Happy James Bond Day

So it's International James Bond Day and the 50th anniversary of of the James Bond movies? The books came earlier: Casino Royale was published 59 years ago.

Quite a legacy. And Bond has become a national icon for England: even goes parachuting with the Queen.

A fictional character makes good. I totally approve.

I used to fight with my mother over James Bond. She said (using other words) that the movies were sexist trash and I was too young for them. I argued, as one does - all the other kids were going to the movies! - and then sat down and read the books. I never much liked Fleming's writing, but I liked the character.

Daniel Craig is by far my favourite Bond actor. Second favourite: Timothy Dalton. Third favourite: Sean Connery. Least favourite by far: Roger Moore, whom I've always found smarmy, and I didn't like the humour in his films.

Favourite Bond women: Sophie Marceau and Barbara Carrera. Okay, they're actresses I've adored in their own right, who happened to turn up in Bond films. And Barbara Carrera was a villain, not a Bond girl, but that doesn't stop me from loving her. Robert Carlyle was the best of the Bond villains, to my eyes. Sean Bean and Christopher Walken weren't bad either.

And Judi Dench is the best M ever.

I can hardly wait for Skyfall.

Joss Whedon's SHIELD...

Just read the lowdown on the characters Joss Whedon has invented for the SHIELD TV show.

They don't sound very original - but then, they don't need to. I'm not sure I should be mapping them to known comic book characters or known Whedon characters, or both. I like it that there seem to be three women and two men - that's unprecedented.

I want this to be good, I really do.

I feel nervous about it.

Vid quality question

I was looking at The Professionals music vids on YouTube, and noticed that the new vids have really good picture quality.

Now, the first Pros vids I saw, and this was long ago, were of absolutely terrible quality - because the shows they were made from were third- and forth-generation bad videotapes copied from PAL tapes. Quite a mess.

Then they got better, and Pros was aired again (at least in the UK), and we got DVDs - which didn't have the nice crisp picture quality we wanted. They were downright fuzzy.

So... does someone now have better DVDs? And where can we get them?