Wednesday, May 13, 2015

for my brother

hello there

well, the day today is, assuming you read it on the day, a pretty big one for my dear brother. it's not that this post exists purely for his amusement, though - thank you for taking the time to read it, and i hope you enjoy the indulgence of a quick look at some things which he has, over the years, considered to be quite class and, at the time and indeed now, declared to be the best thing ever, look you see.

where to begin? well, how about with a bit of television. here you go, here's a quick image from the opening credits of one of his top TV shows.



just what, you may ask, the hell is that? well, it's someone on top of a train, grabbing on to one of them bar things that they only seem to have in America by trains, presumably solely so that people who find themselves on the roof of a train may have something to grab on to.

who is it grabbing away? well, it's a stuntman who is pretending to be Lee Majors, who in turn is pretending to be a stuntman. not pretending, portraying. yeah, it's The Fall Guy.


i confess i did quite like The Fall Guy, but i would not say it is the greatest ever thing to be shown on tv. my brother would take a slightly different view of it to that, hence me today being perfectly happy to put the above clip on here for your entertainment.

for many years as we grew up Richard would write into the celebrated TV show Jim'll Fix It, asking of Jim could fix it for him to jump out of a plane on a bike like what Lee Majors did in The Fall Guy and then like that dude did in the first Cannonball Run film. for many years he lamented that his wish was never fixed; now i suspect it's the case that he's somewhat delighted that the host of that show did not take, as it were, a shine to his request. who knows, if he had put at the end of the letter "i will do anything and i won't tell, honest, even when you are dead", he may have had his wish granted.

one of my fondest memories of growing up was the three of us sat around the most celebrated video game machine in history. yes, the Atari. people born after the 80s can surely have no idea how revolutionary this device was.



oh yes, that is indeed Pac Man. Richard was absolutely boss at it. Gillian and i usually sat around watching Richard play it. he had the skill, ability and patience to polish off maze after maze on this game, hour after hour. quite a talent, really. i was awful at it.

as. mostly, you can see in this video i made of me having a go earlier.



there's no doubting that games now are somewhat different. i do, however, rather miss the simple and basic pleasures of this sort of game - ones at the time which seemed like the greatest things ever.

so, if The Fall Guy was a much celebrated TV show by Richard, what then would be the film that he considers the greatest ever work of art what cinema has produced? this one has a fairly simple answer.



oh yes, it is indeed Convoy. we had a video of it that was recorded off of the tele in Australia. we watched it again and again, we did, both in Australia and back in England. of us all, Richard took quite the shine to it, and was often prone to recreating the convoy experience by going off on his BMX with his mates and riding in a convoy. whether other people on the road appreciated it or not.

a snippet from the opening credits? surely.



i think i am right in saying that Convoy is the only time in modern history that an entire film has been based on a 3 minute pop song. i mean, sure, there is Tommy, but that's a film based on a rock opera of an album.

it is a rather smart film, when all is said and done. worth watching if for some reason you've not seen it, and worth watching again if you have.

another Atari classic? oh, go on then. i think i would be right in saying that this one is one that Richard and i had an equal level of respect and love for. absolutely brilliant, it both was and shall always be.



River Raid was probably the most advanced game we had on the Atari. it also required some skill, as there were a few very narrow stretches of water you had to navigate to blow up boats and helicopters. if you were skilled enough - which we were - you could fly over the fuel to fill your tank, right, and then still shoot it so you got the 100 points for blowing it up.

oh go on then, a little video clip showing off the spectacular sound and gorgeous graphics.



we could never understand, right, why if you were in a plane - known as they are for being in the sky - you could only fly over the river. if you tried to fly over the land on the side - if you like the grass embankments - you crashed and blew up. i am sure this made sense to someone at Atari in Japan, or wherever.

well, this has all brought back some very fond memories for me, and hopefully for Richard too. if it has done the same for you too, dear reader, well then so much the better.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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