launcher) Settings to show the Google Feed to the left or not, some fancy stuff like hiding the App Tray button enabling up-swipe to get there, down-swipe for a Sony device search for text strings in Contacts and Messaging (and suggested Apps, which is the annoying bit here, but can be turned off!), icon size and layout of grid options, how the page transitions go, access to their Theme Store for changing look/feel with some free but many paid-for and wallpapers etc. The drop-down Notifications and Shortcuts area is very Vanilla, which is good, and can be adjusted in the usual way. I was resisting putting Nova on for now, and actually, now that I have things sorted and tweaked, don’t really feel the need to do so.

Speedy
The phone is incredibly fast around the UI, as you might expect with this hardware, touch anything and it leaps into action, no sniff of any delay anywhere, hopping between open apps and starting unopened ones. I can't find any glitchy behaviour with this Single SIM version (I know that +Gavin Fabiani-Laymond gave up on the device, reporting many bugs, but he did have the Dual SIM version imported, and I wonder if that’s made a difference).

Analogue Glances
It’s a shame that Sony have still not really yet implemented an Always On/Glance screen in a meaningful way, nor DTTW. Lifting the device fires up the screen with an option then to DTTW, but then security is needed to get in of course. Pressing the power button on the side gives the same outcome - a quick glance of the clock (of which there are plenty of interesting choices) with the option to then go past security if you want to look at something Notified thereon. I have found myself using a variation of these options, and love the analogue clock! I think that all devices with a fingerprint scanner on the back should allow DTTW for those times that it’s on the table, making use of the speakers, for example. A missed opportunity.

Storage Unit
I’ve been a great ambassador for 128GB as a standard for SmartPhones in recent times, and I stand by that, but by insisting on it, one crops out a whole bunch of options and devices. I have to admit that it’s been a long time since I’ve had quirky behaviour from a microSD Card and sure enough, as long as devices are turned off between switching, maybe those days are behind us. Sony was one of the worst offenders a couple or three years ago, along with Moto - but I have been switching here without incident. Fingers crossed. Armed with a 400GB microSD Card, with all transportable data on it, it works well - and I currently have about half of the 64GB used.

Splattering Sony Settings
Delve into Settings and there’s all sorts of Sony stuff alongside the usual customers, including PlayStation hooks, STAMINA battery controls (which really don’t seem needed), Xperia Assist (with all sorts of options and settings for automated Actions, memory cleaning, battery optimising, gaming, night light mode allowing the user to set all sorts of useful switches). There’s even a new Chat feature, which allows the user to enter a Messaging-style dialogue with the Help section in device. There’s loads of stuff to explore and make use of without it feeling like it’s bloat or forced on the user.

Blink and You Miss It
The main camera is a 19MP (at 4:3) f2 (24mm in full-frame terms) unit with a Sony sensor which, according to some, underperforms like the rest of the Sony phones’ cameras and sensors, including the 5MP f2.2 front-facing camera. There’s no OIS anywhere and the party trick for the camera is to be able to shoot 4K HDR Movies and slow motion in full HD too, apparently a first and one-over on Samsung! Woopy doo!(?) 960fps for 0.1 of a second - make sure your timing is good! They got into bed with Facebook (for easy posting - figures, I guess!) with the 3D Creator mentioned earlier, which allows the user to make a 3D virtual model of someone’s face. Very useful! About as useful as the AR childish effects putting dinosaurs on your carpet. It just seems to be aimed at Japanese Pop Culture, which for Sony I guess is a fair target market. The Bokeh Mode seems to work as well as any out there, with a live slider, but I still get the best performance adjusting things manually, personally. There are reviewers who do this for a living who are saying that actually this is Sony’s best shot at a camera ever and it performs very well. So mixed opinion. The shots that I’ve taken with it all seem perfectly good, even in low light, but then you probably know my approach by now. It’s a tiny sensor in a tiny device and if you want anything more than snaps for social media, get a camera with a proper sensor.

Steady Now
The camera app is stuffed full of the usual plethora of options, bells and whistles, with apps downloadable and able to plug-in to the camera’s menu system ready for use. It’s a tinkerer’s delight with Manual Mode on-screen sliders and controls and SteadyShot here and there, but I keep going back to the Superior Auto Mode. It seems to get stuff just right almost all of the time, intelligently selects all settings for the user and gives most people what they want, most of the time. I think the camera is just fine for me. Some express boredom declaring ‘more of the same’ whilst others think things are looking up.

Verdict
I would never have paid £700 for this phone, but at £500 it feels like it’s good value, beautifully made, very capable, interesting and different with a class, style and design that Sony seem to be good at and have been for years, in my book. Not sure how long that price will be maintained, but if it goes, I see AmazonUK are also pitching £629 after flirting with £499 for a week or so. It’s officially available in Liquid Black, Liquid Silver, Ash Pink and like this one, Petroleum Blue. I recommend it very much. It feels and performs like a quality premium device. Will it get priority over other options here for holding my SIM Card? Well, yes - I like it a lot - for now!

Sony SRS-LSR100 TV Speaker

WIRELESS HANDY TV SPEAKER I’d forgotten that I’d bought this some time ago in an Amazon Daily Deal or similar at half price, so decided to get it out and give it a whirl! It’s basically a remote control for your TV with built-in speaker.
The implications are obvious really, and it certainly helps me as I have a TV with a rubbish speaker with poor top-volume and tinny sound - though it might help those who are hard of hearing even more. The unit is in two parts. A base-unit which you plug into the mains/USB/microUSB by the TV and connect to your TV via the (supplied) optical digital cable or (also supplied) 3.5mm audio socket, and the main speaker/remote unit, which sits on the base to charge but can then be moved across the room or wherever you want it.

The advantage of this over a simple sound-bar is that the person who wants the enhanced sound can have it next to them, the sound is pretty isolated around the unit, and other people in the room can use the TV’s sound if it suits them. The person using it can also plug in an earpiece or set of headphones, with a splitter if they like for two people, making the sound really isolated from others.

The base-unit sends the audio signal via its own wireless network (not via, or dependent on a home Wifi/router) to the remote speaker and the sound can be heard via the remote unit. A simple idea, excellently executed in the usual Sony way.

The sound coming from the speaker is of excellent quality and can be turned up very loud via the dial in the top. The whole volume-dial is pressed in/out for on/off so if you have the TV volume down to 0% you can mute the sound with a press. You can use a couple of controls on the back to change the sound - there’s a ‘Voice Zoom’ button, which smartly isolates voices and enhances them over other sounds and an ‘Auto Volume’ one which adjusts the volume in relation to other sounds in the room.

I’ve got a very basic TV (made by Polaroid), but it’s pretty new, and the sound that comes out of the Sony speaker is not adjusted by the TV’s Sound controls. So if you turn up the bass, for example, nothing changes in the sound of the unit. You seem to get what you get from the Sony, though, as I say, the sound is pretty rich and well balanced. With a posher TV, this might change of course, so YMMV.

The battery is supposed to last 16 hours if you leave it off charge and continually use it, but it does have a 10 minute power-off when it detects no sound, so actually, that 16 hours can be spread over days. It seems to do well in this respect.

The base-unit and remote speaker are supposed to have line of sight of each other to maintain contact for transfer of sound, but actually I’ve tested it in another room and it seems to work still! I have had a bit of break-up a couple of times, but I think it was more to do with battery - as initially, I had plugged in the USB lead to the TV’s USB Socket for power, not realising that when the TV was off, it wasn’t charging. D’oh!

The units are made of tough plastic, like you’d expect to find a Sony radio made from. It feels solid, heavy and reassuring. There’s no way to get the battery out for the user, so I guess it does have a life expectancy. The buttons are solid, firm to press and volume-dial is a ‘floating’ one enabling the press in/out for on/off. The remote unit has a handle for carrying, which again is very well made, firm and solid and round the back is a big communication window, which should be pointed towards the base-unit, a separate microUSB socket under a rubber flap (along with the headphone socket) is present so you can charge the speaker unit independently of the base if you prefer (or it’s in use), a reset button and a remote setup button. It’s a unit made with the usual Sony style, design and class, feeling like a premium product.

Now to the bit that I can’t test! As you can see from the array of buttons, rockers and switches across the top, the device can also replace your TV’s remote control. However, I’m afraid that I can’t find a way to do that with my Polaroid TV. You’re supposed to put a code into the keypad to set it up but it seems that the codes only cover 12 main manufacturers’ TVs. So presumably unless you have one of them, it won’t work. I’ve tried every code from 01 to 99 and can’t get it connected, so I guess Sony want you to buy a posh TV, preferably a Sony model! I don’t think for my use this is a great loss anyway as it’s not what I need the unit to do.

I mentioned earlier that I got it for half price and I was trying to work out whether or not, now that I’ve got used to it being in constant use, if I’d now pay the £150 real price for it. I’m not sure. There are other solutions as I said earlier with sound-bars and Bluetooth ‘senders’ and even better sounding bluetooth speakers, but they’re not as well defined, present a bit of a fiddle, tend to be across the room, not next to the user who wants to isolate the sound and need working through. This is a done-deal, one job done well, sorted. So I guess it depends how much spare cash you have!

Luther

Londoner Idris Elba (The Wire, Star Trek Beyond, Pacific Rim) plays DCI John Luther, a copper with anger and violent tendencies but a special insight into understanding the criminal mind and detecting situations. His behaviour is a bit far-fetched, really, and in real life I’m sure that however brilliant an asset he was, he’d be out on his ear. But this is fiction!

I’m very late to the party on this, as it’s been around for nearly a decade, but I’m quite enjoying what I’ve watched so far, taking into account the above! There’s also a disproportionate number of serial killers, activists and gangsters stalking the streets of London, it seems, and we’re offered up a variety of these with differing lengths of stay. Some story-lines run through a whole series, some are short-lived. There’s always the backup plot-lines to follow regarding what’s going on in his private life, corruption and those of the politics in his department at work.

Fellow-Brit Ruth Wilson (Jane Eyre, Saving Mr Banks, The Prisoner) is another consistent through early episodes, which tend to be just under an hour each with varying numbers of episodes for each series. The very capable Dermot Crowley, Michael Smiley and Warren Brown convince amongst a cast of mainly British actors, some better than others, with various backgrounds of TV and film. Attention is paid to photography with some interesting tricks and focusing techniques and direction is shared across the 5 series set amongst 5 people.

I reckon they’ve taken some of the writing cues from Dexter. The side-kick murderous female who Luther/Dexter has to keep liaison with under wraps, have a mutual respect for each other and a sexual chemistry bubbling under the surface. It’s very similar in delivery and style. Wilson plays the first one all a bit tongue-in-cheek, which keeps her scenes light and fluffy, whilst the audience knows very clearly what she's capable of doing!

As I head through series 2 just now, there’s a second female picking up the role where Wilson left off. This dipping in and out with (relatively) well known actors follows the pattern. Take Julia Stiles as Lumen Ann Pierce and John Lithgow as Arthur Mitchell in Dexter again. Seems that actors are attracted to playing the short-lived nasty role and we lap it up!

The show is a very enjoyable BBC offering now available on Netflix in the UK following some patterns as described above of the copper chasing nasty people whilst managing their troublesome home and personal life and balancing the politics and trouble at work. We’ve seen it before, but it done pretty well here. It’s dark and grizzly at times and an entertaining glimpse into the writers’ view of how complicated human beings can be! I haven’t given up yet and am intrigued now enough to continue. Barney Rubble all raaand. Mate.

Man on Fire

This 2004 outing really wasn’t my kind of film, but as it was recommended I thought I’d have a go. I feel like I need my 99p back!

Problems include the annoying hand-held camera-work, the irritating editing technique of flashing lights, leaping between camera viewpoints rapidly, inserting text across the screen reflecting the dialogue (even when spoken in English), the hour-long trudge before anything happens, the following hour’s 'Action Man' clap-trap (which will no doubt appeal to teenage boys who love Bruce Willis), the flick-chick undertones of luvvie-duvvie involvement of a child in peril etc. You get the idea that I wasted an hour and a half!

The story is about a culture in Mexico where rich people have to hire minders, as kidnapping is so common and the gangs ruthlessly deal with victims and families with whom they engage. A washed-up ex-CIA superman is engaged by a family to protect their child, who subsequently gets kidnapped and he goes out to seek revenge (as he, by that time, has fallen so much for her sickly sweetness and words of love for him in her diary that has to go and put the world right in her honour)!

The 'flick-chick/Action Man sandwich' is just annoyingly sycophantic and overly guey, as far too long is spent setting the scene and background, focusing on the depressed alcoholic minder, the brat who tries, successfully (of course) to change him into a lovable gorgeous human being and the Mexican landscape of corruption and nasty people.

Then it's time for our hero to leap into action, ludicrously taking on hundreds of armed baddies around him, defeating them en-masse, in the same way as any Bruce Lee or all-action hero might. The level of his command over everyone and everything around him is absurd and will only appeal to those who can really remove themselves from any level of reality.

As we close the other side of the sandwich, eyes-raised and vomit-bowl to hand, we have to witness the soppy ending and storyline delivery designed to pull at heart-strings. It’s just a lot of rubbish and unless you can remove yourself from the storyline and direction and focus on the performances, you should give it a miss.

Denzel Washington is not very convincing as an all-action hero, I don’t think, but he’ll appeal to the teen boys and girls no doubt. Cutting through all the above there are some very good actors here demonstrating what they can do. Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction, True Romance, Sleepy Hollow) steals every scene (not very many) in which he’s present. He’s a fine actor and can turn his hand to many different roles. Dakota Fanning (Oceans 8, War of the Worlds, The Alienist) performs quite excellently as the brat. As a child actor she really had something extra and it certainly came out here, even though she was given such a sickly sweet thing to do.

The mother was played also excellently by Neighbours' girl Radha Mitchell (Finding Neverland, Melinda and Melinda, Olympus Has Fallen) though she, too, didn’t have much screen-time, giving it up to Washington. The Italian actor who featured in Hannibal and a couple of Bond films recently, Giancarlo Giannini, played his usual part - and he does it very well, the grizzled hard-smoking cop shot stylishly in smoke-filled rooms, Mickey Rourke goes largely unnoticed and there’s supporting work from a range of other people, good and bad.

Although I slated the editing earlier, in actual fact some of the photography has been shot very well - I think it was at the editing stage and fancy effects that it fell apart. Leave directors alone! When they're not trying to be too clever for their own good, there’s some good use of focus and long-shots depicting the setting of inner-city Mexico interestingly.

As I said earlier, you really need to be in the target audience for this kind of tripe or be able to remove yourself to look at the various aspects of performance, direction, setting and production to keep from tutting, sighing and laughing to yourself at the absurdity! Otherwise, go enjoy!

JVL Peg Oval Sock Dryer

This is a nifty little simple solution. Speaks for itself really, I guess. Hang it from something and peg your socks (or other smalls) to it to get them dry in a suitable place, like an awning or conservatory, away from monsoon rainfall or waterfalls!

The unit just hangs from wherever you can hang it, has 20 pegs (though I'm sure there are other sizes), is made of sturdy-enough plastic and costs £4 at AmazonUK (https://goo.gl/XfLxL6).

You can flat-pack it for travelling and it certainly would be a smart addition for the kit of a caravanner or motorhomer. What's not to like?!

KKMoon Desk LED Illuminating Magnifier

Here's one we got in recently to help elders around the place with deteriorating eyesight. And it works a treat.

Does pretty much what it says on the tin, really. It's got a goose-neck for limitless positioning, a good clamp which firmly clutches the desk, a 107mm main glass with 2.5x magnification and embedded into that, a circular 24mm section with 5x magnification for serious close-ups.

A thousand and one uses of course, not just for those with failing eyesight but also hobbyists and people who work with small screws or repairing glasses, fitting tiny batteries and the like. The 'head' of the unit is plastic and the rest metal. Probably won't last forever but it feels sturdy enough for a good while.

This model also has an LED lamp built-in which takes 2 x AAA batteries. Batteries seem to last well - on one occasion a user here left it on for 6 hours accidentally and it still works fine! This lighting genuinely helps to see things in all-but broad daylight.

It's not a big plate-style book-reader, as putting a book behind it does mean moving it around quite a lot but for general desk use, it's a peach! A tenner at AmazonUK and you can't go wrong.