Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I learned about hard Brexit. Tina read the latest Tana French novel in the Dublin Murder Squad series, The Trespasser. Becky is still reading through Anne Perry’s William Monk mysteries, just finishing Weighed in the Balance. Heather read a novel about the early days of BBC radio, Radio Girls. Mike celebrated the 950th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings by sharing a post about the history with photos of the present-day battle field.

Google knows me too well. Recently, when I visited Google news, I’ve been getting headlines about Idris Elba and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Idris Elba played the title role in Luther — I recently watched the fourth season on Netflix. He also played the role of Russell “Stringer” Bell in The Wire. He’s made headlines recently because:

• people are still promoting him as the next James Bond
• he stars in 100 Streets, a film about contemporary London that now has a US release date of January 13
• he is set to produce and star in a new TV series called Brazza set in Brazzaville, the capital of Republic of the Congo
• The Take trailer has been released, pretty much making the case that Elba has what it takes to be Bond

Benedict Cumberbatch, star of Sherlock and The Imitation Game, is in the news for a movie, too. Doctor Strange, the latest Marvel Comics movie, is coming out on November 4th and Cumberbatch seems to be all over the place promoting it. I love the trailers for Doctor Strange even though I’m not a comic book reader.

Are you a fan of Elba or Cumberbatch?