It all leaves a bitter aftertaste....

 Is there a subject the Tainted Archive won't touch?

Not really, and today I want to talk about the beers, particularly those marketed as craft ales that have become so popular over recent years, because I'm confused by something. You see, I'm primarily a whisky/whiskey drinker. Indeed I collect whisky's and consume maybe a little more than I should, but I do from time to time enjoy a good pint of beer/ real ale...call it what you may. 

I'll drink a lot of different beer styles, ales, porters, stouts (anything but that dreadful larger stuff).

Traditionally, my favourite kind of beer is a good bitter - so why then, does the word bitter seem to be vanishing from the vocabulary of beer makers?

A case in example is Fuller's London Pride (damn good beer) which was once marketed as London's Pride Best Bitter, but has been rebranded as Original Ale. And it's not the only one out there - Marston's  Pedigree Bitter is now Marston's Pedigree Amber Ale, Spitfire Premium Bitter is now Spitfire Amber Ale....the list goes on and on and on.

What's it all about?

Why has the word Bitter been wiped from history?

Picture the scene: It's 1979, you walk into a pub and amble to the bar, a ciggie dangling from the corners of your mouth, brylcreem holding your hair in quiffey splendour. You coolly put your money onto the polished bar, grab a handful of peanuts from the tray, and look the landlord in his smiling eyes and, 'Pint of best bitter please.'

As opposed to:

It's 2021, you walk into a pub, but not before covering thirty miles trying to find one that is still open, you stroll slowly to the bar, nodding greetings at the diverse bunch of characters seated around tables and head straight for the freshly sanitised bar. There are no peanuts and the landlord is not so much smiling, as looking kind of worried. You look him in the eyes, produce your debit card and, 'A glass of Amber Ale please, my good man.'

What's it all about?

It's all so confusing. As far as I can tell the beer itself hasn't changed but the name bitter seems to have been considered a NO NO. Likely some focus group somewhere are responsible for this, but what I want to know is...what the fuck! Why?

Last night I had a glass of Adams Southwold Bitter - one of the few brews, still using the name bitter. Of course, I'd like to say it tasted all the better for the traditional name, but then that would be silly... Wouldn't it?

Anyway, it was a nice drink - smooth, creamy and not at all bitter, but then bitter beer never really tasted bitter in the first place. 

What's in a name, I hear you ask. Does it really matter?

I guess not, but it's a bit strange why beer which has traditionally been called bitter now goes by so many different names - amber ale, golden ale, red ale...anything but bitter.

Historically pale ale and bitter have been the same thing - brewers used the term pale ale for their beer, but the consumer (those brylcreem wearing boozers) called them bitters.

Or as the beer historians put it -  Generally in the 19th century brewers called the drink in the brewery “pale ale”, and that’s the name they put on their bottle labels, but in the pub drinkers called this new drink “bitter”, to differentiate it from the older, sweeter, but still (then) pale mild ales.

I guess that over time the consumer use of the word bitter rubbed off on the brewers who then started marketing their pale ale as bitter -  According to the Wiki - The term "bitter" has been used in England to describe pale ale since the early 19th century. Although brewers used the term "pale ale", before the introduction of pump clips, customers in public houses would ask for "bitter" to differentiate it from mild ale; by the end of the 19th century, brewers had begun to use the term as well.

So it seems that things are changing again and the word bitter is falling out of style, and does it matter. Maybe not in the grand scheme of things, but I still think of beer as bitter, and I certainly don't think it should be a dirty word.

'Pint of your best bitter please, my good man.

Quick fact - the first ever pint I consumed in a public house was drunk in the old Ely Pub in Thomastown. These days the once grand old pub is a convenience store.

The deep brown pint was bought for me by my uncle Jeb (I think I was likely under age) and the drink was.....Welsh Bitter.

Reader's Anonymous

 Do your palms sweat at the thought of a new Stephen King hitting the shelves? Do you neglect your friends in order to curl up between the pages? Do you have to charge your Kindle more than twice a month?  Are there books in every room of your house?

 If you answered yes to any of the questions above then you may be addicted to reading.

This addiction is widespread and the side effects are a stronger vocabulary, an imaginative mind and a better understanding of what makes things tick.

Mini Review: The Rough Guide to Crime Fiction

 

What's not to like about the Rough Guide series of books designed to give an introduction to a subject? I've already got several of these books in my collection - Blues, Elvis, Western Movies, Poker, The Beatles, Wine. And as soon as I saw this new volume, edited by Crimetime boss Barry Forshaw I wasn't long getting to the checkout.

The books starts with an introduction by crime master, Ian Rankin and then after a brief preface we're quickly into the meat of the volume. It's split into sections covering classics, the Golden Age, PI's, Hard-boiled, Cops, Amateurs and others making this an exhaustive study of the world's most successful literary genre and its'  sub-genres.

There are numerous lists of books to read in the various sub-genres and the foreign language crime list was especially welcome with its pointers towards crime classics from non-English speaking countries which have been translated into English.

This book is great for crime buffs and newcomers alike and each section features potted review of must read books in that particular sub-genre. For instance in the hard-boiled section the book heavily recommends The Asphalt Jungle by W R Burnett,The Postman always Rings twice by James Cain, Chandler's The Big Sleep, No Orchids for Miss Blandish by James Hardley Chase, Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammet, Kiss Me Deadly by the late great Mickey Spillane and several pulp classics I'd never heard of but will be checking out.

An excellent referance work.

Brian Cox is Inspector John Rebus

 Ian Rankin's detective, John Rebus was brought to life for the TV series by two actors - firstly, John Hannah took on the role and then Ken Stott walked the mean Scottish streets - well now you can add a third thespian to the list with Brian Cox taking on the role for what is billed as a one off playlet - Lockdown Blues.

The full playlet is embedded below:

Licence renewed

 Fans bemoaning the changes made to the James Bond character in the new movie can relax with the all new edition of John Gardner's first James Bond novel available now - print and digital

All New edition of a Bond classic.

The Men with the forgotten Pens: Walter Tyrer

 

Walter Tyrer 1956

My previous post on Walter Tyrer and the Sexton Blake novel resulted in me getting an email from keith Chapman - it's always nice to hear from Keith, the man behind Chap O'Keefe, author of so many great westerns. 

Now as well as penning all those great westerns, Keith can claim a lifetime working in the publishing industry, and can always be relied upon  to supply interesting anecdotes.

Keith tells me that Walter Tyrer was not in fact a pen name, but rather a prolific English writer who wrote under not only his own name but many others.

Here's what Keith had to say:

"Walter Tyrer" (1900-1978)  was the man's real name, although I do know he wrote under others, such as "J. T. Lang". He used this one when working for Micron/G. M. Smith, probably to thwart any possible complications should word leak back to Fleetway who were his main employers.  While I was editing at Micron, he contributed scripts for their 64-page romance and western comic-book "libraries" (clones of various Fleetway titles and forerunners to DCT's Commando) and short stories for Edgar Wallace Mystery Magazine. He also offered to do rewrites of his Sexton Blake novels for the latter, but I rejected that as I wanted the mag to be "all new" except for the Edgar Wallace reprints."

Keith went onto to direct to me an article at the Sexton Blake blog HERE.

It turns out that Tyrer passed away in 1978, and had been born in Liverpool in 1900 - during the second world war he served as an ARP warden, and during the previous war had served with the Royal Navy. A prolific writer, he wrote more than 30 novels for the Sexton Blake Library alone.

Keith also informed me that Tyrer had contributed scenarios for TV's long running soap, Coronation Street.

Biographical information on Tyrer is slight: Born in 1900, he sold his first story  in 1921 and by 1947 had sold at least 20,000,000 words of juvenile fiction. He died in 1978, aged 78.

You can find a vintage Tyrer story at the Beat to a Pulp webzine HERE

Sexton Blake on the HP trail

 

Sexton Blake and the secondhand books incident

I picked up this old pulp, one of the Sexton Blake Library, largely because the title amused me. I found the book in Cardiff's excellent Troutmark Books which is situated in the Castle Arcade. The character of Sexton Blake of course came about in 1893 in the Halfpenny Marvel paper. The character owed much to Sherlock Holmes - in fact he's  been called the poor man's Sherlock Holmes - and was often drawn to resemble Doyle's most famous creation.

This particular book was published in 1952 and written by Walter Tyrer, a man who wrote a fair number of Sexton Blake adventures. I think the name is likely a pen name but I cant find anything out about the writer on the internet other than a list of titles he penned.

There's a rather good blog HERE that reviews many of the Sexton Blake adventures but the blog doesn't seem to be updated on a regular basis - pity.

Together with the Sexton Blake book I also picked up a bunch of old paperbacks as well as several issues of Warlord Comic. I do love browsing in secondhand books shops and Cardiff's Troutmark Books is an excellent store. I'd recommend a visit to anyone who finds themselves in Cardiff. You'll find it in the Castle Arcade which is across the road from Cardiff Castle.

The Bond Conundrum

 

Starting with Dr No in 1962 and continuing until Die Another Day in 2002, the James Bond film series followed a loosely connected narrative that spawned twenty financially and mostly critically successful films, but then in 2006 the franchise rebooted itself with Casino Royale - it was from this point on that the James Bond films became a separate entity to what went before. And whilst Casino Royale is a good well made and well acted movie it is not, at least in the traditional sense, a James Bond movie.

And that would be fine if the producers stuck to that, but they didn't and Skyfall and perhaps Spectre very much want to be James Bond movies, in the traditional sense that is, whilst the latest Bond, No Time to Die is more soap opera with blistering action scenes than James Bond movie. It seems that the current producers want to have their cake and eat it. They want their movies to be James Bond movies and yet not be James Bond movies. It's a conundrum, indeed.

At the end of Die Another Day we were told that James Bond would return...we're still waiting.

Let's look at the recipe for Bond, the ingredients created way back when Ian Lancaster Fleming relaxed in Goldeneye for six weeks to write that first novel, Casino Royale: 

James Bond, the name considered bland and boring and pilfered from a bird book that Fleming owned.

Two parts womaniser.

Mix with one part cold, calculated, aloofness.

Add a lot of over the top villains with world domination schemes.

Toss in fast cars, good clothes and expensive cigarettes.

Stir in a good measure of sexism and misogyny.

Add a touch of toxic masculinity.

Bake solidly.

That recipe served the films well right up until Die Another Day. No matter what fashions came and went the Bond films remained essentially the same. 

Though that recipe has been amended by the current producers. They have come up with a low fat, gluten free version to carry the series forward, and whilst that may seem sensible in order to keep the franchise relevant it's resulted in all the flavours being removed. It's given us a very bland tasting Bond. They can have their cake and eat it. I don't want any of it.

The truth is that the Craig movies have been generic action films featuring James Bond in name only, with a few winks and nods to past glories - again they want their cake and eat it.

However, I will say that No Time to Die has been a fitting end to Craig's era. Since the Eon team have spent the past four movies trying to kill everything James Bond and this time they actually did kill Bond. Well, they have him commit suicide by allowing a pile of missiles to blow him to pieces.

Thursday Murder Club Book Review Richard Osman

 This is one of those books where the characterisation is far more important than the plot  - not that the plot itself is not well enough done, but it is the characters that carry the reader forward. The Book really is a joy to read - I couldn't put it down and didn't want it to end.

The four main characters are quite a varied bunch - they are all elderly and live in a retirement home where they pass the time with the Thursday Murder Club. The spend their time looking over cold cases in the hope that they can spot something the police failed to see - it hasn't happened yet though. No matter since there's plenty of lemon drizzle cake and tea to go round.

The four members of the murder club are made up of ( all retired), a spy chief, a nurse, a psychiatrist and a militant socialist.

Soon there is a murder in the area when local businessman Tony Curran is bludgeoned to death in his kitchen and the fantastic four and now on the case - 'Isn't it delightful. A fresh murder for us to look into.'

There are some beautiful character moments throughout the book, and a lot of poignant scenes that deal with the reality of growing old.

This truly is a fantastic book.

ADVERTISEMENT

 

The Best ways to download and read comic books online

 There are a lot of comic book fans among Archive readers, so I thought it would be nice to point readers in the direction - what direction is that, you ask! 

Well follow me, down that rabbit hole.

When you download a comic online you'll need software that can open the files - formats like CBR, PDF or even Mobi are quite common and there are many comic book readers apps/programs online for free. So just take a browse with the search term: Comic Book Reader and you'll find a suitable program. Personally I swear by cDisplay

 Comixology  is an Amazon owned site and contains stuff by Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and a lot of independent houses. There are also free comics on the website so it is well worth a visit.

DriveThruComics   is a great website that contains a lot of older comics as well as the new stuff.

GetComics is awesome, even if the website is a bit clunky but best of all everything here is Free to download and you can download entire runs of issues in one click. Bodacious, dude!

Internet Archive for nostalgia fans then this is the website to visit. It's comics and graphic novel section is filled to the brim with some great stuff.

British Comics is my website of choice, mainly because the archives are full to bursting with classic British comics, all of them free to download. This website is a comic historians wet dream.

Re-evaluating Bond - Die Another Day Movie Review

 

Die Another Day is a tale of two halves, the first half is mostly good, the second is nearly always awful. This is how Pierce Brosnan's Bond goes out, which is a damn shame. Rotten Tomatoes Review

Die Another Day: impossibly bad and utterly unmissable – The Guardian

Die Another Day was Pierce Brosnan's final Bond film and today it remains one of the most wildly panned movies in the history of the franchise. Some even claim it is the worse Bond movie of them all.

 I'm not sure why, since it is without a doubt better than Quantum of Solace, Spectre and maybe even Moonraker. A lot is made of the stupid invisible car and yes it is silly, but then is it truly any more outlandish than the submarine car in The Spy who Loved Me? 

Even my favourite Bond of them all, the late great Roger Moore took a swipe at the invisible car -  “I thought it just went too far – and that’s from me, the first Bond in space!”

So let's put the invisible car aside - yes the moviemakers may have gone too far but I would hate to think that these excesses were responsible for the boring Bond movies that would follow with Daniel Craig's era in the role.

Another weak spot in Die Another Day is the ropey CGI, which just doesn't look real but then it remains preferable to the action scenes in A View to a Kill where the stunt double for Roger Moore can clearly be seen.

I watched Die Another Day again in preparation for this article, and to be honest I really don't think the film is as bad as its reputation suggests, and maybe I'm a strange Bond fan but I would take it over all of Craig's Bonds with the exception of Skyfall. And there is really no logical argument to suggest that it is a worse entry in the canon when Quantum of Solace clearly deserves that dubious accolade.  I would also argue that the Craig films making Blofeld Bond's long lost brother is far more outlandish than anything Die Another Day does. In fact that little twist with Blofeld is a mockery of the franchise itself.

So why all the hate? The first section of the movie is superb, with Bond captured and tortured in Korea. He is held there for fourteen months and looks like one of Charles Manson's followers when he finally emerges. A quick shave and a visit to the tailor sorts this out and Brosnan is immediately the 007 of old again. This may be a bit jarring and perhaps the movie should have explored the aftermath of Bond's imprisonment and torture, but then this is James Bond - he is invincible after all. Maybe they should have remembered that with the travesty of an ending in No Time to Die when the producers sacrificed Bond on the Woke alter.

What follows are perfectly normal Bond action scenes - all of them over the top and many of them breath-taking. Brosnan is again superb in the role. Looking far more like James Bond than Craig ever could. There is also the fact that at the time Die Another Day was the most successful Bond movie of them all, but then that means nothing given that Craig's movies have been even more successful.

IF ONLY

I really don't think Die Another Day deserves the hate it gets, and it remains perfectly watchable today. In fact it's aged rather well. Yes, it maybe the weakest of the four Bond movies that Brosnan made but it is far from the weakest entry in the series. It's a solid enough movie - blunt instrument or not the celluloid character of Bond has developed over decades of great movies, and this movie honours that character and that legacy. Somewhere down the line the movie Bond and the literary Bond became very different characters, but at the same time aspects of Fleming's original creation remained the same as they were ported across to the big screen.

I'm a lifelong fan of the Bond franchise - I've read Fleming's canon, some of them several times, and I've also read everything done by other authors who have built on the Bond story. 

I've seen every Bond on the big screen since Moonraker - I've been a Bond nut for many years.

 In fact, I've seen every Bond movie more than once and I love aspects of each and every cinematic era, which is probably why I don't really like the latest movies in the series. I know that Casino Royale is a very good thriller but it just doesn't seem nor feel like a Bond movie to me, and so to my mind Die Another Day is preferable since it is very much a Bond movie and depicts the character that has developed from all the other Bonds who went before. No matter how well scripted, acted and put together a Bond movie is if you've got the central character of Bond wrong then it's not really a Bond movie in the first place.

The best thing about this movie, the one thing that raises it above the movies that have followed is that Pierce Brosnan is playing James Bond and not some Bourne clone - it is Bond that we pay our money to see, and we know that this comes with a certain amount of baggage - So what, if there is an invisible car! It's only a small part of the movie and although it seemed stupid on first viewing it does improve with subsequent viewings. So what if the CGI is a bit ropey! It was of it's time and perhaps a little too ambitious given what could be actually achieved at the time.

I like Die Another Day.

James Bond will return, the movie promised as the final credits rolled and you know, when you really think about it, we're still waiting.

Podcast of the Week

 I listen to a lot of podcasts and there are billions, willions and sqillions out there - some are excellent, many are great and a lot are not so good. 

Whatever your interest you will, believe me, find a podcast that covers it. 

Where do you start, though?

Good question.

Which is why, every week here on the Archive I will point you to a podcast (myriad subjects will be covered) that I think you may enjoy.

And so this week I direct you to the excellent, Partners in Crime podcast. 

Hosted by bestselling crime authors, Adam Croft and Robert Daws the show is set out in a kind of magazine format. Think The Breakfast Show with knives! The show features genre news, interviews with well known authors and general chit chat. The latter is often hilarious.

The two hosts have a great chemistry and as well as the usual audio feeds there are several video episodes available on You Tube.

You can get the show from most of the podcast providers out there, and you can visit the Partners in Crime website by clicking HERE

Adam Croft is a highly successful English writer of crime/mystery fiction and a advocate of independent publishing.                      

Robert Daws is a stage, television and film actor as well as a writer of a series of successful crime thrillers.

Book Reviews: The Hawks of Delamere by Edward Marston

 I've been reading a lot of historical fiction over recent months, but this is the first time that I've dipped into Edward Marston's works - the book is set in the historical mystery subgenre and is set in the 11th Century. 

This is actually the seventh book in the series set around the compilation of the Domesday Book, and featuring Ralph Delchard and Grevase Bret who have been tasked by William the Conqueror to look into serious irregularities that arise while engaging in the great survey.

Those who know their history know that the Doomsday Book, or to use it's Middle English spelling, The Domesday Book was the result of agents being tasked to survey every shire in England and a goodly part of Wales in order to secure taxes and discover the strength of power following the Norman conquest.

This being a crime novel rather than a straight historical book means that the reader gets a lot of the colour of the period, whilst the main thrust of the story is the mystery that unfolds with the historical landscape very much setting the parameters within which the fiction works.

The book opens with boastful Earl of Chester ( a vile tub of lard of a character) out with an hunting party when his beloved Hawk is shot out of the sky in Delamere Forest. Two poachers, a father and son are found nearby and with no evidence they are accused of killing the bird and cruelly lynched. Not long afterwards, Ralph Delchard and Gervase Bret arrive in Cheshire in order to carry out work related to Domesday. It is not long before another man is killed by an arrow and it becomes evident that the earl may have carried out his cruel justice in the woods on the wrong men.

The medieval slueths' are soon up to all manner of intrigue as they try and stop and killer and avert an all out war.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and followed the story easily without having read any of the other books in the series that preceded it, so I guess that each of the novels can be picked up and read in any order.

I'll certainly be reading more of this series and anyone who enjoys mystery with history will no doubt find a lot to like here.

Available both digitally and in print

     

The Red Beret digital version available....

 Digital copies of my latest Commando title, The Red Beret can be picked up HERE

Commando #5469: The Red Beret

The tattered red beret sat upon Major John Bell's head. He and his crack team of paratroopers were on a suicide mission to destroy a bridge to clear the way for D-Day operations. They all knew the risks, they all knew that they might not come back -- but they were brave and their determination was like no other! So why did Bell wear a tattered red beret when his men donned their helmets? As a symbol of survival and luck he hoped would take them to victory!

The Resurrection of the radio star

 

The Radio Years

CLICK IMAGE

Paul over at the CBS Radio Theatre website was so impressed by the Archive that he asked me to add a link. I was only too glad to do this -  I love old time radio and often have a show on in the background while browsing the web. I've placed a link in the sidebar of the Archive or you can click on the image here.

Enjoy.


In 1974 long-time radio producer Himan Brown convinced CBS to green-light a new anthology of Radio Dramas, CBS Radio Mystery Theater (CBSRMT). 

Radio Drama had been declared "dead" twelve years before.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was meant to appeal to an audience that remembered when radio drama was a popular form of family entertainment. Riding on the wave of nostalgia fever, the radio show attracted many younger listeners who would stay up late, hidden under their covers to hear the program on their bedroom radio (and many of them were not able to go to sleep after listening to the frightening program!)
CBSRMT was able to attract a wide array of talent. Many of the voices that were popular during the Golden Age of Radio made appearances on CBS Radio Mystery Theater, and younger talent, often from CBS Daytime Television and NY area stage was used as well.

All 1,399 episodes of CBS Radio Mystery Theater are presented at CBSRMT.com with listings by actor and writer. Please feel free to browse all the old time radio shows and listen to and download your favorite radio show episodes in MP3 format.

How the Woke lot killed the SEXIST MISOGYNIST DINOSAUR

 

NOTE - THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS

Now that they've done the unthinkable, and  killed off James Bond the frenzy begins - will the next James Bond be a woman, a black man or a transgender man from a council estate or even  a bunch of angry overweight lesbians with guns. 

When Daniel Craig took over the role of Bond in Casino Royale the film was billed as a reboot when in fact it was a reimagining of the character - gone was the sexism, the harmless misogyny, the devil-may-care imperialistic nonsense that had originally birthed the character kicking and screaming from Ian Fleming's awesome imagination. It had been replaced by a kind of Bond-lite character -  the violence and action ramped up to impressive levels to disguise the fact that so much was missing of what actually made James Bond James Bond in the first place.

Quantum of Solace followed which was like watching a bloody video game with no attempts at the character building, or  the re-invention that the previous movie attempted. After that we had Skyfall, which at least almost felt like a Bond movie and will, I've no doubt, come to be regarded as Craig's best Bond. Then came Spectre, which was okay but nowhere near as good as the previous high point. And now there is No Time to Die, an overly long turgid movie that actually kills off the character of 007 in its climax. This is a definitive death scene too, not a trick death like that which opened one of the real Bond films, You Only Live Twice.

 Mind you no sooner do the credits roll that we are given  the promise that James Bond Will Return.

James Bond will return indeed - truth is we've been waiting a long time to actually see James Bond return and maybe in these Woke times we never will. The Bond of Casino Royale was a Bourne clone and he's continued down that road ever since.

Bond was always shorthand for stiff-upper-lip masculinity and flag-waving ideas of fashion, style and heterosexual lovemaking, and the increasingly demented Woke culture can't deal with that. They spend so much energy trying to be offended by Bond's macho nonsense that they forget the films are mere fantasies. No one is going to try and take over the world in such convoluted ways as Spectre, no one is going to irradiate all the gold in Fort Knox, and you can be sure that no one is going to turn up with their dwarf sidekick and bring about the end of life as we know it.

No Time to Die in its insistence on making Bond a real character give him a daughter he'll never see - yeah, that's right Bond is a daddy now - and have him heroically sacrifice himself to save mankind. He's carrying a deadly virus you see. The ending is as unambiguous as possible JAMES BOND IS DEAD.

Some will argue that he's been dead for at least the last five movies - the real Bond that is, the one that became the literary and movie legend in the first place. Fleming actually toyed with the idea of killing Bond himself but he decided against the move, and now the filmmakers have fulfilled on that idea and killed off Bond for once and all.

There is a BBC recording of Ian Fleming talking to Raymond Chandler HERE

Daniel Craig's rocky road to 007

 

Daniel Craig's latest and last Bond is raking in the cash and receiving mostly positive, even raving feedback - I've not seen the movie yet and initially wasn't going to bother, but given the news of the shock ending I'm going to see it next weekend.

So I thought now would be a good time to remember the fury Craig met when he initially took the role.

When Craig was first announced as the new Bond the naysayers immediately lamented the “blond Bond” and criticized his blue eyes. The London Daily Mirror on Oct. 15, 2005, ran his photo with the headline “The Name’s Bland … James Bland.”

At Craig’s first meeting with the press, he arrived via a speedboat on the Thames; he was wearing a lifejacket, which led to endless media mockery. Reporters were even more appalled that he chewed gum during the press conference.

Websites launched with names like, DANIELCRAIGISNOTJAMESBOND and BLONDNOTBOND.COM

The hostility shifted into high gear. The Sun newspaper reported that Craig had suffered sunburn that stopped filming of Casino Royale. It also was reported he didn’t know how to drive a manual car. “Craig’s 007 Can’t Get in Gear.”, the headline proclaimed.

“Craig confessed he doesn’t like guns,” said another British newspaper and then went onto report that he lost two teeth in a fight scene with “minor actors” 

This prompted Barbara Broccoli to announce: “His teeth are fine, he doesn’t have heat rash, and he’s not afraid of the water.”

Still Casino Royale” raked in $616 million worldwide, becoming the highest earning Bond film to date and regarded by many as Craig’s finest Bond outing. (By comparison, the final Pierce Brosnan film, “Die Another Day,” had earned $431.9 million.

Craig is the longest-serving Bond, at 15 years, though in fairness this is due to the fact that these days there is a long delay between movies and of course the Covid crisis held back the latest Bond film several times over.

As a Bond fan myself, I'm still not overly fond of Craig's version of the character but there's no escaping the fact he's been a massive success in the role.

Now...who will be next?

National Book Awards Finalists

 The National Book Awards finalist have been announced and the full list is:

Fiction

Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land
Scribner / Simon & Schuster

Lauren Groff, Matrix
Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House

Laird Hunt, Zorrie
Bloomsbury Publishing

Robert Jones, Jr., The Prophets
G. P. Putnam’s Sons / Penguin Random House

Jason Mott, Hell of a Book
Dutton / Penguin Random House

Nonfiction

Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes In Praise of Black Performance

Lucas Bessire, Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains

Grace M. Cho, Tastes Like War: A Memoir

Nicole Eustace, Covered with Night: A Story of Murder and Indigenous Justice in Early America

Tiya Miles, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family's Keepsake

Poetry

Desiree C. Bailey, What Noise Against the Cane

Martín Espada, Floaters

Douglas Kearny, Sho

Hoa Nguyen, A Thousand times You Lose Your Treasure

Translated Literature

Elisa Shua Dusapin, Winter in Sokcho. Translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins

Ge Fei, Peach Blossom Paradise. Translated by Canaan Morse

Nona Fernández, The Twilight Zone. Translated by Natasha Wimmer

Benjamín Labatut, When We Cease to Understand the World. Translated by Adrian Nathan West

Samar Yazbek, Planet of Clay. Translated by Leri Price

Young People's Literature

Shing Yin Khor, The Legend of Auntie Po

Malinda Lo, Last Night at the Telegraph Club

Kyle Lukoff, Too Bright to See

Kekla Magoon, Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party's Promise to the People

Amber McBride, Me (Moth)

The National Book Foundation will once again broadcast the National Book Awards Ceremony on YouTube, Facebook, and the Foundation’s website at nationalbook.org/awards. Winners of the National Book Awards receive $10,000 and a bronze medal and statue; Finalists receive $1,000 and a bronze medal; Winners and Finalists in the Translated Literature category will split the prize evenly between author and translator.