Snow-covered mountains mean I can finally write this column | Matt Mohan-Hickson

My eyes have been darting out of the window often, as I try to avoid coming up with a final topic. But I guess my attempts at procrastination have sparked a little inspiration, because I have found my brain chewing over whether winter is my favourite season.

Sure the nights are dark and the days short, it is cold and the weather horrible. However, there is nothing quite like the magic of houses covered in snow and the world transformed. Plus you can have hot chocolate with whipped cream and little marshmallows.

And I don’t have to worry about sunburn…

Would you miss the birth of a child just for Batman?

Have you ever had a moment when you feel your eyes roll so fast that you are left worrying for a moment that they might get stuck there permanently? I experienced this phenomenon while scrolling through my feed last week.

Between memes and references to a ‘vibe shift’ article that I couldn’t be bothered chasing down, I saw a story about a man who was so ‘spoilerphobic’ that he would be missing the birth of his first child so he could see a midnight screening of the new Batman film.

Obviously it provoked the usual deluge of sarcastic responses and ‘dunking’ – I saw one person jest that he probably missed the conception as well.

But I truly cannot understand this mentality. I have never really cared about spoilers - I saw Sixth Sense after years of ‘I see dead people’ references and jokes.

I knew that Ned Stark would die in season one of Game of Thrones after reading about the books (but not actually reading them) before it even premiered.

Yet I was still able to enjoy watching these moments, even if I knew what was coming, because they were thoroughly well executed, pardon the pun.

If a book or movie or show or game is built around a reveal or twist and is the only point of experiencing it, I’m turned off. Even if you know the truth about Bruce Willis’ character in Sixth Sense, it is an excellent film and can be enjoyed on rewatches.

For a more recent example - spoilers ahead for Spider-Man: No Way Home - I knew all the big ‘twists’ and ‘reveals’ before I finally saw it last week. Since all the references were inescapable at the end of 2021, but despite knowing that I would see all three cinematic Spider-Men on screen, it didn’t take away from the joy that experiencing that moment elicited.

There is so much fear about ‘spoilers’ and the need to keep things ‘secret’ in marketing, it has become exhausting. Especially when the Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield of it all was practically an open secret for a year plus before Spider-Man: No Way Home was released.

It is time as a society we got over our spoilers hang-up. No twist in a Batman movie is worth missing the birth of your child.

Building with its roof ripped off by Eunice? That’s my home!

You might have seen a story on our website about a building in Fratton having its roof ripped off during Storm Eunice.

It is cordoned off after bricks crashed to the pavement miraculously avoiding anyone. Well, it’s the place I call home in Portsmouth – the shared house I have lived in for nearly four years.

I was out of the country and have yet to see the damage with my own eyes, so I sort of exist in a netherrealm. I know I can’t go home and it won’t be until I get back to Portsmouth that it will be a reality.

So I’m making casual jokes to my girlfriend about being a hobo – bottling my true feelings until I can see the whites of reality’s eyes.

A message from the editor, Mark Waldron.

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