Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,844MI6 Agent
Sad to hear of the death of the actor and comedian Ewen MacIntosh, aged 50. He was most famous for playing the character Big Keith in the original UK version of The Office:
Very sad to read of Pamela Salem's passing. A talented actress that should have been given bigger roles than she had in her career. Such a beautiful women and I always had a huge crush on her❤️
"Any of the opposition around..?"
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,844MI6 Agent
"Plenty of time..."
Sad to hear of the death of Bullseye legend Tony Green, aged 85.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Twitter account Behind the Stunts reveals that Bond stunt driver Michel Julienne has passed away. He was notable for the slick and visually pleasing car stunt in A View to A Kill where Bond's car drives up a boat ramp, sails through the air and lands on a moving coach. Wonderful stuff - I read the word 'parabola' used to describe it in one fan review! You think it almost won't make it.
Within a short time, another Bond alumni death was announced, that of Michael Culver who played the man with a punt in an early scene of From Russia With Love, in which we first see the actual James Bond. He also played one of the RAF crew in Thunderball.
But many of us know him as the Luftwaffe major who rankled SS officer Kessler in Secret Army, recently repeated on Talking Pictures TV, due to his relatively lenient way with downed RAF men.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,844MI6 Agent
edited March 13
That's sad news about Michael Culver. I was trying to think where I knew him from and then I realised it was as Prior Robert in Cadfael. I'll have to look out for him in those two Bond film appearances. His father, Roland Culver, also played the Home Secretary in Thunderball.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Sad to hear of the passing of Michael Culver. A very good actor. I always liked him as Lt. Col Peter Lawson in The Professionals episode Lawson's Last Stand. A silly episode really, but a great shift put in by him.
Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel, only in his early 70s. His 'Come Up and See Me Make Me Smile' - okay, that's not quite the title - is one of those evergreen 70s songs. And this classic Top of the Pops clip, well, it's done better than the official video. It's not just the song, it's the delivery, the affected vocal. Lovely production.
From what I understand, there's a Royal News 72 hour hold going on in Britain right now. This generally means one of three things: death, abdication, or divorce. From what I understand, there are rumors that King Charles may have passed. What's the word in the UK right now?
That it's a load of gossip, stoked up by Americans who were on Twitter overnight.
We don't know about the Royal News 72 hour hold, then again we wouldn't. It is all a bit odd, most likely the gossip might be a divorce and the Kensington Palace press office don't know how to play it. If so, it's being kept mighty secret hence the nonsense photo release for Mother's Day with the photoshop - they couldn't farm it out to someone professional to do it.
There is an odd feeling around, however.
You do get news shutdowns over here - the deleted WhatsApp messages on various political leaders' phones for instance. What were they hiding? That sort of thing.
Hmm, Kate has been 'papped' by a passer-by with Wills outside a farm shop, doing her shopping. This is front page news, an exclusive by The Sun.
Thing is - and I just hate writing this - it really doesn't look like her. I mean, it almost does, but not really. I suppose this could be an elaborate fun prank by the Royal family, a bit like the old 'Don't touch the food, it's poisoned!' gag that the likes of Wallis Simpson and Princess Diana used to pull at minor social gatherings, according to Alec Guinness in his memoirs, but it's all a bit odd - the photo is like those spoof photos of media celebs put out 20 years ago, what was it, Alison Jackson did it I think. assembling some celeb lookalikes for 'what if?' poses.
Scroll down to 'Not Kate' on this Twitter feed, for instance.
Sorry to bang on about this - but on Twitter/X there is an enlarged Blow Up-style shot of Kate and it really doesn't look like her at all. But while these are trending, the posts use exactly the same wording and photos, so they appear to be bots or mischief-makers albeit with many thousands of followers. Because I suspect the enlarged photo has itself been photoshopped so it looks less like Kate.
I myself did an enlargement of the footage taken by The Sun and got this:
Which actually does look like her.
All this is to take into consideration that attractive women can look quite different a lot of the time anyway, they can vary their look according to the make-up they wear, and in any case this isn't her usual garb where she is done up in dress and heels and so on.
There is, however, a tone of futility and drift in the UK now, with issues such as Gaza hovering over the political landscape where we can't actually do much about it anyway, not having any obvious clout, and the Govt just hanging on until Election Day because it can, it feels it's like Labour are in Govt without power, not just the Tories.
"This is where we leave you Mr Bond."
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,844MI6 Agent
edited March 19
I imagine that it did look like Kate until she put it through Photoshop. 😉
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
News that Kate has cancer puts these observations in an interesting light - to some extent, the trolls etc were correct, there was something odd going on with her, and we were kept out of the loop. I don't know if the 72-hr embargo on the press is true, but if so it makes sense given the recent disclosure - it is likely that the front page news about her medical files being accessed plays into this. At the time it was implied that someone had tried to access the files and failed. As likely, is that in fact they succeeded - and the ultimatum was put to the Palace - make a disclosure or we splash with this. This is the way it works.
If so, it explains why so many papers had many pages written up for the very following day's edition, given the announcement was made in the evening, I think.
As interesting is that the 'blow up' of Kate walking from the farm shop with Wills, the one that showed it clearly wasn't her, had been faked. The original footage was real, but someone had taken time to fake an enlargement that 'showed' it wasn't her. There were three Twitter accounts that did this, each generating thousands of RTs, or reposts. It is odd how these things get going in such a short time, and it seems that external forces are keen to test us, it's a kind of soft power thing, either from Russia, or China or so on. Kind of, 'Let's see how far we get with this, let's test the ground a bit' almost like the way notorious groomer Jimmy Savile used to do. Whether you react, or don't react, in an odd way you find yourself playing their game or letting encroachments occur.
EDIT: According to a story in today's Metro, where they expose one of the trolls feeding misinformation, it can be a money thing, you can get a lot of dosh from retweets.
The announcement has wrong-footed a lot of people though. I suppose you could argue this puts the much-maligned Kensington Palace press office in a better light, because from now on whatever anyone guesses, they'll remember how they got it wrong last time.
King Harald of Norway became ill recently while on holiday in Malaysia. The royal family was open about it and th doctor gave the public updates. The same happened when he was diagnosed with cancer earlier. In both cases there was pretty much no speculation in the press and thre internet trolls got very little leeway to make up stories. I'm not saying royals shouldn't ve allowed to hav eprivate lives, but openness does prevent wild speculations.
Flaherty started with the Chicago Second City dinner theatre in 1969, where he worked with Harold Ramis, John Belushi and Bill Murray. In 1973 he moved to Toronto to help establish a second Second City dinner theatre, training Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner and the future cast of SCTV in the Second City method of collective group improvisation. After Saturday Night Live started poaching the talent, it was decided to keep the remaining Toronto cast happy by starting their own teevee show, originally a no-budget half hour once a month on a local cable station in days when few had cable. and SCTV was on the air!
lets watch Flaherty, as Count Floyd, introducing this week's extra scary movie on Monster Chiller Horror Theatre: Dr Tongues 3-D House of Stewardesses (with John Candy as Dr Tongue, Eugene Levy as Bruno, and Catherine OHara as the only stewardess with speaking lines)
OJ Simpson has died at 76. Sports star, film actor, his memory will always be overshadowed by the infamous court case over who murdered his ex-wife and her lover.
To many he will be remembered for his Captain Smith in Titanic or from LOTR as King Theodun, but to me he will always be Yosser Hughes from The Boys From The Black Stuff.
Japanese proverb say, "Bird never make nest in bare tree".
I think Hill played John Lennon in a much-feted seldom repeated surreal biopic - at at time when Lennon's legend was talked up a bit too highly, perhaps. I liked his role as the husband in Shirley Valentine. Turns out he can be seen in the Martin Freeman series 2 of The Responder, shown this weekend. A stage show of Boys from the Blackstuff is currently being promoted.
Gutted to hear that CJ Sansom, author of the Shardlake mysteries set in Tudor times, has died in his early 70s.
A new book had been due out in Autumn, I had got up to Lamentations only last year. This is a real shame, as those books could have gone on for another two decades, as the last one I read had the lawyer/detective set up as a mentor for the young Elizabeth. Now I guess it feels like we don't know what would have happened to him, as he dies with the author.
Here is a tribute to Shardlake by a man who headed up the Mary Rose restoration. There is some mouth-watering information about the books that CJ Sansom had in mind for the future, all now curtailed.
Comments
Sad to hear of the death of the actor and comedian Ewen MacIntosh, aged 50. He was most famous for playing the character Big Keith in the original UK version of The Office:
Sad to hear of the death of Pamela Salem, aged 80, who played Moneypenny in NSNA.
Very sad to read of Pamela Salem's passing. A talented actress that should have been given bigger roles than she had in her career. Such a beautiful women and I always had a huge crush on her❤️
"Plenty of time..."
Sad to hear of the death of Bullseye legend Tony Green, aged 85.
Twitter account Behind the Stunts reveals that Bond stunt driver Michel Julienne has passed away. He was notable for the slick and visually pleasing car stunt in A View to A Kill where Bond's car drives up a boat ramp, sails through the air and lands on a moving coach. Wonderful stuff - I read the word 'parabola' used to describe it in one fan review! You think it almost won't make it.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Within a short time, another Bond alumni death was announced, that of Michael Culver who played the man with a punt in an early scene of From Russia With Love, in which we first see the actual James Bond. He also played one of the RAF crew in Thunderball.
But many of us know him as the Luftwaffe major who rankled SS officer Kessler in Secret Army, recently repeated on Talking Pictures TV, due to his relatively lenient way with downed RAF men.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That's sad news about Michael Culver. I was trying to think where I knew him from and then I realised it was as Prior Robert in Cadfael. I'll have to look out for him in those two Bond film appearances. His father, Roland Culver, also played the Home Secretary in Thunderball.
Sad to hear of the passing of Michael Culver. A very good actor. I always liked him as Lt. Col Peter Lawson in The Professionals episode Lawson's Last Stand. A silly episode really, but a great shift put in by him.
Culver was most notable as Captain Needa in THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.
Much credit to the actor for making the most of his screentime. For a minor role, he's pretty memorable.
Sorry to hear of Michael Culver’s passing, as with many of these stars of yesteryear I didn’t see anything reported in the press.
I had the pleasure of meeting Michael a few years ago, “great sport this punting!” RIP.
Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel, only in his early 70s. His 'Come Up and See Me Make Me Smile' - okay, that's not quite the title - is one of those evergreen 70s songs. And this classic Top of the Pops clip, well, it's done better than the official video. It's not just the song, it's the delivery, the affected vocal. Lovely production.
Here it is, anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyXNmsgOdig
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Not sure where to put this so I'll put it here.
From what I understand, there's a Royal News 72 hour hold going on in Britain right now. This generally means one of three things: death, abdication, or divorce. From what I understand, there are rumors that King Charles may have passed. What's the word in the UK right now?
That it's a load of gossip, stoked up by Americans who were on Twitter overnight.
We don't know about the Royal News 72 hour hold, then again we wouldn't. It is all a bit odd, most likely the gossip might be a divorce and the Kensington Palace press office don't know how to play it. If so, it's being kept mighty secret hence the nonsense photo release for Mother's Day with the photoshop - they couldn't farm it out to someone professional to do it.
There is an odd feeling around, however.
You do get news shutdowns over here - the deleted WhatsApp messages on various political leaders' phones for instance. What were they hiding? That sort of thing.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That said, have just done a search on 'Royal News 72 hour hold' - nothing much to see this side of the pond!
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Hmm, Kate has been 'papped' by a passer-by with Wills outside a farm shop, doing her shopping. This is front page news, an exclusive by The Sun.
Thing is - and I just hate writing this - it really doesn't look like her. I mean, it almost does, but not really. I suppose this could be an elaborate fun prank by the Royal family, a bit like the old 'Don't touch the food, it's poisoned!' gag that the likes of Wallis Simpson and Princess Diana used to pull at minor social gatherings, according to Alec Guinness in his memoirs, but it's all a bit odd - the photo is like those spoof photos of media celebs put out 20 years ago, what was it, Alison Jackson did it I think. assembling some celeb lookalikes for 'what if?' poses.
Scroll down to 'Not Kate' on this Twitter feed, for instance.
https://twitter.com/duchessofpoms
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Sorry to bang on about this - but on Twitter/X there is an enlarged Blow Up-style shot of Kate and it really doesn't look like her at all. But while these are trending, the posts use exactly the same wording and photos, so they appear to be bots or mischief-makers albeit with many thousands of followers. Because I suspect the enlarged photo has itself been photoshopped so it looks less like Kate.
I myself did an enlargement of the footage taken by The Sun and got this:
Which actually does look like her.
All this is to take into consideration that attractive women can look quite different a lot of the time anyway, they can vary their look according to the make-up they wear, and in any case this isn't her usual garb where she is done up in dress and heels and so on.
There is, however, a tone of futility and drift in the UK now, with issues such as Gaza hovering over the political landscape where we can't actually do much about it anyway, not having any obvious clout, and the Govt just hanging on until Election Day because it can, it feels it's like Labour are in Govt without power, not just the Tories.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
I imagine that it did look like Kate until she put it through Photoshop. 😉
News that Kate has cancer puts these observations in an interesting light - to some extent, the trolls etc were correct, there was something odd going on with her, and we were kept out of the loop. I don't know if the 72-hr embargo on the press is true, but if so it makes sense given the recent disclosure - it is likely that the front page news about her medical files being accessed plays into this. At the time it was implied that someone had tried to access the files and failed. As likely, is that in fact they succeeded - and the ultimatum was put to the Palace - make a disclosure or we splash with this. This is the way it works.
If so, it explains why so many papers had many pages written up for the very following day's edition, given the announcement was made in the evening, I think.
As interesting is that the 'blow up' of Kate walking from the farm shop with Wills, the one that showed it clearly wasn't her, had been faked. The original footage was real, but someone had taken time to fake an enlargement that 'showed' it wasn't her. There were three Twitter accounts that did this, each generating thousands of RTs, or reposts. It is odd how these things get going in such a short time, and it seems that external forces are keen to test us, it's a kind of soft power thing, either from Russia, or China or so on. Kind of, 'Let's see how far we get with this, let's test the ground a bit' almost like the way notorious groomer Jimmy Savile used to do. Whether you react, or don't react, in an odd way you find yourself playing their game or letting encroachments occur.
EDIT: According to a story in today's Metro, where they expose one of the trolls feeding misinformation, it can be a money thing, you can get a lot of dosh from retweets.
The announcement has wrong-footed a lot of people though. I suppose you could argue this puts the much-maligned Kensington Palace press office in a better light, because from now on whatever anyone guesses, they'll remember how they got it wrong last time.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
King Harald of Norway became ill recently while on holiday in Malaysia. The royal family was open about it and th doctor gave the public updates. The same happened when he was diagnosed with cancer earlier. In both cases there was pretty much no speculation in the press and thre internet trolls got very little leeway to make up stories. I'm not saying royals shouldn't ve allowed to hav eprivate lives, but openness does prevent wild speculations.
Joe Flaherty, of SCTV
1941-2024
Flaherty started with the Chicago Second City dinner theatre in 1969, where he worked with Harold Ramis, John Belushi and Bill Murray. In 1973 he moved to Toronto to help establish a second Second City dinner theatre, training Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner and the future cast of SCTV in the Second City method of collective group improvisation. After Saturday Night Live started poaching the talent, it was decided to keep the remaining Toronto cast happy by starting their own teevee show, originally a no-budget half hour once a month on a local cable station in days when few had cable. and SCTV was on the air!
lets watch Flaherty, as Count Floyd, introducing this week's extra scary movie on Monster Chiller Horror Theatre: Dr Tongues 3-D House of Stewardesses (with John Candy as Dr Tongue, Eugene Levy as Bruno, and Catherine OHara as the only stewardess with speaking lines)
"be sure to send away for those 3D glasses, so you can see them coming out at you, er, the monsters and everything! ow ow ow aroooo!!"
'Oooooooooh, scary!'
as a big fan of the band Rush, I always appreciated that he did an intro as Count Floyd for 'The Weapon' on the Grace Under Pressure tour.
Flaherty was always fun to see pop up on 'hey, it's that guy' roles over the years.
This in today's Metro newspaper - it's the closure of the Diamonds Are Forever casino...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
The artist who devised probably my favourite James Bond poster - though a couple run it close - has died.
You can read about Dan Goozee here:
He also did the Octopussy and A View To A Kill posters...
Roger Moore 1927-2017
That is a great poster
OJ Simpson has died at 76. Sports star, film actor, his memory will always be overshadowed by the infamous court case over who murdered his ex-wife and her lover.
Bernard Hill has died aged 79, RIP.
To many he will be remembered for his Captain Smith in Titanic or from LOTR as King Theodun, but to me he will always be Yosser Hughes from The Boys From The Black Stuff.
I think Hill played John Lennon in a much-feted seldom repeated surreal biopic - at at time when Lennon's legend was talked up a bit too highly, perhaps. I liked his role as the husband in Shirley Valentine. Turns out he can be seen in the Martin Freeman series 2 of The Responder, shown this weekend. A stage show of Boys from the Blackstuff is currently being promoted.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
Gutted to hear that CJ Sansom, author of the Shardlake mysteries set in Tudor times, has died in his early 70s.
A new book had been due out in Autumn, I had got up to Lamentations only last year. This is a real shame, as those books could have gone on for another two decades, as the last one I read had the lawyer/detective set up as a mentor for the young Elizabeth. Now I guess it feels like we don't know what would have happened to him, as he dies with the author.
Disney has just started a series on Shardlake.
Roger Moore 1927-2017
This is sad news. I really enjoyed the Shardlake novels.
Here is a tribute to Shardlake by a man who headed up the Mary Rose restoration. There is some mouth-watering information about the books that CJ Sansom had in mind for the future, all now curtailed.
https://maryrose.org/news/c-j-sansom-1952-2024/
Roger Moore 1927-2017