This week I have been mostly watching Bond movies. The ones with Roger Moore in. They keep showing them on ITV4, a channel with advert breaks so long, you can make a three course meal and cross-reference the other work of the whole cast during one single ad break. Sometimes the ad breaks are so long, I can't even remember what I was watching.
Anyway, some people aren't a big fan of Roger Moore as Bond, but I think he's ace. If you're going to be a ruthless killer, at least have a sense of humour about it, that's what I say.
And one additional bonus of watching him, particularly in the later ones, is that he's an encouragement to old and inflexible people everywhere. He's in his fifties in these films, and even though he can hardly bend, he still manages to cuff aside assailants as if he's swatting flies.
Last night I watched Octopussy (yeah producers, don't bother burying sexually suggestive names for characters deep in the movie, get it in the title, get people's attention straightaway), and he wasn't only able to deck old blokes like himself, he managed to knock out a few circus performers as well, and some of them were extra bendy. Even they couldn't get the better of him.
He must have been doing some sort of secret martial art, because even though he was up against really flexible people, he managed to fight them all without doing any bending at all, and he also managed at the end to hold onto the top of a plane with two tiny little rails as it was going upside down. No-one could do that.
In Octopussy he was really up against it. Not only could he not bend to start with, they kept putting him in a vast array of costumes, that would have taken away even the small amount of flexibility that he did have. They had him in a gorilla suit and a remote controlled crocodile suit, and when he had to run fast near the end to disarm a nuclear bomb, they put him in a clown suit with big clip cloppy shoes. He nearly didn't make it.
Not since Peter Shilton in the World Cups of 1986 and 1990 have I seen someone so ill-fitted to the task he's been assigned to. As I've no doubt mentioned before, I don't blame Maradona for 1986, or Germany for 1990. I blame Shilton. If, as a six foot goalie, you can't outjump a tiny little Argentinian, even if he is using his hands, then you shouldn't be on the pitch. And as for trying to keep out Germany's penalties in 1990, he was diving in instalments. I thought I was watching the slow motion replays until I realised it was in real time. The Germans on the other hand had a young fit lad between the sticks. Even if our lot hadn't been shinning them over the bar, he probably would have stopped them anyway. He did at least look athletic. Shilton needed a winch to get back up after every dive. He was 40 at the time but he looked older. I know he was a brilliant goalie at one time, but I think he should have quit sooner. Like in about 1985.
For the last few years, I've had some problems with arthritis. I'm nowhere near as flexible as I used to be. When I was a teenager I used to play rugby and football, and both of these involved diving around a lot and getting back up again really quickly. Now it takes me about 15 minutes to pick up a tea towel I've dropped on the floor. And that's the thing I don't get with Roger Moore (and Shilton for that matter). There would have been loads of young people around at the time. Have you ever seen those guys doing that Parkmore or Parquet or whatever it is, where they fling themselves from building to building. I mean, you could go get one of those guys, stop them hanging around outside Morrison's and give them a WaltherPPK or a pair of goalie gloves, and they'd probably do a better job.
Another ace thing about Roger was this. As well as being able to fight without being bendy, he could also change women's minds really easily, a feat which I have found impossible to this day. If a woman didn't want to do it with him, all he had to do was grab her by the head, and make her kiss him, and then she would magically change her mind. I've never actually tried this, and I'm not going to start now, but if I did, I would expect at the very least a smack over the head with a woman's shoe, and possibly a visit from the authorities, but even a non-bendy wrinkly like Bond seemed to be able to get away with it then.
That was another great thing about Octopussy. Instead of a load of Chinese blokes running round in coloured boilersuits inside a volcano at the end, they had loads of young women in red skin suits running around doing circus type stuff. It was a visual treat.
One more thing. Watching the film this time had some extra resonance for me, as there was a rickshaw chase through New Delhi, and from what I could see, between 1983 and a couple of months ago, when I was there, it doesn't look like it's changed much in (although I can't recall being chased by any ninja style assassins, only beggars and tuktuk drivers).
For some reason, probably because he was the most famous Indian around at the time, they stuck Indian tennis professional Vijay Amritraj in the movie. Ruth said you could tell he wasn't an actor. Having seen how things operate in India, I wondered if the casting went something like this.
Cubby Broccoli: Hello, is that the Indian High Council of Film Things? We'd like to do a movie in Delhi
Indian Guy: Oh, we have a form for that. In fact, we have several.
Cubby Broccoli: That's okay, I'll get my Indian form filling guy onto it.
Indian Guy: There is one other thing. If you want to film in India, we'll need Vijay Amritraj to be in it.
Cubby Broccoli: What, the tennis player?
Indian Guy: That's him.
Cubby Broccoli: But he's a tennis player, not an actor.
Indian Guy: Well we want him in. No Vijay, no movie.
Cubby Broccoli: Okay, deal.
I'm probably completely wrong about that, so don't sue me.
So there's plenty of good news, it seems. If old inflexible people like Shilton and Roger Moore can still get employed doing the work that a younger man could do so much more easily, and if Indian tennis players who can't act can get picked to star in a James Bond movie, it appears there's plenty of hope for the rest of us.
Anyway, some people aren't a big fan of Roger Moore as Bond, but I think he's ace. If you're going to be a ruthless killer, at least have a sense of humour about it, that's what I say.
And one additional bonus of watching him, particularly in the later ones, is that he's an encouragement to old and inflexible people everywhere. He's in his fifties in these films, and even though he can hardly bend, he still manages to cuff aside assailants as if he's swatting flies.
Last night I watched Octopussy (yeah producers, don't bother burying sexually suggestive names for characters deep in the movie, get it in the title, get people's attention straightaway), and he wasn't only able to deck old blokes like himself, he managed to knock out a few circus performers as well, and some of them were extra bendy. Even they couldn't get the better of him.
He must have been doing some sort of secret martial art, because even though he was up against really flexible people, he managed to fight them all without doing any bending at all, and he also managed at the end to hold onto the top of a plane with two tiny little rails as it was going upside down. No-one could do that.
In Octopussy he was really up against it. Not only could he not bend to start with, they kept putting him in a vast array of costumes, that would have taken away even the small amount of flexibility that he did have. They had him in a gorilla suit and a remote controlled crocodile suit, and when he had to run fast near the end to disarm a nuclear bomb, they put him in a clown suit with big clip cloppy shoes. He nearly didn't make it.
Not since Peter Shilton in the World Cups of 1986 and 1990 have I seen someone so ill-fitted to the task he's been assigned to. As I've no doubt mentioned before, I don't blame Maradona for 1986, or Germany for 1990. I blame Shilton. If, as a six foot goalie, you can't outjump a tiny little Argentinian, even if he is using his hands, then you shouldn't be on the pitch. And as for trying to keep out Germany's penalties in 1990, he was diving in instalments. I thought I was watching the slow motion replays until I realised it was in real time. The Germans on the other hand had a young fit lad between the sticks. Even if our lot hadn't been shinning them over the bar, he probably would have stopped them anyway. He did at least look athletic. Shilton needed a winch to get back up after every dive. He was 40 at the time but he looked older. I know he was a brilliant goalie at one time, but I think he should have quit sooner. Like in about 1985.
For the last few years, I've had some problems with arthritis. I'm nowhere near as flexible as I used to be. When I was a teenager I used to play rugby and football, and both of these involved diving around a lot and getting back up again really quickly. Now it takes me about 15 minutes to pick up a tea towel I've dropped on the floor. And that's the thing I don't get with Roger Moore (and Shilton for that matter). There would have been loads of young people around at the time. Have you ever seen those guys doing that Parkmore or Parquet or whatever it is, where they fling themselves from building to building. I mean, you could go get one of those guys, stop them hanging around outside Morrison's and give them a WaltherPPK or a pair of goalie gloves, and they'd probably do a better job.
Another ace thing about Roger was this. As well as being able to fight without being bendy, he could also change women's minds really easily, a feat which I have found impossible to this day. If a woman didn't want to do it with him, all he had to do was grab her by the head, and make her kiss him, and then she would magically change her mind. I've never actually tried this, and I'm not going to start now, but if I did, I would expect at the very least a smack over the head with a woman's shoe, and possibly a visit from the authorities, but even a non-bendy wrinkly like Bond seemed to be able to get away with it then.
That was another great thing about Octopussy. Instead of a load of Chinese blokes running round in coloured boilersuits inside a volcano at the end, they had loads of young women in red skin suits running around doing circus type stuff. It was a visual treat.
One more thing. Watching the film this time had some extra resonance for me, as there was a rickshaw chase through New Delhi, and from what I could see, between 1983 and a couple of months ago, when I was there, it doesn't look like it's changed much in (although I can't recall being chased by any ninja style assassins, only beggars and tuktuk drivers).
For some reason, probably because he was the most famous Indian around at the time, they stuck Indian tennis professional Vijay Amritraj in the movie. Ruth said you could tell he wasn't an actor. Having seen how things operate in India, I wondered if the casting went something like this.
Cubby Broccoli: Hello, is that the Indian High Council of Film Things? We'd like to do a movie in Delhi
Indian Guy: Oh, we have a form for that. In fact, we have several.
Cubby Broccoli: That's okay, I'll get my Indian form filling guy onto it.
Indian Guy: There is one other thing. If you want to film in India, we'll need Vijay Amritraj to be in it.
Cubby Broccoli: What, the tennis player?
Indian Guy: That's him.
Cubby Broccoli: But he's a tennis player, not an actor.
Indian Guy: Well we want him in. No Vijay, no movie.
Cubby Broccoli: Okay, deal.
I'm probably completely wrong about that, so don't sue me.
So there's plenty of good news, it seems. If old inflexible people like Shilton and Roger Moore can still get employed doing the work that a younger man could do so much more easily, and if Indian tennis players who can't act can get picked to star in a James Bond movie, it appears there's plenty of hope for the rest of us.
You really don't like Shilton, do you?
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