Darth Vader is Dead

 RIP Dave Prowse, Sith Lord and Green Cross Man.

Here he is rehearsing the light saber battle with Obi Wan Kenobi (and I think it's delightful that Alec Guinness is wearing slippers here!):

Destruction at Stonehenge

 I'm disappointed in the headlines from the Observer today:

"Druids face defeat as bulldozers get set for Stonehenge bypass: Ancient artefacts will be lost when tunnel for A303 is built near site, campaigners claim."

First of all, it isn't just druids who have been opposing the proposed tunnel for the A303.  It's archaeologists.  Professor Mike Parker Pearson is a member of Highways England's independent A303 scientific committee, and he has been vocal with his opposition to the scheme on archaeological grounds for years.  He's an expert on the landscape surrounding Stonehenge, where he's been working for many years, and the new bypass will cut a swathe of destruction through that landscape.  He likens the destruction to burning ancient manuscripts - once gone, all the information that could have been gleaned from the area destroyed by the road building is gone forever.

In June this year, a giant Neolithic structure was discovered nearly 2 miles from Stonehenge, close to Amesbury.  It was previously unknown, and consists of a series of huge shafts, each more than 5m deep and 20m across.  They had previously been dismissed as natural features or dew ponds.  The circle of shafts is centred on Durrington Walls, one of England's largest henge monuments - and all of this is part of the same prehistoric landscape that includes Stonehenge.  They are not individual sites - they are part of a greater whole.

Another opponent of the tunnel scheme is the Chairman of Amesbury Museum and Heritage Trust, Andy Rhind-Tutt.  

The Unesco World Heritage Committee, which designated Stonehenge (and the surrounding area) a World Heritage Site, also oppose the scheme.  They are concerned that the road scheme will impact adversely on the Stonehenge landscape because the tunnel is too short.

And it's not just "ancient artefacts" which will be lost - it's all the evidence of archaeology along the length of the new dual carriageway.  Professor Pearson says that the rescue archaeology (which has to take place in advance of new construction) will only be expected to retrieve 4% of the artefacts present.  He estimates half a million artefacts will be machined off without being recorded.

Disappointingly, one of the supporters of the tunnel scheme is Anna Eavis of English Heritage, who makes the point that the present road is "noisy and smelly and looks awful".  This is probably true, but the tunnel scheme is not necessarily the best way of tackling that problem.  She also claims that any archaeology which will not be preserved in situ will be recorded - which is emphatically not what Professor Pearson claims.

In the next week, the tunnel scheme may finally get approval from Transport Secretary Grant Shapps.  It may help road congestion, when it's finally finished in five or more years time, but it will harm an important part of English archaeology, and World Heritage, forever.

Sean Connery has Died

 

He wasn't just Bond, of course. 

He starred in some of my favourite films, including Robin and Marion, The Name of the Rose, and The Man Who Would be King with Michael Caine. 

He was Spanish in Highlander, Irish-American in The Untouchables, and Russian in The Hunt for Red October (and he'd been Russian before, in Anna Karenina for the BBC).    

He was Indiana Jones' dad. 

He sang in Darby O'Gill and the Little People. 

He wore high boots and a red loincloth (and not a lot else) in Zardoz.

He had a fight on the roof of a steam train carriage in The First Great Train Robbery.

He was a cop in space in Outland, a prisoner in a military prison in The Hill, and a truck driver in The Hell Drivers.

That's quite a range for an actor who will mostly be remembered as James Bond.

Jill Paton Walsh has Died

 I first knew about Jill Paton Walsh through her children's books, especially A Parcel of Patterns, which is about the village of Eyam that sealed itself off to stop the spread of the plague (quite a topical subject now).  Another I enjoyed was Fireweed, set during the Second World War.

She also wrote detective novels with the main character of Imogen Quy, so she had experience in the detective fiction genre when she came to continue the Lord Peter Wimsey series of novels, from the notes that Dorothy L Sayers had left.  Opinion in Sayers fandom is divided on these, but I enjoyed them, even if some people do see them as a form of fan fiction.

She was 83.

Raffles, starring David Niven

 I first encountered Raffles through the 1970s series starring Anthony Valentine, who I adored in the role, and which led me to reading all of Hornung's original short stories.

But I was unaware that there was a film of Raffles, starring David Niven, until recently.

When I looked it up, I found that the co-star was Olivia de Havilland - two of my favourite Hollywood actors, so why had I never heard of it?

I sent off for a VHS video.

I can see why I'd never heard of it before - it's a pretty low budget production, and Olivia de Havilland and David Niven are the only actors I've heard of in it.  The plot updates the original 1890s stories to 1939, and most of the action is set over one country house weekend, where Raffles plays cricket by day and tries to steal his hostess's necklace by night.

Bunny Manders is sidelined in favour of his sister Gwen (Olivia de Havilland), who puts the clues together to work out who the Amateur Cracksman is.  This Raffles seems kinder than the original, too - showing concern for the kitten he uses in a jewellery shop break in, arranging for a retired actress he admired to collect reward money for a stolen painting, and planning to steal the necklace to help out Bunny, who has money problems.  But the film does stop rather abruptly, leaving the police inspector waiting for a rendezvous out in the rain, and no clear conclusion as to what will happen to Raffles next.

Still, it's always worth watching David Niven and Olivia de Havilland in anything.

I understand now that there is an earlier film starring Ronald Colman - and John Barrymore was in a silent version in 1917!

The Avengers - The Hour that Never Was

 I remembered this episode as soon as they got to the abandoned airfield - it's the one with the milk float and Roy Kinnear as a tramp.  There's also a bonus Gerald Harper as Steed's old friend at the airbase.

The Man-Eater of Surrey Green and Silent Dust

 In honour of Dame Diana Rigg's death, I brought out my complete box set of The Avengers again.  I've been watching it a bit at a time, in order, and by chance I had reached Series 4, Disc 4, and a couple of delightful Emma Peel episodes.

In The Man-Eater of Surrey Green, Steed and Mrs Peel are up against an alien plant that can control minds, which gives a lovely excuse for Emma to fight Steed.  A plot twist is that the plant cannot control deaf people, so there are three deaf people in the episode.  The first is a horticulturalist, and boyfriend of one of the mind-controlled scientists.  The second is a fertiliser merchant who Emma meets in the local pub, and the third is an elderly lady scientist who is brought in to analyse the alien plant specimen.  To protect themselves from the mind control, Emma and Steed wear hearing aids to get close to the control room where the growth of the plant is being regulated.

Fertiliser is also involved in the next episode, Silent Dust, but this time the formula went wrong and produced a pesticide that wipes out everything it touches.  The bad guy in this episode is William Franklyn, most famous for the "Shh - You Know Who" Schwepps adverts - here he's a keen country sportsman, and very involved in the local hunt when he's not trying to hold the government to ransom by poisoning the whole of Dorset.  I found it interesting that hunt protestors carrying placards were shown in 1965.  Also, Steed gets shot with no blood or marks on his jacket whatsoever - but it does lead to a very funny hallucination scene.

Tonight I'll be finishing off the disc with The Hour that Never Was, which I have no memory of whatsoever, and Castle De'ath, which is one of my favourites.