Welcome to Issue #25

This week we have two TV series reviews, a brief summary of an interesting podcast I watched and a review of a local Thai restaurant.

Film and Television

Until very recently I'd not heard of The Sex Lives of College Girls. I saw it on a list of recommended TV shows, looked it up and noted it's well reviewed, as well as being co-created by Mindy Kaling, so suggested to my partner we give it a go.

Season one follows the lives of four 18-year old girls who we meet on their first day at the fictional Essex College. It's a fast paced comedy that packs a lot of plot and plenty of jokes into short episodes which means the four leads do feel a little one-dimensional, although they don't necessarily fit the stereotypes you might expect.

I'm reminded of how I felt watching 'Dead to Me' where it's refreshing to see women supporting each other, instead of the view often portrayed on screen: if you aren't in their clique, they will bitch about you.

There's a moment where one of the characters is apologising to her teammates for her part in getting the sleazy coach fired, as it's come at the cost of silverware for their soccer season. It would have been so easy for the writers to use this as a story arc where the character has to redeem herself through finding a new coach, or some Herculian effort on the pitch to drag their team to victory, but instead the other girls simply support her and we move on. Refreshing.

I can't say I laughed out loud, but it's entertaining, interesting, frequently heartwarming and we binged the first series in a couple of days. We've already moved onto the second and I'm hooked.

Rating: 8/10

Jack Ryan is an American political action series based on the Tom Clancy novels of the same name and stars John Krasinski (it's only just occurred to me that this weeks blog features two actors from The Office US!). Ryan is a CIA analyst who is pulled from the safety of his desk job straight into the field as he both thinks and shoots his way to uncover and resolve terrorist-level threats. I'm a big fan of this genre of show, with the balance of an intriguing story interspersed with impressive action sequences. It's similar to '24' in that respect, which I also loved watching twenty odd years ago.

Season 3 of Jack Ryan was released in December 2022 and centres around a traitorous faction of Russian politicians looking to recreate the former Soviet Union, utilising nuclear weapons and inciting war with America. It was all filmed before the Russia-Ukraine war began but that doesn't stop the tragic and ironic feelings around how the fictitiously scripted actions of Russia mirror the genocidal reality of what's happened over the past 12 months.

It's another solid season, hitting the same beats as previous: a fast paced, globe-trotting plot with Krasinski being his usual charming self and welcomed by familiar faces popping up in the form of Ryan's old allies. However by half way through there was little intrigue left and the remaining episodes serve to play out how Ryan was going to save the world and there's never any palpable threat that he won't.

Another mild frustration is the dichotomy of America presented as the only competent nation capable of restoring peace, yet they seem completely lost without Ryan, incapable of making rational decisions or piecing together the full picture without his help.

I've read that Amazon have renewed the show for a fourth and final season and as a fan of this genre, I'll be the first in line to see how it all concludes. My expectations aren't too high though and that can only be a good thing.

Rating: 7.5/10

I enjoy listening to (or watching) Steven Barlett's Diary of a CEO podcast, particularly when he's interviewing an expert in their field and this week he spoke with Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology who has also founded the Greater Good Science Center.

They spoke predominantly on the theme of happiness and its link with both ones mental and physical health and therefore life expectancy. As an anxious over-thinker, the science behind happiness is something that's piqued my interest and I've enjoyed reading and studying this topic over the past few years. One concept that I'd not come across until now is the relationship between the feeling of awe and its positive impact on one's mental health.

He provides some examples of what awe means in this context: looking up the stars at night and realising how we are just a spec of dust in a brief moment in time, witnessing an act of kindness and being taken aback, listening to music and being brought to tears just from the composition of notes, walking through nature and taking in the beautiful surroundings.

Ultimately that feeling of awe has been proven to make humans less transactional and more focused on the greater good and as we know from more mainstream happiness research, living your life to help those around you is one of the best ways to make yourself happy.

Dacher spoke on other related topics including that life expectancy in the UK and US has been decreasing in the last few years. The argument presented is that we are increasingly questioning meaning in life, whilst also experiencing the rapid decline of religion which for so many years has helped to provide this. Again, this is something I've spent a lot of time thinking about. What's the purpose of whatever time I have in this life? There's no right answer but it's always a fun (if not scary) thought experiment.

Food

After last week's disappointing pizza, we tried another local restaurant that we've been meaning to for a while, Siam House. It's a small independent Thai situated in the centre of Banbury that's very well reviewed online.

They offer a remarkably good value three course set dinner menu for £15.95 and so we both went for this and weren't disappointed. I had the pork spare rib for a starter and red curry for my main.

The ribs were lovely, cooked in a delicious tangy sauce with the meat falling off the bone. The curry wasn't bad, flavour wise it was what I'd expect from a Thai curry, although the texture of the chicken was slightly rubbery and the vegetables were on the crunchier side than I would have if I was cooking at home. For dessert you get the choice of tea, coffee or a scoop of ice cream. I had the ice cream and it was almost certainly from a tub of standard supermarket ice cream, but it's nice to have something sweet to finish off the meal.

Service was excellent from the friendly waitress. Attentive without being irritating and the restaurant was pretty full by the time we left, but didn't feel too noisy to talk. I'm sure we'll go back in the future to try more of the menu.

Rating: 6.5/10

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Thanks for reading and have a great week.

Adam