Trouble Found Me

I don't go to a lot of gigs — somehow I never end up being as organised when it comes to music as I am for cinema — but when my brother suggested I join him and my sister-in-law at the last night of The National's Trouble Will Find Me tour, I was totally in. The National has been one of my favourite bands since I discovered Boxer on Radio Paradise some seven years ago. Although I like most of their songs, four rank in my all-time 50-most-played tunes, which is no mean feat. Their penultimate album, High Violet, wasn't my favourite, but I've kept most of the songs from Trouble Will Find Me on my 'current' playlist on my iPhone for much of this year. I'm no music writer, but if you like complex, melancholy lyrics; soulful, baritone vocals; and a sound that goes from contemplative to pumping in sixty seconds, you will probably love The National.

We bought tickets to Wednesday night's gig at The O2 several months ago, and I was particularly annoyed to be feeling so under the weather this week. Perhaps foolhardily, though, I braved it out. I had been looking forward to seeing the supporting act, The Wild Beasts, but delays of transportation and food meant we only caught the very tail end. We did at least manage to grab a decent enough spot in the standing area. The good thing about a huge venue like The O2 is that you aren't completely packed in like sardines, even at a sold-out gig like last night.

And it was a great night! The band were joined by Sufjan Stevens, another favourite artist of mine, and the energy and enthusiasm was infectious. I could have listened to Matt Berninger's deep, rumbling vocals all night, but all we got was a 26-song set list. Which was awesome. Slow Show, which is — unimaginatively, perhaps — one of my favourites, was featured fairly promptly after the Trouble Will Find Me Songs, but I had to wait until the end for About Today, Fake Empire and Ada, the latter of which featured Stevens' Chicago trumpet outro.

As a short woman in a sea of tall, plaid-wearing men, it was a little tricky to follow what was going on on stage at times (as evidenced by the poor-quality photos): I spent most of the night trying to find the gaps between the three tall guys in front of me. But despite not feeling very well, I had a great time. The bro saw the band at the beginning of the same tour at Alexandra Palace, and said that the setlist and the venue worked rather better, but as a fan of The National who doesn't often make it out to see bands live, I thought last night was ace. Next time the band are in town, I'm definitely going to check them out again.

Movie Review: Horrible Bosses 2

The good thing about movie preview screenings is that you get to watch films you wouldn't necessarily have opted to see otherwise but which sometimes turn out to be quite entertaining. Although I am a fan of Jason Bateman, I wouldn't have chosen to go to see Sean Anders' Horrible Bosses 2; actually, it was pretty amusing at times. It positions itself as a sort of hybrid of Home Alone and Ocean's Eleven, but those comparisons oversell it somewhat.

I didn't see the original Horrible Bosses, but I caught up on the back story quickly enough — and many of the gags in the sequel might feel tired or lazy for people who have seen the original. As Horrible Bosses 2 opens, three friends — Nick (Bateman), Kurt (Jason Sueikis) and Dale (Charlie Day) — have escaped their titular horrible bosses of yore and started their own company and are trying to produce and sell an ill-conceived gadget called ShowerBuddy.

A mishap-filled feature on breakfast TV draws the interest of investors, including trust-fund brat Rex Hanson (Chris Pine) and his devious father Bert (Christoph Waltz). Our trusting young heroes agree to manufacture 100,000 ShowerBuddy units and when they have finished — oh, what a surprise! — Hanson Senior tells them the deal is off. He wants them go to bust so he can buy the company and its product on the cheap.

The three amigos brainstorm potential solutions and, after ruling out murder (see Horrible Bosses), they concoct a ludicrous plan to kidnap Rex and hold him to ransom. Nick isn't sure this is such a good idea, but the other two are keen and they tentatively go ahead. Naturally, everything goes horribly wrong, so will our heroes manage to outwit the Hansons and save their business? (Spoiler alert: the film is rather predictable and all of the small plot twists are sign-posted well in advance, so it isn't exactly edge-of-the-seat stuff.)

Of course Horrible Bosses 2 is silly and of course it's predictable, but it's also quite good fun at times, although the script definitely has its weak moments too. You could tell that the cast was having a whale of a time on set. The cast itself is pretty decent — Bateman is good, as always, as the straight man saddled with a pair of idiots, and Waltz, if not at his best, put in a good turn as the pantomimish villain. Two of the three horrible bosses from the first film — played by Kevin Spacey and Jennifer Aniston — also make cameos in the sequel. Spacey's character isn't wildly different from his Frank Underwood in House of Cards, despite the wildly differing contexts of these two projects.

It can be quite refreshing to see a film and know in advance exactly what you are going to get, and if you are looking for something fun and mindless at the cinema this weekend, Horrible Bosses 2 could well be the film to see.

Bex's 2014 Christmas Gift Guide: Stockings and Secret Santas

Over the past few days, I have posted my suggestions for what to buy the men and women on your Christmas gift list. Today, in the final part of this year's Christmas gift guide, I've picked out ten gifts that might slip nicely into a stocking or surprise and delight your Secret Santa recipient. Everything on the list is £15 or under but if, as at my office, your Secret Santa price limit is only £10, there are a few ideas that will keep you on budget.

Food and drink
1. Bermondsey Tonic Water from World of Zing. £14.95. It wouldn't be a Bex gift guide without a gin-related product. You dilute this tonic concentrate with soda water to make a great-tasting tonic water. If you have had a G&T at 214 on Bermondsey Street, this is their homemade tonic. Fancy gin can be quite expensive, but this tonic water will instantly improve even your 'everyday' gin.

2. Kapu coffee scoop and bag closer from the Finnish Design Shop. €19. Why buy a separate coffee scoop and coffee bag clip when one stylish, Nordic gadget can do both? The Design Museum Shop also sells this; they are currently sold out online but they might have some in store.

Style
3. Anchor necklace from Tatty Devine. £15. This necklace is nautical but nice. The light blue colour is my favourite, but it also comes in red and cream.

4. Steven Pinker's The Sense of Style from Amazon. £13.60. As a former linguist, I've always been one of Pinker's biggest fans and I really enjoyed his latest work: a guide to writing and style for the Internet era. It is entertaining and informative, and if you are interested in language or writing you will love it.


Beauty and grooming
5. Christmas star beauty treat from Liz Earle. £7.50. Liz Earle is doing a few different Christmas star-shaped baubles this year: you can choose between a lipstick and a nail varnish in several shades. I like this nail varnish in 'pure poetry': a deep burgundy colour that will see you from the party season and through winter.

6. Camphor stone soap from the Conran Shop. £7. Brightly coloured and with clean, geometrical lines, these stone soaps will add a pop of colour to any bathroom. You can select from several different sizes, colours and fragrances, but these small ones are perfect for stockings.

7. Nihilist toothpaste from Present Indicative. £4.95. If you're a fan of rien de rien, you might enjoy this tongue-in-cheek toothpaste. It's flavour-free and colour-free but chock full of irony.

8. Evil Genius tin candle from Selfridges. £9.95. I spotted these small tinned candles in Selfridge's blinged up gift section in the basement. The Evil Genius one has a nice warm, spicy scent, but they have a few different options if the recipient is more of a secret agent or just a friend.

Running and planning
9. Runner's wristband from Sweaty Betty. £10. Running clothes don't always have enough pockets for all of your bits and bobs, so this stretchy wristband provides a little extra space, with enough room for a card and keys or a few coins.

10. Minimal Planner from the South Bank Centre Shop. £5. Sometimes organisational notebooks, apps and productivity tools overcomplicate things. This notebook, which comes in coral or grey, keeps things simple and makes it easy for you to keep on top of your to-do list.

Bex's 2014 Christmas Gift Guide: Guys

I kicked off the 2014 edition of my annual Christmas gift guides with my top gift picks for girls. Today, it's the guys' turn. Some of these ideas are more unisex than guy-specific, but I've tried to select a variety of different items from a range of price points (the most expensive product is about £180, but the others are much cheaper). If you're on a bit more of a budget, tomorrow I will be posting the final part in my gift-guide trilogy, which highlights some ideas in the sub-£15 price range.

Cocktails and coffee
1. Copa glasses and two mini-gins from the London Gin Club. £17. At the London Gin Club, the G&Ts on the tasting menu are served in these over-sized glass goblets. They're elegant, but also allow the gins to breathe more before mixing. This gift set also includes miniature bottles of two great gins: Brokers and No 209. A voucher for one of the London Gin Club tasting menus would also be a great gift idea.

2. W&P cocktail kit from Mason Shaker. $280. To say that the Mason Shaker is so hipster it hurts is something of an understatement, but I really like how it looks on my bar table. Mason Shaker have put together a leather-trimmed canvas shoulder bag that contains all of the kit you need to super-charge your cocktail-making skills, at home or on the go. The same kit was available on the UK-based Nudge Bazaar for £87.50, but although it has now sold out, perhaps they will get more stock?

3. KeepCup Brew cork edition from Urban Outfitters. £22. I have two of KeepCup's reusable plastic coffee cups in suitably bright colours, but the glass versions are a little more chic — I keep one at work and use my plastic cups when I'm on the go — and the limited edition cork versions are particularly stylish.

Home and away
4. Famous movie quotes poster from Flowing Data. $29 (shipping to the UK is about $15). This amazing poster contains neat visualisations that represent 100 famous movie quotes. It's almost like playing Catchphrase! I haven't ordered this for myself yet (I have a lot of movie-related posters already), but it's only a matter of time.

5. Typographic book end from Goodwin & Goodwin. £19.95. If you like typography, you will really like the products in Goodwin & Goodwin's online store. This book end would be perfect for a film fan — or a fish aficionado!

6. Voyageur traveller's journal from Moleskine. £19.90. I've long been a fan of Moleskine's city guides, but this year they brought out a new travel notebook designed to help organise and record all of your adventures. You can keep maps, notes, lists and itineraries inside, there are section dividers and stickers, and it also looks rather dapper.

7. The coffee deck from J. Crew. £16. The perfect deck of cards for coffee lovers. Each card tells you something about the brewing or drinking of coffee. If, like me, you're a bridge player, you will know how nice it is to have something to read while you're waiting for your partner to play.

8.  Full Windsor 'The Nutter' bike tool kit from TokyoBike. £40. A stylish and compact brown leather case containing all of the key tools for fixing bike woes on the go. It's so small and light you may forget this case is at the bottom of your bag, so if you are planning any international travel, don't forget to take it out first or you may have problems going through airport security!

Style
9. Lapel flower from Jack Spade. $30. If your man's lapel is lacking, Jack Spade, as always, has a solution: the lapel flower. They come in several colourways, but this blue-on-blue version is my favourite. Jack Spade doesn't have a UK-based online store, but Londoners can stop by their Soho shop; you may well find a few other Christmas gifts while you are there.

10. Harry's for J. Crew Truman shave kit from J. Crew. £25. This shaving kit includes a smart teal razon, which will look good in any bathroom, as well as three blades, a blade cover and some shaving cream. Shaving kits can be a bit of a boring gift, but this one is elevated by its cool credentials.

Bex's 2014 Christmas Gift Guide: Girls

Welcome to the first part of my annual Christmas gift guides. Yes, it's almost Christmas time, but there's no need to be afraid. Today's guide is for the female section of your gift list: I've selected ten gift ideas from a range of different categories, from beauty to homewares. Most are under £50, although two are slightly more expensive. Tune in next week for help finding the perfect present for the guys in your life, and for the final instalment of this year's series, which focuses on £15-and-under stocking fillers and Secret Santa gifts. So, without further ado, here are my picks:

Beauty

1. Resurrection hand balm from Aesop. £19. I'm quite fussy about hand creams — I hate anything that is too greasy — but Aesop's mandarin-scented hand cream is seriously addicting. This product smells amazing, and feels luxurious but absorbs nicely into the skin. I keep one tube on my bedside table and one at work.

2. Pixie Dust Beauty Gift Set from Selfridges. £35. This cute gift box contains something for everyone: a carefully curated selection of sparkly beauty products from brands like OPI and Aromatherapy Associates in a similarly sparkly canvas wash bag. Perfect for glitzy nights out. 

3. Margaret Dabbs Sole Spa pedicure from Liberty. £45. 2014 was the year I finally got over my fear of pedicures and I haven't looked back. Margaret Dabbs and her team are among the best in the business, and this 40-minute treatment will beautify the feet of the lucky gift recipient.

4. Apprentice perfume kit from Vetiver Aromatics. $74. It can be tricky to buy perfume for someone else; even if you know them very well, perfumes are so personal that it's easy to go wrong. This kit includes all the materials you need to mix your own perfume blend. Much more fun and unique than Chanel No. 5.

Accessories

5. Rose-gold wishbone necklace from Astrid & Miyu. £29. I discovered Astrid & Miyu in one of my Not Another Bill gift boxes — astrid and miyu mean 'beautiful' in Swedish and Japanese, respectively, and their jewellery is indeed beautiful. The prices are also quite reasonable. It's hard to go too wrong when choosing from their website, but I like the simple elegance of this rose-gold wishbone necklace.

6. Green pearl-print scarf from & Other Stories. £29. This racing-green scarf looks festive, but it's definitely not one of those super-Christmassy items that you can only bring out for one month of the year. It is soft and lightweight, but long enough to drape nicely and keep your neck warm.

7. Reversible tote from Oliver Bonas. £34. Oliver Bonas is a great place to find girly gifts and I particularly like these reversible tote bags because it's like getting two different bags for the price of one. The grey/turquoise colourway is my favourite. It's sold out online, but they still have some in stock in store.

8. Glitter card holder from Kate Spade. £40. Just in time for Christmas, Kate Spade finally launched their UK website. Hooray! (My bank account may not be quite so happy). This card holder, in midnight blue with sparkles galore, is both beautiful and useful (it's also available in silver and rose gold, but they're a little blingy for me).

Home

9. Set of four Fishs Eddy party glasses from Liberty. £24.95. Fishs Eddy is one of my favourite New York shops — they sell so many beautiful and/or quirky kitchen and dining products. Liberty stocks a small selection of their products, and this set of four small glasses makes a great gift. The glasses are decorated with different patterns and colours and they are presented in a cute gift box. US folks can buy them directly from Fishs Eddy.

10. Diptyque holiday candles from Selfridges. £58. Diptyque candles smell great and they always make luxurious gifts. This set includes five mini-candles, each of which is scented with a different festive fragrance. It comes in a gorgeous presentation box, but there's nothing to stop you splitting the set up into smaller gifts for a few special people.

"You Just Defeated Nazism with a Crossword Puzzle"

I work in science communication so I probably know more than many about the brilliant mathematician and computer science pioneer Alan Turing. Yesterday, I had a long meeting in the Turing Room, and my journal celebrated the 100-year anniversary of his birth in 2012, sixty years after his conviction for gross indecency and a year before he was eventually given a posthumous royal pardon. But you don't have to know a great deal about Turing to enjoy Morten Tyldum's new film The Imitation Game, which explores Turing's role in the cracking of the Enigma code. I went to see the movie on Friday night with a diverse group of people and we all really enjoyed it.

Turing is played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who puts in a really top notch performance. The movie flits seamlessly between three time periods: World War II, as Turing is hired — barely — to join a team of mathematicians and engineers at Bletchley Park to crack the supposedly unbreakable German Enigma code machine; Turing's schooldays in the late 1920s; and the darker years of the early 1950s when Turing is investigated by the police, suspected of spying for the Soviets, and then of the aforementioned gross indecency.

When he arrives at Bletchey, Turing is hardly the most popular of employees. In fact, he is only hired by Commander Denniston (played by a sneering, Tywin Lannister-esque Charles Dance) because Winston Churchill commanded it. Turing takes over from Hugh Alexander (Matthew Goode), whose team has been making slow progress, and fires the dead wood. He then recruits several crossword enthusiasts including — shock, horror! — a woman, namely the mathematician Joan Clarke (Keira Knightley), with whom he develops a friendship.

It isn't long before Turing makes a breakthrough: "What if only a machine can break a machine?" he asks. With a huge government grant of £100,000, he sets about building such a machine that he calls Christopher and which would eventually become known as a Turing machine. But Denniston and MI6 man Stewart Menzies (Mark Strong) aren't convinced that they will see a return on their investment and Turing and his team are given an imminent deadline for their work. Will they be able to crack Enigma in time?

Most people probably know the outcome and also know that Turing took his own life in 1954 after being convicted of gross indecency and offered the horrific choice between prison and chemical castration (he took the latter). The Imitation Game ends shortly before then, and it is an emotional but understated ending.

Despite the shocking recency of the UK's former barbaric anti-gay laws and despite the tragedy of Turing's death, the film works very well as a celebration of his often isolated and all-too-short life. It's also quite funny in places, mainly when Turing is standing up to Denniston and Menzies, and when he is trying to do things he sees other people do but does not understand, including jokes and flirting. It reminded me a little of The Social Network — Cumberbatch's Turing is not dissimilar to Jesse Eisenberg's portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg, and although both films are, at their heart, about the cracking and the writing of code, their respective directors manage to tell a much more complex and interesting story.

Cumberbatch really stands out in a great ensemble cast but Alex Lawther, who plays the young Turing, is also excellent, and Knightley does well in a somewhat two-dimensional role. The Imitation Game is a moving, compelling portrait of a fascinating man and it's definitely worth a watch.

Birthday Celebrations Part II: Gin, Gin and More Gin

Saturday morning began with the most virtuous of intentions: I went to the gym and Turkish baths at the Royal Automobile Club, and then had scrambled eggs for breakfast while giving Mum her birthday gifts. After a brief burst of window shopping on Regent Street, we Ubered our way south of the river, and by noon, we were drinking gin cocktails at Little Bird — my favourite way to celebrate my birthday or, y'know, any Saturday. Little Bird's Perfect G&T is pretty close to perfection.

To celebrate my increasing decrepitude, I met a group of friends at the newly reopened Beefeater gin distillery in Kennington. They started doing distillery tours in May this year (£12) and it seemed like the perfect birthday activity for me — and my similarly gin-enamoured friends.

The tour takes about an hour: the first part is a self-guided walk through the history of Beefeater (and gin more generally), and then we met up with our friendly, informative guide, who talked us through the gin-making process, including distilling. He also showed us the botanicals used in Beefeater gin, although not the magic botanical combination, which is as closely guarded a secret as the recipe for a certain fizzy drink.

At the end of the tour, our newfound gin knowledge was rewarded with a Beefeater G&T — they always serve theirs with lemon, hence the yellow, not green, garnish. We also tried a small sample of two other Beefeater gins in the gift shop; my favourite was the London Garden gin, which is only available to buy at the distillery shop. I was tempted to buy a bottle, but my gin stocks are currently very well stocked thanks to thoughtful birthday gifts but maybe another time.

We then winged our way over to the Draft House, near Tower Bridge, for dinner and yet more drinking. The food at Draft House is US-influenced pub grub: burgers, wings, pulled pork rolls, hot dogs and so on. They also have a huge selection of beers, but I kept the gin train going with a Hendrick's G&T.

The real reason for going to the Draft House was to visit the Bump Caves, a new bar in the basement that calls itself an anti-speakeasy: they make great, creative cocktails with interesting ingredients, quirky juxtapositions and plenty of theatre. Downstairs there are a few tables around the bar but we managed to secure one of the eponymous caves, a cosy, intimate space with brightly coloured lighting and a great soundtrack.

Between us, we tried most of the cocktails on the menu (they are all under £10). I started with the Electric Kool Aid Acid Test #EKAAT — how could I resist a hashtag? — which involved malt, Campari, vermouth, Piquepoul and, intriguingly, "9V and acid". Indeed, my drink arrived with a little packet of white powder (fructic acid) and a battery. I was encouraged to add some of the acid to my drink and observe how the flavour changed. I was also urged to lick the battery and see how that changed the flavour. Based on the experiences of my friends, it seems that I am the only person ever not to have licked a battery as a kid and it took me about 20 minutes to work up the nerve. I'm not sure how much it affected the taste of my drink, but it was good fun.

My second drink was slightly less dramatic but just as unusual: the barrel-aged Hi / Rye, which involved rye, hibiscus, "Bump Picon", vermouth and time. Given the last ingreident, I thought I might get a new watch, but I guess that the time had just been pre-arranged. It also came with a pickle for maximum flavour combining. Oddly enough, it worked really well. Bump Caves also does mixology classes and distill-your-own-gin sessions, so it's a cool place. All in all, it was a colourful, tasty and fun end to an excellent birthday weekend.

Beefeater Distillery. 20 Montford Place, London, SE11 5DE (Tube: Oval or Kennington). Website. Twitter.

Bump Caves. 206-208 Tower Bridge Road, London, SE1 2UP (Tube: London Bridge). Website. Twitter.

Birthday Celebrations Part I: Burger, Lobster and Tower Bridge Leaps

As my birthday fell on a Friday this year I took the day off work and my parents came into London to celebrate with me — my mum's birthday is the day after mine, so we usually merge at least some of our birthday activities. It was pouring with rain first thing and I had to delay my run, but it was still pretty wet and bleak.

Luckily, by the time I got home, the sun was starting to break through and it ended up being quite a nice afternoon. My parents and I went to the Tower Bridge Exhibition, which I've never visited before (despite running underneath it several times per week) and which has just opened up a new glass floor in one of its walkways. This means that as well as learning about the history of the bridge, you get some amazing aerial views of the main part of the bridge below and of the river. Not bad for £9. It was pretty busy inside, but I still managed to sneak in a leap.

The west walkway also offers some nice views further along the river to the Shard, the City and beyond. The glass floors at the east walkway will be unveiled next month. The late-afternoon autumn light was particularly gorgeous and it would be even more impressive at sunset. We were on a mission, however, so we just took a few more silly shots on the bridge, admired the poppies at the Tower and headed back to the West End.

My parents kindly booked me into the Royal Automobile Club for the night. I was most excited by the blackboard on my door, but it was also nice to relax in the drawing room with a coffee before moving onto the evening's activities.

Burger & Lobster is one of my favourite London restaurants and they have just opened a new branch near Oxford Circus, where we met my brother and sister-in-law for dinner. While we waited for them to arrive, I ordered my usual Mary's Fix cocktail (gin, pineapple, rosemary, lemon), which was fruity and delicious. At Burger & Lobster, the menu is "would you like burger or lobster?" As it was my birthday, though, I ordered the burger-with-half-a-lobster (£30), which offers the best of both worlds.

And no, I still hadn't run out of silly photo opportunities...

Although pudding was included in my combo menu, I was pretty full and wasn't really tempted by any of Burger & Lobster's sweet offerings. By the time we had walked down to Gelupo in Soho, however, I had worked up a bit of an appetite and made room for a small scoop of my favourite Gelupo flavour to date: raspberry peanut caramel. Yum!

After dinner, some of my friends joined us at the cinema and we went to see the new film about Alan Turing, The Imitation Game, which I really enjoyed (full review to follow soon), before taking a nightcap at the Royal Automobile Club. It was a fun and busy day spent with some of my favourite people; in other words, a darn good birthday.