THESE DAYS WE EAT OCTOPUS'S IN POSH RESTAURANTS, REMEMBER ON OLD TELLY WHEN THEY WERE HUGE IN 'VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA AND COULD WRESTLE NUCLEAR SUBMARINES TO THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN!

These days we go to a restaurant and eat bits of squid and octopus for dinner or fried tentacles. I remember when i wuz 'nobbut a lad' when i thought that all those tentacle clad wee beasties were huge monsters dwelling beneath the waves as in the 60's there was a lot of science fiction on the telly and 'everything went.

I first saw my monster tentacle comming out of a steamy bog on the PLANET SKARO in a very early episode of DOCTOR WHO with the wonderful WILLIAM HARTNELL in them far flung black and white days. Planet Skaro was the home of THE DALEKS ,as if you didn't know. The tentacle came out of the bog clutched a good guy ,a race called THE THALS who were going to rescue the Doctor and his grandaughter SUSAN. The poor Thal was dragged into the gurgling bog

VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA was another classic sci-fi show about a n incredible super nuclear submarine called SEAVIEW. The Seaview would sail under the seven seas saving the world from aliens and monsters every week. Like most 60's series , because of the success of the 'camp' attitude of 'BATMAN' all the other series veered towards the 'camp!' All kinds of ridiculous monsters, robots, killer dolls, walking ,man eating plants ,witches, wizards, etc were dragged into ruin 'VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA'; 'LOST IN SPACE'  and some ,originally very promising series. But the SEAVIEW being underwater was prone to these massive be-tentacled creatures which'd wrestle the worlds mightiest nuclear sub to the bottom of the ocean. As this was happening there was always the crew getting thrown from side to side with clouds of sparks bursting out of bleeping flashing spectacular control panels. I seem to remember the ships bosses CAPTAIN CRANE and ADMIRAL NELSON get the engineer or 'SPARKS' to  boost an electric charge through the hull which would electrocute the octopus causing it to release them then they'd finish it off with a couple of torpedoes in its tentacle junction, tat would normally do the job before the end theme and the adverts could come on to a safe world again.

Another favourite for giant octopi....Was the wonderful GERRY ANDERSON creation  about anothe super sub 'STINGRAY'. A few exotic creatures with tentacles appeared throughout the series and electricity and Stingrays 'STING MISSILES' would do a similar job to the Seaview, but there was only a two man crew CAPTAIN TROY TEMPEST and PHONES as well as the sexy mute MARINA. THUNDERBIRDS also had a fondness for tentacled themed stories for ,mainly THUNDERBIRD 4, the submarine in the THUNDERBIRD fleet of rockets and craft. I seem to even remember SUPERCAR getting clutched by giant tentacles.

In  more modern days all these wonderful monsters have been neglected. Dinosaurs are going through a boom period at the moment, but theres nothing with giant tentacles coming from beneath the waves , unless its on your plate . .

WHO'D WIN ?....CONAN THE BARBARIAN ;KRULL THE CONQUEROR; XENA THE WARRIOR.....MY DAUGHTER RECKONS ..HARRY POTTER!

I have to admit to never being a great fan of  'FANTASY'....I'm more of a SCIENCE FICTION fan. SWORD AND SORCERY  isn't real life enough for me . I want ;Faster than light space ships ; Ray guns ; Horrible evil robots ; Gut busting aliens ; worm holes through black holes....You know all the real life ,genuine stuff backed up by science and technology. SWORD AND SORCERY ?...Well a time of wizards and demons ; Dragons and serpents and muscley half naked men and women roamed the barren wastes cutting other muscley men and women with swords forged from the metal forges of gods. God! There was lots of gods in them days. Every town village and fortress or city was full of gods , only outnumbered by the holy men and evil sects that worshipped them. The gods were very greedy in these times. All they seemed to want was lots of sexy ladies as human sacrifices and lots of jewels and treasure ,which seems reasonable enough!

The world of fantasy is very fond of swords and warriors. One of the most famous was ROBERT .E. HOWARD'S 'CONAN, THE BARBARIAN'. A big beefy bloke from the frozen "Eeeh it's grim up North!" wastes of CIMMERIA. But he came down south wearing animal skins ;Horned helmets and most important his massive sword forged by those unbeatable northern swordsmiths from unbreakable northern steel, which helped him as he was a bit of a bad tempered sort and picked fights with gangs and armies and more than a few dragons and serpents. He became a thief and tended to nick 'THE CRYSTAL OF THYTORACKACDACKODACK' or the DIAMOND OF SALOAMONDIPIDDTYDUDAH'. These juicey items were always guarded by beastly man eating beasts, so CONAN, being of a butch ,manly persuasion and having the beasts drooling had to fight and slaughter these devil beasts. Shouting to his own god, a guy called 'CROM!'....."By Crom i say thee nay!"...." And with this sword Crom will strike you down!" and lots of friendly endearing stuff like that, i read some of the books ,but i got most of my CONAN stuff from MARVEL COMICS.

MARVEL got into the fantasy stuff with CONAN and KRULL THE CONQUEROR and i think a couple of others. KRULL and CONAN made a few low budget telly series along with a very tasty 'well-proportioned 'Warrior princess ,whom you wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of ,XENA. CONAN was made into two quite big films with ,'Who else ,but ARNIE!', which weren't bad ,even with GRACE JONES in the second one. I don't believe for a minute ,even in the heights of fantasy CONAN/ARNIE could ever beat GRACE JONES....I mean JAMES BOND struggled!

The 'daddy of fantasy is ,of course 'THE HOBBIT' and 'THE LORD OF THE RINGS'.  I've never read them and i'm ashamed to admit i've never watched the films all the way through. I had a chortle the other day, tho'! I picked up a copy and opened it at a page and it was a wizard telling someone :"To cross some plain: until you reach the mountains of something , then cross the sea of wotsit and enter the forests of thingey!".....I dont know if this was for the rings or for a 'packet of fags ,a loaf of bread and some p.g. Tips, or something!'.....It just seemed to sum up it all up.

All the wizards did everything for the common man of which everyone was one and as his spells and potions did everything ,no inventions or technology ever shows in fantasy. Razors didn't exist as everyone had swords and daggers which were honed to razor sharpness and so they could shave. The only ones who didn't carry blades were the smart arse wizards who all had beards down to their feet. Thats why they carried those really long staffs ,not to fight with ,but to swipe the beards from round their feet before they tripped over their facial hair and went arse over pointy hat !