the things we throw away.....

hey everyone

well, the internet harbours some truly fanatical types. rarely are they more on display than when one googles "Star Wars figures".






a link on the fine site imdb about the top 100 Star Wars toys took my interest, so i went to have a look and see how many of them i had.





i was rather delighted to see i had a few of them! i am not sure how cool some of their selections are, but if memory serves correct, i had numbers 84, 64, 61, 24, 21 and 3. their number one choice is indeed very cool, and no i had not seen that one either.





there are numerous sites claiming to list the most valuable or sought after of the Star Wars figure toys. i have no idea which is the most accurate or one to be believed, but if it is the list on this site then i had numbers one and two!

had is of course the operative word - they were thrown away, or hopefully given away, many years ago!





i am pretty sure i had all of the ones listed on this site too. Mum & Dad, you may not want to look at the value of some of the toys that you dispensed with!





a lot of people tend to get all excited, if somewhat a touch dramatic, about the value of Star Wars toys, somehow of the view that they have lost or thrown away a fortune. the reality is that the mega $$$$ for Star Wars toys is only applicable to those which are in mint, sealed condition. there is no chance any of my collection, if it were still with me, being worth much - not only were they unpacked and played with in a very ruthless manner, they did move from England to Australia and back!

still, seeing the article reminded me of just how cool the Star Wars toys were, and indeed how lucky i was to have many of the "extras" that went along with the action figures.

one of the coolest was certainly my very own Death Star!





i remember this one; it was class! oddly, not much of the packaging shows off one of the best bits of it - there was indeed a chute on the top level, and you could drop the characters down into the garbage compactor! you could even make the walls of the compactor move!





i also had this one, which was very cool. well, OK, it was cool but disappointing as it didn't fly itself.





and, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to very generous parents, i also had the greatest Star Wars accessory of them all!





that's right, i was one of the lucky ones to have my own Millenium Falcon! it was as ace as it looks in the picture, although that isn't actually me in the picture. honest.

you have to remember that for those of us who were "there" at the time, kids between 1977 and 1980, this whole "force" and "jedi" business were rather trivial, and remained that way until The Empire Strikes Back was released. all we wanted to do was to be Han Solo and Chewbacca, as they were by far the coolest!

well, there you have it for a trip down memory lane. i have no idea what exactly happened to all my Star Wars toys; with some good fortune they ended up in the hands of someone who enjoyed playing with them as much as i did!


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

Happy Birthday Dad!!!!!

Please allow me to introduce our Dad
a man to meet; you'd be glad
He'll be your shoulder when times are bad,
just like he lifts your mood when you're sad





For quite a few years he's wandered this world
all the sights he's seen and music heard
He's stood in the oceans and all seven seas
but being with us is what make him please







He was around when they put man on the moon,
it wasn't him, he was being the groom
Dad knows all of the rock and roll stars,
but a family strips being in stretched cars






Dad raised us all well, Lee, Richard and Gillian,
and with grand kids, he gets to do it again
It's everyone that loves him to bits,
even if his oddities keep you on your wits!





Looking back today you've had a life in full
more to come, no doubt there's more tricks to pull!
Hope you've enjoyed today as much as you've enjoyed most,
from us, we're glad we have you to make our boast





The best Dad in the world will be on your book cover,
no idea if you are, but we know we wouldn't want another
So, wherever we are, wherever you may go,
you should always know, we love and cherish you so!








happy birthday, Dad, from Lee, Richard,Gillian, Michele, Erika and Grant. a big big happy birthday Grandad from Katie, James, Lyla, Daniel, William and all others to follow!!!

and of course, a big, big, big happy birthday from your favourite........









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

Fletch likes Porridge.....

hey everyone

well, if you are an avid Ronnie Barker fan visiting this site i would imagine that the title of this post won't be anything like new news to you. for followers of the development of William Norman Stanley, however, i guess you have clocked that this means he is eating!

sure, he is not quite 6 months yet, but going on the size of him and how he had already shown all the physical attributes associated with being ready to eat, we have rather slowly been trying him out on food.





when we have been eating young William has sat and watching with a look of longing on his face, so we were not too surprised to find that he loves his little meal every day! so far Michele has tried him out on some rice cereal (porridge, if you will) and a touch of butternut. not too much of either, mind, only a couple of spoons of each a day.

his bottle intake hasn't dropped and he seems none the worse for it, so i guess i am back in the world of buying loads of jars of baby food!





or maybe not, actually. William has a touch of a temperature today, and clear signs that those little teeth are on their way in a hurry. i suspect that he will be wanting steaks and burgers rather than mashed up fruits before long!





otherwise, James still sees food pretty much as a distraction, and doesn't get excited at all about the idea of eating. ho hum, we try our best to make sure he eats well enough!





another thing James is not that keen on is bath time, which happens to be the time right now. let me try and coax him on the way to appreciating the wonders of hygiene - wish me some luck, for i shall need it.



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

happy birthday Richard!

hey everyone

in celebration of my dear brother Richard's birthday, i have decided to put some classic moments from his life and times up here. they are mostly for him to enjoy, but if any and all readers of this site enjoy them too, so be it!

one of the best Richard moments was from the days of his Rod Stewart look, which gives me all the excuse i need to put this pic here again!





at some point in the late 70s, or even 1980, we were driving home from Scotta House Farm. Richard, ever the stuntman, wondered what would happen if you opened the car door whilst you were driving. he then did this, thankfully whilst Dad was navigating the road out of Scotta very slowly. he soon closed the door, though, as Dad hit a puddle at the moment Richard had opened the door, leaving Richard with a face full of mud! i remember it being one of the funniest things ever!

now then, two years in Australia cannot pass without having some bearing or affect on your life. for me it was probably the discovery of music in general and Adam & The Ants in particular; for Richard it was most certainly the film Convoy.





i believe it would have been 1982 when we first saw that film, and ever since Richard has held it up as a guideline and a way of life; the character of Rubber Duck of course being his ultimate Role Model. Richard would, when not watching the film itself, spend his days recreating the film with his mates on their bikes; him at the front wearing his ace Evel Knievel gloves and brandishing a smart walkie talkie! i am sure i have a pic of him dressed like that somewhere, will try and find it!





as for other classic Richard moments, well, there are a web page and a half full of them, really. one of the best ones was when he came to spend a weekend with me whilst i was living in Cape Town. by the Sunday afternoon we were flat broke and busy nursing the last of our money in the form of a pint down at the River Club, watching the match. Richard grabbed the last few coins we had and disappeared. i didn't pay much attention to the sound in the background, but as it turned out with his usual luck he had a go on the "fruity" and had hit the jackpot! he came back proudly carrying a couple of hundred in coins in his shirt, dumped them on the table and thus we could remain well refreshed for the remainder of that afternoon!





to say that Richard is a chap with many strings to his bow is an understatement, unless you are speaking of the biggest bow with the largest number of strings attached in history. if that needed illustrating, consider this picture.





yes, that's right, Richard can master a mobile phone and a bottle of water at the same time! the trick is, though, if he so wished or was required to, while he was doing that he could also change a car tyre, win a hand of cards and recite the entire script of The Sword And The Sorcerer too!

so, what are the best things about Richard? well, beyond being the most supportive and helpful brother i could have ever wanted, beyond being a wonderful husband and father to his family, i would guess that it's that he is Richard, really. nothing gets him down or stops him, and if you try to do either of those things he's pretty good at switching off if he's not particularly interested in hearing it, as shown here!





hope you have had and continue to celebrate your birthday, brother! all the best!!!



that's a big 10-4, good buddy..............

forgotten cinema - The Party Animal

hey everyone


well, like the last "forgotten cinema" piece i did on Night Hawks the term "forgotten" may be a bit excessive. as cult classics go, it's very fondly thought of and celebrated by those of us who discovered the film in the mid-80s, but it would seem there are not all that many of us to celebrate. an internet search reveals next to no information about this fine, funny film is currently online, so i feel obliged to rectify that!





i will try and keep this as spoiler-free as i can, but as i laugh as hard at it now as i did when i first saw it many years ago (probably 1985, maybe 86), it's not like knowing what goes on in it spoils seeing it in any way. for fellow fans of the film who have stumbled upon my site as a consequence of a search of this, hello, welcome and no, you are not alone in your love of this movie!

the film follows the plight of Pondo Sinatra, played by the elusive and mysterious Matthew Causey (more on him later). he's a fresh from the farm lad arriving at a college campus, and he has one major problem - as much as he wants the ladies, the ladies do not want him. the manner in which he arrived could have some bearing on that.





fate or good fortune, however, intervene, and his room-mate is the highly popular Studly (played by Tim Carhart, one of those actors you recognize but can rarely name). Studly has sympathy for the plight of Pondo, and does all that he can to teach him to be wise in the ways of women.





this includes, but is certainly not limited to, sending Pondo off to learn from the master and Studly's own guru, the voice of wisdom that is Elbow (Jerry Jones).





i guarantee you that people who know and love the film are looking at the picture above and are saying something to themselves which commences with the words "hound dog".....

...which is no bad thing, recalling the rather memorable scene in which Pondo does indeed attempt to become the hound dog!





despite the collective wisdom of such sage and noble figures, however, it seems Pondo Sinatra is jinxed and destined never to be a success with the ladies. no matter how impressive the attempts are to hook Pondo up with a lady, something always happens to ensure that Pondo's intentions of love always remain unrequited.





Studly and Elbow end up at something of a loss to explain why Pondo is such a miserable failure with the ladies, ultimately - in one of the greatest philosophical conversations ever captured on film - concluding that he must be unsuccessful now due to rampant and great success in a past life.





to somewhat break from a rundown of the film, i have to here highlight one of Pondo's attempts to impress the ladies. in one of the funniest scenes ever in the movies, Pondo takes Studly's comments about women loving drugs to heart and heads off to impress them with a barrage of blow, as it were.





if you are in the group of people who have not seen this film, take a gamble and trust me when i say the "drugs party scene" from this movie makes it well worth seeing alone!

a turning point for the fortunes of Pondo comes when he - presumably by accident - pays attention in a lecture and learns of the world of the aphrodisiac. this sets him off on a quest to create the ultimate aphrodisiac, sure that this will give him the success he craves.





he of course doesn't get it right with his first chemical creations, but it is enormous fun watching him experiment away!





does he eventually find the winning formula? does he eventually create the most powerful aphrodisiac the world has known? oh, yes....





and, in one of the scenes that impressed by good chum Spiros the most, he creates an aphrodisiac that is not, strictly speaking, limited to the rules of heterosexual attraction.....





right, i think i've given enough of the film away here! believe me, there's a good deal more to the film than i have highlighted so far!

a great deal of the charm of The Party Animal, and indeed why it's so funny, is the astonishingly high level of intellect on display in the writing. for what is essentially a "teen comedy" it makes many high-brow references that are easy to ignore for those not in the know, but wonderful and endearing for those who do.

writer/director David Beaird, someone who seems to have done only slightly more work in movies than his lead actor, clearly had Dr Faustus in mind as a premise for the structure of the story. this is never more visible than in the form of the "silent narrator" of the film, the blonde lady who never speaks and yet seems to be the only one, pre-aphrodisiac at least, to look the way of Pondo.





as for the fantastic actor who played Pondo Sinatra, Matthew Causey, well, enjoy this performance because thus far it has been his only on-screen appearance! it's incredible that someone clearly as funny and talented as him did not have a reasonable (at least) movie career, but maybe he didn't want one. no one really knows for sure; he has sort of "vanished".

there have been stories and rumours as to where Mr Causey is and what he's up to. whilst it's pretty much accepted that the Matthew Causey who is a professor of film & literature at Georgia State Tech is the one from this film, there's others who claim that he holds a similar position in Dublin, or even that he currently manages some fast food outlet in the middle of nowhere. he did, however, apparent surface and make a film in 2003 called Frank And Marie, but as far as i am aware no one has actually ever seen the film!

oh well, wherever he is, you have a legion of fans that wish you had made more than just this film. thanks at least for this one, and good luck with whatever it is you now do instead.





The Party Animal is a low budget gem. it's witty, inventive and at times flat out hysterical. i have no idea how they balanced the inclusion of so many crass and crude elements without ever really slipping into bad taste, but they did it. add to all that i have said an astonishing soundtrack, dominated by some of the best songs that The Buzzcocks ever did, and you have around 80 minutes of lightweight, fun entertainment that's not quite for everyone, but brilliant to those for who it is intended.

this film should have launched the director and star onto a healthy career making well above average movies. it didn't, for some reason, and you have to assume that it's because they chose not to take that path.

for those of you looking for this film, you should find it pretty easily enough on DVD from the USA - amazon have it at a reasonable price. it doesn't appear to be officially available anywhere else at the moment, although i could well be wrong. you may want to bear in mind that, for some reason, some countries had the film released in a heavily edited state under the name Party Time.



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

at last! the remake no one wanted will bother us soon....

oh dear.....


no sooner has the news broke that they plan to remake one classic Schwarzenegger film, Commando, than we get images of a remake of another, Conan. neither sound like wise ideas, and finally we get to see confirmation that one of them really isn't a good idea!

the warning signs for Conan perhaps not being as good as the original two Schwarzenegger films are there in the post. are you looking at it carefully?





yep, that's right folks, they have not updated the initial poster for the film, so they are apparently still hoping to have this film released in 2009! the actual, latest date seems to be 2011. and looking at the initial production values on display, i dare say it will be released directly on DVD in 2011.

here is someone called Jason Momoa as Conan....





it's not a bad idea having a relative unknown in the part, i guess - it's better than the initial idea of having The Rock play the most ferocious barbarian of them all, and indeed Schwarzenegger was pretty much unknown, with apologies to fans of Hercules In New York, when Conan The Barbarian was made. however, Conan has been made, and thus a comparison between the two actors playing the lead is impossible to avoid. and this new lad just doesn't look right, does he?





i really don't see this guy being as great in the role as intended, really. it's perhaps wrong to judge on the basis of blurred images and not so much as a trailer out there, but the feeling i get is this will be disappointing. i mean, you just don't see this new guy ever being able to look as mental or as bonkers as Arnold in the part, an example of what i am saying would be this scene....





some of the other casting leaves one wondering, too. for the part of Corin, Conan's father, we apparently will be treated to a make up free Ron Perlman. not really a bad choice per se, considering how he is celebrated and vaunted by the comic book fraternity, but when you consider that a pre-Wrestler revival Mickey Rourke and a not really revived ever Dolph Lundgren turned down the part, you have to wonder how bad the part in particular or the script and production in general are.

Conan is a quality concept and deserves a good, decent treatment. rather than a remake or, as the popular term for it is, "reboot", i would suggest that what the target audience for this film really, really wants is that which was promised to us at the end of Conan The Destroyer. that would be, of course, a film entitled either King Conan or Conan The Conqueror, with the only man who should be playing the part back in the role that launched him to fame and fortune.





unless Arnold really gets bored of his new political career and all of a sudden wants to go back to high octane, quality action movies, however, we are really unlikely ever to see that film. you never know, though - it has taken them some 26 years to make the sequel to The Sword & The Sorceror, the soon to be released Tales Of An Ancient Empire, so never say never i guess!

as for this whole idea of a Commando remake, well, fellow lovers of that film will hardly need me to state that it would be impossible to recast the majority of roles in the film. a thought did occur to me, though. since they are planning a film version of this 24 TV show, why not take the Commando plot as a premise for it? obviously Jack Bauer (as far as i am aware) isn't a commando as such, but a few tweaks and rewrites and i think it might work!



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

Democracy Live!

hey everyone


well, i was flicking through the channels last night, waiting for the second 20/20 game to start, and happened to land on Sky News at exactly the right moment. i was rather entertained to catch Adam Boulton really kicking off at the notorious manipulator or plain avoider of the truth, Mr Alistar Campbell. if you weren't lucky enough to see it, i am pretty sure it's up around the internet by now, but here are some screenshots.





Mr Boulton may very well have a slant towards the political views of the owner of the channel for which he works, but that doesn't prevent him from giving mostly well balanced, insightful and entertaining interviews and comment. why Alistar Campbell decided to just stand there and taunt him like an annoying schoolboy with no friends instead of answering the questions presented is a bit of a mystery, really. if Mr Campbell can no longer even manipulate words to present "his interpretation" of something, it must be desperate days for him and those he presumes to speak on behalf of!





considering the damage done to many lives by some of the more notorious episodes of Mr Campbell "manipulating" information before presenting it, i suspect many would have applauded Mr Boulton if he had happened to punch him right square in the face.



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

pancakes in May

hey everyone

well, let me start off with obligatory apologies for not updating too much this month. i, indeed we, seem to be rather busy these days, so i don't get all the time i would like to sit and write away!

moving right along, over the weekend James had a most splendid idea of wishing to have some pancakes for dinner. i followed this up with the rather good idea of offering to get the ingredients and having a bash at making some.

much to the disdain of local repairmen, sensing a good deal of work being imminent in our kitchen, Michele had the even better idea of me getting the ingredients and allowing her to cook them, since it was less likely things would blow up or break in general with her at the controls.

it took little time and even less fuss for me to stand aside and allow the master to perform her art, ably assisted by James of course!





we have a tendency to "forget" Shrove Tuesday every year in our house, which is a bit of a pity! oh well, they tasted just as good in May as i am sure they would have in February!

James and Michele certainly had great fun making them; James in particular was rather taken with having a cup to pour ingredients in with!





as for young William, well, despite his attempts to eat anything (and anyone) that goes near him, he is not quite ready for the joys of pancakes as such as of yet, and so he wisely just had a nice snooze and left us to get on with it!





anyway, dishes to do, bottles to fill and all that stuff! hope all is well wherever you are in the world!!


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

90 minutes of Avatar

hey everyone

well, as i was one of the few people left on Earth not to have seen this Avatar movie i decided to give it a go at the weekend. there are many, many people out there who consider this film to be "the greatest of all time". if you are one of them then please stop reading now and move onto something else that you might agree with.

i tried watching the film on DVD on one of those huge LCD screen things. the short version is that it was switched off after 90 minutes as the whole thing just gave me one big headache.





if ever there was a case of smoke and mirrors being used to convince the masses to the greatest extent possible then it must be in how the world at large appears to have accepted that Avatar features "groundbreaking visual effects". it does not. the CGI effects on display here range from average to poor. the backgrounds and creatures finish a poor second to previous CGI festivals on film - Disney's Dinosaur, for instance, made some ten years ago ("when the technology did not exist" in the words of Mr James Cameron) has a far superior look and feel.

as for these "avatar" creatures themselves, dear me! the ones for the lead actors look like rought draft animation things - the one for Sigourney Weaver in particular is annoying to watch. her "blue avatar" thingie has a grin permanently plastered to her face, as if she is doing a bizarre tribute to Karen Allen's awful performance in Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.






plot and story-wise, well, not watching the whole thing i can't comment for sure, but the whole thing struck me as going absolutely nowhere fast. if by 90 minutes the film has not got any points of interest worth following then it is unlikely to do so. considering this is a film from the man who gave us Terminator and Aliens - two films that were compelling viewing even if they had no fancy special effects - it's perhaps the most disappointing part of the whole thing.

the main character - Jake, i think his name is? - is very badly presented and developed. more than once, for no apparent reason in the context of the onscreen story development, you seem to cut from him being an avatar back to him making some sort of "video diary". there is no flow nor rhythm to the story at all.





i can give credit to James Cameron for one thing, beyond making a mint off this tripe - it seems that, from watching the 2D version, it's clear that the 3D version has been done with the emphasis on giving depth to the viewing, rather than having things "pop out" at the audience as some sort of gimmick.





i appreciate that i seem to be in a minority in regards of Avatar, but i remain baffled as to just how over-excited so many people have got about this film. i may not always like things that are flavour of the month, yet i can usually at least understand why they have gained popularity. and yes, this whole Twilight business does come to mind here.

oh well, as absolutely everyone has seen it there's not a great deal of point in me telling anyone to either see it or not, i suppose! if you enjoyed the experience of Avatar more than i did, well, lucky you!


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

Happy Star Wars Day

May The Fourth Be With You.....






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