John Bleasdale

It’s Friday. Buy a copy of Connery.

Diamonds Are Forever is the Tiswas of the Bond franchise. The first out and out comedy with Carry On jokes and a camp excess all the way through. Matched with the vulgarity of Vegas. When he breaks into Blofeld’s lair he lands on the toilet.

Nope. You’re right. They’re wrong. But I am very very pessimistic.

Listening to the song Tusk and thinking this is off Henry’s Dream isn’t it?

British English. Tis common round our way

Fleetwood Mac = Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

So Philip Glass just joined TikTok. He only has like 4 posts and they’re simply him in what I assume is his living room playing the piano. First comment on one I saw was “your piano is too close to the fireplace, you’ll dry it out” and if that’s not the internet in a nutshell I don’t know what is.

Wenders wanted Harry Dean Stanton.

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I also remember in the music scene there were these very specific tastes. Like absolutely everyone liked Wire. Roy Harper was really popular as well. Just bits of esoteric taste that grew disproportionately in the rock pools.

It was a combination of great venues and a lot of young adults working at the shipyard and having disposable income to spend on instruments. Also because Barrow was on the end of a peninsula we were penisulated so we had to use our imaginations.

The truth was there was strong competition. Hash n Thrash, The Clementines, The Dolphins, Red Hour, Jake. Every weekend there were two or three great gigs of live music and most of the bands played originals. Even the covers bands like Bye Bye Sanity were really strong.

What was the best band you saw in Barrow-in-Furness in 1989?
For me it has to be Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast. They were truly great. Their song Amazing Grace was a cracker “I knew a girl called Amazing Grace. Yes she really was amazing.”

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said:

“The Dahiya [in Beirut] will look like Khan Younis [in Gaza]. You wanted to give us hell, but you’ve brought hell upon yourself”

Gaza is the template for southern Lebanon.

Yes. And a triple bill with Sacco and Vanzetti

The Molly Maguires: Martin Ritt’s 1970 literally gritty period drama was a flop on release deserves a reappraisal. Richard Harris’ agent provocateur infiltrates Sean Connery’s secret society of saboteurs fighting for the miners against the bosses. It’s allied with The Hill in its pessimism & anger

Don’t yuk my yum

Framing it like this is crazy. Iran was in the middle of negotiating when Israel started bombing. Israel and the US won’t stop until they want to and Israel is after Beirut as well.

I’ve not seen it yet. I was just thinking of Peter Sellers playing 3 characters (he was contracted for 4 but he faked an injury to get out of playing the pilot).

“I banged her I screwed her I nailed her and I shafted her
Then I took her home to mother
Who used her as a spatula”
Sex in a Woodwork Class

a man in a suit and tie is talking on a phone in front of a sign that says " targets in megadeaths " ALT: a man in a suit and tie is talking on a phone in front of a sign that says " targets in megadeaths "

That’s news to me

Oh I think he’s terrible.

a man with long black hair and a beard is wearing a black suit and standing in a room . ALT: a man with long black hair and a beard is wearing a black suit and standing in a room .

Who is a movie star that you like while at the same time fully conceding that they are a terrible actor?
I’ll go first.

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Having cut almost all of their foreign affairs staff, I wonder How they know this. And also was part of that precision a school of young girls ?
Have they just asked Claude?

The Mekon and his brother Warlord themselves into the war and I’m all for getting them into the thickest of the fighting.

Never heard of that.

This sounds like the ideal gateway book into Black cinema. I have gaps aplenty that need filling. William Greaves’s Symbiopsychotaxiplasm films sound like a fun place to start.

I love it when I get struck by an ordinary phrase that has poetry hidden in it. Today: “a flight of stairs”.

ChristopherJames Art Prints & Original Work by Christopher James

The wonderful @jameschristopher.bsky.social
designed the cover for my book — Connery: a Novel.
Prints for that cover as well as his other stupendous portraits can be found here for sale
christopherjamesart.bigcartel.com