The premise for this book is a good one: in an obscure corner of the universe various big companies are trying to help one group of primitive aliens win a long-running civil war against another tribe so they can exploit the winners and their land. To do this they are equipped with replica antique weapons for various reasons. The group in this story are all flying replica WWI planes like Sopwith Camels.

It sounds like Biggles in space, but it is easy to forget the space part as it is mostly just a story about how war is hell, which is at least 100 pages too long, and probably 200 pages too long.

The book starts with one of those Tom Clancey-type faux military memos, listing all the personnel sent on the mission which was a bit daunting. I was worried that it meant I would have to try to remember 50 or 60 names, ranks and personalities but really the story is all about one of them and only three others get much of a mention.

I got through to the end of the book, but it was a bit of a struggle because none of the characters was particularly sympathetic and I kept hoping there would be more exploration of the ideas, like the differences between regular and mercenary soldiers or parallels between the situation and various historical colonial adventures.

By the end I felt quite unsatisfied. The situation has so much potential that is not properly developed.

This fits the phone well, and does give some protection from bumps and scratches. The phone isn't cheap so it is worth giving it some sort of protection. The screen cover works well if you fit it right, but it is a bit fiddly to fit, as these things always are. All the necessary buttons and sockets are easily accessible. Reasonable quality for the price.

This does make it easy to pick up VBA for Excel but when it came to the thing I really wanted to know (userforms and ActiveX controls) it covered the whole topic in a few pages and I had to make extensive use of various websites to fill in the gaps.

This examples in this book are from an earlier version of Excel than the mixture of 2007 and 2010 that I now use, but everything still works the same way. The only exception is that when Office moved to the ribbon in the 2007 version a lot of stuff that was on the Tools/options menu is now in a different place - accessed through the Excel Options button - but that was easy to find.

Not a bad introduction to the topic. By the end of it I had put together a quite substantial lot of code for a project at work, but I did have to use internet resources for things that the book doesn't cover.

The two main selling points for this are the way the lines retract into the arms when the dryer is folded, and the rope-pull for opening it and they both work very well for me. On my previous dryers I did get a bit annoyed with the tangle of line when it was folded, and the way they kept getting dirty, and the awkwardness of reaching through to lift the arms up but I thought that was just something you had to put up with. I was amazed to find that you don't have to put up with it.

This comes with a strong plastic socket that really needs to be set in concrete, although you can buy one that screws directly into the soil if you don't want to mess around with concrete or think you will keep moving it. I set mine into concrete, using a sack of ready-mixed stuff for fence posts and it was really easy: just dig a hole, put a brick in the bottom, hold the sleeve in it, pour some powder round it then add water. It was set in about 10 minutes.

The socket has a cap on it so that you don't get water or rubbish in there when the line is removed, which is a nice touch. The post is about 50mm diameter, so you probably won't be able to use the hole from an old rotary line. Considering how thick the post is, plus the added bulk to the arms from the retracting mechanism, you might expect this to be really heavy, but I think it is lighter than my old one.

The first time I tried to open this up it wouldn't go all the way up and some of the lines were hanging loose, which was a worry. It turned out that one of the lines had got looped around the arm either in transit or while I was unpacking it. Once I straightened that out it was fine and opens and closes easily every time.

Opening the line by pulling the cord is really easy, but once it is open you are left with a very long cord. There is a little hook that you can loop it around which does keep it away from pets and toddlers but it is a little surprising that there wasn't some really clever solution instead.

Overall I am very happy with this, and more impressed than I thought I would ever be with something as prosaic as a washing line.

This is not just good for the very reasonable price, it would be good even if it cost twice as much. It is certainly better then the expensive slip cases on sale at the shop where I got my Nexus.

At first I was a little worried that there was nothing to stop the case opening all the time but the magic of magnetism keeps it nice and secure. It also works very well with sending the machine into sleep mode, waking up as soon as you open the case. This is a good thing, because the wake-up button on the Nexus is a little fiddly to access even without a case. Ever since I put it in this I haven't needed to use the button.

Getting at the volume buttons is a little fiddly, but again that is as much to do with the Nexus design as anything else.

There are two different ways to prop the tablet up in landscape mode. Great for watching video. There is no way to prop it up in portrait mode so for e-book reading you either do it in landscape (which doesn't feel right), hold it in your hand, or lay it down on th table. Fair enough. I can't think of a decent way to put in two differently oriented stands and certainly not for this price.

The stylus is OK. Not a thing of beauty, but it works. Unfortunately there is nowhere to keep it. There is a loop, but it is too narrow to fit the stylus in.

The screen protector is like all screen protectors for phones/tablets. By some fluke I managed to get it on first time absolutely straight with no bubbles at all. You can't even see it is there, so no complaints about that.

Overall I am extremely pleased with the design, functionality and look & feel of this, and it arrived really quickly.

This is one of the best books I have ever read - and I have read a lot. The premise is summed up in the title: a 100-year-old man climbs through a window, on his 100th birthday, and ends up on an adventure.

The story of his increasingly unlikely and farcical adventure is alternated with chapters about the previous 100 years of his life, which turn out to be no less strange as he leads a Zelig-like life, accidentally meeting up with famous people and world leaders and being at several historic events, which I won't even mention as it would spoil the surprise for anybody reading this, and surprise is what this is all about.

The structure is unusual, possibly unique in the way it ties up at the end, and the humour is gentle but still genuinely funny. I'm still enjoying the line where the hero complains about some exertion by saying reminding his companion that he isn't 90 any more.

I usually avoid books as hyped up by word of mouth as this one because they can never live up to the expectations, but this one does. It is not a short book, but I would have been happy for it to to have gone on even longer as it was so readable. The style is very straightforward, and the credit for that has to be shared with whoever the translator was (assuming the author didn't do the English version himself).

This film far exceeded my expectations. The poster/cover, title and plot description didn't grab me and I wasn't expecting much but this kept me completely entertained all the way through, with plenty of out-loud laughs. Since watching the film, I found out that it is an adaptation of a classic series of books, which I probably should have known about. I can't personally vouch for it, but apparently the film quite faithfully adapts the spirit of the books.

It is set in an idealised 1950s France and has a very stylish and stylised look, which even makes those of us that are not French and were not born in the 50s feel nostalgic. When I found out that it was based on books which were either cartoons or heavily illustrated with cartoons it did not surprise me at all.

Although the main characters are all children, this is not a children's film. More of a family film really, suitable for all ages to enjoy at different levels. The adults are mostly there as supporting characters because the focus is very much on an ensemble cast of youngsters who are like a more gentile, French version of the Bash Street Kids.

The film features plenty of sitcom plot staples, like the boss and his wife coming round for dinner, but it doesn't feel at all cliched to me. It is a feelgood film that is well-written, well-performed, funny, with a brilliantly animated title sequence and jolly soundtrack, featuring child actors who are genuinely funny. It is like having the Moone Boy set in France and thirty years earlier but without the imaginary friend.

This a sequel to the book Little Brother. It could be read on its own but I think it is better to read the other one first and then read this one.

If you use the internet or have a smartphone then this could easily give you nightmares as you realise what sort of surveillance is theoretically possible using them. It is quite hard to get to the end of the book and not feel at least a bit paranoid.

It is one of those books set about 5 minutes in the future, so although it is sort of science fiction there is nothing in it that you can't imagine being possible now.

Despite the wealth of detail about technical matter and the culture and ethoics around them this is also a good read. If you just want techie details, buy a text book, because this has a story that makes you keep reading faster and faster because you wnat to know what is coming next.

This really is a basic voice recorder, reflected in the price, but it might be right if you don't need all the bells and whistles of more expensive alternatives.

The sound quality is functional rather than brilliant. It will be fine for making notes-to-self or dictations, recording meetings, lectures or interviews but only for your own use: there is too much hiss to make it suitable if you think you will want to broadcast the results or share them widely on the net. The hiss also makes it unsuitable for music recording. There are various quality settings you can change but they all sounded the same to me.

I have been comparing it with the DVT3500 which is a bit more than twice the price of this and a very similar size and shape. The more expensive model does have better sound quality but the DVT1000 is actually better in some respects. For example it is a significantly lighter and with less options, the menus are a lot easier to get round so it is easier to use.

With such a no-frills machine you don't get the little carrying pouch or headphones that come with its more expensive relative. You also don't get the telephone recording cable and would have to buy them separately if you wanted them. (Don't bother though - the telephone recording cable is terrible) You also miss out on a lot of the advanced features, though many of them are more gimmicks than essential features.

The most significant shortcoming of this machine is that there is no backlighting on the screen. Even in a bright room I had trouble reading it. For recording, this isn't too bad but it makes it really hard to search through libraries to find recordings. If not for this I would probably have given this machine another star. It may be low-spec but it isn't bad value for money, but the poor screen visibility does impact the usability a lot.

I know that most people who will want to record meetings or lectures will have mobile phones capable of doing that now, but a dedicated machine has the advantage of not killing off your phone batteries - not to mention the possibilities of getting textx, calls or emails during a lecture that will interfere with your note-taking.

So, for personal use on a budget you could do worse than this but you might want to stretch the budget a bit to something with a backlit screen if you can.

This may well be the best CD I have bought for many years, even though the music on it is thirty to forty years old now.

Not only are the 2 discs stuffed to capacity with interesting stuff, but the packaging is of a quality unheard of these days, apart from in those expensive 30th anniversay box set re-issues. The dics themselves are in a little plastic box the likes of which I haven't seen before and there is a 38-page glossy booklet that is actually worth reading. In fact the booklet actually blew my mind when I discovered that one of the more obscure bands on here actually featured the man with the golden flute himself, James Galway on their first album.

The name is a little misleading as it suggests the music is all electronic, but hardly any of it is 100% electronic and some of it features no electronic instruments at all. In fact this set features more jazz flute than an extended version of Anchorman but that is not a bad thing - one of the highlights for me was the intense flutework on the track by Iblis.

Not all of the music falls into the archetypical, repetitive image of krautrock/motorik music. Some of it is a lot more like American psychedelic music, some is like British prog of the same time, but, of course, motorik is there too including the mighty Hallogallo.

The perfect soundtrack to a long drive.