Apple iPhone: 9/10

I know I won't be the first person to review their iPhone. Nor will I be the last. But it's not often I fall in love with a gadget, and I fear that I may be smitten.

It's not just that it's thinner, better-looking and more responsive than the models I've had in the past. It's got a better personality too!

Phone
Easy to use. Brings up contacts at the touch of a pixel. And lets you add people as Favourites, rather than the 9-contact limit "Speed-Dial" my old N95 allowed me.

Texting
SMSs appear in text bubbles, so you can see who said what and when. Annoyingly, you cannot send business cards or files by text.

Typing
I never realised how fat my thumbs were until I got the iPhone. I'm getting used to it, though. And the auto-correct tends to iron out most of my typos.

Touch Screen
Highly responsive, which is probably why you can't use if it you're wearing gloves. Can be irritating if you want to change songs in the winter-time - or, like me, when riding your bike to work in the morning.

iPod
Even more intuitive than the phone-less version. Lets you Shuffle within Albums, for example. However, I often find that when shuffling my entire library, the same songs keep on cropping up, leading me to wonder just how random the shuffle function really is.

Apps Store
Allows you to download handy applications, ranging from film reviews, to Labyrinth (the game, which you tilt the iPhone to play), to Sabbath times (the latter having the downside that my boss can now see what time I really need to leave in the winter!).

GPS
Not as accurate as the ones you'll find on a Nokia. But then, it finds your location instantly rather than three days after you've moved on. And as it uses Google Maps, finding where you are - and searching for companies, restaurants, car parks etc - is a cinch.

Crashing
iPhone, unlike my 80GB iPod, uses Flash memory. So resetting after a crash is much easier.

YouTube
So easy to use YouTube, making full-use of 3G technology. Now I can finally see what it's for!

Camera
No flash. No zoom. No nothing. This is a poor, poor camera.

Video
There isn't any (unless I've missed it!).

Bluetooth
Pretty pointless. While WiFi works like a dream, connecting to other BlueTooth-enabled devices is impossible. So forget about sending files to friends and foes.

Copying & Pasting
Another thing you can't do on your iPhone.

Using iPod Speakers
I needed a quiet clock in my room - one that wouldn't keep my girlfriend awake at night. So I downloaded the Night Stand app, which beams a radio-alarm-clock style digital clock in neon blue. Trouble is, when I docked it in my one-year old Teac DAB iPod dock, the iPhone told me it couldn't tap in to the power source. The speakers would still play the iPhone iTunes. But clearly, my iPhone battery wouldn't last long this way. So now I can either lump it and make do without. Or upgrade my docks and speakers (all three lots) to new-style ones. Did Apple do this deliberately to make us upgrade and spend more money on their products?

OVERALL
Overall, though, the minuses - the crappy camera, the disabled-Bluetooth, and the measly maximum 16GB you get on the top-of-the-range model - are outweighed by the joy that owning one of these beauties engenders. Your life will never be the same again.

Monkey: Journey to the West: 9/10

"In a mythical time, on the Mountain of Flower and Fruit," reads the synopsis, "there is a great stone. One day, the stone explodes, expelling an egg. The egg hatches, and Monkey comes into the world."

And I'm so glad he did.

There were no clouds. No shouts of "Pigsaaaaaaay!". And no singing of "Monkey Magic. Monkey Magic. Ooooh Monkey Magic..." Yet Monkey: Journey to the West is a thoroughly entertaining, imaginative and clever work of theatre, conceived by Chinese-born actor/choreographer/singer Chen Shi-Zheng; composed by Blur front man Damon Albarn; and designed by his Gorillaz collaborator, Jamie Hewlett.

Between them, they combine in Monkey Hewlett's cinematic animations with Chinese-language opera (try to sit to one side if you can, so that you don't have top keep turning your head to read the subtitles); dazzling (and sometimes airborne) choreography; and sweetly-sung opera.

If I have a criticism it is the uncomfortable seating at the outside tent where Monkey is performed (in what appears to be a disused car park at the O2); the extortionate prices of nibbles (that'll be £6 for a small bottle of water and a packet of Munchies!); and the fact that our simian hero scratches his nuts a little too frequently. If real, wild monkeys engage in such conduct as regularly, I'm, er, a Monkey's uncle.