CONSUMED - June 2024

A new (to me) show, a film I teach, music and newsletters.

Hi!

I haven’t prioritised writing because teaching got in the way… it has the habit of doing that. But semester one is over, and report are written so it feels like a good time to turn my attention back to The Middle Part, and CONSUMED feels like a really nice way to do that. So here is everything I’ve been reading, watching, or listening to in the past month, which is way less than normal…

GRACE (on Britbox in Australia)

A detective show is imperative to my media routine. It’s my favourite genre and this one, based on the books by Peter James, each episode is an hour and a half and features a great story investigated by Detective Superintendent Roy Grace and his team. If you watch a lot of British shows, you’ll recognise a lot of people in it, and it’s great.

STRICTLY BALLROOM (on ABC iView in Australia)

Baz Lurhmann’s first film is the best. I’m putting it out there. It’s campy and fun and not complete sensory overload. This is my second year using this film in Year 11 Media to teach auteur theory and both times students have become far more enamoured than they expect. As expected with Luhrmann’s work, the soundtrack is excellent and the over the top characters are amazing.

NEW NEWSLETTERS (on Substack)

Substack has become a funny place, there seem to be so many people on here talking about how great Substack is. It’s fantastic to see so many new writers but it has made me more discerning when it comes to subscribing (even though you can see I subscribe to over 70 Substacks so it seems like I’m not). Holly Garber’s newsletter, Screenshot This by Zara Wong, and A Crip Punk by Mala Urukalo are three of my newest favourites.

BRAT by Charli XCX

I had been seeing so much about this album online, so I decided to give it a listen, it’s not my thing but I do appreciate when someone takes time to make an album instead of singles you know?

PLANNER INSERTS by Cloth & Paper

We know I love stationery and planners particularly and as soon as I received the email saying Cloth & Paper had their 2025 inserts out, I bought them. I am new to Cloth & Paper this year but I like the layout and lack of italicised font. There are certain pages with quotes and stuff, but I just don’t use those. I didn’t think a spiral bound planner with inserts was right for me, you know, I’m going to stop myself here and maybe write a longer piece about this. But in case you’re interested, this is the actual planner I have. Okay, enough about this already.

So that’s it. A much lighter month than usual and I don’t even think I finished a book… in July I’m hoping to watch Season 3 of The Bear, even though my hopes aren’t high, read some of the new Italian detective series I ordered, and find some new people to subscribe to on YouTube. As always, recommendations are welcome.

Also – you may remember seeing I was on Ash London’s podcast, Hopeless Romantics talking about You’ve Got Mail, well I was on another episode talking about the heartbreaking All of Us Strangers. And there’s another one coming out where we talk about a book by my favourite romcom writer Mhairi McFarlane. You can listen on Apple or Spotify.

What have you been consuming?