A Moment's Silence, Please

You May Already Have Heard
Walter Becker, musician and co-founder of Steely Dan, has died.  I am not given to profanity, yet when I heard the news on the BBC earlier tonight, your humble scribe swore aloud, not least because they might have been touring the UK in the future.
     Sic transit gloria mundi, I suppose.
     No doubt there will be all kinds of tributes announced, and in fact the Beeb did a pretty good one tonight, so I suspect someone in their heirarchy is a fan.  Conrad has all their earlier stuff, and particularly likes the track "Aja" from the eponymous album.  The sleeve notes are always hilarious, not something you can say for all bands.  Part of their success, I feel, comes from always working with absolutely shot-hit musicians, besides composing songs that were musically complex, with oblique and clever lyrics.  Except for "Haitian Divorce", I hate that one.  
     Well, after that unusually sombre Intro, let the black-bedecked motley solemnly saunter forth upon it's catalfaque.

More Of Man
The "Man From Uncle" film iteration, that is, 2015 version and not "The Karate Killers"
which was cobbled together from a couple of television episodes.
     Of course, being a Brit*, I was delighted to see the technology and equipment of 1963 Brittania on display, with all that cool electromechanical stuff bleeping, buzzing, clicking and rotating away in the background.   Digital may be efficient but it's dull.
     So!  Take a gander at this.  Art?

Thus!

     This particular airborne brute is the Westland Wessex, and it has to be one of the ugliest things that ever infested the atmosphere.  Period-perfect, though.  I'm not sure if it's a real flying revenant or all greenscreen, but it's so horrid to look at that I love it.
     Then you have the aircraft carrier itself.  I didn't see any names, but again this is period realistic, as the Royal Navy at that time had several of these large, expensive items lying around at any one time.  Art?

Sic!

     This has to be greenscreen or matte, because NO WAY can you assemble all those Sea Venoms for real.  Them being the aircraft with their wings folded up, another nod to the production team, as all naval aircraft fold their wings up to be better able to sleep at night to be stored more efficiently.
     In terms of casting, you had Armie Hammer as Kuryakin, which I liked.  The television's Ilya was quite slight, whereas this version is a brute capable of pulling a car apart with his bare hands.  A South Canadian playing a Ruffian; though you also have a Brit playing a South Canadian, a Swede playing a German and an Australian playing an Italian.
     Then you have Mister Waverley, very urbane and mannered and sleek, and probably also capable of dropping you and your mother down a well if he thought it necessary.  Art?

So!

     There he is, played by Hugh Grant, who confessed to having a TMFU car as a kid.  Those headphones are also period accurate - those old choppers were so noisy it was like sitting inside a cement mixer with the cement going round.
     The end credits are also nicely researched, production team give yourselves a pat on the collective back.  Art?

Es igy!

     For those who do no know, the "SBS" visible lower right are the somewhat more anonymous cousins of the SAS, in that they tend to recruit from the Royal Marines, and swan about at sea.  Whilst more anonymous, they are equally unpleasant to come up against if you intend harm to the Pond - vis. the private security guards they encounter at the enemy's Secret Lair.

     Okay, enough about TMFU because they're not paying me a penny for this, you know.

Here's One I Prepared Earlier -
However, since the subject matter was - er - post-apocalyptic novels, and we'd already tip-toed around the borders of good taste (hi good taste!) by commenting on the Norks, I thought it politic to post this separately.
     I'm not sure how it came about, because the internet, yet I found myself looking at a list of "21 Best Post-Apocalyptic Novels" and realised I'd read quite a few of them.  I don't know if this says more about me or the human condition, but there it is.
     So here's the list, with the ones I've read in green.

Wool
Cyberstorm
One Second After
The Road (hated it because of the writer's style)
The Atlantis Plague
Shift
Dust
Alas, Babylon
Cat's Cradle
Oryx & Crake
Childhood's End
Sand
Earth Abides (rather dull)
Lucifer's Hammer
A Canticle for Leibowitz (dull, but shorter than Earth Abides)
On the Beach (very, very depressing)
The Year of the Flood
The Day of the Triffids (excellent!)
GalapagosEmergence
     Nothing from Philip K. Dick there, which is a bit of an omission.  Oh well, sic trans - hang on, haven't we heard that one already?
*  Or camouflaged to look like one