Unknown at the time of reading the book, but the In the BBC broadcast a three-part series based on book in 1979.
The only actor I recognised was George Sewell.
It was made by BBC Scotland and largely filmed on location in Iceland. It closely follows the book but omits a number of scenes.
It does show its age and shows once again that the book is better than the adaption.
Running Blind by Desmond Bagley (1970)
Ex-MI-6 spy Alan Stewart is coerced by his former masters into undertaking a very simple final mission: to deliver a small parcel to a man in Iceland. The mission should be simple for Stewart, as he happens to be fluent in Icelandic and has an Icelandic girlfriend.
This is pure spy vs spy stuff. An one of Bagleys best books. As usual, in first person and with possibly an unreliable narrator. There is a lot to discover about the characters over the story. But true to form, Bagley bring everything together for an explosice ending.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu
2026 film directed by Jon Favreau, who co-wrote the film with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor.
It is a continuation of The Mandalorian (2019–2023). Pedro Pascal stars again as Din Djarin / The Mandalorian with Sigourney Weaver.
The film, which is set following the fall of the Galactic Empire, Djarin and his apprentice Grogu are enlisted by the New Republic to rescue Rotta the Hutt in exchange for information on a target.
Just the same as the TV series, but with more action and CGI monsters. The character is verging on the Superman trope of never being killed. But it does deliver for the fans.
Man of the Year is a 2006 American comedy-drama thriller written and directed by Barry Levinson, produced by James G. Robinson and starring Robin Williams.
The film also features Christopher Walken, Laura Linney, Lewis Black and Jeff Goldblum. Williams portrays Tom Dobbs, the host of a humorous political talk show. After an offhand remark, four million people are prompted to e-mail their support, so he decides to campaign for President.
On Rotten Tomatoes the website’s consensus is: “Weakened by second-half attempts at thriller and romance, this presidential comedy also fails to hit any sharp political notes, resulting in a confused and unsatisfying mess.”
I would generally agree. Robin Williams is up to his usual comedy standards, but the third act takes an easy turn. It could have been much better.
Watching in 2026, it’s interesting to see the parallels with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The comedian that did become a leader and rose to the challenge.
The Forgotten Planet by Murray Leinster
Released in 1954 by Gnome Press in an edition of 5,000 copies. The novel is a fix-up from three short stories, “The Mad Planet” and “The Red Dust”, both of which had originally appeared in the magazine Argosy in 1920 and 1921, and “Nightmare Planet”, which had been published in Science Fiction Plus in 1953.
A planet had been seeded for life by humans, first with microbes and later with plants and insects. A third expedition, intended to complete the seeding with animals, never occurred. Over the millennia the insects and plants grew to gigantic sizes. The action of the novel describes the fight for survival by descendants of a crashed spaceship as they battle wolf-sized ants, flies the size of chickens, and gigantic flying wasps.
Written in third person omniscient, the story is more of an explanation of science and biology than a human centered nattative. There is plenty of actions as the main protaganist, Burl fights for his life against the megafauna. There is litle dialoque and the story ends quickly with the planet joining a galactic empire forged by mankind.
The Fabulous Baker Boys is a 1989 American romantic comedy drama musical film written and directed by Steve Kloves. The film follows a piano act consisting of two brothers, who hire an attractive female singer to help revive their waning career. After a period of success, complications ensue when the younger brother develops romantic feelings for the singer. Brothers Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges star as the Baker Boys, while Michelle Pfeiffer plays lounge singer Susie Diamond.
Budget $11.5 million
Box office $18.4 million
The Fabulous Baker Boys was Kloves’s directorial debut and second screenplay. He conceived the story based on Ferrante & Teicher, a piano duo he had grown up watching perform on The Ed Sullivan Show, which inspired him to write a film about working class musicians who are also siblings.
I remember seeing this in its theatrical release. Mainly for the song and a steamy scene between Jeff and Michelle. What holds up well is the changing relationship between the main characters. But the story is inconsequential. At the end the brother have broken up, but that’s about it.
Dave Grusin composed the film’s score, largely consisting of jazz music and pop standards, performed by Grusin on keyboards with tenor saxophonist Ernie Watts, guitarist Lee Ritenour, trumpeter Sal Marquez, bassist Brian Bromberg, and drummer Harvey Mason.
Timothy James Curry
(19 April 1946 – 25 August 2026)
Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean
(January 19, 1946 – August 25, 2026)
With all of Bob’s Factorio Mods implemented, this makes for an insane level of complexity.
Now there are multiple levels of everything. More minerals and more chemistry. The number of recipies is about three times the base game.
At first this is intriguing and interesting, getting grips with the complexity.
But after 50+ hours, it becomes tiresome. Forever trying to balance supply routes and work out how to make more and more exotic things.
There are some things that make sense:
Making Glass
Wood manufacturing for circuits.
The initial slow belts (similar speed to Lignumis wooden ones)
Some of the chemical processes, especially electrolisis
But in the end this just becomes a slog to get through.
There are some thing that would help
1. Making the requestor boxes available earlier.
2. Sticking to old methods for making Rocket Fuel and concrete.
Is a mod for Factorio, adding numerous new buildings, items, technologies, and mechanics to the game.
More than 300 new and unique icons (not re-skinned variations)
This gives the game a more modern look (with the exception of the train)
Over 40 new buildings – mostly advances on the base ones.
Over 100 new technologies – Almost overwhelming.
Radioactivity: Uranuim will now kill you. While difficult at first, with some shields it becomes maneagable.
Imersite: A mined resource used in many advanced recipes.
Mineral Water: Water impregnated with various silts and dusts from the planet’s surface. Used primarily in the production of lithium.
Rare Metals: An analogous representation of various rare elements (i.e. titanium, platinum, gold).
Science progression has been majorly overhauled. Instead of science packs, you produce tech cards that are inserted into research computers. There are three tiers of tech card, each of which require their own laboratories.
A lot of the additions add to the complexity and challenges.
The chemistry has been expanded, with nitrogen extractors, electrolizers and more processes to understand.
This works best on Fulgaro. In the base game, you end up with a lot of materials to handle or destroy. I added the Memory Store to deal with the excesses. But in Krastorio the recipie for rocket fuel changes, now requirint
the use of water to created oxygen. This changes Fulgaro from being a planet that abounds in resources to one where water is precious as it’s needed for multiple processes.
Later on, the Matter conversion can be used to change the excess stone to water.
Gleba is mainly unhanged, but the additional recipies make producing the rocket parts easier.
Also Vulcanus works the same way.
Aquillio benefits most from the matter conversion. Ice can be transformed into materials for rocket parts.
The matter conversion is an interesting add-on. It’s a vital part of one of the science packs, and can help
balancing resources. But could have been easily designed out of the game.
A lot of the advanced machines – assemblers, chemical factory, inserters are handy in tight spots.
But by the time you get them, the factory is well established and they are generally unnecessary.
You do get teleportation, but then it’s almost the end of the game.
It’s a great addition to Factorio, I really like the design that brings producion closer to real-world physics and engineering. But it still makes no sense for the Agriculture science to degrade. I ended up adding a module to extend the shelf-life x1,000.
As for the end.
This extends the game past just getting to the outer galaxy. Now you have to go further, collect new asteroids
and climb another 10k+ science tree to get to the end.
This looked like a real slog, so I ended the game at the same point as the base game; getting to the outer rim.