Plus Size Bond Girls: November

Bit late with this month's, but better late than never...

Plus Size Bond Girls: October

I think this Goldeneye-inspired photoshoot is my favourite from this calendar, so it's quite fitting that it's for my birthday month 

Plus Size Bond Girls: September

James Bond in...Thunderthighs!

Plus Size Bond Girls: August

I completely forgot to post this at the start of the month. Oops! Oh well, a fortnight late is still better late than never I guess.

Plus Size Bond Girls: June

June is where this Bond-themed BBW calendar starts to go a little erratic, because it references not a Bond film, but Tomb Raider instead.

I think what they meant to do was to homage the Bond film The World is Not Enough which memorably saw Denise Richards pull on a Lara Croft-style vest top and tight shorts to play nuclear physicist Christmas Jones (with about as much believability as Dave Lee Travis playing Macbeth)

Plus Size Bond Girls: May

Plus Size Bond Girls: April

Plus Size Bond Girls: March

A teensy bit late this month...

Girls With Guns

Angela Douglas in Carry on Cowboy (1965)

Plus Size Bond Girls: February

Plus Size Bond Girls: January

Here's a novelty I've come across online. It's a calendar featuring plus size models as Bond girls. As the calendar fits 2019, I thought I'd share each month

Girls With Guns

Linda Marlowe in Big Zapper

Girls With Guns

Michèle Winstanley as Louise, one of the McMahon gang molls in Alex Cox's 1986 fucked up punk Peckinpah pastiche, Straight to Hell - a story of blood, money, guns, coffee and sexual tension! Stick that in yer pipe and smoke it Tarantino! 

RIP Daliah Lavi

I'm really saddened to learn of the death of the wonderful Daliah Lavi who was, for my money, the best of the '60's Euro Cuties and one of my first crushes. The Israeli actress, model and singer was 74 when she died at home in Asheville, North Carolina on the 3rd May. Her funeral is to be held in Israel. 

I have previously blogged about this divine woman and her life and career in more detail here.

Such a beautiful woman. 

RIP

Girls With Guns

Lara Croft - BBW style

Girls With Guns

Dita Von Teese

Girls With Guns

This will never not be sexy.

Some people didn't like the new Ghostbusters film.

And some people didn't like Kate McKinnon's epic performance in it.

I'm here to tell you that these people are fuckwits.

Cars & Girls / Girls With Guns

Dita Von Teese

Girls With Guns

Theme Time : Alan Parker - Dempsey And Makepeace

After a couple of days of shocking premature obituaries, I thought it was time to bring a bit of cheeriness back to the blog, so what better theme to celebrate than the incredibly upbeat, pumping score to the cheerily naff 80s ITV actioneer, Dempsey and Makepeace

Running for three series from 1985 to 1986 Dempsey and Makepeace certainly ranks as one of the strangest cop shows ever to appear on our screens. It's influences seemed to range from The Persuaders! and The Professionals and it appealed to children, but occasionally its content would attempt to veer into harder edged, more cynical territory like The Sweeney, whilst at the same time hoping to emulate the cop shows from the US that were becoming increasingly popular in that period, shows like Miami Vice, Cagney and Lacey and Moonlighting. Needless to say it wasn't always a successful marriage of ideas, though lead actors Michael Brandon and Glynis Barber would have a successful marriage; falling in love on set, they wed in 1989 and remain together to this day.

The premise of the show was the oddball pairing of two police detectives: an elegant British noblewoman, Sgt (Lady) Harriet Makepeace, and a streetwise blue collar New Yorker, Lt James Dempsey, both working for SI 10, an elite and armed unit of London's Metropolitan Police. The initial stages of the feature length pilot for the series was a bit Serpico in that Dempsey's partner was killed during a drugs operation and, uncovering high level corruption in New York and in fear of his life, Dempsey is forced to flee to the UK on the pretence of an international police exchange programme. Landing in Gordon Spikings' (that excellent bluff Welsh actor Ray Smith) SI 10, Dempsey is forced to partner with Lady 'Harry' Makepeace, the daughter of the stately home owning Lord Winfield. This chalk and cheese pairing eventually bond over their own unique differences to the rest of the squad around them and make a good team as they fight crime on the streets of London.

As I mentioned earlier, the show had an appeal for kids; I know I enjoyed it and I seem to recall merchandise like annuals, comic strips, Jigsaws, toy replica cars and transfer sets (see below) from that time.

My dad hated it (and I don't think he's ever quite got on board with Brandon, who he viewed as a cocky yank) though he would still watch it, either for me, or because with only 4 channels back then there wasn't anything else on. To the 6 or 7 year old me however, Glynis Barber was the epitome of a pretty lady and probably one of the reasons I enjoyed the show so much.

When the series was repeated by cable channel Granada Plus in the late 90s I remember trying to watch it, but only really enjoying it for its nostalgia. It was a cheery yet corny affair that never seemed to pull its intentions off. Still, cracking theme by Alan Parker - not, the Alan Parker, the director, but the man responsible for, amongst others, the theme to Angels and the soundtrack to Jaws 3, as well as being the uncredited electric guitarist on such tracks as The Walker Brothers No Regrets, Bowie's 1984 and Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man!