Starlord

Or have Pai Mei teach you the 3 inch punch.

UB40
the lead singer had a nasal twang that really annoyed me.

Oh, _thank you_!
 
For the first time _ever_, those wierd tiny skulls make sense!
 
 

I still totally love Batman (1966).
 

If he'd done it twice in a row I might concede the point but as not Godzilla still holds the crown.
I grant you you that is the best entrance.
 
 Maigret
Maigret sees Double. A seemingly boring accountant is killed but Maigret finds out he was living a double life. He seemed to care nothing for his wife and family. And then Maigret discovers he was out of work so where did the money come from ? Who killed him and why ? Maigret brings in his nephew who was also in the Death in First Class story.
Maigret and the Rich. Maigret is told to drop everything as a threatening letter has been received at the household of a prominent lawyer. There is no crime yet there is the threat of one. Maigret interviews the lawyer, his two working colleagues who work in the same building, his secretary, the staff, his children and eventually the man's wife. Then Maigret receives letters threatening the same and saying that they may be provoked into action earlier. Again Maigret brings in his nephew. So when the death does occur, who did it and why ? It was a surprise the victim and the culprit.
 
Bandido
Robert Mitchum goes South of the border to help Mexican rebels by hijacking an arms shipment. This brings him between the arms supplier and the man's wife. As usual the government troops are seen as the bad guys. It is not bad. Artillery, machine guns and grenades are all put to use.
 
The Queen and her Ceremonial Horses
Made in 1984 this documentary looks at the horses used by the Royal household and what they are used for. It also looks at the people who look after the horses. Fascinating snap shot.
 
Parkinson
This was an episode from 2002 with Paul O'Grady, Paul Whitehouse and Gillian Anderson. O'Grady was recovering from a heart attack and Anderson had just finished the X-Files and was going into a play in the West End. Parkinson was always one of the best interviewers on TV. Closest I have seen was Dick Cavett.
 
Playthroughs
Watched down several board game playthroughs. Two came from Before You Play and were Viscounts of the West Kingdom and Paladins of the West Kingdom. Nice to see how the game works before you spend money on getting it.
Also Wingspan playthrough using the European birds expansion.
 
The Dice Tower's Top 100 Games of all Time 2024 edition.
10 videos covering 100 games from each of three reviewers and also 100 selected by the audience. There were a few crossovers between the three and also the people showing the breadth of taste people have and also what is obtainable either through Kickstarter or the shops. Ark Nova topped the people's choice closely followed by Wingspan. But Lost Ruins of Arnak and other games in my own collection turned up which gratified me.
 
The 39 Steps
This was the 1970s version with Robert Powell playing Hanney. It has the ending with Hanney perched on the minute hand of Big Ben in order to stop the bomb going off. Worth a look.
 
Batman (1966)
The film that was made to help sell the series to foreign markets  it has Lee Meriwether's only appearance as Catwoman  But it has Cesar Romero as the Joker, Frank Gorshin as the Riddler and Burgess Meredith as the Penguin. Only Romero as the Joker does not have a lot to do but the others get chances to really shine. There is so much fun in this even after repeated watches it can still be enjoyed even when you know the jokes. And it just goes to show that sometimes you just can't get rid of a bomb.

For the first time in decades, I got to see the classic Outer Limits episode "Demon with a Glass Hand", in which a man from the future must find a way to stop enemies of the Human species from traveling in time back to the 20th century, guided by the computer that has been grafted to him in place of one of his hands. It was not as good as I remembered it -- it was better.
 
People forget that before he became a legendary curmudgeon, Harlan Ellison was a great television writer, both in science fiction and in other forms. He wrote several episodes of the badly-dated detective series Burke's Law, whose premise of a police detective who also happened to be a multi-millionaire is ludicrous now.  He did contribute some well-designed murder puzzles to that series, and at the time producers seemed to enjoy working with him. He only stopped writing TV episodes when he clashed with the producers of Star Trek over his script for "City on the Edge of Forever" -- the changes to the script turned out to be superior to what he had originally written, but you never, ever tried to tell Harlan Ellison he was wrong.
 
Back to the episode, which combines a sense of claustrophobia (it is almost entirely set in a dilapidated office building surrounded by a field that prevents escape) with a cracking adventure. The protagonist constantly tries to ask the hand why he was sent back, where the object of his quest is located, and most importantly who and what he is. Robert Culp, who would go on to fame in series like I Spy and The Greatest American Hero, gives a splendid performance especially since he probably only had about a week to prepare for it.
The TV series featured some surprisingly well-written episodes even when the cliffhanger endings don't really fit the "guest villain" in question. Yes, the premise and episodes are full of jokes even at Batman's expense, but Adam West clearly rolled with it -- showing an uncanny ability to keep a straight face in even the most absurd of circumstances.

No wonder those things were so easy to bring down. They're mostly empty space.