The difference in this debate is that I have been arguing on the basis of what I believe to be true, and doing my best to explain why I believe it. Kevin, by way of contrast, claims to be able to literally ‘prove’ his case beyond any doubt whatsoever by recourse to detailed statistical data.
Mind boggles. Is that the same as, 'I know nothing about art but I know what I like?'
Tiberius Gracchus would be the first to admit the principle that one can’t judge the past by present day standards.
As many of you know, the original Bond films have been re-released in cleaned up digital format; the visual and sound quality is excellent in one sense but a bit clinical in another. It seems not unlike the early CDs against the vinyls – tonal qualities are missing.
What’s also missing is the societal context in which the Bond films appeared.
Quite frankly, I don’t find Wiseman in the least menacing and his demise was a bit pathetic; like Buddy Holly, the early guitar quartets and the days of the 12 song LP, [no more than 12], comprising two hits and the rest fillers - it all seems nice but a bit thin in production values.
The trouble is, Bond films don’t bear scrutiny.
They’re all about image, in the context of its day – fine for what it was at the time but eventually dating; even Moore is now so dated and yet Live and Let Die was vibrant at the time and the graveyard voodoo sequence a bit unnerving. The Connery era largely passed me by and I was brought up on Moore’s Moonraker et al and let’s face it, it was escapist, fantasy entertainment.
For me, OHMSS and The Living Daylights were far superior films, the only problem being the lead actors. Bond films really must reflect current realities, as was shown by the way Licence to Kill did not do that, a good film, set in a boring part of the U.S., as was Diamonds are Forever … but years ahead of its time.
People were not ready for that Dalton darkness then and yet Craig today has quite acceptably reprised the revenge motif in Quantum of Solace, doing the scrunched up scowl better than Timothy Dalton but still leaving one wondering whether he has any other tricks up his sleeve.
Having grown up in the Moore era, that doesn’t mean we have to like the lightweight flippancy and I’d vastly prefer the brooding menace underlying From Russia with Love and in the new[ish] Casino Royale … but does Connery deliver?
I’d say, on balance, no.
Look at the moment when he appears to Honey Rider, crooning behind a tree and getting a silly look on his too young face. Connery doesn’t stand the scrutiny of time, sad to say. Yet the overwhelming memory most have of those early Bonds was of Connery at his peak, at his most dangerous.
Ursula Andress is a puzzle to me. Did people really find her beautiful or the way she appeared from the sea remarkable? I thought Halle Berry did it better but the setting was better in the original. No, Andress I find far too masculine with that strong body, as was Caterina Murino, a man in a woman’s shell and perhaps Eva Green and the huge Olga Kurylenko also failed to excite. People even found Grace Jones beautiful so it takes all kinds, it seems.
I’d hardly expect any man to agree with me here.
Maryam d’Abo, whilst her character in TLD was annoyingly cloying, was at least tall, elegant and feminine. Sigh. Why can’t women be women, like Carole Bouquet [who can actually act, by the way – see For Your Eyes Only] and why can’t men be either less than neanderthal [Vin Diesel] or with more testosterone than the average, present day, oppressed, emasculated, weaker sex [take your pick]?
Someone like Topol [Columbo in For Your Eyes Only] or Gabriele Ferzetti [Draco in OHMSS] would be two candidates for role models.
Why can’t men pack a bit of menace to them any more, like Telly Savalas [OHMSS] or even Goldfinger himself? Rick Yune [Zao in Die Another Day] was a good example. Sean Bean was always good [e.g. in Golden Eye]. Why can’t men be both horribly intelligent and dangerous and when they pause to look at you, you squirm a little inside?
Also, why do we have to put up with bland bores like Modern Woman Miranda Frost [played by Rosamund Pike in DAD]? Newsday sums it up:
Miranda's view of Bond as a sexual dinosaur puts him refreshingly in his place. (Don't worry, boys, she gets hers.)
Refreshingly? Yawn.
Associated Press’s Christie Lemire’s take on Halle Berry:
She's strong and sexy, a great match for the dashing Brosnan. She's more than that, though; she's his partner …’
… which no one would dispute the desirability of, is then spoilt by the modern female fixation:
‘and every bit his equal.’
Yawn, yawn, yawn.
Why tf does the Modern Woman always have to compete? Why can’t she complement her man? It was Boy George who sang [in a different context, of course]:
You're my lover, not my rival.
By the way, speaking of appalling modern day women, did you read the other day about Angelina Jolie’s ‘need for other lovers’? What a poor excuse for a human being she’s always been.
Having said all that, the three most lethal agents in my own little trilogy are all women – a Russian called Ksenia, a European known as Thirteen and an Indonesian called Frederika [who exists in RL, by the way and I miss her a lot] although there is a maniac man, Zhenya, to partly redress the balance. Women run security sections, women are strong but they’re lovely in the arms.
People get fixated about Bond’s neanderthal sexual politics or the leading lady’s kick-butt, ‘she can’t be oppressed’, sleep inducing politics but the simple truth is that they’ve misjudged what’s really going on.
Bond gets the woman because he knows how to treat her well, it’s as simple as that – he’s always treated his women well at the point of contact and they appreciate it.
Yet can you imagine him doing his thing without a woman by his side, not for eye-candy reasons but for mutual support? Brosnan would not have overcome Graves on the plane unless Halle Berry had been doing her thing as well. Look at the eye contact between the two – there’s real chemistry there and the mealy-mouthed, begrudged thanks of Kurylenko Camilla at the end of Solace was an insult. It would never do to actually appreciate your partner these days, would it, you ingrates?
Do you detect the smoke coming from my nostrils?
Craig was tamed by his love for a woman and Moore was saved by two martial arts savvy schoolgirls. Even Tell Savalas’s Blofield could not have done it without the excellent Ilse Steppat’s Irma Bunt. She, in turn, was the one who facilitated his vision.
Look, you can’t have bread without butter, you can’t have savoury food without salt, you can’t have an overseas trip without somewhere to stay, you can’t have a real man without a proper woman and you can’t have a proper woman without a real man. Period. Full stop.
For me, that’s the real world and this current travesty we’re enduring today will hopefully become a thing of the past.
I'm reprinting an article by Christopher Bantick from March 27, 2005, I can’t remember from which paper – these were my pre-blogging days. You could call this lazy blogging but the article says all that I wish it to, so why not just present it as is?
Here it is:
My local supermarket has had Easter confectionary on display since January. Easter may be early this year, but the commercial potential for cashing in on creme eggs seems irresistible.
With Christmas over, no time was wasted in booting up the next festival. Out with the mince pies, in with the bunnies. But it is not just the early appearance of Easter chocolate items that gives cause for concern. What is troubling is the way Easter is being marketed. It is a singularly secular event and a targeted high point for chocolate sales.
My supermarket proudly advertises that it is the place "where the magic of Easter begins". But what is the magic? There is an observance of the mysterious and even the miraculous. You can have "dream rabbits" in various postures and "dream eggs" with the "real white chocolate wicked taste".
But how can we make sense of Easter among the menagerie of cutesie animals from chocolate bilbies, wombats and rabbits to milk chocolate footballs and all kinds of eggs? Are we happy with the smiling Freddo Frogs in Easter jumbo packs? Have we time for the Easter message? Do we care?
There appears to be confusion about what Easter means even in the messages of cards. With greetings like: "Hope the sun is shining on your little Easter world", and "For someone special . . . a Huggy Easter". Then there is the cloying, "You're really eggs-tra special. Happy Easter, Have Fun".
To be fair, there are the so-called "religious" cards that, it has to be said, don't look like much fun. They have a very serious Christ figure often lost in clouds or tending small animals. These token cards are in a minority and marginalised when on display. They simply don't sell.
Easter has been appropriated from the event that gives Christianity its sense and purpose to something approximating a chocolate festival.
Hot cross buns in my local supermarket sold out in days and had to be reordered weekly. Who noticed the cross on their tops? Moreover, Easter is now a celebration of the individual and friendship. If greeting cards are a true reflection of what people hope to say, then statements like, "Because we think about you in a very special way" and "Because you're special in every way", say a lot. There is no one more important than you.
On this Easter Day, there will be community mammoth Easter egg hunts. They are good fun and harmless in themselves. But what has been lost in how many eggs you can find is the message of Easter. On this, the churches could do far more.
French philosopher Albert Camus, not a man noted for his piety, understood the essential significance of Easter. He also observed the importance of Christians holding the line against intrusions when he said, "The world needs Christians who remain Christians".
Still, the rampant commercialisation of Easter should concern us all. There is something slightly out of kilter about seeing children pig out on Easter chocolate a month away from Easter Day. It was T.S. Eliot who pointed to the vacuousness of a life without a spiritual dimension being one where we may "have the experience and miss the meaning".
The reality is that children today are more than likely ignorant of the Easter story. Whether they believe it or not comes down to choice, but to not know what Easter stands for goes to the heart of the future viability of the churches.Without Easter, there would be no churches.
What the churches have largely failed to do is tell the Easter story, not just during Lent or on Easter Day, but consistently throughout the year. Instead, they have been distracted by issues such as the gay debate, or whether or not Dan Brown's best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code, is threatening the stability of the church as an institution. But community ignorance about the event that defines the Christian faith is far more serious and damaging.
Last year, [now some year's ago- Higham] Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ gave Easter a focus in the secular world. Gibson did what the churches had broadly failed to do by generating interest in the Easter story. The ensuing debate was about the violence of the Crucifixion. It was easy to see why.
The brutality and savagery of the Crucifixion does not fit comfortably with marketers who know that Easter is about bright coloured eggs and happiness found in chocolate.
So what is the point of Easter and what do the churches celebrate on Easter Day? Today, churches will be emphasising the empty tomb where Jesus was laid after the crucifixion. It was empty for the miraculous reason of the resurrection. But it is a message that is lost in the ringing of cash registers.
The raisin and cinnamon hot cross buns in my nearby supermarket became a neat symbol of how Easter is regarded. They sold out in days and had to be reordered weekly. Who noticed the cross on their tops?
Leaving aside, for a moment, the rabid anti-Christian push with their bus ads about there being no G-d and writing to you instead, a rational person, there's not too much dispute with the historical record that Jesus of Nazareth did exist and he did sufficient things to come to the attention of some historians at the time.
The Muslims even concede that He is a prophet of the highest order.
The issue is now, as it ever was, not whether He was crucified but whether He came back to life. That's the point on which it all turns and where the fundamental dispute is. I'm certain He did come back to life because of personal things which have occurred. I wrote once before that you're never going to definitively know unless you've first bought the ticket, so there's no point having this discussion until you've done that.
This is the part which gets up many non-Christian's noses – this claim to arcane knowledge and I would wager that a huge number of those happy-clappers and militant anti-abortionists in the States have not actually bought the ticket [John 3:16]. Certainly the churchleadership is riddled with representatives of the other side, hence the sex scandals et al. Hence Christian militancy and the reason people don't like them.
Again I say, you can't know until you buy the ticket. I didn't make up the rules but maybe it's time some people started following them.
By the way, in following the Orthodox calendar this year, one week after the Roman, today is Palm Sunday.
Uber recently ran a not altogether tongue-in-cheek, misandrist post on why she hates men.
Whilst not tangling with the lady on that, I’d still like to record some ongoing observations about men – middle-aged men in particular.
There was a moment, years ago in Russia, when my lady of that era found herself in a minority at at family New Year gathering. Not only was she heavily outnumbered by males, an unusual situation in that fair land but the males were of a certain age and loudly pontificating on this subject or that, whichever the vodka caused them to pursue at the time.
On the television was Moscow TV; they’d rounded up all the male hacks and sat them down in armchairs in a semi-circle. Most were bald or balding, all were from 45 to 60 years old and all were holding forth, shouting each other down, accusing the others of being rude and not letting them get a word in; I watched in horror as a smile played on my young lady’s lips, which were the best thing in that room at that time.
I determined, there and then, never to become a middle-aged man.
At least, whilst it can’t be avoided, there are things we can do to try to remain useful to the female gender – exercise, stay active, eat right, practise the libido on actual flesh ’n blood, rather than exercising Mrs. Hand at the computer screen, try to dress reasonably, take care of the personal grooming, don’t let yourself go and above all, don’t let women’s silliness and the current feminist game, which Gordo’s society’s playing, get you down.
Above all, was that? Maybe another thing – we can get our egos under control, concede that another person’s point of view has validity and fight to remain humble, a very difficult thing to do if we think we’re the font of all wisdom.
Now, as for middle-aged women, I’m sure there are things they can be castigated over, particularly their refusal to let a man have a bit of peace and quiet, without going to the other extreme and booting him out but as I’m no expert on middle-aged women, [I’d like to make friends with one some day], then I’ll leave it to others to point out their shortcomings.
In this day and age, with the ascendancy of women and the casting of the middle-aged, white British male as the most oppressed sector of society, we can beat the ladies at their own game by simply becoming useful again.
It’s better than the coming revolution, when non-native Brits who’ve been taking the Michael, the Julia Middletons and her ilk, the Jacqui Smith Porn Queens and the iniquitous CSA will all be slaughtered and women will become twice as oppressed as they ever were in the backlash. I’d prefer that day not to come and so it is up to the men to take back the reins in each and every sector of society.
English grammar is a minefield, not least because it is often dependent on intention and that was always brought home when observing Russian teachers of English. The Russians are pedantic in all things official, as distinct from the way they run their daily lives and continually demanded, ‘Which is the correct answer?’
I tried to explain that, in English, it’s more accurate to ask, ‘Which is the best variant?’
No, that didn’t compute. They’d listen to my explanation and then ask, ‘Which is the correct answer? What’s the rule?’
Try these:
1. Try _____ less butter in the recipe. [use]
2. Do you agree _____ me with my homework? [help]
3. Do you remember _____ to the beach last summer? [go]
4. They were expected _____ arrived by now. [have]
5. I’m telling you, it’s better _____ kind to all people –. [be]
6. I regret _____ you that now. [tell]
7. She stopped _____ hello. [say]
8. I like _____ in the bathtub – it helps me _____ . [sing, relax]
9. If you should decide _____ the offer, we’d be delighted to have you. [accept]
10. She started _____ as soon as he said he was _____ her. [cry, leave]
11. I regret _____ you that your application has not been successful. [inform]
О, как чудодейственны эти слова! Когда мы их произносим или слышим, в наших сердцах загораются огни святой радости о Господе Иисусе Христе Воскресшем.
This blog is going with the Orthodox celebration this year, as there are many cards to send. So a post will appear early next week, halfway between the western and eastern remembrance.
There is one design team though who I think may be in the wrong field. Their ambulance is designed for rapid access off road and then, and I quote exactly, ”Once on the scene an ejector type seat is activated to launch the paramedic, with all the kit and equipment they need, into the thick of the action.”
Life in Britain is a dream. For a start, there’s Gordo, socialism, we all have jobs and the money’s rolling in.
Not.
No truly, there are some great aspects to life here. Er … the woods are lovely, the view from the window is a treat, the people in the town are warm and friendly, you don’t need to buy bottled water as in Russia and the place is basically clean.
It’s civilized in some ways.
So forgive me for being frustrated by petty things. Let’s start with the saga of the buckwheat.
ASDA, bless its cotton socks, ran this line [see pic above] until two weeks ago, I suspect largely for the Eastern European market. Speak to a Russian about the efficacy of this particular grain, combine it with shredded cabbage and many of your food needs are met.
They’ve discontinued it, the bstds. When I went to the management, they told me it wasn’t selling. Oh yeah, then how come it slowly disappeared off the shelves? How could I know that unless at least I was buying it?
Sometimes, it’s the loss of the little things which knocks you for six. Now i know what you're thinking - wtf doesn't Higham go to one of the plethora of other stores across the length of Britain but I reserve the right to be petulant and immature in this - I want ASDA to stock the stuff.
Now for the pic below – do you know what that is?
It’s a bloody magnet and where was it? Stuck in the DVD I bought so I couldn’t get the DVD out of the case.
It took a bench top, a sharp knife, a fork, some pincers, seven or eight tries and about 45 minutes to finally work the case open without breaking or scratching anything and then came the problem of the plastic bit in the centre which holds the disc in. It wouldn’t go down because of this bar in the pic and so I had to carve the lugs off, trying not to touch the disc.
I bought a second DVD last night and asked the girl what the hell they sold them with that thing in it for? Was it to add piquancy to our enjoyment of the film when we eventually get to watch it?
She put it in a device and removed two magnets. No one tells you these things. I’ve been away, haven’t I?
Long ago, in my games-master days, we took our team of young tykes to a bigger school for a cricket match.
From the beginning, we were under the hammer and lost three or four quick wickets. One of our middle order, a young lad, had his father watching and it was clear that the game was soon going to be over; everyone was despondent.
I then overheard the father offering to take his mate [the next batsman in after that] and the kid to McDonalds or wherever, if they'd go out and knock up thirty runs. Obviously the man usually delivered because these two kids went in like mini-Bothams and smashed the opposition bowlers all over the ground, with the result that we won the match.
At Monday assembly, the Head sang the praises of the team, in coming back from the jaws of defeat and then asked me to his office to tear strips off me. One of our parents had complained that I'd done nothing to dress down the offending 'briber' and that this was against the spirit etc. etc.
This is an emotive issue, incentives and I reasoned that as the father had spoken only to his own kid and best mate [son of the father's best mate], thus there was no need to have said anything. On the other hand, the Head's view was that it was promoting the wrong values.
Fast forward to a discussion between two bloggers. One said that there should be one wage for all, to be fair to the have-nots. The other blogger asked what if he was a surgeon? As he can no longer earn any more nor less than the basic wage, he might as well do part time shelf-stacking round the corner and safe himself all that hassle in the high stress stress occupation of surgery. Ditto air traffic controllers and other well paid but stressful jobs.
Thus the brain drain is put in place and everything tends to mediocrity.
