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THE WINE SHOW answers the age-old question: good looks or personality? Specifically, would you rather spend time with two very attractive men with average conversational skills, or two not as attractive men who can have a hilarious conversation about nothing? Even more specifically, would you rather drive through Italy in the company of Matthew Goode (Downton Abbey) and Matthew Rhys (The Americans), or with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon (The Trip to Italy, reviewed here some months back)? I guess that would depend on whether you want to document your trip on Instagram, or make a TV show.

Read our TV column The Binge.

Jimmy is a master of the shortcut, the quick fix, thinking outside the box. The problem is that the law, by definition, is a box. Resourcefulness and inventiveness, the qualities that make him a good lawyer, are the same qualities that can get him disbarred. But Jimmy gives the legal profession a serious try, actually landing a cushy job that gives him corporate housing, a car plan (Heart-rending moment when he says goodbye to his crappy old jalopy) and on a whim, a cocobolo desk. He does it for a girl. Inside that sleaze is a romantic who wants to be a better man in order to deserve the woman.

Read my TV column The Binge at BusinessWorld.

So Hodor, everyone! Hodor! This convoluted parallel universe, we understand.

In episode 3, Bran has a vision of the Tower of Joy. Meaning we may be close to uncovering someone’s mysterious parentage. The Tower of Joy scenes are filmed at the Castillo de Zafra in Guadalajara. My keep.

Stray observations:

Jon Snow is lying on the table being washed, so it stands to reason that he should be naked. At least as naked as women frequently are on the show. But there was strategic cloth cover.

They forgot Rickon! This is like the time some people I know forgot their kid in the elevator, because they had their hands full with their two other kids.

Arya’s training proceeds apace. This season is going faster than the last two. I’ve had enough of seeing Arya suffer. Let her hit people.

Still waiting to see Uncle Blackfish gut Walder Frey.

I couldn’t wait for the notebooks to arrive in stores so when reader haciendera said they were available at Changi Airport, I asked a friend to get them for me. My friend does not watch GoT (He has other qualities so we’ll let him live). Help me explain it to him.

Send me a presentation explaining the show (We don’t need to hear how it diverges from the books), in PowerPoint, Flash or any format (handmade diagrams allowed). Email it to saffron.safin@gmail.com, or if the file is too big, send me a link to your site. The best presentations will get the Game of Thrones Moleskines when they arrive at National Bookstore.

Drogon, notebook and cat

Notebooks are coming. We do not jest.

Read Game On: The most obsessively-watched show on television begins its sixth season in our BWorld column, The Binge.

To introduce the line, they recreated the show’s opening credits.

How they made it using 750 photos and 7,600 paper cutouts.

The result

Night gathers, and now my watch (at the bookstore) begins.

Read Game On: The most obsessively-watched show on television begins its sixth season in our BWorld column, The Binge.

From Chris Marker’s sublime short film La Jetée to James Cameron’s Terminator, from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure to Back to the Future, time travelers have been finding that you can’t just go back to the past to correct the present. You end up with a whole new set of problems. The latest to grapple with these complexities is Jake Epping, a high school English teacher who is convinced to go back to the Sixties in order to stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy. As Epping is portrayed by James Franco, this comes with special circumstances. When Franco’s character emerges in the Sixties, won’t strangers accost him on the street to ask for James Dean’s autograph? And which James Franco will show up: the performance artist who churns out endless versions of himself, the disinterested emcee at the Oscars, or the amazingly empathetic actor who made us feel like our own arms were being sawed off in 127 Hours?

Read our TV column, The Binge.