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 pantomime 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.

"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 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 (CLOSED), 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.

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

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.

"I'm Not Afraid of Death — I'm a Physicist, I'm Afraid of Time"

There have a lot of great movies released this year — I'm already struggling to narrow down my top five for my end-of-the-year round-up — and Christopher Nolan's new film Interstellar is one of them. It isn't perfect and it probably won't be my overall favourite film of the year, but in terms of its ambition, beauty and all-encompassing emotional depth, it is hard to beat.

I tried to steer clear of all reviews before I went to see the film on Saturday — no mean feat because I follow a lot of science journalists and science comms folks on Twitter, many of whom were discussing some of the scientific aspects of the film — and I will try to keep this review as spoiler-free as possible. That said, if you would like to go into the film completely fresh, look away now (but do go and see it).

Interstellar is set in a dystopian near-future or, perhaps, alternative present. Wheat and okra crops have failed dramatically and the world has suffered huge starvation-induced population declines. Those who remain rely on corn, as demonstrated by the long, sweeping opening shots of corn plants faltering in the wind amid clouds of dust, but it's unclear how much longer life on Earth will remain viable.

Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) is a former pilot turned farmer, who lives with his father-in-law and two young children, Tom (Timothée Chalamet) and Murph (Mackenzie Foy). Through various turns of events, Cooper finds himself at the secret headquarters of NASA, which was forced into secrecy after the hunger crisis — it would be hard to justify spending money on space exploration when so many people are starving, and the Moon landings have been declared 'propaganda'. 

Cooper's former mentor, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), recruits him to join a new mission to explore a distant galaxy with the ultimate goal finding a new home for humankind. Observations of some 'gravitational blips' allowed earlier NASA scientists to detect a wormhole near Saturn that would serve as a shortcut and allow the mission to reach a far more distant location in the Universe than would be possible otherwise.

Coop doesn't want to abandon his children, but he believes that joining the mission is the only way he might be able to save them — and the rest of the world — from the impending devastation of the Earth. 

Murph, an extremely bright and curious ten-year-old, is particularly devastated by her father's departure and for years, she refuses to record video messages to be transmitted to Coop on the spacecraft. But will Cooper and his crew find what they are looking for and if so, given relativity, will anyone they know and care about — or anyone at all, in fact — be left on Earth when they do?

Interstellar is utterly absorbing and an impressive, visionary film. It is a love story of humanity and of our planet, and also of hope against the odds, and faith. It's also the story of a relationship between a father and his children — particularly between Coop and Murph. 

Foy, who plays the young Murph, is extremely talented and the chemistry between her and McConaughey, who is also on top form in this film, is truly engaging. Anne Hathaway, who plays Coop's co-astronaut Dr Brand, is something of a weak link, and her character remains unsympathetic and largely two-dimensional.

The film is long — almost three hours — and although I was utterly gripped and it didn't drag, sometimes it felt that Nolan was a little too ambitious in scope. Some scenes felt as though they had been tacked on to add breadth. There was also plenty of silliness and 'science talk'. 

That being said, it's easy to put aside those small quibbles when the film just grabs you and keeps you glued to the screen throughout. Cheesy as it sounds, I also left the cinema with a warm, fuzzy glow. Jeez, Nolan, you even broke through my cynicism...

Inception is still my favourite Nolan film — incidentally, I can't believe that was four years ago — but Interstellar explores similar themes and is produced with similar style and panache. It's really good and you should definitely go and see it — on an IMAX screen if you can; you won't regret it.

The Caffeine Chronicles: Continental Stores (CLOSED)

Lunch breaks have been few and far between for me, of late, but I managed to steal away for an hour last Friday when the sunshine was still out in London. My destination was Continental Stores, a sister café of Store Street Espresso, which is based on Tavistock Place. Technically, it is located in Bloomsbury but was only a brisk ten-minute walk from my King's Cross office, so I'm sure it won't be the last time I visit.

Tavistock Place is a quiet-ish street just off Judd Street and Continental Stores adds a colourful pop of red to an otherwise unexciting block. There are a few tables outside — which probably won't see much use for the next few months — and then more tables and places to perch inside. The café itself is light and airy, and decorated with colourful art and flowers — and sexy, monochrome coffee-making kit. The seats in the front window are great for watching the denizens of Bloomsbury stroll by.

I really needed a black coffee and happily, Continental Stores serves hand-brewed coffee in Aeropress and V60 format. The coffee of the day was a Kenyan variety from Square Mile, which the barista recommended I try as a pourover, so I did. I wanted something to eat as well, but the brunch menu looked delicious, but a little too ambitious for a weekday — or, at least, for that particular weekday.

Yes, that's right, folks: WEEKDAY BRUNCH! I realised too late that I could have asked for avocado on toast, but by then I had settled for a piece of billionaire's shortbread. I say settled, when in fact my cake was delicious. I would definitely like to try the chorizo, poached eggs, avo and roasted tomatoes on sourdough toast (£8.50) one day when I have more time.

As for the coffee, it was great. I could really taste the fruity acidity of the Kenyan coffee and it had enough of a kick to power me through a busy afternoon over-populated with meetings. Plus, the staff at Continental Stores are very friendly and knowledgeable. All in all, it's a great place to hang out.

Continental Stores. 54 Tavistock Place, London, WC1H 9RG (Tube: Russell Square). CLOSED

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

How quickly another 5th November has rolled around. Once again, my south London friends and I went to our local display in Southwark Park, which was free and fun, and ended with plenty of time for me to get back home to watch The Apprentice.

The Southwark Park fireworks are usually pretty well organised, and it's great that the display is free (well, probably mainly funded by my council tax, but still). Although vast hoards of people were emerging from Bermondsey and Canada Water tube stations, I was able to meet my friends outside the park and in we went. Thinking strategically, we picked a spot close to the way out, to try to beat the inevitable rush to leave at the end.

After a brief introduction from — I think — the mayor of Southwark, who told us a bit about the Victorian park's history and future, the main event kicked off right on time. The full moon tonight was particularly cool.

This year's display was particularly good with some great choreography and a fun accompanying soundtrack, which spanned from Kate Bush to Frozen. And then it was time for the grand finale, which was pretty darn impressive.

And everything was finished by 7.13 pm. So efficient! We had thought about returning to the Angel for dinner but after last year's scampi catastrophe, we headed home instead. It is only Wednesday, after all...