sent from: London, UK. destination: Coquitlam, British Columbia, Canada

It all started when my mother commented with surprise that the new James Bond film, Skyfall, would be the 23rd in the series. My father said he couldn’t possibly have seen all of them, and that this must also include the fact that Octopussy was a remake of previous Bond film made with a different actor. No, no I said, that was Never Say Never Again, an unofficial return to Bond by Sean Connery, which was a remake of Thunderball, also starring SC. No no, my father countered, I’m sure it was Octopussy. Sure of my film-nerd credentials, I dug in my heels; it was Never Say Never Again (silly, but underrated – aside). Thankfully, IMDB and Wikipedia were there to help be neutral (?) arbiters of the increasingly contentious argument. The confusion may have arisen cos NSNA came out the same year as Octopussy, and my parents realised that yes, they’ve wasted many hours of their lives on seeing all the Bond films, including the unofficial ones. I know this because I watched the majority them in front of the tv on every childhood Bank Holiday, even though I was known in school as ‘the boy who wasn’t allowed to watch Bond‘, cos my parents went through a puritanical period (the 70s through the 90s..) when they worried a glimpse of a bare breast might corrupt my poor mind. Sigh. Today I listened to the Nerdist Podcast, which veered into chaos while they debated in which Indiana Jones film the lines “this belongs in a museum!” “So do you!!” happened and endured as they took a while to figure it out and I was yelling “THE LAST CRUSADE!!” at my iPod. Nothing like an argument between nerdy film fans to start off the week. Happy.