A tribute to Richard Roundtree

With the passing of Richard Roundtree, I feel it only appropriate to repost photos of my childhood Shaft’s Big Score pencil case. My original post where these were featured is here, and today’s Mastodon post here.     I know Richard was also in Roots (remembered it, but way too young to have understood it […]

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The history of the ITC white Jaguar Mk I, recovered

  In a Mastodon conversation, Andrew Ryan (well known to many car aficionados as ‘The Car Factoids’) reminded me of the infamous ITC white Jag—the Jaguar Mk I that plunges into a quarry, originally filmed for The Baron. I wanted to share with him a page to which I had contributed that included all the […]

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Nice to be back on The Panel

David McCallum with Melinda Fee and Craig Stevens in The Invisible Man. (Who’d have guessed? Illya Kuryakin and Peter Gunn on the same show!)   Haven’t had this much fun on RNZ’s The Panel ever—since for once I knew my fellow panellist, Alison Mau. Both Ali and I weren’t in the studio with Wallace Chapman, […]

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A farewell to my friend, Denis Wood (and to a stranger, Sir Michael Parkinson)

I was deeply shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of my friend Denis Wood, treasurer of Scots Collegians’ Association, Inc. I’ve been on the Collegians’ executive for over a decade and Denis was always present as our financial guru. He was committed to our Association and our purposes. I’m still processing this news, […]

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Farewell to Universal Media Server, hello Plex Media Server

After many years, I’ve had to remove Universal Media Server. I used v. 6.3.1 for many years and I see that was launched in 2016. I know that wasn’t the first year I began using the program, so I could well have had some form installed for the last decade. I stuck with v. 6.3.1 […]

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The captivating case of Brian MacKinnon

  On a whim, I decided to look up the case of Brian Lachlan MacKinnon, who went back to his high school 15 years after he graduated and posed as a 16-year-old pupil. I saw it on BBC Scotland’s Public Eye at the time (around 1995), though I think I had also heard of the […]

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Remembering Nehemiah Persoff, 1919–2022

Nehemiah Persoff as a corrupt Latin American finance minister, Phillipe Pereda, in the Mission: Impossible episode, ‘The Vault’ (1969).   I read that the wonderful Palestinian-born character actor Nehemiah Persoff passed away this month last year, aged 102. I remember Nehemiah most from the third-season Mission: Impossible episode, ‘The Vault’, which is among the best […]

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A format so old, it’s new and radical

Above: I spy Natasha Lyonne and a Plymouth Barracuda. So the car is part of her screen identity? So it should be, it’s television. I might have to watch this.   Two very fascinating responses come up in Wired’s interview with director Rian Johnson on the Netflix release of his film Glass Onion. I’m not […]

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The expectation of invisibility

I rewatched Princess of Chaos, the TV drama centred around my friend, Bevan Chuang. I’m proud to have stood by her at the time, because, well, that’s what you do for your friends. I’m not here to revisit any of the happenings that the TV movie deals with—Bevan says it brings her closure so that […]

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An introduction to smart TVs for a complete novice

Earlier in December, we decided to put a TV into our guest room. One catch: there is no aerial there, so initially we thought, ‘We have some great DVDs, let’s plug in the DVD player.’ But it didn’t quite feel right. We’ve stayed at enough places with smart TVs, including some running the Android TV […]

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