I was peering through Ford’s archive as it celebrates 100 years in Great Britain. This brought back a few memories: the Araldite glue campaign. Right next to it is an outdoor ad for the 1982 Cortina—Taunus 80 to those outside the Empah. The Araldite ad showed how commonplace the Cortina had become. And back […]
Category: UK
Posts relating to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and to her territories.
LOL, Wag, flat white added to Oxford English Dictionary
A few new words and meanings—45,437 to be exact—have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary, report the mainstream media. LOL is one, which I have always taken to mean little old lady, and have almost always used it in that context. Turns out that that was what the acronym originally stood for, […]
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Hannah Gordon and Robert Vaughn, four decades on in Hustle
This is the sort of thing that would normally wind up on my Tumblr, but it’s a tad hard to do two images without a bit of clever HTML programming. Whomever did the casting for Hustle was very clever with the final episode of the season. To play Robert Vaughn’s old flame, actress Hannah […]
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Be vigilant and don’t look
This most recent trip to Auckland was marked by plenty of drama. The first experience was getting a virus the second I hooked up to the internet. The second was, having accidentally bumped the light into beam in my rent-a-Falcon on Ponsonby Road, a very interesting gentleman in a Toyota Picnic in the next lane […]
Not quite a remake, but similar
I saw the première episode of No Ordinary Family, plus a bit of the second, and I couldn’t help but think of this: Some folks fly to a strange place, have a plane crash, come back with special powers. One of them is an attractive blonde woman. Where it differs is that one […]
My John Barry top 10: ready when you are, J. B.
What are my top 10 John Barry picks? The man had done such a variety of compositions that it’s hard to pick them out without qualifying a top 10 with genres. But for me, these stick in my mind as being the most significant, often because they are tied to important moments in my life. […]
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The music of goodbye: farewell John Barry
It was with great sadness that I wrote an obit about my favourite composer, John Barry, today, and published it on the Lucire website. While Barry didn’t have to do with fashion per se, his music was often fitting themes to each era. Who can write a complete history of 1960s’ music without some […]
Ricky Gervais offends … actually, I don’t know whom
Normally I think Piers Morgan is a plonker, and the time Jeremy Clarkson punched him at the BAFTAs remains one of entertainment’s best stories. However, I have enjoyed Life Stories, and he has been a worthy successor, in my mind, to Larry King. Of course it’s not the same show, but the important thing […]
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Opel is not a snob brand
Arthur Daley, Opel’s last New Zealand spokesman: ‘Never mind the Capri, Tel: I sell Opels now.’ In the Fairfax Press, General Motors has apparently confirmed it will bring in Opel-branded cars to sell alongside Holden-branded ones. It’s an obvious move. For years, a good part of Holden’s range was Opel-designed. Like Vauxhall, the model […]
The changing accent of Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson, Chicago-born, star of The X Files, grew up in North London and speaks with an accent that’s closer to Britain than the States. I noticed that she gets quite a bit of flak for this on YouTube comments, which is rather sad, perhaps revealing more about those who criticize her than anything else. […]