issue the invoice and then it's due in a certain time frame so so maybe you want to send out payments only to those that have not yet sent you payment and it's overdue now so if you had if you gave them thirty days to pay you and it's past thirty days maybe you just send the the statements out for them so that could quite be the case quite possibly so now we're gonna say the date range gonna start at eleven thirty and go to the current date typically you're gonna go to the current date which we're gonna imagine here's 12 30 23 down below if there were customers that don't have an email then they would be over here you can't send them a statement by email if they don't have an email right you'd have to actually print out the statements which you might be able to do and mail it but clearly you would like if you're sending out invoices to have the email address you could send it out by email so these are the statements available we have the 17 you can see we have the recipients name we've got their email address and we've got the balance outstanding down below we can cancel we can print preview we can save we can save and send that's what we're gonna do when we're done with the whole thing or save and close and I want to say print preview let's check them out so then we have our statements that have been created so we have our name up top we have the statement format and then here you can see this is the balance forward so this is the amount that was due to us prior to the date that we started that we that we put on that we started the the starting point date and then this is the current activity that has happened between the date that we're looking at which is basically December so this is the December activity and invoice a payment and a payment so you have the running balance on the right-hand side which gives them a little bit of detail of the activity that is happening and it gives us the balance still due 239 it also gives this little report down below for the for the outstanding balance that breaks out by current due 1 to 30 days past due so it gives them this past due amount here to once again and they also gives a nice little bottom line in the settings I think you can turn this off if you don't want this bit down below but I don't see why you wouldn't want it let's pretty it's pretty useful because it gets to kind of like the bottom line down below and a little bit more information of saying hey look it's past due if we go through it gives a statement here's the next one that we just go to all of them here's the balance forward no activity in the current tie period and it's been passed due and then we have the next one here's the balance forward the payment happened and then another invoice happened and so this one actually got paid off notice it's showing the detail there's the there's the balance it was paid off and then here's the new invoice it's showing the activity that happened in the current and the current time frame and there's the balance here's the next one just has a balance forward of 1 to 30 days past due 31 to 60 days past due and so on so that's probably the default one that most people would use and hopefully we can email that out and make our our follow-up process on the accounts receivable cycle easier let's look at the other two options though you've got the open items so these are open items for the last 365 days so now open items are going to be are gonna let's apply it are gonna be you would think the invoices right that haven't been paid that are open so let's check that out let's print preview that one and we then have now it's showing the detail of the invoice for the last 365 days so there we have that and so here's the invoice of the open item and open item here's the invoice gives you the detail the invoice this one has two of them right so now we have the two items here and it still gives you the amount due down below because this was the amount open amount is 81 and 4 and it gives you the amount due down below so a little bit a little bit different of the statement so but might be a little bit less information so if you have really long statements possibly that might be useful but it's only going you know it's 365 days back and then the last one transaction statement so this will give you the transactions that have happened and possibly you might have customers that want the transaction statement maybe even if it wasn't an invoice even if it was a cash-based system maybe and you know you have your transaction statement that a particular customer may want for example let's preview that one and so we can see here we've got the transaction here's of the invoice total amount and then it gives you the total that received and notice we're not looking here at the amount at past due it doesn't give you that past due amount right down below because it's just looking at the activity that has happened it's not trying to report necessarily on the outstanding balance per se like is normally the case for statements here now we're just showing the activity that has happened so here's the invoice the amount received total and then here's another invoice for this one this one we invoiced and let's see if we have one let's let's increase the range on this one just to see more activity let's go from 010123 to 1230 apply it and now we'll see more range on this one so now if they wanted the transactions for the year we had an invoice we had an invoice we had a credit memo we had an invoice total amount and total received and then here we had an invoice an invoice so that was the activity total amount and then total received gives you the amount and the received and then we had here invoice you know three invoice and then the amount received on those invoices so it gives you kind of the detail it's not giving you still the outstanding balance or the amount that's due over a certain time but again if someone wants the activity that has happened over a range then this is this would be a nice report for that idea but again usually you would think that the reports would mainly be used that you set up in an accrual system possibly using the first balance forward report so that you can set up a system that you follow up on the invoices being able to to not just send out the invoice again as a reminder but give a statement which will allow you to combine multiple invoices into one statement hopefully allowing you to not bother your your clients too much with too many emails and be able to pay you the full amount that's due rather than having two invoices where they might catch one and then not get the other one or something like like that and being able to then do this on it on a systematic process to make it part of basically your accounting cycle a lot more efficiently is the general idea


9 months after the general elections in Iraq, not only is there no government, but the political crisis continues unabated. The most recent development was the resignation of 73 MPs from the political bloc led by Shia cleric Muktada al-Sadr. The cleric claimed that this was to make space for the establishment of a new government. For the longest time after the polls, it was believed that al-Sadr would play a key role in the formation of a new government. So this recent step has caused further confusion and uncertainty. Why did the Sardarist bloc quit parliament? Is this a gamble by Muktada al-Sadr? Rania Khalik of Breakthrough News explains. So just a quick recap to understand the backdrop of what recently took place. The Iraqi elections, you'll remember, took place in October of last year, but the country has been in this deadlock ever since, and this was the result of the corrupt sectarian system that the Americans had installed in Iraq, which isn't so different from the one that exists in Lebanon. And so in Iraq, the prime minister, Shia, the president is occurred, and the speaker of parliament is Sunni. So first Sunnis, in order to have a government function to create a government, first Sunnis have to agree among each other and propose a candidate for the speaker. And then once he is voted to power, the Kurds have to agree among themselves and propose a candidate for the president. And then once he is voted for, the Shias have to agree among themselves and a prime minister is voted for. So the October 2021 elections were very problematic. They were full of corruption, there was vote buying, candidate buying, tampering with the so-called independent election commission, all of these lovely things that came with the democracy that America brought to the Iraqis. And Muktada Sutter is this fiery Shia cleric from a family of clerics, and he won the most votes for his movement. And so it's suspected, of course, that there was some foul play involved in that. And just for those who don't know, Muktada Sutter, he's famous for his Mahdi army militia which fought the Americans during the occupation, but was also deeply implicated in the sectarian civil war that erupted in Iraq. And he was also less involved in fighting ISIS than other Shia militias. But he has this cult-like following of actually a few million Shias who blindly follow him. So unlike other Shia movements and parties in Iraq, which don't function quite the same. And because he's a little less close to Iran, he's sometimes been perceived as being the anti-Iran candidate, particularly by these naive American analysts who want America to control Iraq. And this is, of course, very simplistic. Muktada Sutter has had a very good relationship with Iran, and actually Lebanese Hezbollah in the past, and he's been hosted by both. But of course, this hasn't stopped Gulf countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE from helping him out financially to weaken the pro-resistance factions who are actually closer to Iran. So anyways, traditionally Iraqi governments were formed based on consensus, and Muktada wanted to break that tradition and dominate the government, something which frightened many Iraqis because of fears that his mafia would capture the state and that it's patronage network and memories of their propensity for intimidation and intransigence would as well. So other parties were pushing for a compromise and a government with Muktada, but he refused, right? So despite his bullying, Muktada had been unable to form a government as he wanted it. After being accused of dividing Shias and working with America and working with the Gulf states, Muktada tried to bolster his nationalist credentials by proposing a law that criminalized normalization with Israel and actually added a death penalty to it. This received, of course, a lot of attention from the Americans, the American State Department even sent out a press release condemning it. But then to avoid the need for a government, Muktada pushed through this massive spending bill that would actually allow parties to steal billions without a government even being formed. But the Supreme Court made it clear that the law is unconstitutional until a new government is formed. So basically, after all of these sort of failed attempts to get his way, he threw it like this temper tantrum and ordered his 73 members of parliament to resign. And in the last couple of days, everyone's been trying to figure out what this means. Now if he was serious about wanting an opposition and government, then surely he would have his MPs just become the opposition and allow the other Shia political parties to form a government rather than have his MPs resign, which leads me to think that he's less serious about his MPs resigning and is actually likely stalling for more time to negotiate a consensus government. And just to be clear, Muktada al-Sadr is known for his backtracking. So it'll become more clear what Sadr has in mind with his latest move. But the timing of it comes during parliament and recess. So it seems to be that he's just trying to shift the blame from basically from himself about the lack of a government formation and then putting it on the other Shia political parties, the resistance Shia political parties. And so when he pulled out of politics for a short while prior to the escalation in October, he was also deflecting the pressure he was facing for the hospital fires and poor electricity services at the two ministries that the Sadrist movement was basically part of in government at that time. So it seems like this is a similar move at this time, but only time will tell. This is of course just speculation and whatever it is, this political theater, if you will, is also deflecting blame of a consensus government since he can claim that then he went as far as having his MPs resign. So he can invoke that later on. So all that said, there's basically a few scenarios that we're working with. So one is these resignations are done deal and the list of the 73 MPs will need to be sworn in government formation will be will like move forward. And then we'll face protests that combine the anger of like the summer of 2018 with the sort of broadness of October 2019 uprising. And that will definitely lead to some bloodshed. And the other outcome could be that these resignations just become another factor in this like political chess game in Iraq, right? The judiciary gets involved. Parties will basically prostrate themselves before Maktadah to ensure that he stays in the game, right? And a consensus government will be formed and then Iraq will have another very weak prime minister like the last two who, you know, can't even go to the bathroom without the consent of the political elite because they're so weak. But ultimately, all that said and all that sort of like internal all those internal details aside, I think it's really important to remember the sort of broader lesson from these things and that is that America, the United States of America bestowed upon Iraq a democracy. And I put big quotes around that. That's basically in permanent crisis, like permanent crisis. It's subject to it's subject to the manipulation by outside players like these wealthy Gulf nations, which are constantly intervening. And it's just completely and totally corrupt. And it leads to this very weak government, these very weak governments, one after another, that can't make decisions about the urgent problems facing the country that are like existential crises, especially when you think about what's taking place now in Iraq. I mean, since April alone, there have been 10 recorded sandstorms in Iraq, most of which have been so terrible, it's like shut down airspace. And people sends thousands to the hospital with respiratory issues. A couple of people have died here and there, particularly the elderly. This is being linked to climate change and climate crisis and just environmental degradation in Iraq. That's so awful. And that, again, one week government after another isn't able to deal with the crisis. And that's just one of so many crises in Iraq. In the aftermath of Sutherland's move, a lot of focus is on the coordination framework, a group of Shia parties, as well as other political forces. What are the political positions taken by these forces? And is there a part to a stable government? So the other Shia parties, and there are many, they, unfortunately, there are so many, especially during the last elections, that it actually split the resistance Shia vote. And as a result, you don't really have a unified resistance Shia block when it comes to issues of, you know, the what to do about the Americans, what to do about Iraq, in terms of its behavior, geopolitically, they have a much more unified stance, but as far as, you know, internal dynamics of the country's political system goes, they are kind of like atomized and weak. And that's what that's one of the reasons that Maktadah was able to win because he has such a huge sort of following of people that are just blindly follow him. It's just this movement that really can't be understood in any other way.  But as far as the other parties are concerned, you know, unfortunately, again, because they're just not united politically inside the country, it's very difficult for them to have the sort of like control or majority block that they otherwise might be able to if they were to come together in some sort of unified way. And again, this really just goes back to the internal dynamics of the Iraqi political system, which is so corrupt and many people, even if they go into the system with good intentions, it's like the system is designed to turn you into a corrupt individual who just wants to collect money because it's so easy to, it's so easy to steal from state coffers. It's almost like that's just what you do when you go into Iraqi politics. And again, this also harms Iraq's ability to protect its own sovereignty at times, because at the end of the day, these sort of internal dynamics of corruption and of, you know, patronage networks and sort of like little mini mafias everywhere. And again, similar problem in Lebanon. And you have a similar dynamic in Lebanon in terms of like these sort of pro-resistance coalitions being able to come together to deal with the internal problems of the country. This actually becomes an existential crisis. And it becomes an existential crisis in the form of like economies being ruined and causing and basically like leaving openings for external actors to come in and basically take advantage of those fissures in society as a result of these broken systems, as well as in the case of Iraq, like I mentioned, this climate issue, this issue of sandstorms, it's making the country unlivable. And so, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, sadly, the sort of like Sutterists, the Sutterist movement is the most like cohesive and unified as far as like a Shia party is concerned when it comes to holding power in the country as a result of all that.


Holy crap! This morning I'm going out to get another travel case. Just like that white one. And this right here is a 14 inch travel case. Again these are travel cases, not shipping cases. So don't trust that you could just ship one in here. Now this one has a BVM D20 inside of it. And the one that I'm going to pick up will have two, well it'll have one A14 F5U in it. And then it will have additional A series 14 F5U monitor with it. That's the bundle I'm going to pick up. It's the very last from the load at the studios, which was the TV studios where I got that case and the first couple BVM D24s that you've seen that I've been working on. Alright so we're on our way to Skyway Studios. I've got you on my dashboard here so hopefully it's not too bouncy or loud. But we're gonna go over here to the studios and meet with a guy named Andy right past the white van here. We're going here because of the post-production they do. So now we'll go through the gate here. Yes sir. Thank you. Have a good morning. I'm about to cut the video off for a bit.  It's back here towards the back. Whoo! Alright I'm a little out of breath. Still in the studio parking lot here. And there's the old, I don't know what the heck goes on there. You can see they've even got like a gutter system for the lines I guess. To prevent interference I'm not sure. So kind of a shielding for the place of broadcast signal from up there on the hill. But back behind me is the actual studio building. And again this is from the post-production. So let's try to flip the camera on here. And hopefully you can see some of this stuff behind me. But it actually had two cases. One was a 14-inch and one is for a D24 D20. Just like the one I had earlier. So I'm going to drive very slowly now back through the gates. And then we'll head back to town. We'll get out of here and offload a little treasure that we picked up today. Now the thing about these cases is they are on wheels. Sorry about that. There's just a ton of bugs on my windshield from July and June. And it is Tennessee. So there's again that building I was telling you about where it looks like all the broadcast signals would have been sent out of into the space and atmosphere. There's actually another gate to get up there to that compound up on the hill. So that's pretty interesting. Places locked up like it's something important. So pretty pretty greasy. Get through the gate here. Here we are with our cases returned. Now this one over here this is one of my older cases. You've seen it in other videos. It's not one of the ones we got here. From what I can remember the one that's in this white case which is a D20 case as it's marked has the A series monitor that just has an SDI card in it. And it actually does not work. Now it does turn on really quickly and it tells you like a couple of things in it. Overloads and shorts out. From what I can remember we tested it at the studio. And this one should just be perfectly fine. It's got a 61D card in it and the 62HS. I need the 61D card. I can use both the tubes. They have less than 5,000 hours on them. Let's just go ahead now and we're going to open up this one and make sure that I'm right. And this case is extremely high quality, much higher quality than my other 14M for a U case over here and it's a lot larger. But same kind of design with the hooks on the side. It's got a lot of character stickers showing where it's come from. It was made by Ascot, a flight case company out of Los Angeles, California. And it has been all over the place according to the stickers on it. Let's just lift it up. There are nice handles on all these usually. And lift this handle up and get it out of the way. So yes, this one is the one with the 61D card in it. So let's see. Okay, I've got power plugged into it. We're going to start by powering it on and we're going to just check and do some basic checks on the monitor. And hopefully it'll power up. So we'll give it a second to go through standby, which is generally normal. And it should either click up there goes, it'll click on by itself. And hopefully I hear the CRT. I feel it. Hopefully it's not the one that overloads. Okay, so there we are. So let's turn to channel one. Okay, there it is. So on these monitors, there's actually built in test patterns. And to get to them, you just need to go to your controller and put zero nine six, I believe was this one. This is the very last one. But if you just type 095, it'll take you to another pattern. The D series monitors and a series monitors have these patterns built into them. That's really nice. And so you can actually go in and do all kinds of checks up beforehand without actually hooking up any kind of device to it. So let's see here. I mean, there is a little bit probably just need some degaulcing hasn't been used in a while. So let's just hit that one more time. And there's a lot of dirt and filament on the tube. But let's see if we can't pull up the hours on here. We'll do that. Maybe I'll go to a different pattern.  And we'll go down here to our status. And we should go to page two. And this one. So this one has 13,000 hours. And that's a so this tube still fine. It says a CRT turn on time, which is the actual tube operational time is 10,000 hours still has a good amount of life left on it. One thing I'm definitely going to do is I'm going to remove a lot of this hardware that was for rack mounting. I won't be using it. I'll save it. But it's it's more cumbersome and it gets in the way more often than not. And I don't need it. So I'm just going to remove the screws holding it. And then I'll also do these poles on the front. So I just prefer to get rid of it. Okay, so one more last thing I'm going to do before I store this one is I'm going to take out this 61D card. So now I can complete the set of these cards. And then this one, I'll be saving for either, you know, a secondary monitor or to save for parts. But that's how simple it is to uninstall this card. Just do it with your power turned off and disconnected and everything. And then you can safely go in here and remove and replace cards. And then we'll just lift it off straight up. And then down here we've got our other a series monitor of this guy up here. And we're going to go ahead now I've got power plugged into it. And we'll click it on and see what happens. Okay, there's that. Okay, so this one's got less hours, 6000. But again, like when I was using it in the facility, it was it was cranky. It was getting cranky. So let's see if we get out of this menu. If it will just start doing what it was doing or if it just was doing that for some reason, at the facility, start to see it's changing some color and the converges is going crazy kind of. That's not with me doing anything. See how the colors just all of a sudden gone all crazy. So I'm not really sure what's going on because it was all colors. And now it's red only. Isn't that interesting? We'll see if this tube can be used or if it's somehow in between when we were testing it before if it burnt out. If it did, then it's no good. Let's look at one of the greatest parts of this hall which were these cases specifically designed for these BVMs. This one has a D20 in it. That was my D20 I bought earlier, but this case goes specifically for a D20 is what it was made for it says on its label. Now you can see there's some very thick, I mean that's what three or four inches of just straight foam on this side. And it's got a little bit of room cut out here with some high-grade carpet and a couple inches of foam on the top. And then the design isn't much different on the bottom. This is foam and hard dense foam and the way that this works is it snugly slides down on there like that and lines up at the bottom here. Click that last one and I'll show you just what makes it so special you just can't find too many cases that are perfect for BVMs. Now here's this other one again by the Ascot company. It's a little bit different has a different color setup but it's primarily the same you know it's not much different. The hardware is all pretty similar. This one has the A14 inside of it and will hold pretty much any 14 inch PVM or BVM easily. Alright here it is the 24 inch monitor inside the case. A little bit more difficult to work around but fits snugly in there.  Now no one's allowed to go to. So that's it. In there wonderful box. This is my BVMA series that I have actually had for a while and it's the one that I have my BKM 68XN and other cards and now I can install the 61D and have a complete monitor and yes now I have the most expensive 14 inch CRT on the planet. This A series fully loaded with all these cards would probably run at about $3,000 at least in its current condition where the screen is relatively new. I want to show you real quickly an old haul video where I was able actually to find this card if you believe it or not just sitting on a pile. This is a recycler's warehouse who goes in and recycles outdated equipment mostly from hospitals but occasionally he does get equipment in from TV studios. That just goes to prove that you can find these old CRT parts just about anywhere and so today we're going to do a quick demo of this monitor through 480p. I'm going to be using a original Xbox and component. This would have been more of a controller unit monitor so generally it was paired with other larger monitors where this one had the controls and you could loop all the other monitors together with this one and then you could have this one do all the controls on the screen for each individual monitor because most of the larger monitors did not come with a built-in control unit unless you did that yourself or ordered it special from Sony. Now this monitor does have 800 TV lines and it supports 240p, 480i, 480p, 720p and even 1080i. It has inputs now for composite, S-video, component, RGB and HD SDI as well as regular SDI so again it's one that could do a lot of things. There are some drawbacks. Some consoles have issues with trying to sync to this monitor and so you know in the future I will probably do more in-depth review and detailing on this individual monitor and hopefully I can find some other A-Series monitors that are larger because this A14 was the smallest one that they made for this A-Series and then they went up to a 20 inch, a 24 inch and I've even heard rumors that there's a 32 inch version of this monitor which I would love to see but I've never heard of or seen in person myself. So anyway thanks again for watching today everybody. I hope you enjoyed this haul video. Just always be you know checking in with your local businesses that may have used monitors that's my tip of the day. I want to say a special thank you again to everybody who's subscribed to the channel and supports the work that I'm doing here and a big huge shout out and thank you to everybody who supports this channel through Patreon. There is a link in the description of this video and you can go there to get more write-ups, information on repairs as well as contact me directly with any questions you may have but thanks again everybody for watching today. I'll see you guys next time with some more retro content.


Welcome back to my channel. So today I'm coming at you with my notoriously perpetually late December recent reads. What with my worst books of the year and my best books of the year and my anticipated releases as well as my December reads all coming at the end of the year. I never know what order to put them up in and inevitably end up late on something. I also realized that I hadn't worn my Christmas jumper yet in a video this year so you're getting that today. Plus I have multi-coloured nails as well so we're feeling chaotic. So I read quite a lot in December, didn't we all? I read some literary fiction, some poetry, some historical fiction, some children's fiction, a classic, a festive romance. Yes, you heard me. I also finished some books that I really wanted to read before the year was up which was great including the final book I'll be talking about in this video which was one of the best books I have ever read in my lifetime. If you've watched my best books of the year video you will already know which one I'm talking about. So let's just get into this. I have a feeling it's going to be a bit of a long one. First up in December I read Your House Will Pay by Steph Char. This was a very lovely gift from my very lovely friend Laura in celebration of my marriage towards the end of the year. The novel follows two characters, one African American, one Korean American whose very different families collide when a tragedy occurs in the novel. So Laura, you smashed this. I absolutely devoured this book. It was basically everything that I thought it would be and hoped it would be from a book recommendation from Laura. It's pretty literary with great writing and great characters, quite social commentary but it also has a wonderful tense affecting storyline. It's a great package. I love what this book is exploring. It is a snapshot of racial tensions in LA, police brutality, protests and vigils, as well as a look at the criminal justice system and loss and family. There is a lot going on in here. It's all felt very shocking and convincing as well as ultimately educative and enlightening. The characters are also really good in here. I really enjoyed the books structuring, following one of the characters perspectives in half of the chapters and the other characters in the other half. I really enjoyed learning about the characters differences and their different stances on things. Both of the characters had many shades of grey to them as well, which I really appreciated. There was also just a really great pace to this book, long buried secrets and tensions rising throughout made for a really suspenseful reading experience. This whole thing just worked together really really well. It was a great read, totally contemporary, really engaging and affecting. I loved it. So in the end I gave this one 4.5 stars. Next up in December I read a poetry collection, and that was Hold Your Own by Kay Tempest. This is a contemporary poetry collection that I have already discussed here on my channel in my best books of the year video. A poetry collection made into my top top reads of the year. We love to see it. So for those of you who may not have seen that video yet, this poetry collection came out a couple of years ago and it is based off of The Myth of Tiresias. The collection is split into four sections, mirroring Tiresias's journey from childhood to manhood to womanhood to profit. Obviously I absolutely adored this collection. I was blown away by it. It is just everything that I want personally from a contemporary poetry collection. We have a gorgeous central idea. The collection being comprised of classical myth elements and social commentary elements and autobiographical elements. I said in my best books of the year video that that made this collection feel age-old and fantastical, as well as feeling totally contemporary and I'll say it again now. The four-part structure in this collection means that the poems really gorgeously and perceptively explore themes of sex and love, youth and gender and community. We have a mix of longer and shorter poems in here, all of them being a joy to read aloud. This is one of those poetry collections that just ticks both of the vital boxes of the collection feeling so sublime to read in so far as the language and the imagery is so flowing and vivid, while also hitting you hard and really making you stop and think. I couldn't love this more, I just think it's a fantastic collection. Obviously I gave it five stars. Next up I read Love and Other Thought Experiments by Sophie Ward. This is a book I discovered earlier in 2020 when it was long listed for the Booker Prize. It was one I was particularly excited about due to it basically being a mix of character-focused literary goodness and philosophy. This book is essentially a love story, primarily following two women, Eliza and Rachel, as they decide they want to have children, and the book is structured through chapters that are based off of well-known thought experiments from the philosophy of mind. I love literary fiction, I also have a philosophy degree, this should have been a dream. But unfortunately this book didn't really work for me and here's why. Nothing about this book was bad. I actually really like the central idea here. I really enjoy the themes that were explored and I thought that the thought experiments that were chosen were good. But the more I read this book the more I just realized that I don't like my fiction and my philosophy mixing in such an obvious way. As I was reading I just couldn't shift this feeling that I wasn't getting enough of anything that I was reading. I either wanted a literary fiction novel that allowed me to delve deeper into these characters' lives and all of their feelings and their personalities, or I wanted to read the original philosophy papers where these thought experiments originated. Essentially for me the philosophy limited the storytelling and the story limited the philosophy. That all being said I do think that this was in a large part due to the fact that I already knew about these thought experiments. This book didn't really teach me anything new at all. If you haven't studied philosophy before then you may find this more of an interesting introduction to these ideas than I did. But for me I was just kind of left feeling rather frustrated and like I wanted the book to commit one way or the other. So yes a sound and a fidea with some good moments. Sophie Ward is clearly very intelligent and creative but for me it just didn't really give me enough to latch onto and love. So in the end I gave this one 2.5 stars. Next in December I read Lady of Hay by Barbara Erskine. This is a historical romance novel that follows a contemporary woman in the 1980s who through her journalist work undergoes hypnotherapy and is regressed discovering her past life as a 12th century noble woman. The novel then alternates between these two different timelines throughout. This is a book that I have been meaning to read for quite a while now because it is a book my mum really likes. If you would like to watch a video I filmed with my mum in which she talks about her favourite books then I will leave it linked around. So I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand I did kind of enjoy it. When I picked it up I was really in the mood for a chunky cozy historical novel. I was totally up for the whirlwind romances and the intrigue and the drama and the decadent time settings. I don't think any of those aspects were particularly brilliantly executed. I wasn't blown away at any point. Nevertheless Barbara Erskine's talent for storytelling is undeniable. You get the sense that this all came very easily to her. She knows what she's doing. She knows what her audience wants and it did all seem to flow along very nicely. That all being said I did have a couple of major problems with this book that I just couldn't get over. The main thing being the persistent misogyny and even physical abuse of the female characters in this book. This occurred both on a small scale in the ways that the male characters talked to the female characters as well as on a larger scale in the form of hitting and other forms of physical abuse including rape. And obviously the most concerning thing about all of this being written in the 1980s is that these things weren't always addressed as such. So this was an odd one. In one sense I can see what Barbara Erskine is doing. I can see why she is popular and why people would enjoy this. But reading this 40 years on it just had aspects that made me so uncomfortable and frankly furious. I just couldn't see past them. So in the end I gave this one 2.5 stars. Next up in December I picked up The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon. This is a very well known beloved children's novel. It tells the story of an autistic teenage boy named Christopher who essentially sets out to solve a mystery when his neighbour's dog is killed. Funnily enough this is another one that I picked up because of family. This is actually one of my sister's favourite books of all time. I will leave a link to a video I did with my sister Jade around as well. Go and check that out. And thankfully I did really enjoy this book. I also now know what people are talking about when they talk about this book. So that's nice. The biggest strength of this book is certainly its first person narrative. Christopher's voice is totally convincing in this novel.  I also really enjoyed the story here. I thought it was an excellent frame to present this character. I enjoyed the inner story of the mystery of the dog. I also enjoyed the outer story involving Christopher's relationship with his parents. The whole thing just felt pretty poignant and touching and often funny. I did have a couple of little quibbles with this book. I thought the first half was pretty significantly better paced and more engaging than the second half. There was also the odd thing that came up with the parents that I didn't totally buy. They certainly weren't as convincing as characters as Christopher was. Definitely hints of them acting in certain ways that just felt convenient to the plot rather than it feeling totally organic. But overall I thought this was pretty great. I can definitely see why it is so popular. Very well crafted and engaging and entertaining as well as being quite eye-opening. So in the end I gave this one four stars. Next up I read The Christmas Sisters by Sarah Morgan. This was the second year in a row that I decided to pick up a straight-up romance novel at Christmas. It was also the second time I'd ever read a straight-up romance novel. And I am happy to report that this year's attempt was far more successful than last year's. This novel follows a middle-aged couple who live in the snowy Scottish Highlands who are having their four grown-up adopted daughters home for Christmas. All of the different sisters are going through their own personal struggles and crises and tensions end up running high. Honestly I just loved this book. The reading experience was so fun. I was just so absorbed by it. I completely devoured this book via audiobook. I was here for all of the drama, all of the highs and lows, all of the romance. And it wasn't just that this book was fun either. The characters were all very well thought through, really interesting. I loved witnessing all of their different interactions and their individual struggles. I was totally convinced. I loved that we explored themes of careers and parenthood and pursuing your own path away from family. This was just great.  So yes I really enjoyed this. I will definitely be reading more by Sarah Morgan in the future and in the end I gave this one four stars. Next up in December I read The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaki Amezi. This is a literary novel set in southeast Nigeria when a woman discovers her dead son's body. And the novel is then essentially an exploration of Vivek's somewhat controversial life. So I'd heard a lot of good things about this book in the past few months. I've never read anything by Akwaki Amezi before. Cameron had read and enjoyed Freshwater but I heard that it had a lot of trigger warnings surrounding self-harm. As such I stayed away from that one but I was really excited to give this author a go. And I really liked this book a lot. The central characters were really interesting. Vivek has always felt different. They have never felt seen by their distant and traditional parents and the community around them. Learning about all of this and learning about Vivek's identity through different characters and different story lines and different time periods was so fascinating and really quite touching. I loved the mix of themes in here. We obviously explored themes of family and friendship but also love and sexuality and gender identity. And all of these themes were explored through the framework of Nigeria and its customs and its norms. Overall this book just felt very fresh and unflinching and unique and I loved it for that. I think it had a lot of interesting things to say and on the whole the ways in which Akwaki and Mezi said these things were pretty effective. I will say I didn't fall in love with this book. There were a few things in here that led me to feeling a bit distant from it. I didn't feel totally connected to or invested in the characters themselves. More so what they were representing if that makes sense. So I do think this book was really good in a lot of ways. I think Akwaki and Mezi is clearly a talented writer and has a lot of interesting things to say. I love what they're pursuing and exploring so in the end I gave this one 3.5 stars. Next up in December I picked up a boy called Christmas by Matt Haig. This is an upper middle grade fantasy book that I picked up just before Christmas. It follows the story of a young boy named Nicholas who lives in Finland. He ends up going on a journey to find his father and comes across elves and reindeer and all kinds of magical shit. This book was an utter delight. It is just what you'd want from a magical kids book to read while curled up by the Christmas tree in front of the fire. It has a wonderful endearing storyline about the origins of Father Christmas and Christmas itself. Who doesn't love that? We have a cast of lovable humorous characters including humans but also elves and reindeers and various other creatures. It's nicely paced. It is wonderfully illustrated. It's just a very good solid easy to read book that I would recommend to adults and kids alike. There isn't much more to say about this one to be honest. It delivered. I got what I wanted. I would definitely recommend it and in the end I gave it 3.5 stars. Next up I read Tamarind and the Star of Ishtar by Jasbinda Belan. This is another magical adventure upper middle grade type book. One I've had my eye on ever since it came out earlier in the year. It follows the story of a young girl named Tamarind who never knew her mum when she visits India and her mum's ancestral family home for the first time. I really liked this book. I loved how it was family and self-identity focused while also feeling really magical. On one level we have this really touching and relatable story about this young girl who is trying to figure out who she is, wanting to discover who her mother was, and learn about this large part of her cultural heritage. But then we also have this shroud of mystery, this glowing ring, this friendly monkey, clues that keep surfacing. It worked really well. I also just loved the setting in here. The large ancestral home in which this book takes place has large luxurious gardens. It is set amongst the Himalayas. The colours of the place and of the clothes and the tastes of the foods they ate were all so vivid and rich. I built up a really clear picture of everything while I read. So yes this is a great middle grade book. I would highly recommend it to anyone who likes reading kids books, but also if you are looking to buy a book for kids soon then buy this one. So in the end I gave this one four stars. And the final book I read in December, indeed the final book I read in 2020 was Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. This is of course an epic French classic written and set in the early 1800s. It follows a whole host of characters over many many years, but most prominently an ex-convict named Jean Valjean. It is a tale of love and injustice and poverty and heroism. And it is one of the best things I have ever read in my entire lifetime. If you've already seen my best books of the year video you will know how much I love this book. If you haven't seen it yet then I would highly recommend you go and watch it. I gush about this book rather nonsensically. Suffice to say this is a new all-time favourite book of mine. It was my best read of the year by a mile. This book is just pure art. It is so beautifully and perceptively written. I have never underlined a book so much in my life.  The characters are fascinating, complex, all shades of grey. The journeys they go on throughout the book are exhilarating and heartbreaking. The plot is always engaging. It has a surprising pace to it. There were some scenes where Hugo goes off on one. It does have to be acknowledged but honestly I just didn't care. This book made me weep. It made me laugh out loud. It made me gasp. It made me stop and think. Honestly it just blew me away and I'm really sad that the reading experience is over. I actually took longer to read this book than I've ever taken with a book before. I was reading the book for the majority of 2020 and I cannot think of a better way to read this novel. I absolutely loved it. It really felt like a friend. I loved picking it up whenever I fancied. It was always there and always immersive and engaging whenever I picked it back up. This is honestly a novel like no other. It was a reading experience like no other. This is an incredibly crafted novel and more than that it is now a personal favourite novel. This is what reading is all about. Obviously I gave this one five stars. So there we have it. All of the books that I read in December and that concludes my 2020 reading. Thank you so much to everyone who has watched this video, who has watched any of my recent reads videos this year. I appreciate you all so much. I would love it if you would comment down below and say hi. Tell me what you thought about these books. Tell me what you've been reading. I always love chatting to you guys in the comments genuinely. I hope you're all doing well. I hope you're all having really nice weeks. I can't wait to keep chatting to you throughout 2021. I've got some really cool video ideas coming up soon. I can't wait to film them and share them with you. So hopefully I will see you soon with some more videos and until then take care. Bye everyone.