IT'S THAT time of year again. The time when I stop seeing my friends and stick to the couch for six months.

Yes, winter is coming.

After already losing the majority of my weekends to watching rugby league it won't be long until I lose weekdays to Game of Thrones.

For those out there who haven't seen the show, or the always-snooty readers of the series of books, Game of Thrones is based on a series of fantasy novels by American author George RR Martin.

Unlike, say, the Lord of the Rings they start off pretty devoid of any monsters and magic and instead filled with intrigue, betrayal and murder.

While dragons, magic and ice zombies start to rear their heads, they never distract from the heartbeat of the show: which is ironically stopping people's hearts beating.

So for anyone looking for me from April ... I'll be glued to my couch watching hour after hour of dragons pillaging cities, frozen armies slowly shambling south and all my favourite characters being murdered.

Mostly the third one, assuming the first three seasons are anything to go by. For the uninitiated, main characters getting brutally killed is pretty much the calling card for this show - that and medieval nudity.

After one infamous episode last season there was an outcry of people on social media declaring they'd never watch the show again.

I'm taking a different approach. I'm just not getting attached to anyone anymore.

Well maybe Tyrion and Daenerys. Those guys seem pretty invincible; which means I've jinxed them and they'll almost definitely die this season.

I'm sure other characters will survive, maybe without their hands or certain other body parts, which were cut off last season.

Unlike a lot of people who needed their fix of Westeros and read the books, I decided to just watch the show spoiler free. How much of this is due to my level of enjoyment of the show and how much is due to laziness and having a backlog of books is up for discussion though.