Brett-Butler

The trailer for the game “Trees Hate You” dropped a few weeks ago, and it’s pretty hilarious. I doubt that the actual game itself will be as funny, but it seems like an interesting concept, trying to escape from a forest whilst the foliage tries to kill you. It’s like a zombie story as written by the Green Party.

I can see this becoming a sleeper hit. Eight quick duels during the show on a variety of subjects mean that if you’re not a fan of one category, you’re never more than a few minutes away from one topic you do like. There’s a good amount of strategy going on which should start to develop over the series (eg if you inherit a category you have no clue about, you may be more inclined to challenge other contestants to play topics you may prefer, however the bigger your floor gets you have a greater chance of getting challenged yourself). Plus, for a gameshow, it very much succeeds in the audience “shoutability” factor. The questions do seem well pitched for both contestant and viewer - I did find it a surprise that I was able to identify more people than I expected in the “Fashion” category. One thing I’ll be interested to see is how categories involving music categories play out. None were played in the first episode (although I did see “The Beatles” and “UK #1s” as potential categories), I wonder if these will be “identify the picture” as per other categories, or will it be “identify the song or band”. So after 1 episode, I am already hooked, and I’m excited to see what stories develop among the contestants, especially those who have started building up some prime territory.

Given that everyone seemed to be willing for Sidney Sweeney to fail at everything this year, I’m surprised that The Housemaid has been the resounding success it has had on both sides of the Atlantic has been surprising. It’s also surprising to see Paul Feig having a successful film for the first time in ages after a string of duds. It looks like it’s his most successful film since “Last Christmas”, which surprised me because a) I didn’t realise he directed it, and b) because of its bad reviews I assumed it was a financial flop as well, but it looks like it had healthy takings.

Why is “Boys Don’t Cry” climbing?

Tonight’s episode was cut by 10 minutes, with Red Panda’s performance cut due to insensitive lyrics given the recent Swiss fire tragedy (some suggestions that the song was “Disco Inferno”, so I can understand why).

Brett-Butler’s Contrary Opinions for 2026 - UK Politics: In Scotland, SNP win the most seats, albeit surprisingly short of a total majority. They enter into a confidence & supply arrangement with the Lib Dems. Reform come a distant yet strong second. In Wales, Plaid Cymru win the most seats, with Reform a close second and Labour nearly wiped out. Plaid enter a coalition with the Welsh Greens. In the local elections, Reform win the most seats considerably, with Labour taking major losses. The Conservatives make small but manageable losses after Kemi’s attempts to steady the ship seem to be taking effect. Whilst the Greens were expected to make major gains, these end up being muted after a major story breaks about their leader that the papers had known about, but were holding off on releasing until just before the local elections. The Liberal Democrat’s also make major gains, but nobody notices. In the UK Parliament, Reform win the majority of by-elections in 2026. This includes a humiliating by-election loss for Andy Burnham, who tries to get back into parliament to jostle for the role of PM in a by-election in a safe Greater Manchester seat. The biggest surprise however this year is Your Party, which gains a shock seat in a London by-election. Two Tories defect to Reform, and in a massive shock, so does one Labour MP. Keir Starmer resigns as Prime Minister after the local elections. The Angela Rayner factions and Ed Miliband factions agree to a compromise candidate, leading to Shabana Mahmood becoming not only Labour’s first female leader, but also the first Muslim Prime Minister. US Politics The Republicans face a wipeout in the midterm elections, losing both the House and Senate comprehensively. Trump will not be president by the year end (70% chance standing down/30% chance death, natural and otherwise). JD Vance becomes President, and overnight abandons his “Baby Trump” persona he adopted on becoming vice president and adopts an approach more in line with Rerorum Novum. Other A “peace deal” is finally agreed between Ukraine and Russia, with Ukraine effectively losing Crimea for good, with Russia also taking ownership of parts of Ukraine as well. By the end of the year, there are reports that emboldened Russian troops are encroaching on the Moldovan border, with the expectation that they will invade early in 2027. The uprising in Iran will fizzle out. Spain wins the World Cup, the UK wins Eurovision, oil prices collapse.

I ruddy hope not, it is the most overrated song ever. Plus, there’s at least three better songs in the finale that I would prefer to see chart, “Sweet Jane”, “Here Comes Your Man”, and “The Trooper” with the initial two never making the top 40 before.

The news stories for this haven’t given much information as to the scheduling of this as of yet, will it be a midweek chat show? An American style daily show, or a Friday evening seasonal replacement for Graham Norton (although given it’s by his production company, possibly not). I just hope she can ask more incisive, deeper, and biting questions of celebrities than Graham Norton tends to with his love-ins. What wouldn’t give for Claudia to give us another moment like this:

As someone who spent his tweens enjoying ridiculously silly comedies that spoofed films & genres I’d never seen at that point (“Airplane”, Blazing Saddles & “Naked Gun” on one end, all the way through to “BASEketball”, “Jane Austin’s Mafia!” and “Shriek if You Know What I Did Last Friday 13th on the other), it was well up my street, even though I’ve never watched a minute of Downton Abbey. The cinema was near empty when I went to see it at the weekend, so I’m surprised it’s not done as badly as I’d thought, I’d not seen any promo for it bar its trailer on YouTube

Went to see this in the cinema last night. Haven’t laughed so much in a film since The Naked Gun, with the Downton Abbey gets the NG treatment being the perfect descriptor of what you get. Not all of the jokes land (about 75% of them do), but they fly at you so fast that if one doesn’t amuse you, there’ll be another one around the corner soon. Anna Maxwell Martin was great as the housekeeper (one line in particular when she is giving Eric an outline of his duties had me literally laughing for minutes afterwards), and there are a few very niche jokes that I caught - two characters whose only dialogue consists of fawning over men are introduced as the “Bechdel Sisters”. However I doubt it’ll be a hit - when I saw it last night there were only six other people in the audience, and I was the only person rolling with laughter. It hasn’t been well promoted either, if it wasn’t for funding the trailer by chance I would have never knew it was out. It’ll likely find its home when it comes into streaming in a few months.

“Running Up That Hill” is featured quite heavily in the episodes of Stranger Things released last week (its continued use remains an important plot point), no I’m not surprised it’s made a reappearance. I thought that one of the other reoccurring songs in those episodes would also re-enter, although I don’t think Tiffany is back just yet.

It feels at least 10 years too late to release a parody of Downton Abbey, but then again the Naked Gun films were parodying a genre that was well out of fashion at the time and they’re some of the best comedies ever. The trailer was really enjoyable and very much in that ballpark, but I hope they haven’t put all the best jokes in the trailer.

One long serving Labour MP has already called for David Lammy to resign over this - In other Labour news, they’ve suspended the whip from their poshest-named MP for voting against the government -

Regardless of the argument as to whether scraping juries for sentences of less than three years is good or not (I’m on the “bad thing” side of the spectrum) it’s pretty poor timing to do so in a week where one of your MPs has literally just sentenced to two years in prison following a jury-less trial, and technically speaking is a fugitive from the law. BBC NewsTulip Siddiq MP says Bangladesh jail sentence is 'deeply...The MP, and niece of Bangladesh's ousted former leader, received a two-year sentence in her absence over corruption allegations.

That must by the highest weekend gross for a #2 film in the Box Office for a long time, probably since Barbieheimer? Also surprised that “Pillion” did so well. It sounded so niche that I doubted it would even crack the top 10.

There’s already a Rejoin Party. They’ve… not done too week so far - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rejoin_EU

And now the first of the Independent Alliance MPs has walked away from Your Party. If any MPs bar Sultana are still there by the end of the year I will be surprised.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Robbie Williams signs up to do it, on the proviso that his wife Ayda Field takes part as well. Given that they appeared as joint experts on an episode of The Wheel last year, it wouldn’t be beyond the realms of possibility. Of the more left field realistic possibilities, Jarvis Cocker would be great.

Quite a big piece of legislation. It would be a pity therefore if it turns out that a key member of Labour, for example one who is involved in Treasury functions, was to involve oneself in a controversy surrounding renting out a property, for example by doing so illegally. That would be highly embarrassing for the party. On an unrelated note: BBC NewsStarmer rules out investigation after Reeves admits renta...The PM says an investigation is not "necessary" as the chancellor admits "error" when renting out home.

Tom Waits is one of the biggest artists who hasn’t had a top 75 single, although covers of his songs have been top 10 hits.

The Perfect Blue re-release will be interesting. In the USA it has already outgrossed its original run & its 2017 re-release COMBINED in its first weekend (admittedly from a small base), so I wonder if it’s ever-increasing reputation will see it enter the top 10.

The most popular isekai at the moment is about someone who is reincarnated as a vending machine. That uma bolted long ago.

No, YOU’RE crying after watching the latest episode of “Dr Stone”. If you gave up on it a few years ago, the last few episodes have really cranked things up.

“Whatever happened to the Popular People’s Front?” “She‘s over there “.

“Head Music” was Suede’s third #1 album, you’ve missed “Coming Up”!