Goldfinger

Last night I was watching the 1964 James Bond movie Goldfinger, directed by Guy Hamilton and based on the novel by Ian Fleming. After foiling a drugs cartel in Mexico, James Bond (played by Sean Connery) is assigned to keep an eye on sinister billionaire Auric Goldfinger (Gert Frobe) who is believed to be head of an international gold smuggling operation. However Goldfinger, assisted by his hulking karate expert henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata) and interestingly named pilot Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) has more in mind than smuggling. It's possibly the most famous of the James Bond film, and is still fantastically entertaining despite seeming very dated by modern standards. It's very fast-moving and packed with action and humour. Apparently the name and personality of Goldfinger was taken from Ian Fleming's neighbour (who Fleming apparently hated). The real Goldfinger threatened to sue so Fleming offered to change the name and the title to "Goldprick", Goldfinger backed down and was fated, after the release of the film, to be plagued by prank phone calls for the rest of his life from people singing the film's theme song or doing James Bond impressions. To be honest I think that, as good as some of the later Bonds were, Sean Connery is still really the original and best.

Today was quiet. I went to my parent's house and on the way stopped off to get some groceries. I got today's issue of The Times, which was giving away a book containing two James Bond short stories by Ian Fleming (Octopussy and 007 in New York).

When I got home I watched an interesting episode of Doctor Who which was set in 1926 and involved Agatha Christie and a giant wasp. I've never read any of the Agatha Christie novels, but I remember I used to really enjoy the TV adaptations, when I was younger.