Shyheels

I remember writng on an original Apple MacIntosh back in the 80s. Antique now. Probably worth a fortune. My first laptop, also an Apple, had a black-and-white screen, 40MB of hard disc space, 4 MB of RAM and I thought it was the bees knees. 

I couldn't fit a single image from my camera on that computer now, let alone the software needed to download it. My present workhorse laptop, still an Apple, has 1TB of storage and even so I have to cull my images regularly and store them on separate, much larger, hard drives. 

I had always thought Sean Connery was the ultimate Bond, too. Daniel Craig in Casino Royale captures the brutal suaveness of the character (Bond in the books is rather a nasty piece of work) in a way that probably would not really have gone over well in the early 60s when Sean Connery was doing him.

I was really impressed with Casino Royale and grudgingly have to give Daniel Craig the nod (in that picture)  as the single best James Bond.

I've skipped the whole mobile phone thing, although I have an iPad I rely on for many things when I am on the road, from movies to emails to Facetime chats.

If it has then you can compliment yourself on being well ahead of the fashion curve.

I had completely given up on the Bond franchise and had no interest whatever in seeing Casino Royale and watched it only because we got a Blu-ray player and I had been told (correctly) that Casino Royale was a movie where the clarity and resolution of Blu-Ray really stood out. So it was for that reason alone I watched it - on a borrowed disc - and was instantly sold on Daniel Craig as Bond. He actually out-does Sean Connery. It was a great movie which made me want to watch Quantum of Solace, which I also enjoyed. I had been hugely looking forward to Skyfall, thinking more of the same, but it was to my mind much more of a Roger Moore Bond movie. This latest out is more of a generic spy thriller with Bond as a character and references throughout of the previous three Craig-Bond movies.  It was all right, worth seeing, but nothing really special. Casino Royale was.

Saw Spectre last night. A bit underwhelmed. It was a well crafted movie, all right, but it surely lacked the vibrancy and pace and plot of Casino Royale. That, to me, was the high point in the Bond franchise. Quantum of Solace carried over some of Casino Royale's class and style, but Skyfall was dreadful and while Spectre was better it seemed really downbeat and that's not really what you go to see a Bond movie for.

i had read much about the film's spectacular opening sequence in Mexico. Again I was underwhelmed. It was okay, nothing more (given what one expects from a movie like this) but a far cry from the dynamic stuff that opened Casino Royale and Quantum.

Daniel Craig's Bond, ten years down the track from his first outing, seemed weary and downbeat - probably a good interpretation of the character after the passage of time, but not really what one wants from James Bond.

there were also too many references to previous films. 

It was not a bad film really, but well short of the hype. My opinion, anyway

Germans have certainly been big with computers into cars! They are reaping a pretty unpleasant harvest now, thanks to some of their more imaginative uses of software for diesel engines - or at least VW certainly is!

Have you ever  read an essay called "Farewell to Model T" by E.B. White? A dazzling essay - he was one of The New Yorker's greatest ever writers and a stylist par excellence. He was writing (quite a few years ago, obviously) about the changes that were becoming noticeable even then in making it harder and harder for people to maintain and repair their own automobiles, and lamenting this drive to greater and greater complexity, seemingly for complexity's sake. It's a great essay, available in a slender hardback. He was, by the way, also the author of Charlotte's Web and one of the greatest ever little guidebooks on writing - Elements of Style. To say nothing of many brilliant articles in The New Yorker.

This is why I need never concern myself with buying extra boots - with a size 12-13UK there is next to no chance whatever that I would find 'nice' (not fetish) boots in my size in any other than a custom made context. If Mr Billionaire Zara is less than concerned with the availability of his boots in size 8, those of us with outsized footprints are not even remotely on his radar.

Yes, clearly the man is missing a trick. Imagine his wealth is he actually made his boots available to all those who wanted to buy them and are waiting, cash in hand, to no avail. Perhaps you could call the Oxford Street stores and ask them to put aside a pair you you. Tell them when you're coming in.   

Footloose and wearing heels? Sounds kind of unstable... :-)

I would imagine 8 must be a very popular size, although my perspective may be warped coming from the size-13 end of the spectrum. But then, seeing as the guy who owns and founded Zara is the second or third richest man in the world, it could just be that he has found himself a nice business, pulled himself up by everybody else's bootstraps as it were. 

That looks the business.

i am more of a classicist myself - old-style touring bicycles with drop bars, quill stems, horizontal top tube, Brooks leather saddle, quill pedals with toe clips, friction shifters (either bar end, or on the down-tube)

I am not an off-road cyclist, purely a road guy...

That's why he's on this way to his second million...

I have a pretty robust attitude towards traffic and its perceved dangers, but I think riding in a US city woukd be a bit hairy for my liking.

A light dawns here too.

i am not really a railway buff in the usual meaning of the term, but I am a travel romantic with a great interest in, and longing for, the golden age of travel - be it on rail, ship or plane.

Hard to beat cycling for exercise - low impact, aerobic, enjoyable, and plenty of interesting scenery to keep you interested as you ride. As soon as my schedule gets sorted I shall be going back to my long pre-dawn rides each morning. I am really looking forward to it.

I would usually be about 20 pounds lighter than I am right now. A couple of injuries and a lot if travel has kept me off the bike far too much this year. I really need to do something about it before this gets too settled!

I might have the legs, but alas I do not have the waist! :-)

I loathe the airport trip which is considerably farther for me (Heathrow 100 miles, Gatwick 65 mikes) than it is for you. Long, stressful with only the tedium of check-in to look forward to. I am always hugely relieved once I am past security and can head to the lounge. It is at that point I start to (almost) enjoy travellng once more.

I have my airport routines fine tuned as closely as I can. On line check in, bag drop, lightweight luggage, nothing in any pockets whatsoever when I get to security, no belt, no shoes with metal, nothing to set off the detectors;  no liquids in carry on, lap top and iPad easily accessible to put in the separate screening tray, and boots unlaced while I am in the queue. 

I don't mind airports so much as the crowds in them

I always allow plenty of time to get to the airport, check on line for engineering works and if things look dodgy just get a car and driver to get me there. Gatwick is usually a pretty easy trip. You must have been really unlucky. 

Heathrow can be a complete PITA to get to from where I live: a long train journey, a tube ride to Paddington and then the Heathrow Express. I can out a car and driver on expenses, if I like, but I seldom do so. Drivers tend to chat and I prefer silent me-time. So I take the train and generally hope for the best, with a taxi as my bail out if necessary.

I didn't see Avatar in 3D although I understand it was very well done in 3D.

i seldom go to the cinema. Nearly all of the new release movies I see are on airplanes. I am keen to see Spectre so I will probably go to the cinema rather than wait for it to appear on a seatback near me!

My work does not pay especially well, but all of my travel expenses are covered and since I seldom go anywhere other than for work I do not worry too much about the cost of railfare or the Heathrow Express. It is not me paying it. 

But yes, the cost of a day ticket to London, with tube, is scary!

I sympathise. 

I don't know if 3D is available for home systems. Probably, but at a pretty steep price, I'd imagine. Is the availability (or not) of 3D a deal breaker for you? I have not warmed up to 3D at all myself. It just bugs me. I am always aware of a degree of artifice in the production, my eye picks up the subtle thngs that are wrong' as well  making me constantly aware of the technique that is being used to produce the effect. Perhaps it's the photographer in me. I like to lose myself in the story and cinematography, not be constantly aware of the gimmickry that has gone into a futile attempt to deceive my eye. Not to mention the tiresome way producers have of thrusting things in your face to reinforce, constantly, the 3D effects. It just makes me roll my eyes and look at my watch and wonder how much more of this I have to sit through.

on the 2D front, I am looking forward to seeing Spectre...hopefully in  a quiet theatre...

Maybe its that movie. My wife and daughter went to see it the other day and returned with tales of some family crunching and lip-smacking their way through a small mountain of popcorn, crisps, pretzels etc. The entire time.

I can second the hot chocolate from Pauls. Unbelievably rich!