Devil May Care, Sebastian Faulks As Ian Fleming

 Anyone who's taken the time to read any of the original James Bond novels will know that Fleming has a style all of his own, The Author of Devil May Care Sebastian Faulks has taken the time to study and copy that style to the extent that any reader would hardly know there was any change from Fleming.

Devil May Care itself is a great edition to collection and while its set just after The Man With The Golden Gun in 1967 there are some modern twists that will bring a smile to any reader. M taking up Yoga and sending Bond to the company shrink for evaluation are amongst them. The story is well written and flows nicely with two plots converging at the beginning to incorporate a villain worthy of Bond and all his skills.

If your new to The bond series then this will be a good introduction and break you in gently to the style of Fleming and from here you can go on to explore the rest of the books. Chronological order isn't essential as they all start and end in a similar way. A nice light holiday read or casual bedside edition that doesn't require to much thought.

Extant

I came across this one on Amazon and I found the start of the series was good but after the first few episodes it lost me as a viewer.

While the acting is good the story became too predictable and the show telegraphed a lot of the plot in the build up to major plot devices which spoils the it for me. I would have liked to have been taken in different directions to have some twists and turns early on to get me hooked rather than the predictable plod along that was on offer.

I tuned out at around episode 7 but Marta likes it so it looks like I'm going to have to watch the remaining episodes. Hopefully it proves me wrong and picks up but I just can't see it. Disappointing is the by line here !

London Has Fallen

Marta and I rented this from Amazon prime as it was a bargain at 99p and I have some mixed feelings about it to be honest.

I know its only a film and I shouldn't get hung up about the story and the plot devices but come on. Its just pure fiction from the start, to think that the met police wouldn't work alongside the protection teams of world leaders and just let them crawl through London traffic on the way to a state funeral is madness. The whole event would have been well organised and run properly. Then to see a terrorist organisation has infiltrated the police is comical at best and insulting at worse. If that wasn't bad enough to think that the U.K's anti terrorist unit in the SAS is sitting in  Hereford while a massive international event is happening in London is beyond belief.

But if you take it as the action film its meant to be and you can handle the catalogue of ridiculously untrue situations that unfold as the film plays out then there is a good action film in there but for heavens sake don't think there are gangs of armed men with motorbikes in London as the reality is that you need ID to buy a kitchen knife in Britain and armed police are specialist units not given to every Tom Dick and Harry with a badge.

I want to rant a bit more about the falsehoods in this film if you'd let me MI6 is actually called SIS and if you were in the US secret service you would know this. If you were leasing with a British security agency it would be MI5 Who do exist and Special Branch who are very good at their jobs and work tirelessly to keep everyone in the UK safe from as many threats as they can, Its a difficult job and sometimes mistakes can happen but they stop a lot of plots before they develop as any search on the web will show. Remember they have been fighting these threats for over a hundred years !

I felt I had to set the record straight as a lot of people would watch this and believe its posable when its just pure fiction.

Football: A Brief History By Alfie Allen

There was a time a few years ago when I spent many an hour at the Emirates football stadium watching The Arsenal and I have lots of good memories of that period. Sadly my circumstances changed and I haven't been to a match for just over a year now. So It was with a bit of interest that I sat down to watch this documentary and I'm pleased I did, Alfie Allen has a nice relaxed presenting style and it makes you feel like you're listening to the history of football from a mate down the pub. So far I've only seen the first episode and that covered the progression of football from amateur to the dawn of the professional game and all the infrastructure that came with it but even for a casual football fan it was an entertaining watch and very informative along with it !

Everyman Cinema

Yesterday Marta and I went to watch Hidden Figures at the everyman cinema in Gerard's Cross and Its highly recommended I can tell you.

I booked online and picked our seats on their web page, I will warn you all now that the page shows the cinema the opposite way round to most cinema web sites and the front row (row A) is at the top of the web page. I made the mistake of ordering the front row but as it wasn't fully booked I was able to change it at the cinema for the back row.

You can order food before the start of the show and its bought to you at the start of the film and you have a nice comfy sofa to lounge in. There are also some blankets to snuggle under but as fifty shades of grey is still running I didn't want to risk them myself.

If your looking for a nice romantic cinema to watch a movie then this is for you they're nice and small and you have plenty of space to spread out. With food and drink bough to you it can be like your own little screening of the latest movie. The price is a little dearer than a mainstream cinema at £14 where a Odeon would be £10-15 depending on the movie type but its well worth the difference if only for the space.

Songs Of Innocence U2

U2 have had a good relationship with apple when the iPod click wheel came out there was a U2 version with a black body and red click wheel. So when this album came out the marketing agency who represent U2 came up with an idea. Give the new album away to iTunes users and sit back and watch the back catalogue sell like hotcakes. Well it raised a lot of complaints from people who didn't want the album and also devalued the album in my opinion if I'm honest it wasn't one of their best any way but that debacle de valued it even more.

I was willing to give it another shot and while surfing on amazon it popped up in the vinyl section from a third party seller so i stepped up and ordered my self a pressing. The white vinyl is really nice and the cover work is very artistic the album itself its trying to be edgy but its just missing something. can you picture a 50 year old Bonno singing about collage days and trying to convey the feeling of youth and innocence, it just doesn't fly with me. The whole album reminds me of Zooropa and that was a failure by U2 standards.

Its a bit electro and moving too far away from there rock songs and stadium fillers and sounds more like a remix album that a hard core U2 fan would buy just to say they own it to their fellow collectors. U2 reinvent themselves every so often and to that end I can't wait for the next incarnation. Give me more of No Line On The Horizon or How to Dismantle An Atomic bomb they were dynamic and nice to listen too this is just meh !

Hidden Figures

I do like movies about Nasa's early years in the space race The Right Stuff and the mini series From The Earth To The Moon are great and manage to incorporate the feeling and the mood of the time and the can do attitude of the early Nasa.

Hidden Figures shows you the story of some forgotten and vital figures in the space race and they were forgotten because of the colour of their skin and this film sets out to make amends.

All of the early calculations for mercury missions were carried out by "computers" not in the modern sense of a PC terminal but actual women who would check and and go over the figures using accounting machines when needed. The three women in this story were computers and they were pioneers and visionaries at the same time. One of them is a brilliant mathematician who works her way up from the computer room and into the main office for ballistic trajectory calculations. while dealing with the segregation of the south she soon rises to become the leading mathematician in the office who has to give the credit for her work to white scientist. The next computer heads to the engineering department and pioneers a trail to become an engineer when the system is against her, her speech in the court room is one of the best pieces of cinema in my opinion. The third and last woman while being past over for promotion continually takes the time to learn the programming language Fortran in her own time and teaches it to the other "coloured computers" and before long she's replaced the IBM team that built the computer using her depth of learning.

This is a great film with some good moments highlighting the struggle to end race segregation and how these women worked through the adversities to do their part for their country in the space race. There are some funny moments that highlight these trials in a light hearted way but still bring home the point to us the watching audience.

If you like the space program and want to see it from a different perspective then you should go and see this, if you're after a story of how equality was fought for then this is a bit tame and only gives you a feeling of the time and not the full story but its well worth a watch and its enjoyable for everyone.