The Journey(s) of Ian

How many times have each of us heard those few, powerful words while sitting in front of the big silver screen, bag of popcorn at the ready, or when lazing before our own, room-sized entertainment facility? Words which bring to mind—however unrealistically—the captivating world of espionage, of spies, of daring do, and beautiful women—danger and intrigue, but with the assurance that no matter what occurs, the good guys will win. This is the Bond movie franchise, which tells the fictional, episodic adventures of a British secret agent, code named: "007", a man "licensed to kill", as he travels the world fighting and invariably defeating the varied and often unlikely enemies of the United Kingdom and the western world. The movies began a half century ago and are still going strong, however, there is a story behind the story. The Bond saga began as a series of novels written by the English author and World War Two Naval Intelligence officer, Ian Fleming (1908-64)—one c...

I have been a lifelong fan of Ridley Scott, and I have just seen his latest movie 'Prometheus', so thusly it falls upon me to review this movie. What do I think? The answer—good, I enjoyed it, entertaining, but if any reader is sensing any hesitation in my answer, you are correct. While it was a good SF movie, with all of the expected twists and turns, and a few not so expected, it lacked originality. Admittedly, it is hard to be original in a prequel, and certainly a prequel to a franchise with so many different episodes as this, but, even so, it was just a little bit of a let down—so much hype to live up to... The movie was billed as something that would discuss the origins of humanity. Well, it did not. There were some unexplained scenes in the movie that hinted at this, certainly the opening scene where one of the aliens drinks/eats something, his body/DNA dissolves, and he falls into a waterfall (presumably on Earth—but are there not less deadly ways to spread DNA?), ...

This was the second of my two Venus transits, and the last until the year 2117. So I was eagerly looking forward to this event. I had originally planned to return to Australia to view the transit in the Northern Territory, but, due to circumstances, this was not possible, so I observed the transit from my hotel balcony in Pattaya. This may seem an overly comfortable way to view the eclipse, but it was effective and the balcony provided a local hight point. To observe I used my trusty Sony DSC-HX5V camera, and a number 11 welding glass. This glass was not sufficiently dark to safely observe visually, but it was entirely adequate for camera work.  Initially, I was not optimistic about the weather. It is the rainy season in Thailand, and most days, and certainly most mornings had been cloudy. Even less propitious the day before the transit had been overcast, while there had been a thunderstorm off the coast the night before. So, I was pleasantly surprised when Wednesday morn...

I was shocked and saddened to read yesterday of the death of the fantasy and science fiction author Ray Bradbury. This in itself was surprising as I was not a great fan of his work, his strong fantasy bent was not mine, however, many of his works, even though I had not read them for many years, affected me strongly. His "Martian Chronicles", vastly entertaining, yet rather silly accounts of the human settlement of Mars. The story of a boy and a circus "Something Wicked this Way Comes". "R is for Rocket" and "S is for Space", his collection of entertainingly vivid stories. He had a long and successful life, respected by all. His longevity led me to believe that he would always be there. Sady, very sadly, this is not the case. You are remembered and are missed. You brought happiness, entertainment, and imagination to generations of children and adults. Ray Douglas Bradbury RIP.