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Post by ltd on Nov 10, 2017 23:07:59 GMT
I've always thought this was a terrible episode, second only to "The Great Depression..." in its sheer pointlessness, plus badly acted to boot. Arthur's closing monologue is good but can't salvage what is an utterly hopeless case. A sad way for a once great series to go out.
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Post by ltd on Oct 22, 2017 21:48:17 GMT
But Arch's op said that 1000 people died of AIDS in 2016. Can medicine not prevent HIV developing into AIDS virus then? I'd hazard a guess that Arch's statistics encompass parts of Africa where health care systems aren't up to much and anti HIV drugs aren't readily available. No denying AIDS has cut a pretty bloody swathe through the third world and will probably continue to do so.
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Post by ltd on Oct 22, 2017 15:26:03 GMT
As a kid I loved his reading of Watership Down on 8+ cassettes from the town library. I've got it on MP3 now. As an adult I can see the editing/abridgement is a bit shaky in places but Mr Dotrice's vocal characterisations carry it through. High time I listened to it again.
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Post by ltd on Oct 21, 2017 21:46:11 GMT
Per Ace's post AIDS and Rabies were pretty scary back in the old days. Modern times, it has to be Ebola - what a horrible way to die.
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Post by ltd on Oct 19, 2017 8:33:01 GMT
A couple of memorably intimidating appearances in Minder. An interesting career - far more to the man than just playing heavies, great at it though he was.
Didn't know he was from my home town, good to see someone from The 'Ditch having done well for themselves.
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Post by ltd on Oct 8, 2017 19:59:42 GMT
Don't normally have a thing about blondes but always thought Sarah Harding looked pretty good when they started out. Touch of the crash and burn about her subsequently though
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Post by ltd on Oct 3, 2017 8:00:09 GMT
An absolute cracker of an episode this one , with Chisholm at his best Watched this again last night and have to agree. Loads of brilliant lines e.g his total lack of respect to Mickey when interviewing him, "horrible Harbutt" and cheerfully acknowledging that his treatment of Arthur in the car lot is tantamount to intimidation. Rest of the cast are good too but Patrick Malahide just about steals the show.
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Post by ltd on Oct 1, 2017 7:49:08 GMT
My favourite Haskins substitute without doubt. Benjamin Whitrow did a fine job making him a character in his own right and not just a stand in - he was more of a bureaucrat than Frank (who did sometimes get out of the office to mix it up with the crims) but not unsympathetic. Always felt a bit sorry for Braithwaite having to deal with Jack and Co's crazy antics e.g. the container lorry foul up in Drag Act.
RIP Mr Whitrow.
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Post by ltd on Sept 26, 2017 12:53:00 GMT
John Landry as Ronnie Todd is also a pretty shifty character who is up to no good throughout. He was the eponymous lead in Turtle's Progress - someone with more than a touch of the Arthur Daley about him. Interesting to see him playing a similar character in this and going up against Numero Uno. Not surprisingly he comes off worst - a metaphor for the respective fates of Minder and Turtle's Progress perhaps? I watched this again quite recently and accept that it's quite slow and doesn't really go anywhere but agree with syrupapplesnpears that it still has a lot to recommend it. Arthur facing down the bent lawyer is a great scene I think. I also like his borderline alkie mate Hodgson who seems to be not very successful white collar criminal of some sort (struck off solicitor or accountant?). One of those many supporting characters you wouldn't mind seeing pop up again.
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Post by ltd on Sept 23, 2017 18:35:41 GMT
In 1986 Margaret Thatcher (allegedly) once proclaimed: Which to be honest sounds like a load of old cobblers to me, especially as you can browse and interact with minder.org on your phone whilst sat on a bus and not driving. Failure? Yeah right Maggie, not in this life time. There's also the Fatima Mansions song "Only Losers Take the Bus" which may, or may not be, ironic. I do use public transport although it mainly tends to be the train. When I'm in London the bus services strike me as quite good - certainly preferable to driving. Anyway as to the poll I went with manual on the grounds I don't know any different. Never even seen a manual car, let alone driven one. It's like that out here in the country.
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Post by ltd on Sept 22, 2017 21:48:04 GMT
Better known these days as a very good no nonsense quiz host. Previous to that he was a top TV producer/director and responsible for Father Dear Father, Love Thy Neighbour, Bless This House, My Good Woman, Spooner's Patch, The Rag Trade, Family Fortunes, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush and The Price is Right. RIP I think it was about him that Lance in Detectorists said that you'd never catch him making a joke, or if he did, it was never very funny. Always something quite forbidding about him on 15-1 which is perhaps what made it so compelling. The sort of bloke who was tough but fair, light years away from the likes of Anne Robinson etc.
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Post by ltd on Sept 15, 2017 5:29:55 GMT
Very sinister indeed in The Sopranos, for me his most memorable role.
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Post by ltd on Sept 2, 2017 18:54:34 GMT
The scene in the park where Rycott berates Aldridge as "a moron of mind boggling inepitude" always makes me laugh. I suppose it must be down to Peter Childs' delivery. Interesting to contrast his comic relief Rycott here with the rather more menacing figure of early episodes. What a fine actor he was.
The Aussie girls are all very glamorous, although I think some of those 80s trouser outfits don't do them any favours. A strange decade fashion wise.
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Post by ltd on Aug 26, 2017 18:07:58 GMT
Probably the sole creator of 'Hazell'. RIP Gordon. I dunno, Williams always claimed him and El Tel were equal partners in Hazell's creation. I suspect the plotting was mostly down to Williams with Hazell's cockney wideboy mannerisms and one liners being Venables. Interesting that Williams regarded Venables as quite an introverted person away from the camera, hidden depths and all that.
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Post by ltd on Aug 25, 2017 19:01:03 GMT
Co-creator of Hazell, Gordon Williams, died a few days ago. www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/21/gordon-williams-obituaryI've read The Siege of Trencher's Farm and it's a rip roaring pulp thriller - the kind of thing you can blitz through in an afternoon. I much prefer it to the film adaptation, Straw Dogs. Would love to read some of his other novels including the Hazell stories but they're hard to find, as someone says in the comments section he seems an unjustly neglected writer.
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Post by ltd on Aug 6, 2017 17:00:22 GMT
The Robin Hood and Musketeers songs are dismal. Some decent soft rock tunes before then though.
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Post by ltd on Aug 3, 2017 19:21:23 GMT
I remember Hywel's appearance in The Sweeney Sweet Smell of Succession is one of my favourite episodes. He's great in that as the fresh faced university educated gangster's son who runs rings around the grisly old school hardmen squabbling over his deceased father's criminal empire. Like flyingsquad above I also rate his appearance as Ricky Tarr in Tinker, Tailor...just the right combination of dodginess and the wounded romantic innocent.
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Post by ltd on Jul 31, 2017 21:40:12 GMT
No not Sam Elliot, he's very much in the American civil war general mould (per Gettysburg). Always thought Sam Shepard had a weather beaten look to him which would suit cowboy films - I think he did a few?
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Post by ltd on Jul 31, 2017 18:36:50 GMT
Always something quintessentially American about him - he had a face made for westerns. Great career as MIAS says.
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Post by ltd on Jul 23, 2017 21:49:53 GMT
100% As is Dawn of the Dead. Never liked Martin much but I find The Dark Half totally underrated. It's hardly groundbreaking but it's a decent little film. Similar to movies like The Crazies. Just fab entertainment. I liked the Dark Half - much better than the book which I got halfway through and couldn't finish. I quite liked Martin as well.
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Post by ltd on Jul 1, 2017 17:48:07 GMT
As a young viewer back in his late eighties heyday I respected him for his wit and knowledge but thought that he got increasingly reactionary as he got older. That said, I don't think his show was treated particularly well by the BBC in its latter years and that might have had something to do with his sometimes curmudgeonly demeanour, and final flit to SKY. Even his final days at the helm were immeasurably superior to Ross who seemed content to recycle studio publicity hype in between fawning interviews of "the stars". You might disagree with Barry Norman but at least he told you what he genuinely thought, and why.
I also enjoyed a couple of his novels which had more than a touch of Raymond Chandler about them.
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Post by ltd on Jun 30, 2017 8:14:19 GMT
Not that familiar with his work but I thought he was good as the depressed Russian engineer in The Europa Report.
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Post by ltd on Jun 20, 2017 5:46:44 GMT
Was it Brian who voiced the Life On Mars segment? I don't think it was no.. Though I stand to be corrected. I don't think so either - the LOM voice is a lot deeper and more northern sounding.
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Post by ltd on Jun 19, 2017 21:05:16 GMT
Was it Brian who voiced the Life On Mars segment? It could be, I remember him sending himself on the Lee and Herring Sunday morning show. He was ostensibly employed doing the voice over for their kids' cartoon segment but got more and more exasperated with its poor quality. Cue quality rant in which he said it should have been him instead of of Jeremy Irons in Brideshead Revisited. Nice one Brian.
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Post by ltd on Jun 19, 2017 19:46:14 GMT
A fixture of my childhood TV watching. Always a welcome sight, or given the amount of voice work he did, sound. RIP Brian and many thanks for enlivening a young LTD's television viewing.
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Post by ltd on Jun 11, 2017 17:20:36 GMT
I remember seeing him as Mr Bennett in a stage production of Pride and Prejudice in Birmigham back in the late 80s. We were studying the novel at school and our English teacher thought it would be helpful if we saw the play. Never my favourite book, but Peter Sallis did a fine job as the narrator figure in bringing out the humour in Austen's rather fussy prose. As others have pointed out, much more to him as an actor than Cleggy and the voice of Wallace and Grommit.
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Post by ltd on Jun 3, 2017 17:46:55 GMT
The Cissie and Ada act with Les Dawson was priceless :-) Another from me for Cissie and Ada.
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Post by ltd on Jun 3, 2017 17:08:19 GMT
Come to think of it where's the Fox out of Disney's Robin Hood? I voted for him in the "other" category. I also gave Costner my vote because the film doesn't take itself too seriously and is at least entertaining (which the BBC series with Jonas Armstrong never managed). The Richard Carpenter series is the best written version of the legend but I don't reckon much to Michael Praed or Jason Connery as actors. John Cleese in Time Bandits worth a mention perhaps?
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Post by ltd on May 29, 2017 21:48:52 GMT
I remember being fascinated by his daredevil antics in the 1970s: Parachuting at five miles altitude with the Red Devils, Nelson's Column and of course the ill fated bob-sleigh run. Peter Purves on the news tonight said the Noakes TV personna wasn't necessarily the real man, but regardless he must have had nerves of steel to do those stunts.
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Post by ltd on May 25, 2017 17:28:35 GMT
Surprised there's no Smith & Jones, Hale & Pace, David Baddiel, Rob Newman, Fry & Laurie and Punt & Dennis in that list. Those are the comedians I grew up with. What about Alexei Sayle? Not everyone's cup of tea but he used to make me laugh. I wouldn't really class any of those as 'stand up comedians', as such. Though I'm sure they've done or been involved in stand up at some point or another. They were more so writers of comedy, particularly sketch shows. I'd agree with DSC that Alexei Sayle rates a mention. Didn't he get started as a stand up at the comedy store? A lot of his Young Ones appearances seemed to be in that vein as well, and let's not forget his alter ego Bobby Chariot. I believe he might have done a stand up tour with Chariot as his warm up act - two stand ups for the price of one!
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