Films to watch when you're having a bad day

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews was surprisingly easy, as I had a bad day a few weeks back and immediately turned to one of my favourite films to lift my mood. 

I'm not normally a comedy film lover. I don't find a lot of them funny as I'm not into gross-out, public humiliation, romcoms or watching straitlaced people being slowly driven out of their mind, which covers a lot of them. However, my absolute favourite comedy film is Blazing Saddles.

Blazing Saddles is non-stop humour, brilliantly scripted and has a great performance by Gene Wilder, who was one of my all-time favourite actors. I could watch it any day of the week, but it's perfect when you're in a bad mood and need to let off some steam.

So what film do you watch when you're having a bad day?

A piece of advice I'll always remember - and COVER REVEAL

 While considering this topic from Long and Short Reviews I came up with an answer quite unexpectedly. It was something said to me when I was a teenager and I've said it to other people since, even though for the life of me I can't remember where I heard it from.

The last time I said it, in fact, was when my husband made a comment about how all my ex-boyfriends were weird. (Which is true enough - my husband is the only man my father ever liked. He definitely thought all my exes were weird.) He was wondering, in that way of his, how I had managed to land a man such as himself when I apparently had such strange taste in men.

My response? "You've got to kiss a few frogs before you find your prince."

I can remember being cheered by this after breaking up with my second ex back in sixth form, since it amused me to think of him as just another frog. And it was decent advice, too, although luckily I didn't have to kiss many more frogs before I met my prince.

So what piece of advice will you always remember?

And while I'm here, I'd just like to reveal my new cover:

He wants her. She wants him – but she’s going to make it hard for him.

Vlogger Angel Metzler likes to create content on her two favourite things – rock music and classic cars. So when lead guitarist Judah Kallam approaches her at a car show and asks her to do some promotion work for him, she accepts – and when she notices someone filming them as he’s flirting with her, she kisses him, hoping this will result in good publicity.

Judah tells her he plans to quit his band Vegas Dreams to go solo and is happy to get any publicity he can by any means necessary. Irresistibly drawn to him, Angel agrees to make public appearances with him, but knows it will go no further – she has made a private vow never to date musicians, having been let down by too many in the past.

But when the press attention grows too much to handle, Angel and Judah are thrown closer together and the heat growing between them tempts Angel to break her vow – but will Judah still be interested when the promotion is done, or is she just a groupie to him?

Sports I've tried and what I thought of them

 Looking at this topic from Long and Short Reviews, my first thought was "None."

Okay, maybe that's not accurate. I am categorically not a sporty person, and spent most of my high school years trying to avoid doing PE. I'm surprised I didn't get sent to the nurse for the number of times I got out of swimming by claiming I was menstruating or had an ear infection. As far as I'm concerned, swimming is what you do when you fall in. The only one I wanted to try was tennis, and somehow our class never got to do that one.

However, when I was a little older I got into dangerous sports. I've bungee-jumped and I've also skydived. Much more up my street.

I don't know if I'd bungee-jump again - it was a lot of hassle for ten seconds of bouncing around - but I did enjoy skydiving. There is nothing quite like floating down to the ground from a great height, and few things more beautiful than seeing another parachute in the air with you. It is, however, an expensive hobby, and I ended up quitting for that reason, though I would certainly think about doing it again.

So how do you feel about sports?

Best non-fiction book I've read

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews was an interesting one. I read a lot of non-fiction in various areas, most often Richard III or on America - I've just finished Kate Andersen Brower's books on the presidency and they were excellent. However the one that came to mind here was "The Brontes" by Juliet Barker.

"The Brontes" isn't a quick read - it's a tome, but Barker's research is in-depth and fascinating. I live reasonably close to Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage, so the Brontes have always interested me, and Barker puts a lot of effort into debunking a lot of the Bronte myths and bringing unknown facts to light. She also gives my favourite Bronte, Anne, her due by going into plenty of detail about her life and writing, which a lot of previous biographers tended to skip over.

So what's the best non-fiction book you've read? I'm always open to a new one.

A famous book I've never read and why

 This topic from Long and Short Reviews took a bit of thought. I went through a phase many years ago of trying to catch up on my classics, so I got quite a lot of famous books under my belt in those years. I can, however, come up with one I've never managed to get through.

"Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding.

I tried, I really did. I even had a go at the Clandestine Classics version Totally Bound brought out. But it was no good - I just couldn't do it. It's so wordy and so little seems to happen that I simply gave up.

I did initially consider mentioning "Nicholas Nickleby" for this as well. I like some of Dickens, but I prefer his more deeply psychological books like "David Copperfield". I found "Nicholas Nickleby" to be too heavy on the comedy.

So which famous book have you never read?

Favourite historical personage to read about

 Firstly, I love this topic from Long and Short Reviews, just because I love the word "personage". We don't hear it enough these days.

In any event, I love history, and in the past I would definitely have said Henry VIII for this. I spent a lot of time reading about him and his wives - it was a remarkable period in history and all six of his wives were interesting to read about, especially Katherine Parr. However, after I started reading further back and got into the Wars of the Roses, I changed my mind about my favourite historical figure.

Now it's Richard III.

Richard is becoming better known in recent years and there is a lot more debate as to whether he genuinely did kill the Princes in the Tower. Personally, as a staunch Ricardian, I don't believe he did it. I'm leaning towards Henry VII myself, although there are some interesting theories about one or both of the princes possibly escaping and surviving into adulthood. Until we're able to test the bones found in the Tower we'll never know for sure.

It also helps that I have scoliosis myself, so that's something I share with Richard III.

So who is your favourite historical personage to read about?

Something funny that happened to me

 I had to think about this topic from Long and Short Reviews. I had a few funny things that had happened to me at work, but figured it was probably best to avoid mentioning those in case former bosses got annoyed. So I eventually remembered something which wasn't particularly funny at the time, but did make me laugh afterwards.

I used to drive a Kia Soul Burner. These were fairly unique in that they only came in black with a dragon decal down each side. It was very rare that I saw another one, and if I did, the other driver and I would often wave to each other. Needless to say, they were very distinctive, which proved to be useful one very hot Saturday when I had popped to the supermarket.

I got back to the car, went to reverse out of the space and found the gears had got stuck. No matter what I did, I couldn't get it out of reverse, neither could I get the car to move in any direction (which was probably for the best given it was in reverse). So I called the RAC and explained where I was.

For some reason they were really struggling to locate the supermarket on their system. For pity's sake, it's a huge Asda, it can't be that difficult. They then wanted to know how they would find the car, since it was one of many in a large car park. I told them it was a black car with a dragon down the side, so they couldn't miss it.

Then, since it was a scorching hot day and the car park was fairly empty, I stretched out on the car blanket in the next space and sunbathed.

They showed up ten minutes later and, wouldn't you know, had no problems finding me. I don't know if it was the dragon or the blue-haired freak lying in a parking space, but they came straight to me. They also managed to fix the gearbox without having to take the car away, so I made it home about half an hour later.

My husband's comment was "It could only happen to you."

So what funny things have happened to you?