- Hey, guys, welcome to my November favorites.
It is finally December time,
so I can start eating out of this.
I don't have that many physical things
to show you in this favorites video,
but let's crack on anyway.
First up, books.
We had another very heavy month for Banging Book Club,
which meant my whole month was taken up
reading our book club book,
which was Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.
I mean, it's beautifully written,
and I can see why it is a classic,
but it was hard to read
because of all of the pedophilia, basically.
I mean, that's just it, because of the pedophilia,
it was difficult to read.
I haven't quite collected all my thoughts on it,
but if you do wanna hear more thoughts,
then the Banging Book Club podcast discussing this
and video will be up fairly soon after this,
so I will link them in the description
and I will tweet them out when they're ready and up.
One thing I will say is that going into reading this,
I did not know that it was written
from the man's perspective.
I didn't know that it was gonna be first person.
And that just confuses you, and it's conflicting,
and you don't really, like the book is called Lolita,
but you don't really ever really ever get to see
what's going on with her and how she's dealing
with everything and how she feels.
Ugh, that's that for books.
Next up, films.
We are slowing edging into Oscar season,
which means a lot of good films are out,
and it's very exciting.
So, in November I saw Arrival,
which is a film about aliens that come to Earth,
and it's about Amy Adams's character
who's a linguistic expert,
and she is sent in to try and communicate with the aliens
and learn their language
and figure out why the hell that they're on Earth.
And that's all I can really tell you,
because it's so good.
It's so gripping.
Arrival, amazing film.
It was just like a whole experience, incredible.
Next I went to see I, Daniel Blake,
which is about a man, Daniel Blake,
who has a heart attack, and he is on benefits
because he can't go back to work,
but then the health inspector deems him fit for work
when his doctors don't, and so he's trying to appeal that,
because he's then having to go on Jobseeker's Allowance,
but he can't, he's not a jobseeker,
'cause he can't actually work,
and it's like this whole benefits thing.
And it's also about this friend that he makes
who is a single mother of two, and she's been sanctioned
'cause she was like five minutes late to an appointment,
so she's not getting her benefits.
It is about the bureaucracy of the benefit system in the UK,
about how people aren't treated as people
and are just treated as numbers and statistics
and markers to reach in the system,
and it is heartbreaking.
I sobbed.
I was crying so much.
It made me so angry.
To be honest, the film itself
is very much anti-Tory propaganda.
My mum actually works in welfare and in the benefit system,
and she does all of the tribunals and appeals
and that kind of thing,
and I was speaking to her about the film,
and she was just like, "No, it's pretty accurate."
That's what happens, basically.
(exhales) And also, just massive kudos to my mum,
'cause I always knew what she did,
but I never like knew what she did,
and so that film, I was just like, "Oh, my mum works
"with some of the most vulnerable people in the country
"and has to kind of like watch them getting screwed over
"by the government every day."
That must be hard.
If Daniel Blake is still in cinemas where you live,
please go see it.
It's so important.
It's just incredible.
Yeah, go watch it.
And the other film I went to go see, another Amy Adams film,
Nocturnal Animals, and oh boy.
I was actually quite scared of going to see it by myself,
because the trailer looked quite jumpy and thrilleresque.
Nocturnal Animals is about this woman, Amy Adams,
and her ex-husband sends her a manuscript
of this novel that he's written,
and the novel is horrific.
And in the film you kind of get
to see the novel playing out,
as well as her reading it and how reading it affecting her.
It's just twisted and devastating and (groans) violent.
Mm, but it was so good.
It was really, really good.
I've got some TV favorites as well this month.
First of all, Black Mirror, new series of Black Mirror.
Six new episodes on Netflix all at once,
and I was like, "I don't know what to do with myself!"
Every episode of Black Mirror is a self-contained story,
but the general thing that ties them all together is
that it is about people and about technology.
It's every so slightly set in the future,
so the technology that they have
is every so slightly futuristic
but very much based on things that we already have,
and that's why it makes it so realistic,
'cause it's kind of saying, "Ooh, look, this could happen.
"We could get there."
Often it's dark, really dark.
Ultimately, I feel like Black Mirror is a series
about people, because although the technology
is different from what we have now,
the social issues and the things that people do
with that technology is the same as what's going on now.
It just gets heightened.
It's just very interesting, very political.
Makes you kind of take a step back and look at our society
and be like, "Is this where we're headed?"
Would recommend.
Let me think, favorite episodes.
Favorite episodes of the new series, obviously San Juniper,
but I think my favorite episodes in terms
of what shocked me the most is the episode with the soldier,
the soldier and the roaches.
On a happier note, I binge watched a show
called Lovesick on Netflix recently.
It was originally called Scrotal Recall,
but that didn't really catch on.
I don't know why, weird.
But Netflix bought it and renamed it Lovesick.
And it's about this guy who gets chlamydia
and then has to go back through all of his ex-partners
and tell them, and hilarity ensues, so yeah.
But yeah, it's wonderful.
It's a super funny show.
There are two seasons of it on Netflix now,
and it's super easy.
The episodes are 20 minutes long each,
and the seasons are really short.
And I finished it, and I'm just like, "More, more please."
And my final TV favorite in November is Planet Earth II.
Planet Earth is back, David Attenborough,
nature documentaries, and the shots,
oh my God, the shots are incredible.
I can't handle it.
I don't watch live TV, but for the last two weeks in a row,
I'm like, "Sunday night, eight p.m.
"It's Planet Earth time." (laughs)
Who have I become? (laughs)
My mother, mm, yeah, that would be it.
Next, a bunch of music favorites.
Loads of cool new music came out this month
that I really like,
and two of them are my friends, not biased.
But first of all, Tove Lo's album, Lady Wood.
(exclaims) Oh my God.
And I got to go to this party-launch thing for her album,
and she was there performing and she took her top off
and she had marijuana leaf stickers on her nipples,
and I was just like, "Oh my God."
Whew.
The album is incredible.
It's just really good pop music.
And it's very political as well,
'cause when you hear her do interviews
and talk about the album,
it's all about female sexuality
and kind of being uninhibited
and it being sexuality for yourself
and not for other people.
Okay, favorite songs on the album are probably True Disaster
and What the Fuck Love Is.
Next, Bry's album is out, self-titled album, Bry.
It's his debut album, and he's worked so hard on it.
And I listened to it,
and I was nervous I wasn't gonna like it, but I love it.
I also the fact that you can hear his Irish accent
when he's singing, because people often lose that,
but no, it's there.
My favorite songs on the album, I think, at the moment,
are Hope You're Listening and You're Alright.
And my final musical favorite is dodie,
dodie with a lowercase d.
Her EP, Intertwined, oh my God.
That girl, so talented, so talented.
I think my favorite song on the EP is When.
It's just stunning.
It's so stunning.
Dodes, you're so frickin' talented.
So proud of you.
And I love how the song When,
which is the last song on the EP,
kind of contradicts some of the emotions
that she's singing about in previous songs.
I like that a lot, very clever.
Now we're moving on to a section called miscellaneous,
because I've got a few extra things
that I don't know where to put 'em.
At the beginning of November,
it was the Cosmopolitan Influencer Awards,
and thanks to you guys for nominating me,
I was shortlisted for Best Sex and Relationships Influencer,
so, ha, thank you for that.
And I won it.
I won it!
(squeals)
So, I have this beautiful thing.
It says, "Winner, Best Sex and Relationships Influencer."
But what I like to do is kind of like cover it up
so it just says, "Winner, Best Sex." (clicks tongue)
So, genuinely, thank you so much
to everyone who nominated me, ah!
Another miscellaneous thing that I have been loving
in November is a bit weird,
but basically switching off the Internet
and giving myself proper weekends.
I wrote a whole blog post about this
that I will link in the description.
I forced myself offline for like 48 hours, and it was great.
And since then, I kind of have been relying on it less.
I've also, in terms of work, been giving myself weekends off
and giving myself proper weekends,
which has been doing wonders
for my mental and emotional health, so that's great.
And the final miscellaneous thing
is that YouTube have rolled out
onto this channel a new feature
where there are love heart things on comments.
So, before I would just be liking comments,
but you guys didn't know that that was me liking them.
It just looked like it could have been anyone liking it.
But not there's a love heart thing,
so I can go ahead and love heart comments
and you know that that's me being like,
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it, I like it."
'Cause I can't reply to every comment,
but I do read them all.
And then there's another feature
where I can pin a comment to the top,
and the idea of this is to kind of make the comments
a safer place so there's less harassment.
So, I can put to the top and showcase the kinds of comments
that are welcome here.
All right, that is it for my November favorites.
Thank you guys so much for watching.
Please give the video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it,
and let me know all of the stuff
that you've been enjoying this month recently
and if there's anything that I should check out
in terms of TV, films, books, et cetera, all of that stuff.
And don't forget to subscribe,
'cause I make new videos every week.
And I'll see you soon, bye.
(upbeat music)
♫ Yeah