Garth Ennis is like marmite. People either love his work or hate it, and for good reason. His work is full of grotesque people and horrific images. He is definitely behind Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison in the pantheon of British comic writers.
He had a run writing Vertigo comics’ Hellblazer that I was not struck by at all. I was still interested as this the writer had written some rather marvellous shorter strips for Crisis (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/08/01/smouldering-and-smouldering-with-ignorance-and-hate/ ). Then I read Preacher. Preacher is the story of how Jesse Custer (the titular preacher) is given the power of the word of God and then goes to find God who has abandoned heaven (with his partner Tulip O’Hare and the Irish vampire Cassidy).
(Cassidy, Jesse and Tulip from the cover of Gone To Texas)
Along the way they meet a lot of interesting characters like Arseface, Herr Starr and the Saint of Killers.
(The Saint of Killers)
The ending is apocalyptic, but the journey combines a grim humour and is a lot of fun if you can stomach some shocking scenes. Probably best not to read it if you are religious though.
It has been made into a TV series by AMC, though they have chopped the story around to better fit their season structure which was a bit disconcerting. The only one of the main characters who looked right was Cassidy.
(Tulip, Jesse and Cassidy on TV)
Full marks for diversifying the cast rather than leaving Tulip as a blonde bombshell, but it’s Jesse I can’t get over. He just looks plain wrong in the role. I mean a haircut and shaving would not have been a big ask would it?
In the TV version Arseface is consigned to hell by Jesse (unfairly) and he escapes with the help of Adolph Hitler. Hitler turns out to be a bit of a git (hell is reliving the worst moment of your life over and over again – Hitler’s is when he was rejected as an artist) but the team of them together is very funny. I posted on Facebook that I thought Arseface and Hitler were a great double act. Believe me Hitler is not shown in a good light on the show. I added a comment that it was from the TV show.
It got taken down for not meeting community standards. I get it – a load of fascists would post lies about him given the chance. I tried to appeal and explain but I could not even state a case for why it should not be taken down, that this was from a TV programme that showed Hitler in a bad light.
Ennis has written superhero strips – but he takes the piss out of them almost as much as Pat Mills does in Marshall Law. The Pro is about a sex worked who is given superpowers and joins a Justice League type organisation. The funniest scene is when she is orally pleasuring the Superman analogue and his sperm shoots down a passenger jet, which he has to save with his trousers round his ankles.
A more recent one is The Boys that does not seem to be that popular. I like it and it has now been made into a TV series.
The Byrds were a jangly guitar group from the sixties who morphed into the first country rock band. They made a lot of beautiful music, the best known is Mr Tambourine Man, but I prefer
After the Go Gos split up for the first time (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/09/07/when-you-looked-at-me-i-shouldve-run/ ) Belinda Carlisle went solo, as lead singers do. Her first album made no impact in the UK, but the title track of her second album was a huge hit. I actually prefer the third album, Runaway Horses, as it is more consistent.
Charlie Brooker is a genius, he is funny too (that is where he started on TV with Screenwipe) but I would never have guessed that he would produce something like Black Mirror. For those who do not know the black mirror is the screen of your phone/ tablet/ computer when it is switched off or in sleep mode. Smart phones are a relatively recent invention and the changes they have brought to society are not over yet. Brooker’s genius is to take this change (and more generally technological advance, and make compelling drama).
It started with a David Cameron analogue being forced to have sex with a pig live on TV to get a kidnapped Princess back. There was a science fiction version of a talent show and then an episode about replaying memory.
The second season covered using social media entries to recreate the dead, new forms of punishment and the effect on democracy of new media.
Black Mirror is a really important show – our world is changing and writers have always speculated on what the future will look like. Not that they have to be right but it gives us, as a species, a chance to consider potential moral and ethical dilemmas before they arrive.
It was popular and it moved to Netflix as Channel 4 were ambivalent about it continuing (hilariously they moaned about it and then stole Bake Off from the BBC). The episode Nosedive predicted how important social media type ratings would be on people’s lives. There were five other episodes – four of which were grim in their outlook.
The other one was San Junipero. If you haven’t seen it stop reading and watch it.
(Kelly and Yorkie)
It appears to be taking place in a 1980s straight out of a John Hughes film (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/11/12/you-fall-to-dust/ ). Yorkie and Kelly meet there – the former nervous and unfamiliar with the location, the latter confident and poised. None of it is what it seems to be. The relationship is complicated and heart-breaking when you learn about Yorkie’s life and where she is now. When you learn the true nature of San Junipero is when the science fiction element becomes apparent and the choice that has to be made by humans of the future.
The question at the end is did Kelly choose to die or to enter the afterlife with Yorkie. There is none of the paraphernalia visible in the death scene that would be needed to record her mind. Is the Kelly at the end a virtual Kelly built form her memories or just a fake put in there to keep Yorkie happy? Brooker has indicated the former, but it is open to interpretation. When Kelly says. “All things considered. I guess I’m ready.” It packs a real emotional punch as it cuts away to Yorkie in San Junipero.
It looks like the show is over and the closing credits are starting, yet the sting is contained within the credits. The use of this song over the credits is undoubtedly the most brilliant use of a song ever in a TV show.
(Mackenzie Davies is in the Happiest Season – a queer Christmas movie like something from the Hallmark Network with more money and star power, but still not very good).
As long as Brooker is right I think this is the happiest ending ever written.
Cult television is a weird and wonderful thing. In the 70s and 80s specialist magazines talked about old shows but seeing them was another matter. The birth of Channel 4 was a real bonus as they did repeat some of these series from the late 1960s and early 1970s, usually quite late at night, but at least the opportunity was there. Even when videotapes started being released they were expensive and, initially, they were of popular current shows.
A lot of these shows were ITC but The Avengers was from ABC. Over its lifetime the show morphed from quite a hardnosed spy show into a quite bizarre fantasy and science fiction romp. The definitive line up was John Steed and Mrs Peel (Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg). Initially only the colour episodes were repeated and by the time they repeated the black and white episodes were being shown I was at university and they clashed with hall times at college.
(The Avengers – best line up, Steed and Emma Peel)
I actually saw some episodes of The Champions on ITV when I was very young in the early 1970s. Three people given special powers by a remote Tibetan civilisation (spot the lazy stereotype there, still being used to this day in shows like Iron Fist). They were like superheroes without costumes and the use of stock footage made it seem very exotic.
(The Champions)
There was The Persuaders with Roger Moore. The Protectors with Robert Vaughan, Tony Anholt and Nyree Dawn Porter – both had a very 60s jet set feel with exotic locations.
(The Persuaders)
(The New Avengers – Gambit, Purdey and Steed)
The Avengers returned in the mid-70s with a new line up – retaining Macnee but adding another male lead to share the physical work. Joanna Lumley instantly became the pin up of choice across the nation. The series returned to the espionage feel of the earlier shows, though the number of moles in British intelligence was so overwhelming that it felt even worse than real life. Some control over the script concepts would not have gone amiss. The second series featured episodes in Canada due to co-production money – missing the point that its appeal was its quintessential Britishness. (There was a film revival in the late 90s that was not successful).
The most exotic of the cult TV shows was The Prisoner. The hype for this series that I had been subject to from reading articles (not just in the cult TV magazines but also in newspapers and Sunday supplements) and Graham telling me about it had built it up into the holy grail of TV shows. I finally managed to see it late night on Channel 4.
It is very 1960s, a 1960s interpreted by Patrick McGoohan. It is beautifully filmed at Port Merion in Wales and it stands out compared to other series from that time. There are two problems. It was transmitted in the wrong order and rather than correct it into a sensible order on repeat channels appear to stick with it. Various online articles postulate better running orders.
Ultimately a lot of this Cult TV was good for when it was made but did not really stand up to repeated viewings many years later. But it was never meant to – the likelihood of even one repeat when it was originally made was remote, so it did its job. The lack of repeats making its reputation grow with nostalgia.
Tony Christie had really fallen off my radar until (Is This the Way To) Amarillo was used in Comic Relief in 2005, led by Peter Kay. That reminded me of this track that was the theme to The Protectors.
What rights do parent have over their children? To their minds and their bodies or even their lives?
It starts with religion. Religious people can be very zealous in the belief that their religion is right, yet the overwhelming majority of people are the same religion as their parents. How many of those people have actually investigated, and understood, even the major religions of the world (let alone the different versions that exist in some of them – Islam and Christianity are dominated by two major branches each but have many smaller variations).
School religious education in my day was pretty much a joke. Either more focused on what is now called PSHE, or just whatever the Deputy Head wanted to talk about. Many children have their lives severely affected by religion when they are young – look at the Jesuits, give me a child to the age of 7 and I will have them for life. It is not just religious organisations and leaders that the abusers of children, but they have a terrible track record and an even worse one of trying to cover up these abuses.
Why do parents have the right to indoctrinate children with a particular world view? There should be a far more comprehensive program of religious education at primary school that values religions equally and that no parent can opt their child out of.
The issues with bodies are just as bad. The worst example of this is Female Genital Mutilation where girls are physically damaged for the rest of their lives, often in unsanitary and unsafe conditions, that lead to long term or permanent health problems. At the heart of this is the issue of whether issues of right and wrong trump cultural heritage. Fortunately we are past that with FGM and it is clear that it is not allowable, but sadly it still happens, even in the UK.
Now it is accepted that it is wrong. Now it isn’t the same degree of terrible but why are parents allowed to circumcise a male child? In a small number of cases there are medical reasons, but as a general thing? Cultural and religious reasons are cited but I think the rights of a child should be paramount. There are groups of men that are angry that it has been done to them without their consent.
This would apply to tattooing or piercing where it is done. No decision should be made about a child’s body without their consent. A parent’s beliefs will not necessarily be the child’s – if they are happy to do it then it can be done at the age of majority.
This is the Love Affair’s most famous song, but they appear to be overlooked apart from this.
James Bond films were a big thing in the 70s, partially because no film was on TV until five years after being at the cinema so if you missed a film it would be ages before you could see it. I have re-watched them as comfort relaxation in lockdown and they weren’t so comfortable after all. It was interesting seeing changing attitudes and styles as time went by as I had never seen them in order before.
Dr. No
The very first Bond film and it does not look like what is to come. No pre-credit sequence or opening titles in the way we expect. Bond gets more than one woman in the film, including one at the start who lets herself into his flat, which is pretty poor for a spy. Jamaica is suitably exotic and Fleming’s home away from home. The “three blind mice” are suitably nasty. The scene of Ursula Andress coming out of the sea lacks the book’s punch because of the necessity of having no nudity. It is a serious film and is Connery’s best performance in the role. It has the first example of Bond refusing to be rescued so that he can have more sex – at sea.
From Russia with Love
The second film has started the move towards the standard Bond trappings with a pre-credit sequence (including one of those totally convincing masks only found in films). The location is Turkey, unusual but actually an espionage centre of the Cold War. It lacks the typically explosive Bond ending, but I find that pleasantly different.
It is understated by the standards of later entries in the series and is the closest to a Cold War spy story that the series does.
Goldfinger
This is always cited as the first film that establishes the Bond structure, I think it is more a process of evolution, though this is another step forward. The seemingly undefeatable henchman in Oddjob and the massive set piece ending. The locations are not very exotic – central Europe and Kentucky. There is also the first gadget car, though the chase is a bit pointless. I understand that some scenes were done with back projection, but doing it for the card game at the start is unnecessary and totally unconvincing as the scene lasts so long.
The film is probably most famous for the golden painted Shirley Eaton early on. Honor Blackman is the first of two Avengers (British TV version) to appear as a Bond woman, playing Pussy Galore. Again it skirts over her character in the book, though we are still meant to believe that a roll in the hay with Bond will totally change her loyalty to Goldfinger. It is not as obvious as in the book, but the signs are there that Pussy Galore does not like men (coding with being “comfortable in trousers” and her all female flying school), yet Bond “converts” her to heterosexuality.
Overrated.
Thunderball
Just because you can film underwater does not mean you have to shoot amazingly long fights that get boring. Actually this the climactic action sequence that starts the Bond trend of good guys and bad guys being in different coloured uniforms to make it easier to follow. It’s back to the West Indies – The Bahamas this time with a local agent falling for Bond’s charms. There is also the masseuse at the health farm that he blackmails into sleeping with him, but she loves it – so that is ok? Of course Bond makes sure he sleeps with Domino before telling her that her brother is dead. Bond ends up in a boat again with the female lead.
I think this is the film that really cements the formula that will be used for years to come.
You Only Live Twice
I used to love this film, but now I’m older it sure has its problems. It is still using the back projection in situations where it is not necessary. The whole fake death and burial at sea makes no sense as Bond barely tries to hide that he was still alive. The USA is totally unreasonable in its irrational belief that the Soviets must be to blame for the space kidnapping. There is plenty of gratuitous sexism in Bond’s admiration of Japanese culture’s promotion of men over women in the bath scenes.
The whole sequence of making Bond looking Japanese is awful and pretty pointless. In the book he spends a lengthy amount of time undercover. In the film it is barely minutes before they have found the secret volcano base. Blofeld is in full Doctor Evil mode here and his failure to kill Bond when he has the chance is inexplicable. Blofeld also has a piranha pool with a bridge over it that he uses to execute failures (and SPECTRE kills anyone who even makes a minor mistake), not the last time that will be seen.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
George Lazenby’s one outing as Bond dials it back from the excesses of You Only Live Twice. This looks like the only film in the series set in the 1960s. All the previous ones have the aura of the 1950s and the next one is very much into the 70s. This has some of the worst edits in the fight scenes that I have ever seen. I am watching the DVD remastered double disc version and every time someone hits the ground there is a jump. The studio backdrops of the outside during the skiing scenes are risible as they are they linger too long – if Savalas and Lazenby could not do the shoot then just put doubles in ski masks and dub it.
This is the one film that Bond gets married in. Draco pays Bond to woo and marry Tracy (Diana Rigg looking very sweet, but has as much agency as a female star will have for years). She disappears in the middle third and, despite his love for her, Bond sleeps with two women while undercover. It is not needed for the mission, he is just a dog. Lazenby is ok, but not brilliant.
The final scenes of the assault last a bit too long and the bobsleigh scene is a complete waste of time as Blofeld does not die or get caught (and would it have hurt Savalas to wear some scar make up?).
What raises this film up is the last five minutes which actually have some emotional impact.
Diamonds Are Forever
Finally we have said goodbye to the terrible back projected scenes – well temporarily. Connery is back and looks like he is a lot more than four years older. The pre-credit sequence is Bond looking for revenge on Blofeld and in ultra bastard mode. Yet that is it – he is a psycho for two years and then it is over and when he finds out Blofeld is not dead there is no emotion – the scene on the rig with him smashing the submarine shows a little menace, but is played for fun. The plot is crap and really makes no sense, why are SPECTRE eliminating the diamond trail? It excites more interest than leaving it alone. The gay assassins are very camp, though seeing them on screen was a surprise for me when I first saw it – I had no idea that they were more than friends. Why the heck do they spend years making a satellite to blackmail the world at the same place they are making a film? I’m sure fans can invent a reason, but as a villain Blofeld is rubbish. Maybe he spent more time on inventing something that made his hair grow back than world domination.
Las Vegas is the exotic location, along with Amsterdam.
Bond is limited in his conquests, though there is a gratuitous scene of a topless (but covered) Lana Wood being thrown from a ninth floor window. I assume that the twin guards of Willard White – Bambi and Thumper – are meant to be sexual in some way. They are barely any threat and Bond does not take them seriously. In the climactic oil rig sequence Jill St John spends most of the time in a bikini with a cassette tape being slid down the back of it more than once.
(Bambi and Thumper)
A sad end to Connery’s original run.
Live and Let Die
Roger Moore’s first outing is more confident than Lazenby’s – no harking back to other films in the titles. Lazenby’s first appearance is in a car chase, Moore first appears in bed. He is not even in the pre-credit sequence, which shows various scenes to set up the plot. There are more quips like “A genuine Felix Leiter”. Quarrel Jr is a nice nod to Doctor No.
I like the fact that this going for zombie movie vibe at the same time as riding a wave of Blaxploitation films. It’s good to see the back of SPECTRE and their lunatic plans.
I can’t work out Rosie Carver’s motivation for sleeping with Bond. As she is working for Kananga why is she so scared of Samedi’s hat? She is one of a lot of incompetent female agents that feature in the films. Bond definitely tricks Solitaire into bed for his third lover of the film and given her belief in tarot it is close to being rape. Linking her power to her virginity is such typical male sexism as well.
New York City and Jamaica (pretending to be San Monique) are the locations.
This is the second of the films where secondary villains attack after the big climax. Tee Hee re-enacts the scene From Russia With Love fighting in a cramped train compartment.
I like this film best though – it feels different.
The Man with the Golden Gun
This feels like the second half of a pair with the last film. A water chase through Bangkok and the reappearance of Sheriff JW Pepper, a character where one appearance was plenty. It rips off Kung Fu films rather than Blaxploitation films. At least the two schoolgirls are adept fighters.
On the other hand not only does Bond sleep with Scaramanga’s girlfriend (Maud Adams) but Britt Eklund acts totally cockstruck all film (to use Katherine Ryan’s phrase). She even has to hide in a wardrobe while Bond sleeps with Adams. She is also another totally incompetent female agent.
I think it features the first nudity outside the title sequence, in Hai Fat’s swimming pool.
The opening sequence sets up Scaramanga as a threat rather than focusing on Bond.
This time it is Nick Nack attacking on a boat after the climax – not a really serious threat and played for laughs.
The Spy Who Loved Me
How many spies loved Bond? There is the one in the opening sequence (with the return of the risible back projection for the skiing sequences) as well as Agent XXX. At least XXX is not incompetent (maybe only British intelligence hires these subpar agents) though she is damselled at the end and can’t start the van at Karnak, with a women driver joke to boot.
(Let’s ignore the fact that the drive from Cairo to Karnak is so quick and Bond’s trip from Cairo to Abu Simbel is even faster).
Bond’s other “lover” in the film is a woman offered to him in the desert tent by his university friend (presumably they are in Egypt so the reference to oil is just silly). She is offered no option about this and Bond decides to stay the night rather go to Cairo. Looks like rape to me.
The film is just a version of You Only Live Twice with submarines instead of spaceships. Stromberg has a shark tank for failed subordinates rather than piranhas though.
There is a fight in a train-sleeping compartment – like From Russia With Love and Live and Let Die.
The rooftop fight scene in Cairo has the return of some poor editing where the stuntman’s face can be seen. This ends with Bond at his most ruthless pushing Fekesh over the edge.
Moonraker
I have read books that have described Moonraker as the worst Bond film ever. It was the first one that I saw at the cinema – a trip to Cambridge in the summer holidays no less. Eating out and food afterwards. I can see why fans hate it – especially fans of the books but I love it despite its massive flaws.
This is Bond’ Greatest Hits on screen.
The opening scene with a no parachute drop from the plane is risible and Jaws surviving the landing is ridiculous, though he is now being played for laughs. Drax has a henchman from Asia (like Oddjob in Goldfinger). The centrifuge scene is basically the same as the massage table in Thunderball. There is a cable car fight (OHMSS), a boat chase (Live and Let Die – including a return of terrible back projection for Richard Kiel – I assume he was not on the shoot); there is a secret base in the jungle (The Spy Who Love Me in water, You Only Live Twice in a volcano), and we are back to armies in different colours for the climax (You Only Live Twice,The Spy Who Loved Me, Thunderball, etc.). The only new thing are trips to Brazil and Venice.
Holly Goodhead is the most competent female character in the series so far. Even better than Triple X in the last film. Not only is she a good CIA operative, but a scientist and astronaut. Shame about the name.
Drax more than makes up for this lack of sexism though. He seems to have European noblewomen sitting around his mansion to admire him whatever he does. He also seems to want to create a new world for humanity where bras do not exist as none of the (many) women around are in outfits where they can wear one.
Bond manages three lovers again – Corinne, Manuela and Goodhead. None of them are coerced as such, though Manuela just seems to be a way to pass the time.
I realised no Bond villain likes walking around their base. This one has mini cars, we have seen monorails and golf carts before.
I know Drax has a radar jammer but how the hell did he get that space station up there without anyone noticing? How did he build a jungle base as well?
There are an awful lot of people to get on Moonraker 6. Presumably lots of them do not know the plan and are left behind. I also like how NASA could launch a shuttle of space commandos at minutes notice. Maybe Donald Trump thought this was a documentary?
I still loved watching it.
For Your Eyes Only
After the excesses of Moonraker the idea was to bring things back to a smaller scale with a Cold War spy story.
One of the things Russell T Davies did when starting a new episode of Doctor Who was to have a tone meeting. This film definitely needed one of those. It starts with a pre credit sequence of Bond visiting his wife’s grave and then being attacked by Blofeld (never named for copyright reasons) and making jokes. As in Diamonds Are Forever Tracy’s death is taken on board and then undercut immediately. This problem continues throughout the film and shows the mistake of trying to put Moore’s Bond in a serious film.
The other problem is when you take out the spectacle of the previous films you need to replace it with a story, but they omit to do this. Instead there is yet another ski chase (back projection again) and more interminable underwater scenes. The car chase eschews the gimmick cars for a 2CV (joke car of the 80s). It really was time for some new ideas and concepts.
The locations are in Europe, pretty enough, but far less exotic. They keep the colour scheme fight – but it is two small groups of smugglers. Bond seems to forget to call on other British resources for the assault on St Cyril’s.
The music is like a dreadful late 70s disco – terrible.
Bond does turn down Bibi’s advances (she was meant to be 16, which as Moore was in his 50s, is a good thing). He still manages two lovers, one of whom is only a year older than the actress playing Bibi.
The film is just boring. Terribly, terribly boring.
Octopussy
I had only seen this once before and it was not quite as bad as I remembered it, though like all post 1980 Moore Bond’s it suffers from the lead looking too old. There is a younger, sexier assistant for Moneypenny as her age is acknowledged, but nothing is done with new character. Maud Adams is back 10 years after The Man With The Golden Gun as the titular Octopussy – the signs of plastic surgery clear on her face. One of the many blonde women that occupy that this version of India.
There is plenty of gratuitous sexism with Bond using a camera to zoom in on cleavage and Octopussy’s army all in saris, skinsuits or bikinis. Bond forces himself on Octopussy.
There are a lot of gratuitous and lazy Indian tropes – a sword swallower, a fire juggler and a fakir on a bed of nails all in one fight scene. Bond says that his gambling winnings will keep his local help in “curry for weeks.”
Then there is the silliness. A tiger sits when told; a Tarzan cry as Bond swings through the trees plus Bond disguises himself as a gorilla and a clown. Back projection spoils the train stunts and Bond drives a car on two wheels again (Diamonds are Forever).
Stephen Berkhoff’s performance would disgrace an am-dram performance on a wet Wednesday night in Woking.
Still it is not dull like For Your Eyes Only.
Never Say Never Again
Connery is back with a remake of Thunderball. It really shows up how dull the Eon films have become. It is far better than the original and has verve and originality.
The new Q, Algy, hopes that there will be more gratuitous sex and violence now Bond is back. There certainly is plenty of sex. The therapist at Shrublands; Valerie Leon in the Bahamas and Fatima Blush (the last two on the same day). Barbara Carrera as the SPECTRE agent Blush is incredible – maybe over the top but she is so enjoying being bad. She lights the film up with her crazy outfits until her ego leads to her death. Even the filming of them having sex shows more style than any Eon film has for years. I was genuinely sad that she died so early.
The video game in the casino was a nice change to cards and has a lovely retro feel to it now.
The action moved to the south of France with yet another inexperienced female agent who ends up dead (but at least she avoids sexual assault from Bond). Bond visits a spa where every woman looks at him like he is the sexiest man on Earth and then impersonates a masseur to get to Domino.
Kim Basinger wears several outfits as Domino that are very revealing. A leotard that is so see through you can see everything. Later when she is being auctioned to the Arabs (in a very stereotypical scene) it is a white negligee that then gets wet.
The underwater scenes are back, though in North Africa for the first time, but why do men wear normal wetsuits and women wear ones that do not cover their legs? At least Domino is the one who kills Largo.
It ends with a fake out final attack with Rowan Atkinson begging him for another mission.
A View to a Kill
Roger Moore’s last outing and it is at least two films too far. He had been cast when Connery believed he was too old for the role and he was a year older than Connery. He actually looks slightly better than in Octopussy, but he sleeps with four women in the film, one even before the opening credits (after a risible skiing sequence to California Girls). All of them are far younger than Bond. Tanya Roberts (ex Charlie’s Angel https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/11/16/im-old-enough-to-face-the-dawn/ ) is terribly underused. It is a shame that Barbara Bach would not return as Agent XXX, though it means Bond adds another Russian agent to his list.
The opening sequences are no longer silhouettes and are far less stylish for that.
Patrick MacNee guests in a role that could have been played by anyone. John Glen, the director, is part of the problem – this is his third film in a row and he has no style though maybe it is the uninspiring material he has to work with as there are the same writers – the franchise desperately needs new blood. It all feels like a pale nostalgia with the past and suffers terribly compared with the verve of Never Say Never Again.
I think that this just shades For Your Eyes Only as the worst film in the series.
The Living Daylights
A film touted as the first of the AIDs era so Bond could not go bedhopping. It was Timothy Dalton’s first film and it starts with a fake mission in Gibraltar that turns real – they take care not to show Dalton’s face for a while. At the end of the pre-credit sequence it is implied that Bond has sex with the woman his boat crashes on – after that he is the most chaste Bond of all.
The new Moneypenny is the best in the series.
This is the Cold War story FYEO wanted to be, though the gimmicked car is out of place in this. There are still a few Moore style quips but Dalton’s Bond is harsher – stripping a woman to the waist to use as a distraction.
The Afghanistan scenes (where the Mujahedeen are the good guys) features the world’s longest runway – at least until the notorious one in The Fast and the Furious 6.
Licence to Kill
It is the shortest gap between a pre credit sequence and the main film, probably less than two hours. The motivation is the mutilation of Felix Leiter by a shark and the rape/ murder of his new bride.
The drug dealer theme is so Reagan America.
There is more stuff underwater and a truck on two wheels rather than in a car.
He sleeps with Lupe after 100 minutes and Bouvier (it is implied) at the end. Bouvier is the most competent female in the series to date and is really amazing, though her pining after Bond is a bit annoying. On the other hand there is little depth in Lupe who stays with Chavez despite being beaten and tries to sleep with other men at least twice.
It’s nice to see Q in the field for once.
A really good pair of films for Dalton. This is the only film to go up in my estimation on a re-watch.
GoldenEye
It had been 6 years since the last Bond film and I think most people had given up on them. The producers could finally get Pierce Brosnan, so it was farewell to Timothy Dalton after just two films.
Brosnan seems like the Moore to Dalton’s Connery. The realism and more competent female characters are gone.
The opening credits are coy about showing Brosnan and are the sky diving into the plane is crazy. Is this where the Sean Bean dies early trope starts? Even though he doesn’t.
After the shortest pre-credits to main film gap we have the longest – nine years. The main film starts with a chase scene where is obvious that Xenia Onatopp is based on Fatima Blush and Bond seduces his evaluator. It is a shame that Onatopp kills men by wrapping her thighs round them – a piece of male fantasy discussed at length on the excellent Bechdel Cast podcast. Isabella Scorupco’s female lead is a definite step back from Pam Bouvier, she has programming skills and does outsmart Alan Cumming’s Boris, but she is constantly referred to as second rate.
Judi Dench has arrived as M and there is a new Moneypenny (played by Samantha Bond funnily enough) who Bond is pining over and she is not interested.
There is a return for a secret base – the antenna has not one water stain when the lake drains and Sean Bean’s tactics in the fight with Bond are risible. When Bond falls down the ladder he just has to wait at the top and he wins, instead he goes after him.
Tomorrow Never Dies
This is the best of Brosnan’s films by a mile. It feels like a Roger Moore/ SPECTRE film, plus the stealth boat reminds me of Stromberg’s plot in The Spy Who Loved Me.
The pre credit sequence is the first time flying actually looks real. It is a shame that the title sequence looks like it was done by a kid who has just found out about computer graphics (the nudity is gone completely); not helped by Sheryl Crow’s dull theme.
Jonathan Pryce is magnificent as Rupert Murdoch – Eliot Carver, though his plot is bonkers. The use of disinformation seems strongly prescient and issues around media control are odd for a Bond film to address.
Bond starts off in bed with his Danish teacher and this film marks the end of the AIDs induced prurience that started in The Living Daylights. Not only that M and Moneypenny pretty much tell him to sleep with Paris Carver to get information. He duly does this, but he really seems to care for her and be upset at her death.
The main female co-star is Michelle Yeoh as Wai Lin who sets a new high bar as she is Bond’s match in every way. Their motorcycle escape is the best action scene for decades in the series – Brosnan even makes a Moore like “Keep your shirt in” quip as they go through a washing line. Afterwards there is a wet T-shirt scene as they inexplicably shower together outside, though Brosnan is topless so things are evening up there too. Even the ending with Bond and Wai Lin kissing in the wreckage and ignoring the rescue boats harks back to the 60s and 70s.
Unreservedly one of the best in the series.
The World Is Not Enough
The pre-credit sequence is an integral part of the film, shame the theme by Garbage and the credits are so bad. Following that Moneypenny seems to have reverted to longing for Bond, asking for an engagement ring. Even worse the MI6 doctor, Molly Warmflash (I thought these silly names had disappeared with Holly Goodhead 20 years earlier) seems so cockstruck that she barters sex for betraying her job to give Bond a clean bill of health.
It is Q’s last films as Desmond Llewellyn died in a car crash just three weeks after it opened. Fortuitously John Cleese debuts as his deputy and has some good lines.
Is Elektra King the first main female villain? Octopussy was not really a villain. I like the structure of her hiding in plain sight. She seduces Bond and is in control of Renard and the other bad guys.
There is skiing again. Underwater action. Again. Someone have a new bloody idea.
Denise Richards is the nuclear scientist Christmas Jones – in shorts and a vest or a wet T-shirt, because that is how all female scientists dress. Bond sleeps with her at the end with him saying that he always wanted Christmas in Turkey – with M and co seeing them on an infra-red screen. Real 70s flashback.
Serviceable.
Die Another Day
Skiing into the mission looks good and at least it is original. The pre-credit sequence is not only integral to the plot but is well executed, apart from the poor CGI that plagues the film.
The opening credits are unusual – having the usual silhouettes of women mixed with the extended torture of Bond. It is let down by the direst opening theme so far from Madonna.
Halle Berry appears when Bond reaches Cuba in a scene evoking Dr No and is in bed with Bond almost at once – 38 minutes in. This is a disappointing role for an actress of her talents, though the film is disappointing for everyone involved. All Bond films are a succession of set pieces and locations – the trick is to stitch them together so that the audience does not notice. This film is terrible on that.
There is the invisible car (though it is an Aston Martin again as BMW’s sponsorship has expired).and the bad guy having their own gadget car.
Moon chooses to become white? I will not even start with that.
We are back to irresistible Bond. He thinks that when he is when snogging Miranda Frost (“Her sex is the coldest weapon of all.”) and then sleeps with her. For some reason Frost changes into a bra top for the final scenes in the plane. As for that sequence – a weapon that destroys huge areas is like a tiny warming beam on the plane.
To cap it off the formerly serious Moneypenny (in this guise) uses a VR to be seduced by Bond as he sleeps with Halle Berry.
Dreadful.
Casino Royale
A new Bond and a reboot to the franchise as this shows he became a double O. There are no females in the opening credits and this Bond gets hurt and shows injuries.
I actually knew what parkour was (thank-you Global Frequency) and the opening in Madagascar is spectacular and new, plus they are in Africa and not just the north coast. They let it down a bit by returning to The Bahamas again.
It looks different, the colour palette is richer and it is actually directed. It is obvious now that the Scandinavian blondes were Cubby Broccolis’s thing as the women in the series are (and have been for a while) brunettes. The Bond Theme is absent – variations on the film’s theme are used.
Le Chiffre is a banker whose plans are less mad than laser satellites and nukes in the Caucasus. Bond’s relationship with Vesper is different. It is a ruthless Bond and a ruthless villain – the torture scene, the machete scene and the focus on sleeping with married women that leads Solange to her death. He breaks a neck in Miami (though the sound is missing – the UK is odd about neck breaking). There is one gratuitous shot down Vesper’s top when Bond has a heart attack, but Bond is used as beefcake too.
Another return to Venice at the end – the ending is totally new for Bond and spectacular without being too crazy.
Quantum of Solace
It starts directly after Casino Royale with a totally irrelevant chase. Sadly that turns out to the best part of this total mess of a film. The opening credits are dull and the theme from Alicia Key and Jack White is terrible. It leads in parkour on Italian rooves. The Bond Theme is back.
Then it dodges around the world with the minimum of explanation and a pretty farfetched plot. The direction is choppy and uneven. Gemma Arterton regrets being in it and I am not surprised. Olga Kurylenko is the main leading female and is good, but is put in some silly outfits.
Utter clusterfuck and a disappointing direct follow up.
Skyfall
This was the most commercially successful Bond film to date. I am not sure why – it only looks better compared to Quantum of Solace.
Moneypenny is an agent – but drives badly and misses a crucial shot that looks like it kills Bond. Another in the inexperienced female agent trope.
The credits are generic and it is a dull song from Adele. To be fair I do not like Adele.
Bond is shown living with a woman at the start and sleeps with Severine in the Far East. Craig is slowly reverting to the more lecherous version of Bond.
The pernicious influence of the Bourne franchise is here. The film is humourless and full of boring, over-extended fight scenes. The direction from Sam Menes’s is so slow and plodding – it is the longest film in the franchise so far and could do with at least 30 minutes stripped out.
Going to Skyfall is a bloody stupid idea and isn’t Bond meant to be a pleb? Then M and Kincade keep putting lights on so that the bad guys can see them out on the moor – how stupid are they? I was hoping that everyone would die with M and put us out of our misery.
Joyless and dull.
Spectre
It’s Skyfall but worse. The villain is Bond’s adopted brother? He created a massive international terror organisation to get his own back? And adopted the name Blofeld? And SPECTRE far from being the organisation it was in the 60s are beaten pretty easily.
Mendes’ si still here and the opening at the Day of the Dead could have been cut by 10 minutes (and saved millions). Goes into a credit sequence where semi-clad women are making a comeback, as well as pictures of M, Vesper Lynd, etc. The theme by Sam Smith won an Oscar – why? It is terrible.
Bond sdrives all the way to Rome even though time is tight and manages to sleep with Monica Belluci before infiltrating a SPECTRE meeting because he has a ring. Hardly high security. The pacing remains turgid.
Batista is the latest super henchman and there is another neck break with no sound.
There is a fight on a train (not just one compartment) and cable car action. Yawn.
Swann and Bond fall in love after barely any time.
The torture of Bond that is meant to leave his sight, hearing, balance and facial recognition compromised has no impact. He escapes and is still the only accurate shooter on the planet.
Absolute cack.
Finally
The theory that Bond was a code name has been discredited. There is another that The Daniel Craig hallucinates all the older stories in SPECTRE when he is being tortured. My theory is that Bond, Moneypenny and Leiter are mind wiped Time Lords and we just do not see their regenerations (some strange Celestial Intervention Agency operation).
This has been a real disappointment – like seeing behind the curtain at a magic show. I loved a lot of these once, without seeing how problematic they were. Then the latest ones turn out to be so dull and slow.
My favourite films are Live and Let Die, MoonrakerTomorrow Never Dies, Never Say Never Again and Casino Royale. The worst are A View To A Kill, For Your Eyes Only, Quantum of Solace, SPECTRE and Skyfall. My favourite Bond is Connery, though Dalton is very close. My favourite villains are Drax, Le Chiffre and Fatima Blush. My Favourite female characters are Holly Goodhead, Pam Bouvier and Wai Lin.
I like Daniel Craig as Bond but his films, with one exception, I have hated.
Chris Cornell, another person gone too soon. Rest in Paradise.
Each year when we finished our exams at university we wanted to eat out to celebrate. The first year we went to a steak restaurant, where I complained that the knives were too blunt. To illustrate it I ran one across the palm of my hand. Some people in our group missed it, so I showed them again. As I did so the first cut was slowly opening and bleeding – they were that sharp. I did say that I lacked common sense in an earlier post..
Old Orleans became our restaurant of choice. It was close to the College, in Mill Lane, and very reasonably priced for a good amount of food. Plus, they served lager in huge jugs which seemed really civilised as compared to pint glasses. This is where I discovered southern cuisine. I had never tried sour cream before and fell in love with it at once. There was also Mississippi Mud Pie and other enormous desserts. I remember barely being able to walk the five minutes back to College.
We were students and obsessed with food. The College charged a lump sum for the college cafeteria and then made you buy meal vouchers of the actual meals. Fine if you were lazy or a bad cook, but if you lived in the flats twenty minutes away it was a bit of a rip-off. Over my time at the College both the choice and the portion size reduced. One trick was to order double chips as by the time you got to the checkout the message would have been forgotten and you would pay for one portion.
Sunday’s were a huge buffet lunch, where you were charged for each item you took, so lettuce would be a price irrespective of how much lettuce you took. Meat was charged per slice though. We soon learner to take slices of meat at the bottom and cover them with salad to pay less for a huge meal.
I only went to Old Orleans a couple of times after I left university and the portion size was less and the facilities old and frayed – though the one at Lakeside looked good from outside. The chain shut down.
(Old Orleans Lakeside)
The other chain I loved that shut down was Fatty Arbuckles. An American burger joint with tremendous portion sizes and I have never seen a bigger selection of burgers and relishes. Clowns in Colchester was similar – reasonably priced food and plenty of it. That has gone too, a victim of increasing high street prices.
Our High Streets will be massively different in the 2020s with so many chains of shops and restaurants gone. Shops and restaurants close, but what is happening now is beyond that. We need to support the workers from places like Arcadia and Debenhams – new jobs in delivery may not be suitable for people who are unemployed.
Long before Scandi-Noir there was Scandi Rock. A-Ha were handicapped by their chiselled Nordic good looks which made people think they were a boy band for teenage girls. This was the 80s so playing your own instruments and writing your own songs could still mean that you were a boy band. Their music is sad and mournful, suggestive of great cold open spaces. They are most famous for the cartoon/ live video for Take On Me but I prefer their only UK number one. It sounds positive but listen to the words.
(Andy Taylor, Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor and Roger Taylor – not the same one as in Queen)
I was there at the start – or almost. I liked their debut Planet Earth but it was their second single, Careless Memories, that converted me (and the band did not want to release it and it was a relative flop). A third single, with a raunchy video cemented them in place as the leading band of the New Romantic/ Futurists just as Spandau Ballet were becoming a funk outfit.
One thing about a new band if the lack of material available. Duran Duran actually put proper B sides on their singles – some groups just put remixes or instrumental versions of the A sides. Duran Duran’s 12 inch singles had extended dance versions as well so that was what I wanted, but I had not got them at the time. Luckily I managed to get the ones I was missing when Graham and I stopped at the Virgin megastore on the way to Games Fair in 1982.
They followed up their first album with the single My Own Way in December 1981 – defined by synthesised violins the band did not like it and I thought that it was substandard. Subsequently there was a different version on the album and yet another remix on the Rio twelve-inch single. I liked that final mix best but Graham loved the original to the extent that when he made a tape of the album he replaced the album version with the single version.
I actually endured the bus ride to Colchester to get the second album, Rio. They were not New Romantics anymore. The videos for the singles for the album were filmed in Sri Lanka and the West Indies – aspirational videos for Thatcher’s generation (the cover of Heaven 17’s album The Luxury Gap is a response to this). Duran Duran were selling that aspirational, exotic, successful lifestyle.
(Simon, Andy, John, Nick and Roger in Sri Lanka 1982)
Actually the album itself was not like that. The most interesting track is Last Chance on the Stairway about a party ending and trying to screw up the courage to ask out that person you wanted to ask but were too scared to.
Duran Duran were supplanted as the number one pop idols by Culture Club and they “wrote a number one” with Is There Something I Should Know? Including the cringeworthy line “You’re about as easy as a nuclear war.”, supplanted in its stupidity only by Culture Club’s “War is stupid” and Snap’s “I’m as serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer”. It got the number one though.
The band were up to their eyes in drugs and groupies – rumours of their sexual excess are legendary. John Taylor was loved by girls and admired by boys. The bass player of all things and he went to onto marry former wild child Amanda De Cadenet. Simon Le bon was racing yachts – not something rebel musicians do.
Their third album had another change in musical style, but was not quite the success that was expected. The third single from it, The Reflex, was remixed massively to get a number one. They tried again with the non-album track Wild Boys, but that only made number 2.
Rather than rest the John and Andy formed the Power Station with Robert Palmer and Tony Thompson. They had massive success in the USA. The other three formed Arcadia as something to do – musically better but less successful commercially.
(The Power Station)
When it came to reforming Andy Taylor quit. Always the outsider his relationship with other band members was the weakest. Further albums had diminishing returns – they were not the kind of band who were creatively and financially successful in the long term. There was Ordinary World in 1992, but after that they faded away.
Until 2001 – when reunion tours were getting big and the money was there to be made. Andy Taylor could not manage it for long though.
(Reformed for the Brit awards)
The songs from the Rio era are staples of 80s music channels and compilations – they define a time and a feeling. To prove I am a real fan my favourite track is the B side of Careless Memories. Not many of you will have heard this.
After the truly awful PE2 exams (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/10/16/to-reach-too-high/ .) it was weeks waiting for the results. Like PE1 the results were published in the Saturday edition of The Times, but this time you did not even have to go to London to get them on Friday night (as it was printed in London early Saturday editions for the North would go one sale on Friday evening and also be available at certain London stations). Recruitment agencies, keen to get the contact details and on the good side of this newly qualified crop of accountants had teams in the offices with newspapers that you could call. The system was that you would give your name and they would tell you the firm that you worked for and which office so that you would be sure that they had got it right.
It was our usual Friday night at the pub and I had hoped that no one would know that the results were out so that I could forget about it. Neil is too smart for that and knew. I slipped out of The Sun at 9.30pm and went home to call. They did not have them yet. Twenty minutes of pacing and I tried again.
Name. Initials. A pause that seemed to last for hours.
“Grant Thornton. Ipswich.”
Inside I went crazy but thanked the man on the other end and gave him my phone number so we could chat about career moves at a later date.
I ran back to The Sun and announced my achievement and there was much celebration. I bought a load of drinks and I got really drunk. After all the pubs finally shut I found Anne and Dad nearby at their friends’ house with Rudi and Brenda Drost and David and Rina Button. Much more celebrating.
I woke up at quarter to six with a bad hangover – too drunk to drive so I walked to the newsagents – I had to see it in print. After the trauma of the exams I had to know and see it myself.
The analysis of results shows that tax had the lowest pass rate and the highest number of referrals (marginal fails) of any subject.
John and I both loved Transvision Vamp. They made three albums of pop punk in the late 80s and early 90s. Pop Art, their first album, with tracks like Sister Moon and Tell That Girl To Shut Up is the most consistent. The second, Velveteen, is more hit and miss. The highs are their best tracks, like Landslide of Love and Baby I Don’t Care. But there are some that are completely forgettable. The performance of Wendy James in a pair of tiny union jack shorts on Top of the Pops had turned her into a sex symbol. Their third album, The Little Magnets versus the Bubble of Babble, was so bad that the record company refused to release it in the UK. I got a copy from Compact Music in Colchester and the record company were right. I’m a fan and I only have two songs from it in my iTunes library.
Wendy James had an unsuccessful solo career and has disappeared from public life.
This is one of the songs we used to play on the Freemasons’ Arms jukebox after hours. It is long – so all the people who hated the group groaned when it came on.
This is the start of the final 100 regular entries in this series.
The X-Men started a trend for superhero movies that has lasted twenty years. It was always likely to be Spiderman – Marvel’s powerhouse title from the sixties to the eighties – or the X-Men that took its place as the sales juggernaut powering the House of Ideas from the late 70s.
It was not always that way. In the sixties the X-Men title wobbled along and was not one of Stan Lee’s favourites. It was most notable for early Neal Adams artwork that was stunning at the time. The team had limited powers and had to work together to defeat foes.
(The original team – Angel, Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Iceman and Beast at the front).
After a period when the book was cancelled Len Wein and Dave Cockrum brought the All New X-Men back in 1975. Wein was immediately replaced by Chris Claremont on the regular title that was relaunched after the initial special. The new team were flashier, more cosmopolitan and had greater powers.
(Mark 2 – Back row: Sunfire from Japan, Thunderbird a native American, Banshee from Ireland, Cyclops, Colossus from Russia, Wolverine from Canada; front row Nightcrawler from Germany and Storm from Kenya).
Claremont built his story arcs over long periods (made even longer by the fact that the book only came out once every two months for a couple of years after its relaunch. The first issue that I read I borrowed from Paul Ashby and it was also the first issue illustrated by John Byrne (a titan of the field), issue 108 – Armageddon Now. In this Jean Grey (formerly Marvel Girl, now the Phoenix) saves reality from collapsing.
Jean had become the Phoenix when the X-Men returned from the Starcore space station in the middle of a solar storm. Jean used her powers to gain the knowledge of how to fly the shuttle from the pilot and locked the team in a radiation proof capsule. Knocking out her lover, Cyclops, as he tried to stop her.
The next issues starts with the shuttle diving through the atmosphere and the team assuming that Jean is dead. Then it pulls up and crashes in the water off New York. The X-Men surface and there is no sign of Jean until she bursts from the water proclaiming that she is now the Phoenix.
After issue 108 Jean’s powers appear to fade and then she is separated from the X-Men who she assumes are dead. Several months pass until they are reunited in which time Jean has been influenced by the villain Mastermind and the safety triggers in her mind she put theresubconsciously after issue 108 have been removed. She is drawn into The Hellfire Club and things spiralled out of control as the X-Men try to rescue her and it appears Cyclops is dead.
He isn’t of course, but when they escape the Hellfire Club she transforms into the Dark Phoenix and flees Earth, destroying an alien star system (and civilisation) to gain power and then returns to Earth.
After a fight where technology is used to damp her power temporarily, her love of Cyclops enables Professor X to mentally block her powers and return her to her Marvel Girl levels.
Happy ending? No. The alien Shi’Ar, who are led by Professor X’s lover, Lilandra, arrive to ensure that the Dark Phoenix can never emerge again. TheX-Men engage in trial by combat on the Moon against Lilandra’s Imperial Guard for Jean’s life.
The X-Men lost, and Jean overcame the mental blocks to become Phoenix again when she sees Cyclops taken down. Realising that she will always be a threat if she lives, she takes her own life.
This plays out over about 4 years and is one of the seminal stories in the history of comics. They have tried to make films out of it twice and failed so badly it is painful. In the film X-Men Last Stand the story is not remotely similar and the film is awful – almost franchise killing. Only the popularity of Wolverine saves the franchise and they have another go with the film Dark Phoenix, the explanation being that history was changed by Wolverine’s time travel in Days of Future Past. This was based on the other classic Claremont/ Byrne X-Men story. The biggest mistake is that it is all compressed into less than two hours. If the opening sequence when Jean got her powers had been shown at the start of the previous film, Apocalypse, with her greater powers leading her to defeat the titular threat but worrying Xavier there would have at least been some tension.
After Byrne left the comic so that he could have total creative freedom on his own books Marvel started exploiting the brand. First with The New Mutants – at least this was by Claremont and could dovetail with the main book. There were also assorted “mini-series” to raise revenue.
When they added X-Factor (ripping off Ghostbusters for the concept) and resurrected Jean just for the gimmick of reuniting the original team, plus wiping away all Cyclops’ character development in the intervening period, I was on my way out. Poor art, crossovers with terrible books to boost their sales and stupid storylines drove me away.
It is a shame – even teenage me could see the X-Men’s outcast status made them a metaphor for other groups in society. In the 80s it was the LGBTQ+ community, in the 60s it had been the Civil Rights struggle.
I finally read the book again when Grant Morrison took over following the release of the first X-Men film. This was primarily at the urging of writer Lance Parkin.
(From the back: The White Queen, Wolverine, Beast, Jean Grey, Cyclops, Professor X).
At the end of Morrison’s run Marvel seemed to rush to overturn his changes and return to the status quo. Now Jonathan Hickman is writing it I am going to try it again.
The Chemical Brothers had already released two albums (and their debut Exit Planet Dust is a classic, as well as having a great title) before this single.
Every time we got a new client at Grant Thornton it was a big deal, mainly because the firm leaked away existing clients so fast. Chartered Accountancy firms were not allowed to advertise so appointments came via recommendations from lawyers, banks or other clients. Ernst Whinney (now Ernst & Young) were the biggest national firm in Ipswich and Ensors were the biggest local firm – between the two they got the bulk of the business and we got scraps (EW survived as they had one massive national client with its head office in town that took a team of ten over six months to audit). This meant that we relied on our partners to get business by going to business events and meetings to press the flesh and sell us. They were not very good at it given the results. Each time we got a new client you would think that the partner had won the lottery and the sycophancy from managers was nauseating.
Somehow the blame for this started getting delegated downwards – first to the audit managers (to be fair they tried to get us established as the specialist firm for certain industries like construction and haulage, but the recession shot that down) and then to the unqualified trainees. Not sure what we could have done considering we were working about 50 hours a week and studying. It did cause a lot of tension in the team and ended up splitting us down the middle. I uneasily straddled the middle between the rebels and the management, in the end it would have been better to go one way or the other. We had two qualified seniors at that point – Sarah (https://fivemilesout.home.blog/2020/07/26/i-hear-a-song-blow-again-and-again/ ) and Mark. Mark was firmly with the management and ended up getting promoted to manager despite having no interpersonal skills to speak of, not that they had a choice as Sarah resigned and left in the summer of 1990 due to the bad culture.
Our last job together was Kingavon in Ipswich. It no longer exists but at that time had a warehouse on Duke Street (this was later redeveloped, and they got a huge amount of money to move out). Kingavon imported car accessories that were sold in shops that made Halfords look like Harrods. Just like Gerald Ratner, who had called his own jewellery crap in public and his company had gone bust, Kingavon would have gone the same way if they had been that indiscrete. The products were all imported from the Far East and were the worst kind of plastic novelty crap or poorly made tools. They must have made some money as it traded for over 40 years.
(Duke Street)
It was a really different company from what we usually audited. It banked with Banco Hispano Americano. The name alone set alarm bells ringing amongst the three of us on the job (the third being Carla Lyne). The company’s Finance Director, Tony, claimed that it was because they needed funds in multiple currencies, but mainstream banks offered that too. We never found anything suspicious but not for want of trying.
Sarah was ill for a big chunk of the job and I became default team leader; during those days Tony taught me a valuable lesson. Gross Profit is a measure of how profitable trading is before deducting overheads (like power, rates, etc.). Kingavon’s had gone up in the year that I was auditing and I asked him why – he gave me a really good explanation that I dutifully noted on the file (this was the kind of explanation that was almost impossible to check about business conditions). A couple of days later I realised that they had mis-posted some costs and the gross profit had actually fallen. Tony duly gave me an equally compelling explanation for the fall.
So just talk with confidence and auditors will almost always believe it.
I did have the last laugh as Tony had assured us that there were no legal claims outstanding against the company. During our second meeting he was called away for 20 minutes and left me in his office just twiddling my thumbs. He had a file on his desk that I looked through (auditors have access to anything they want but sometimes clients were less than honest about revealing things). Turned out that they had multiple legal cases against them. I noted some details and Sarah embarrassed (and impressed) Tony at our closing meeting.
We had a miserable little room to work in at Kingavon, but at least we could listen to our own music. I bought a Four Tops compilation and this is my favourite track from them.
Five Miles Out 