HEAVEN WONT BE RINGING TO THE SOUND OF CELESTIAL HARPS ,BUT THE LATE PATRICK MOORES XYLOPHONE!

If you walk outside into the freezing frosty night and look up at that clear star studded sky, thats why its so 'effin' freezing 'cos that bloody clear star studded sky.....That cold ,but nice 'Sky at night ' looks as it should, but if you removed the MOON it ,very suddenly wouldn't look quite so normal and 'right!'.....Likewise if you took the longest running telly series in the world, 'THE SKY AT NIGHT' and removed SIR PATRICK MOORE it would have a similar effect as removing the MOON from the heavens. But as the MOON is drifting away from us into space, in a few millions of years the moon'll be gone and the sky at night will be weird ,empty and just quite simply not right. A similar thing, but over a much shorter time period has happened and SIR PATRICK MOORE has drifted away to who knows where leaving his eternally long running 'THE SKY AT NIGHT' a very empty and weird place.

Who'd've thought this scruffy, oddly shaped totally nutty , eternally old aged ,even in his youth, man would be one of the most beloved of British characters with his burning enthusiasm for everything outside the thin blue line that covers the PLANET EARTH. His '15 INCH REFLECTOR' became almost a national catchphrase. His mapping of the MOON through that '15 inch reflector in his back garden and his scribblings with a soft leaded pencil in notebooks formed the maps that NASA would use for the APOLLO space programme that landed man on the moon......Thats pretty impressive when you think about it.

Everybody thouht he was a miserable ol' git. He was so seriously wrapped up in his subject and addressed his viewers as fellow 'nerds' who shared his obsession, which ,if you think about it was a compliment when we're surrounded by various telly smartarses speaking down to us. The nation was stunned when this seriously miserable ol' get turned up in sketches on the 'MORECOMBE AND WISE SHOW' and he was shown to be a musician and playing his beloved XYLOPHONE...."Holy Galaxies, Batman!....PATRICK MOORE has a sense of humour and he's a musician !!!."

If ,God forbid, or God allowing anybody, does find themselves up there in paradise. ,If Heaven rings to the BING ,BONGS,of xylophones, instead of the DRIIIINNNG! of celestial harps, SIR PATRICK MOORE might just have something to do with it.

THE NAMES LEATHERBARROW TIM LEATHERBARROW....AND DEAD EXCITED 'COS BOND JAMES BOND IS BACK!

 It's shameful being a 52 year old husband n' father sitting trying to stifle the building schoolboy -like excitment that s building within my my (only slightly ptotruding)middle aged belly.....And what is this excitment that has gripped me ,well quite simply ...JAMES BOND IS BACK The new film SKYFALL is out in almost days...THE LOVELY LYNNE is slobbering at the prospect of that DANIEL CRAIG flaunting his manlyness around the screen ,whereas i'm looking foreward to the more cerebral aspects to the film, story ,characters and most important of all the extreme violence that Craig has put into the fights . There is an aspect of this that i'm worried about .CASINO ROYALE wasn't 'that' bad for it ...QUANTUM OF SOLACE was terrible for it and i'm praying that SKYFALL will not suffer from it...The 'IT' in question is the high speed ,hand held ,badly edited blur that all action sequences in films over the last number of years are full of. QUANTUM was a blur. To this day i still can't make hide nor hair of the opening car chase. The rooftop chase could've been a cinematic masterpeice, but was to fast and cluttered to follow, etc, etc.

 

Just recently SKY have been reshowing the BOND  films and i've been catching up. SEAN CONNERY  has filled my last week and he's still good ,i didn't take to him for a long time ,not because of his BOND ,but i just didn't like him for some reason...A great BOND  ,but for a long time i just didn't like him!....He had some great 'PROPERLY FILMED' action sequences and fights ,remember ROBERT SHAW in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE on the train and  virtually every film he made ,i quite like where he beats the shit out of two blokes in a lift in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. They were the classic BONDS without a doubt .

 

I watched GEORGE LAZENBY in ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE yesterday and it's a great film and i didn't mind poor George . He was great in the violent bits ,some really good fights and ,EMMA PEEL , as was DIANA RIGG ,who described him as "A shit!" on a recent interview and was supposed to have scoffed garlic for the love scenes. LAZENBYS agent advised him not to take the offer of more Bond films, ah where'd we be without people to advise us.

I'd grown up loving ROGER MOORE in THE SAINT....And was chuffed when he became Bond in LIVE AND LET DIE. I have to admit liking his films ,every one says he played it 'tongue in cheek', but when he had to be the mean Bond he did the action and fights and could be mean. I always thought ,like DOCTOR WHO it's not whose best, but because they changed  is what gave them their extended life. MOORE played a few stinkers ,my personal 'stinker' is THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN. From LULU's theme its downhill all the way.

 

TIMOTHY DALTON could've been a good 'un....He was going back to IAN FLEMINGS Bond and THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS isn't bad , the fight on the netting from the back of a HERCULES TRANSPORT PLANE is great....These are the days when stuntmen did it all ,i mean actually did it all! Dalton was tough and mean ,i liked him and problems with film companies meant films didn't get made and Bond was on hold and ol' TIM never got the chance to don the dicky bow again.

 

PIERCE BROSNAN hit with GOLDENEYE, still the skinny little charmer from that gawd awful REMINGTON STEELE...That wasn't a bad film ,good touch putting 008, SEAN BEAN in as his mate then as the baddy. The poster for the next ,'TOMORROW NEVER DIES', shows Brosnan a lot more muscled than before. He wasn't bad and watching them again ,as they were made so well, they're always better than i remembered. The Peirce days finished with an INVISIBLE CAR?....Then they said "We're taking Bond back to basics!"

                                                                                                Then the shit hit the fan and "OH MY GOD! A BLONDE BOND!".....Riots took place in the streets ,websites slagging off poor old DANIEL CRAIG abounded . He arrived at the press conference with the ROYAL MARINES ,but as the Marines did ,he wore a life jacket over his dinner suit..."JAMES BOND WEARING A LIFE JACKET..OH GAWD!...IT GETS WORSE!"...Poor Daniel couldn't win .They forgot even SEAN CONNERY wore crash helmets with his jet pack and LITTLE NELLIE gyrocopter. But the new boy ,blew them away . Daniel Craig is now a national institution beloved by everyone ,esspecially my missus! From the little i've heard SKYFALL is getting good vibes , SIR ROGER MOORE  reckons its the best Bond, ever and Craig is far the best Bond .....God i need a drink...A mug of tea stirred not shaken!