Richard's favourite Videogame Spyro The Dragon

Spyro The Dragon

1. Spyro The Dragon (1998): Before the game begins, the five Dragon families lived in harmony in their five worlds (these being Artisans, Peace Keepers, Magic Crafters, Beast Makers and Dream Weavers). Their lives were happy and peaceful until Gnasty Gnorc broke the rules. He was an unpleasant creature that the Dragons didn't like. Because of this Gnasty resented the Dragon families. More than anything, he detested their beautiful, shiny jewels. He hated them because every time he looked in them he would see reflections of his own ugly face. Gnasty became such a problem that he was banished to the Dragon junkyard, a world that they thought would perfectly suit Gnasty. As soon as he got there he renamed it "Gnasty's World" and overtook all the worlds located in it. He also built his home there, as well as an industrial settlement to keep all his stolen treasure. Gnasty began to experiment with magic spells and, after a while, he discovered two he wanted: a giant spell to trap all Dragons in crystal and a potion to animate the radiant gems and turn them into an army of Gnorc soldiers.When the game begins Gnasty cast the freeze spell he had been working on after he heard the Dragons insulting him on a documentary style video. The spell trapped all the dragons in crystal halfway through the filming of their documentary. He then turned all the gems he could find into his willing minions. One thing he didn't consider was Spyro the Dragon. Spyro was so small that the spell shot straight over his head. Spyro, the only unfrozen dragon, travels the six worlds – including Gnasty’s deformed industrial world – releasing the Dragons and collecting the stolen treasure. In the meantime, Gnasty’s army of minions (transformed from the Dragons’ gems) are doing their best to stop him. As Spyro releases the trapped Dragons along the way, they return a favour by giving hints and tips up until the final conflict where Spyro battles with Gnasty. After Spyro defeats Gnasty another documentary is presented on Spyro. If the player collected all gems, saved all the dragons, and rescued all the eggs, then an alternate ending is presented.

2. Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage (1999): In the distant, fantasy realm of Avalar, local residents Elora, Hunter, and The Professor have been working on their latest and largest portal. During a test of it, Hunter enters his birthdate (22475, which could mean February 24, 1975 or April 22, 1975) as the portal's target coordinates, inadvertently activating it and allowing a small wizard named Ripto into the realm along with two large and dimwitted dinosaurs, Crush and Gulp. Identifying that the land has no dragons, Ripto declares that he is going to "move in" and take it over; however, Elora is able to de-activate the portal by instructing fairies to remove the orbs powering the portal. As Ripto begins to terrorize Avalar, Elora and the Professor plan to 'catch' a dragon in order to drive Ripto off.Meanwhile, the Artisans have been under rainy weather for some time; Spyro, declaring he needs a vacation, locates a portal to the realm of Dragon Shores. However, after travelling through the portal, he finds himself instead landing in the realm of Avalar by means of a smaller portal, built by Avalar's Professor. Ripto enters the scene and destroys the portal, objecting to how the Professor succeeded in bringing a dragon to the world of Avalar. Ripto is, however, forced to retreat when Gulp accidentally swallows Ripto's magical scepter, and Spyro is asked to help save the realm of Avalar by defeating Ripto.Each of Avalar's homeworlds is captured by Ripto after Spyro enters them. In a dungeon area, Ripto and one of his minions wait for Spyro. The only way to access these dungeons is to collect all of the Talismans in the overworld, or in the final confrontation, to collect 40 orbs. The talismans are being held by the leaders of each homeworld. Somehow, perhaps using his magic, Ripto has convinced the citizens of the realm to turn against each other, causing outbreaks of war between worlds and races. Also, Ripto has sent his minions to terrorize citizens and stop Spyro from saving the worlds of Avalar.The journey ultimately leads to a final showdown between Spyro and Ripto in Winter Tundra. The two battle it out using many forms of magic, and just when it seems as if the fight is destined to end in a stalemate, Ripto converts the arena into a pool of lava and attempts to escape on a metal eagle. Spyro gives chase and a dogfight ensues, in which Spyro destroys the eagle and sends Ripto plummetting into the lava to his apparent death.The inhabitants of Avalar are grateful for Spyro's help, and as a reward, show him the portal to Dragon Shores.

3. Spyro: Year Of The Dragon (2000): The game opens with a celebration in the land of the dragons, where Spyro and his kin are celebrating the "Year of the Dragon", an event that occurs every twelve years when new dragon eggs are brought to the realm.[14] During the celebration, however, a cloaked rabbit girl, Bianca, invades the Dragon Realms with an army of creatures called Rhynocs and steals all of the Dragon eggs, bringing them back to the Sorceress, who scatters the eggs throughout several worlds. The worlds are split up into four realms, all of them are named after a time of the day, and types of geography; Sunrise Springs, Midday Gardens, Evening Lake, and Midnight Mountain.[14] Spyro, along with Sparx and Hunter, are sent down a hole to find the thieves and recover the dragon eggs.[7]While pursuing the thief, Spyro discovers a realm once inhabited by the dragons, but long abandoned and forgotten. This realm is ruled by the Sorceress and her Rhynoc army; only a few creatures stand and fight against the Sorceress' rule. Spyro learns from one such inhabitant, Sheila, that when the dragons left the realm, the magic of the world began to dry up.[15] Spyro travels through each world in the forgotten realm, acquiring aid from the local inhabitants and rescuing the dragon eggs. It is revealed that the Sorceress is seeking not the baby dragons themselves, but merely their wings to concoct a spell that can grant her immortality.[16] Once Bianca discovers this, she feels sorry for the baby dragons, and defects to side with Spyro and his allies. Spyro eventually fights and defeats the Sorceress, and celebrations occur throughout the realm.The Sorceress survives her battle with Spyro, however, and waits for Spyro with the last of the dragon eggs. Spyro and the Sorceress battle again where the Sorceress is finally defeated; Spyro returns all the baby dragons to the Dragon Kingdom.

4. Spyro: Season Of Ice (2001): Spyro starts off in the Autumn Fairy Home one of the four seasonal fairy realms in the game. In the realms, gems can be collected, critters like sheep can be destroyed for healing butterflies (and ones to grant extra lives), special objects (like pumpkins) can be ignited, fairies can be defrosted from their ice prisons,baskets can broken for more gems and you can talk to Bianca and Hunter in various spots. Spyro can never die in the seasonal realms, with the fairy magic force protecting him from drowning in the water and no enemies present. The realms link to several places via portals. To access them, you need a number of fairies procured, indicated next to the level name.Some of the portals will take you to levels which are similar in gameplay to the realms except they have enemies to destroy, dangerous territory that harms Spyro, water which Spyro can drown in and special encounters. There are always characters you can talk with. Some will give you hints, while others will give useless information. One or two characters in a level will give you a request to do something in exchange for a fairy. In some levels Spyro can catch thieves, which can be tricky to do. When you destroy all enemies, a portal that takes you back to the realm you entered from appears.Some of the portals will take you to a long stretching horizon landscape in which Spyro flies across. The game can be played in Normal and Hard modes, but both will have to be played and won to obtain two fairies. The object of these levels is to move around the screen, flying through hoops, destroying lines of enemies and scattered enemies in a set time limit. Destroying enemies with a different colour from the latter and going through hoops grants Spyro extra time. At the end of level, Spyro must face a boss or two and destroy them.Some of the portals, Spyro cannot go through with Money Bags guarding them, but Money Bags will allow Sparx to enter for a fee. The fee is only paid once. Sparx enters a level with killer bugs and insects. Destroying the nests of those bugs, prevents them spawning. Keys will enable Sparx to access more of the level. Electric panels can be destroyed to disable barriers that protect certain nests. Weapons can be procured to give Sparx limited increased firepower. At the last room of the level, Sparx will have to face and defeat the boss bug to open a portal back to Spyro and save a fairy.One of the portals which Bianca stands near, lead from one seasonal realm into the next. Past the winter to spring portal, Spyro will encounter a boss fight against Grendor. Grendor will defend and attack with his fire projectiles and Spyro is required to ram him several times to defeat him so he can proceed to the next realm. The portal in the summer realm leads to a second and final boss fight against Grendor, which is similar to the previous one except Grendor uses ice attacks. If Grendor is defeated, the story ends, but the game can continue.If the player collects 100% of all the gems and fairies from all levels and realms, they are granted the opportunity to enter a portal to play the extra game "Dragonfly X". To get all the gems Moneybags got from you, you can can get them all back if you get all the fairies by talking to him at the special portal.

5. Spyro 2: Season Of Flame (2002): Spyro 2: Season of Flame is a platform game released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002 in North America and the PAL regions. The game was not released in Japan. The game begins where Spyro: Season of Ice ended and it re-uses many of its elements, including the isometric view. Unlike Season of Ice, this game places Spyro on Fiery Island, along with an old ally, Sheila the Kangaroo.[1] This is the first game in the franchise to feature the ability for Spyro to breathe multiple breaths.

6. Spyro: Enter The Dragonfly (2002): The story begins shortly after Spyro: Year of the Dragon. The dragons are in celebration of a rite of passage for the young dragons, and for the Grand Dragon Parade, with the arrival of new dragonfly guardians for the young dragons. However, during the Party, a strangely alive Ripto (the circumstances of his return are left unexplained) teleports in via a portal and disrupts the celebration, intent on capturing the new dragonflies to weaken the young dragons. However, his spell misfires, and the dragonflies become scattered throughout the Dragon Realm. Spyro is tasked with recovering the realm's new crop of dragonflies. Spyro eventually completes his mission, and faces Ripto once more. Spyro wins the battle, and Ripto runs for his life

7. Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs (2003): Spyro: Attack of the Rhynocs (known in Europe and Australia as Spyro Adventure) is platform game released for the Game Boy Advance for North America and the PAL regions in 2003. It was not released in Japan. It was the first game to not feature a lives system and was the third game in the franchise to appear on the GameBoy Advance.

8. Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy (2004): Doctor Neo Cortex, Crash Bandicoot's sworn enemy, has joined forces with Spyro the Dragon's enemy, Ripto, in a plan to get rid of both Spyro and Crash using Ripto's monsters. Aku Aku and Coco ask Crash to recover the crystals to save the world before Cortex does.Meanwhile, the Professor and Hunter ask Spyro to close the portals and get rid of the monsters. Unfortunately for Crash and Spyro, they were tricked because on Crash's world, the Riptocs are dressed as Spyro and on Spyro's world, they are dressed as Crash.Crash and Spyro meet and engage in a bridge fight, until they realized they have been tricked. A new friendship blooms between them and they joined forces to defeat the two evil villains.Not even Tiny Tiger and Crush and Gulp can stop them, but Cortex uses his niece, Nina Cortex, to kidnap Coco and the Professor. Spyro rescues Coco and the Professor while Crash distracts Nina. Finally, Crash and Spyro defeat Nina at her own game.Coco has an idea, if they put a tracer on Cortex and Ripto, they could track them to their headquarters. Crash and Spyro reach to the headquarters in space. As a team, Crash and Spyro defeat Cortex and Ripto. Then, they thank each other and the game ends when a photo was taken of Crash with Spyro in a friendly headlock.

9. Spyro: A Hero’s Tail (2004): It has been a long period of peaceful time in the Dragon Realms since Spyro's last adventure. Suddenly, a mysterious dragon named Red is using a group of life-draining stones called the Dark Gems to poison the life of the world. Not only that, he is enlisting Gnasty Gnorc from the the first game and his army of Gnorcs to do his dirty work. After freeing a Dragon Elder, Spyro destroys all the Dark Gems in his realm, and defeats Gnasty Gnorc. Eventually, with the aid of the Professor, makes it the Lost Cities realm, destroying all Dark Gems there and defeating Ineptune, a powerful mermaid like being. Making it to the Icy Wilderness realm, he is attacked and captured by a mammoth working for Red, but Hunter and Sparx, working together, free him, and Spyro defeats Red in battle. Red escapes to the Volcanic Isle, where Spyro and the Professor follow him. After entering Red's laboratory underneath the volcano, Spyro discovers that the Professor has been captured and forced to turn Red's Gnorc army into robots to make them stronger. After accidentally turning Red into a robot with the Professor's machinery, and after the Professor accidentally increases Red's size, Spyro battles Red and defeats him in battle. The Professor then shrinks Red down to a smaller size.

10. Spyro: Shadow Legacy (2005): The game starts at the end of a vacation at Dragon Shores, with Spyro's friends departing back to their homelands before wishing him the best of luck with some magic training at the Dragon Temple. Not long after he falls asleep on the beach prior to going there, a dark storm appears and trapped everyone within the Dragon Realms, Avalar and the Forgotten Realms in a strange dimension known as the Shadow Realms. After initial guidance and being granted the Shadowstone from Elder Tomas, Spyro embarks on an adventure to master the martial art of dragon-kata and the use of magic, rescue everyone and unravel the mystery of the Shadow Realm.

11. The Legend Of Spyro: A New Beginning (2006): The game begins inside a temple, where a large red dragon named Ignitus is watching over an egg; it is the "Year of the Dragon", a time every twelve years when new dragon eggs are brought to the realm. A dragons' prophecy tells that every ten generations, a rare purple dragon will be born, who will direct the fate of that era; Ignitus is looking after such an egg.The dragons are, however, at war with an enemy known as the "Dark Master" who also knows of the prophecy, and lays siege to the temple, intent on destroying the brood of eggs. Ignitus escapes with the purple dragon's egg, leaving it to drift downriver into a swamp, hoping for the best. The egg is discovered by a family of dragonflies, and upon hatching, Spyro is adopted into the family and raised as one of their own, alongside Sparx, a young dragonfly born the same day.One day, after coming under attack by strange foes and discovering that he can breathe fire, Spyro is told that he is not a dragonfly himself but a stranger from a distant land; Spyro decides to leave the swamp in search of his true home; Sparx, though reluctant at first, decides to follow along. Spyro is pursued by hostile forces, but eventually comes into contact with a distraught Ignitus, who although pleased that Spyro is alive, fears that with the Dragon Temple under occupation by their enemy, and led by an enemy dragon named Cynder, their war is already lost.Spyro convinces Ignitus to lead him to the Temple, and is able to drive Cynder's forces out, after which Ignitus tells Spyro more about their war against the dark armies, offers Spyro some training in the art of the fire element, and then sends Spyro off to rescue three other dragons from Cynder's forces. One by one, Spyro clashes with Cynder's armies, rescues the three other dragons, while acquiring new skills and training along the way. It is learned that Cynder has been draining the dragons' power into crystals, and also that Cynder herself is merely a pawn serving the Dark Master -- Cynder originally being born from the same brood of eggs as Spyro, though they are not related.Cynder, however, attacks Spyro shortly after he rescues the final Dragon Guardian, Terrador; Ignitus intervenes to fight Cynder but is captured. It is revealed that it was the four dragons who originally sealed away the Dark Master, and that Cynder is using the dragons' drained powers to weaken the seal. Ignitus's power is the final key in unsealing the Dark Master, so Spyro is sent on a final, direct assault against Cynder's fortress.Spyro attempts to fight Cynder, but Cynder succeeds in draining Ignitus's power of fire into a crystal, and escapes to the sealed realm of the Dark Master. Ignitus fears that it is too late to stop her, but Spyro pursues Cynder and forces a showdown, eventually using all of his power in a final attack which defeats her, purging her of the Dark Master's influence and returning her to her true form, a young dragon the same size as Spyro. The realm begins to collapse in on itself; Sparx insists on making a quick exit but Spyro declares he will not leave Cynder behind with the Dark Master; though barely, Spyro is able to grab Cynder and escape safely.Though victorious, the battle cost Spyro much of his own strength and powers, and both Spyro and Cynder suspect that the Dark Master is still alive somewhere; the war is still not over.

12. The Legend Of Spyro: The Eternal Night (2007): The story begins with Spyro following Cynder through the jungle surrounding the Dragon Temple. Spyro catches up with her and asks her not to leave. Cynder then leaves saying she's sorry for what she has done in A New Beggining. Cynder runs off, leaving Sparx and Spyro alone. Soon after she is gone, the Temple is attacked by an army of apes. After Spyro repels the attack, Ignitus, the leader of the dragons and master of fire, sends Spyro to seek out a tree that Spyro saw in a vision (that in his dream, he gets his powers back, as he lost them at the end in The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning) while Ignitus looks for help against the Apes. As Spyro searches for the tree, he also searches for another dragon known as the Chronicler, who asked Spyro in a vision to find him. After he finds the tree, Spyro is captured by pirates, and taken on board their ship to take part in gladiatorial combat.while onboard, he catches up with Cynder, who was captured by the Apes during the battle.After Spyro escapes the pirate ships, he discovers that the Apes have established a base on the Mountain of Malefor, also known as the Well Of Souls, in an effort to revive the Dark Master using a lunar alignment called the Night of Eternal Darkness. He also discovers that they are keeping Cynder prisoner hoping to turn her to their side.Spyro eventually finds the Chronicler, who tells him about the Dark Master. According to him, the Dark Master was the first purple dragon; his raw power allowed him to master practically every elemental power. When his growth failed to stop, he was exiled and sealed away by the dragon elders, but not before he taught the Apes how to use dragon magic. The Chronicler wants Spyro to hide from the Apes until a later time, but Spyro insist on going to Cynder’s aid.When he gets to the mountain, Gaul, the Ape King, orders Cynder to attack Spyro. When she attacks Gaul instead, he knocks her out and challenges Spyro himself. During the fight, the lunar alignment comes, and the evil energy it generates is channeled through Spyro. He uses his immense power to kill Gaul, and then leaps back into the beam of evil energy. Cynder awakens and knocks Spyro out of the beam, freeing him from the beam's power. When the alignment passes, the mountain begins to crumble around Spyro, Sparx and Cynder. Remembering the Chronicler's words about riding out the storm, Spyro uses his powers to encase himself, Cynder and Sparx in crystal to protect them as the Well Of Souls collapses. After the end credits, an image of Spyro and his friends are shown in the crystal, and the Chronicler's voice says: "Young dragon, all our hope now lies with you... when you wake up; it'll be a different world. but know this.. you are not alone.. you have... allies..." and an image of Hunter is seen looking over the encased heroes from a distance

13. The Legend Of Spyro: Dawn of The Dragon (2008): The game begins with Spyro, Cynder, and Sparx being broken free of their crystalline prison by mysterious enemies. Spyro and Cynder are chained together, and carried away as Sparx is found by Hunter of Avalar, who was watching them from the shadows. Meanwhile, Spyro and Cynder find themselves in a dark, volcano like area. When they try to leave the area, they cannot as they are chained to the platform they awoke on. After several waves of enemies and avoiding the Golem that attacks them soon after, they manage to escape with the help of Hunter, who is with Sparx. He explains the situation to them after they leave the Catacombs, and he shows them what the Dark Master has done since his escape from the Well of Souls during the Eternal Night. But before anything else can be explained, they are captured by Hunter's tribe. An attack on the village leads to Spyro and Cynder going free to help a missing villager, Meadow, and they encounter someone called "The Hermit". He manages to get completely under Cynder's skin by saying she hasn't changed at all since the time she was evil, before heading back into his seclusion.With the key they needed in their possession, they escort Meadow home and are granted passage to the Dragon City of Warfang. Here, the dragons and Hunter are separated as the city is under siege by Malefor's forces. After a long and fierce battle that ends in the Golem's defeat, Spyro, Cynder, and the Dragon Guardians are reunited. Later that night, the Dark Master, Malefor, sends them a message. He has revived the Destroyer, an ancient creature whose only purpose is to renew the world by bringing about its destruction. As they will be unable to catch up with the creature if they fly after it, Ignitus and Cynder hatch the plan that going underground is the only way to catch up with it in time. Cynder and Spyro manage to open the gates to the underground Ruins of Warfang, which leads the attack forces to the canyon where the Destroyer will complete the Ring of Fire. By destroying a nearby dam, they manage to stall the Destroyer long enough to destroy its Dark Crystal heart, but it was an effort spent in vain. The Destroyer manages to complete the Ring of Fire, and Ignitus orders everyone underground as he escorts Spyro and Cynder to the Ring of Fire, in order to get them to the Burned Lands, which will lead them to Malefor's Domain. But he perishes in the crossing, and Spyro nearly follows after in his grief.After getting through the Burned Lands and Floating Islands, they arrive at Malefor's Domain and confront him. He gets under Spyro's skin by telling him that the destiny of all purple dragons is to bring about the worlds destruction, then turns Cynder against him. Spyro refuses to fight back, which brings Cynder back to her senses. After a long series of battles against Malefor, they reach the heart of the world. Malefor is defeated by the combined efforts of Spyro, Cynder, and the spirits of the Ancestors, but the world is still falling apart. Ignitus' spirit gives Spyro hope, and Spyro tells Cynder to flee, but she refuses to leave him. As Spyro unleashes a powerful Fury wave, Cynder whispers "I love you". Spyro's magic restores the planet, and Sparx and the others come out of the caves into the warm sunshine. Later on, the Chronicler passes his mantle to Ignitus, but not before telling him that though he has tried his best, he cannot find Spyro in the book that details dragons that have passed away. The last scene of the game is Spyro and Cynder flying though the sky in Avalar, having survived their journey to the world's core, finally earned their happy ending.

By Richard Moody

Richard's favourite Columbo Complete Season 5

Columbo six episodes

"Forgotten Lady" (9/14/75)
Janet Leigh is Grace Wheeler, an aging former movie star, now married to a wealthy doctor, Henry Willis (Sam Jaffe). John Payne is Ned Diamond, her long time song and dance partner. The pair is fashioned after Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. When Henry refuses to finance her return to the spotlight, Grace coldly kills him in his sleep, and tries to pass it off as a suicide. Her butler, played by Maurice Evans, believes she was in the screening room the entire time, watching one of her classic films. This is the only episode where the murderer is not arrested as Diamond falsely confesses, to save Grace, knowing that she is dying of a brain disease she herself is unaware of. Columbo goes along with the ploy, and by the time Diamond is cleared, Grace would have passed away after spending her last days living happily in the past.
This episode features excerpts from the 1953 musical comedy Walking My Baby Back Home which starred Janet Leigh.

"A Case of Immunity" (10/12/75)
Hector Elizondo is Hassan Salah, the chief diplomat of the Legation of Swahari, an Arab nation with a new young king. Hassan enlists Rachman Habib, played by Sal Mineo, to help him stage a robbery at the Legation; the real aim is to murder the head of security. Hassan pins the murder on the now absent Habib, who as part of the plan has gone into hiding. Columbo quickly unravels the truth, but finds himself stymied by the fact that Salah has diplomatic immunity and cannot be arrested. Columbo gets Salah to confess the murder with his monarch in the next room listening. To stay in this country rather than face Middle Eastern justice, he waives his immunity from prosecution. The King himself offers a warning: "In case you are thinking of rescinding your waiver of immunity, we will be waiting to welcome you home."

"Identity Crisis" (11/2/75)
Patrick McGoohan is back as the villain, this time as CIA operative Nelson Brenner, who is really a double agent. The Agency sends an operative, codenamed "Geronimo" (Leslie Nielsen), to cut a deal with Brenner's alter ego. Geronimo recognizes Brenner as a double agent from the past and puts the squeeze on him. Brenner must kill Geronimo before he can reveal his secret. In the course of his investigation, Columbo finds himself blocked at every turn by a man accustomed to keeping secrets secret. But not even a visit from the Director of the Agency, portrayed by David White, can deter the determined Lieutenant. McGoohan directed the episode as well as starring in it. Note: The name used by the Director of the Agency on his identity card bluntly reveals him to be "Phil Corrigan" — from the Secret Agent X-9 comic strip! (McGoohan also uses the "Be seeing you!" line so prevalent in episodes of The Prisoner.)

"A Matter of Honor" (2/1/76)
Ricardo Montalban is Luis Montoya, a former matador renowned throughout Mexico for his courage in the ring. Retired from bullfighting, he raises the bravest bulls in the world. His long time assistant and friend, Hector Rangel, sees a chink in Montoya's armor when they must face a bull that has gored Hector's son. Montoya realizes, that to protect his own reputation, he must kill his lifelong friend, which he does cleverly using the same bull and a small amount of tranquilizer as the murder weapon. Surely nobody would dare to question the word of Luis Montoya. Well, nobody that is except Columbo, who just happens to be in Tijuana for the weekend when the murder takes place. The local chief of police recognizes Columbo as the man who solved the mystery on the cruise ship the year before and enlists his help in solving this crime as well.

"Now You See Him..." (2/29/76)
Jack Cassidy returns for a third bout as a murderer. This time he is the Great Santini, a magician extraordinaire. It turns out however that he is also Stefan Mueller, formerly a Nazi SS prison guard. Jesse Jerome (Nehemiah Persoff), owner of the Cabaret of Magic, the club where Santini is headlining, discovers the secret and blackmails Santini. If Santini refuses to pay, Jerome promises to turn him over to the Immigration Department. Santini conjures up a murder. A true magician, Santini commits the murder in the middle of his famed water tank escape act, thereby giving himself what he believes to be an airtight alibi. But then, Santini has never matched wits with Columbo before. Sgt. Wilson is back to lend a hand, and is actually instrumental in solving the case. Robert Loggia portrays the club's maitre d' and Jerome's partner Harry Blandford.

"Last Salute to the Commodore" (5/2/76)
Someone has killed Commodore Otis Swanson (John Dehner), a retired ship builder who would rather sell his business than let his son-in-law Charles Clay continue to run it. It looks as though the deed was done by Clay, played by Robert Vaughn, the cruise ship murderer from a prior Columbo episode. But when he turns up dead as well, the mystery deepens with surprises that even Columbo would not expect. This episode departs from the normal Columbo format in that we do not know whodunit until the end of the show. Sgt. Wilson is gone, presumably promoted after his pivotal role in capturing Santini, but Columbo has a new sidekick, Sgt. 'Mac' Albinsky. Diane Baker portrays the Commodore's alcoholic daughter Joanna, and Wilfrid Hyde-White is his lawyer Kittering. Patrick McGoohan took his third turn behind the camera to direct this episode.

By Richard Moody

The Best Of James Bond Novels

Novels

1. Casino Royale (1953): Monsieur Le Chiffre ("the cypher"), the treasurer of a Soviet-backed trade union in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, is running a baccarat game in the casino at Royale-les-Eaux, France, in order to recover union money he lost in a failed chain of brothels.
Expert baccarat player James Bond (British secret agent 007) is assigned the defeat of Le Chiffre, in the hope that his gambling debts will provoke Soviet espionage agency SMERSH to kill him. Bond is provided an assistant, the beautiful, emotionally unstable Vesper Lynd, who becomes his lover. After hours of intense play Bond beats Le Chiffre. Soon after, Le Chiffre abducts Vesper and uses her to lure Bond into a near-fatal car chase, which results in Bond's capture. Le Chiffre tortures Bond. However, when it becomes clear to Le Chiffre that Bond will not tell him where the money is, he threatens to castrate him. Seconds later a SMERSH agent assassinates Le Chiffre for his betrayal, shooting him through the head with a pistol. Unintentionally, the SMERSH assassin (whose organisation becomes the hero's bitter nemesis in later adventures) spares the captive Bond, saying: "I have no orders about you" — yet cuts the Cyrillic letter "Ш" (шпион, shpion, spy) in the back of Bond's left hand, "for future reference".
Bond spends three weeks in hospital recovering from his torture at the hands of Le Chiffre, expressing intent to resign from the secret service, and spends his convalescence with Vesper Lynd. After his recuperation he becomes suspicious of her because of the combination of apparent dishonesty and her terror of a man with an eye patch called Gettler. Believing that Gettler is a SMERSH assassin sent to kill her and Bond for her disobedience, Vesper commits suicide by an overdose of sleeping pills, leaving Bond an explanatory note where it is revealed that she is a Soviet double agent who was ordered to ensure Bond did not escape Le Chiffre. Her betrayal inspires him to remain in service; he tersely reports to HQ: "The bitch is dead now."

2. Live and Let Die (1954): James Bond is sent to New York City to investigate "Mr. Big", an underworld voodoo leader who is suspected by M of selling 17th century gold coins to finance Soviet spy operations in America. These gold coins have been turning up in Harlem and Florida and are suspected of being part of a treasure that was buried in Jamaica by the Welsh pirate Sir Henry Morgan. Although Bond is at first reluctant to take on the mission, his attitude quickly changes upon learning that Mr. Big is an agent of SMERSH and that this mission offers him a chance of retaliation for previously being tortured by SMERSH operative Le Chiffre and having a Russian (Cyrilic) letter carved into the back of his hand by a SMERSH assassin in Casino Royale.
In New York, Bond meets up with his counterpart in the CIA, Felix Leiter. The two decide to visit some of Mr. Big's nightclubs in Harlem, but Mr. Big is aware of their movements through his network of informers and they are easily captured. Bond is personally interrogated by Mr. Big, who uses his fortune telling-girlfriend, Solitaire, to determine if Bond is telling the truth. Solitaire lies to Mr. Big, supporting Bond's cover story. Mr. Big decides to release Bond and Felix with only a mild beating, and has one of his men break one of Bond's fingers by pulling it backward until it snaps, but Bond then escapes and kills several of Mr. Big's men in the process. Leiter is released by a sympathetic gang member who shares his love of jazz.
Solitaire later contacts Bond and they travel to St. Petersburg, Florida. While Bond and Leiter are scouting one of Mr. Big's warehouses that is used for storing exotic fish, Solitaire is kidnapped by Mr. Big's minions. Felix later returns to the warehouse by himself, but is either captured and fed to a shark or tricked into standing on a trap door over the shark tank. He survives, losing an arm and a leg. Bond finds him in their safe house with a note pinned to his chest "He disagreed with something that ate him". After getting Felix to the hospital, Bond investigates the warehouse himself, and discovers that Mr. Big is indeed smuggling gold by placing it in the bottom of fish tanks holding poisonous tropical fish. Bond destroys much of the warehouse and then causes Mr. Big's gunman to fall into the shark tank without leaving evidence that he has discovered the coin-smuggling scheme.
Bond continues his mission in Jamaica where he meets Quarrel and John Strangways, the head of the MI6 station in Jamaica. Quarrel gives Bond training in Scuba diving in the local waters. Bond swims through shark and barracuda infested waters to Mr. Big's island and manages to plant a limpet mine on the hull of his yacht before being captured once again by Mr. Big. In the grand finale, Mr. Big ties Solitaire and Bond to a line behind his yacht and plans to drag them over the shallow coral reef and into deeper water so that the sharks and barracuda that he attracts in to the area with regular feedings will eat them.
Bond and Solitaire are saved when the limpet mine explodes moments before they are dragged over the reef. Bond and Solitaire are protected from the explosion by the reef, and Bond watches as Mr. Big, who survived the explosion, is killed by the sharks and barracuda. Bond and Solitaire then stay in Jamaica for a brief holiday in the book's close.

3. Moonraker (1955): M asks James Bond to investigate the multi-millionaire businessman Sir Hugo Drax, who is winning a lot of money playing bridge at M's favorite club, Blades. M suspects Drax of cheating, but although claiming indifference, he is concerned why a multi-millionaire and national hero, such as Sir Hugo, would cheat at a card game. Bond confirms Drax's deception and manages to "cheat the cheater" — aided by a cocktail of powdered Benzedrine mixed with non-vintage champagne and a deck of stacked cards — winning £15,000 and infuriating the out-smarted Drax.
Drax is the product of a mysterious background, unknown even to himself (presumably). As a supposed British soldier in WWII, he was badly injured, and stricken with amnesia, in the explosion of a bomb planted by a German saboteur at his field headquarters. After extensive rehabilitation in an army hospital, however, he would eventually return home to become a major aerospace industrialist.
Now, Drax and his firm are building the "Moonraker", Britain's first nuclear missile project, intended to defend the UK against its Cold War enemies (c.f. the real Blue Streak missile). Essentially, the Moonraker rocket is an upgraded V-2 rocket using liquid hydrogen and fluorine as propellants. It can withstand the ultra-high combustion temperatures in its engine thanks to the use of columbite, of which Drax has a monopoly. Therefore, because the rocket's engine can withstand higher heat, the Moonraker can use more powerful fuels, greatly expanding its effective range.
After a Ministry of Supply security officer working at the project is shot dead, M assigns Bond to replace him, and also to investigate what may be going on at the missile-building base, which is located between Dover and Deal on the coast of England. Oddly, all of the rocket scientists working on the project seem to be German.
At his post on the complex (where he is billeted in the Drax mansion), Bond meets Gala Brand, a beautiful Special Branch agent working undercover as Personal Assistant to Drax. He also uncovers some clues concerning his predecessor's death, concluding that the former Security Chief might have been killed for witnessing the clandestine delivery of some secret cargo by submarine off the coast.
Drax's henchman Krebs is caught by Bond while he snoops through his room. Later, an attempted assassination nearly kills Bond and Gala under a landslide, as they swim beneath the Dover cliffs. Drax takes Gala to London where she discovers the truth about the "Moonraker" (by comparing her own launch trajectory figures with those in a notebook picked from Drax's pocket) - but she is caught. She soon finds herself captive at a secret radio station (intended to serve as a beacon for the missile's guidance system) in the heart of London. While attempting to rescue her in a car chase, Bond is captured, as well.
It turns out that Drax was never a British soldier and has never suffered from amnesia. In fact, he was a German Skorzeny commando unit commander and the saboteur (in British uniform) who set the bomb at the army field headquarters, only to be injured, himself, in the detonation. The amnesia story was simply a cover he used while recovering in hospital, in order to avoid allied retribution - though it would lead to a whole new British identity. Drax, however, remains a dedicated Nazi, bent on revenge against England for the wartime defeat of his 3rd Reich Fatherland and his prior history of social slights he suffered as a youth growing up in England before the war. He now means to destroy London with the very missile he has constructed for Britain, by means of a Soviet supplied nuclear warhead that has been secretly fitted to the "Moonraker". He also plays the stock market the day before to make a huge profit from the planned disaster.
Brand and Bond are imprisoned under the Moonraker's booster engines so as to leave no trace of them once the Moonraker is launched. But before this first (supposedly un-armed) test firing, Bond and Gala escape. Gala gives Bond the proper coordinates to reprogram the gyros and send the Moonraker into the sea. Having been in collaboration with Soviet Intelligence all along, Drax and his henchman attempt to escape by Russian submarine - only to be killed as the vessel flees through the very waters onto which the "Moonraker" has been re-targeted.
Later, after their de-briefing at headquarters, Bond meets up with Gala, expecting her company - but they part ways after Gala reveals that she is engaged to be married. It is the only Bond novel (discounting some of the short stories) in which Bond does not end up having a romantic relationship with the girl.

4. Diamonds Are Forever (1956): The novel takes place just over two months from the end of Moonraker, which ended with James Bond taking a short holiday in France to recover from injuries received on that assignment. When Diamonds Are Forever begins, M, acting on information received from Special Branch, tasks Bond to infiltrate a smuggling ring, which is running diamonds from African mines to the United States. Bond's job is to travel down the "pipeline" as far as he can and find out who is behind it all.
Using the identity of Peter Franks, a country house burglar who decided to become a diamond smuggler, he meets a mysterious "go-between" named Tiffany Case, with whom he eventually falls in love. Bond discovers that the smuggling ring is operated by a ruthless American gang called "The Spangled Mob", which is run by the brothers Jack and Seraffimo Spang.
As Bond learns, the pipeline begins in Africa where a dentist would pay miners to smuggle diamonds in their mouths which the dentist would extract during a routine appointment. From there the dentist would take the diamonds and rendezvous with a German helicopter pilot. Eventually the diamonds would go to Paris, and from there to London. In London, Tiffany would get an assignment from a phone contact only known as ABC, she would then meet with "the hire" (in this case, Bond masquerading as Peter Franks) and explain to that person how to smuggle the diamonds to New York City. After an attempt to pay Bond surreptitiously through a rigged horse race in nearby Saratoga fails, the pipeline leads to Las Vegas where Bond finally receives his payment through a rigged blackjack game. Seraffimo Spang owns the Tiara hotel, headquarters of the Spangled Mob, and an old Western ghost town, named "Spectreville", that he has restored into his own private vacation retreat. (Spectreville actually has no connection whatsoever to Bond's nemesis SPECTRE, which appears later in Thunderball and is established at the start of the James Bond film series in Dr. No).
Felix Leiter plays a major part in the story, assisting Bond with inside information on crooked horse racing. They find that they are both investigating the same people. Leiter has left the CIA due to injuries sustained in Live and Let Die and is working for Pinkerton's as a private detective. It is through Leiter's actions they make sure the rigged horse race plot fails, so that Bond can then demand his still outstanding payment from the Spangled Mob.
Bond disobeys his orders by continuing to gamble in the casino after "winning" the money he is owed in a rigged gambling game. Spang suspects that Bond may be a 'plant' and has him captured and tortured (a "Brooklyn stomping" administered by Wint and Kidd, hired enforcers for the Spangled Mob). However, with Tiffany's help he escapes from Specterville aboard a railroad pushcar with Seraffimo in pursuit aboard an old Western train. The train is rerouted to a side line and Bond shoots Seraffimo Spang before the resulting crash.
Leiter then helps them get to California, and from there to New York.
Bond and Tiffany then travel back to London aboard the Queen Elizabeth. However, Wint and Kidd kidnap Tiffany, planning to kill her and throw her overboard, but Bond rescues her and then kills them both. For precaution, he makes it look like a murder-suicide.
Jack Spang (who turns out to be the mysterious ABC) shuts down his diamond smuggling pipeline by killing its participants. He himself is killed when his helicopter is shot down by Bond, right where the story started, in Africa.

5. From Russia With Love (1957): From Russia with Love differs from Fleming's previous Bond novels in that the first third of the novel revolves around SMERSH executioner Red Grant, as well as the organization, SMERSH itself. (Bond himself is not mentioned by name until the end of Chapter 5, and does not actually make an appearance until Part 2 of the novel commences with Chapter 11.)
The novel is a series of elaborate plots and counterplots between the British and the Russian intelligence agencies. It begins with SMERSH, the Soviet counterintelligence agency, seeking to redeem itself from a series of failures that have made some within the Soviet government begin to criticize the organization. SMERSH plans to commit a grand act of terrorism in the intelligence field. For this, SMERSH has targeted British secret service agent, Commander James Bond. Due in part to his role in the defeat of Le Chiffre, Mr. Big, and Hugo Drax, Bond has been listed as an enemy of the Soviet state and a "death warrant" has been issued for him.
He is to be not just killed, but "killed with ignominy", his death precipitating a major sex scandal which will run through the world press for months and leave his reputation and that of his entire service in tatters.
Kronsteen, SMERSH's chess-playing master planner, and Colonel Rosa Klebb, head of Operations and Executions, devise the operation. They persuade an attractive young cipher clerk, Corporal Tatiana Romanova, to pretend to defect from her post in Istanbul, claiming to have fallen in love with Bond after a glimpse of his file photograph. As an added incentive, Tatiana will provide the British agent with a SMERSH decoder, a prize much coveted by MI6. She is not told that the plan, if successful, will entail not just Bond's death but also her own.
After all the actors on the Soviet side are introduced and the assassination plot is launched - although its full details have not been revealed to the reader - the action moves to London, where Bond is introduced. MI6 believes Romanova's story, and M orders Bond off to Istanbul where much of the book takes place. Bond meets and quickly forms a comradeship with Darko Kerim, head of the British Service's agency in Turkey. Kerim shows Bond his secret means of spying on the Soviet Consulate. Kerim takes Bond to a celebratory meal with some Gypsies, in which Bond witnesses a brutal catfight, interrupted by an attack by Soviet agents. In retaliation, Bond helps Kerim assassinate a top Bulgarian agent.
Bond duly encounters Romanova and the two make love. He and Kerim believe her story, and in due course she delivers the Spektor machine as she promised. Bond, Kerim and Tatiana board the Orient Express for London, but they have not got far before Bond is alerted by a train conductor: Kerim and an MGB agent are both dead in their train compartment, having killed each other.
Bond is on the alert, and is relieved when an awkward fellow MI6 agent, Captain Nash, arrives on the train to serve as added protection for the rest of the trip. Tatiana is suspicious of Nash, telling Bond that nash is Russian for "ours", but Bond reassures her that Nash is "quite a common English name." But when Bond wakes up to find Nash pointing a gun at him, he realises that it has all been a trap: "Nash" is none other than Donovan Grant. Bond has given Nash his gun and is helpless. The trap has closed.
However, there is a flaw in Kronsteen's plan. Although SMERSH accurately predicted the responses of Bond and his fellow Brits to the carefully selected stimuli, they failed to remember that Grant is not only a homicidal psychopath who enjoys killing for its own sake but also an Irish Catholic from Northern Ireland, who although in no sense religious or a coherent holder of any nationalist ideology, evidently shares the anti-British attitudes common in the society where he grew up. (In Grant's biography in the early part of the book, it is mentioned that he had been marginally involved with the IRA.)
Instead of killing Bond immediately, as Kronsteen's plan called for, Grant cannot resist crowing at him, becoming careless and overconfident: when he is about to shoot Bond, his farewell words are "Sweet dreams, you English bastard". Grant's lapse of attention gives Bond the chance to improvise a defence, with the result that the two fight, Grant is killed and the entire Soviet scheme collapses.
Later, after successfully delivering Tatiana to his superiors, Bond has a final encounter with Rosa Klebb, which leaves her captured but 007 poisoned and seemingly dead from the final kick of her poisoned toe, though he would recover in time for his next adventure. Tatiana, who has no further place in the Bond saga, has successfully defected to the West, entirely at the initiative and instigation of SMERSH (since for herself, she had been quite content to live out her life in Moscow).

6. Dr. No (1958): From Russia with Love ended in a cliffhanger with the status of James Bond unknown. Bond was poisoned by SMERSH agent Rosa Klebb and collapsed at the end of the novel. In Dr. No, M learns from the firm's neurologist that the poison was tetrodotoxin, which is obtained from the sex organs of the Japanese fish fugu. Tetrodotoxin paralyses the muscles of the victim while they stay fully conscious until eventually they die from asphyxiation. Bond is given first aid treatment by his friend Rene Mathis, while a doctor is urgently summoned (Klebb, we learn, is captured and has died). The Doctor had spent time in South America and had dealt with various poisons. He diagnoses curare poisoning and treats Bond accordingly. But his chances of survival are extremely slim.
Nonetheless, Bond survives. When he returns to duty, he is sent by M on a rest cure to Jamaica, a simple assignment to investigate the disappearance of Strangways, the head of Station J in Kingston, who had previously appeared in Live and Let Die. He learns that Strangways had been investigating the activities of Doctor Julius No, a reclusive Chinese-German who lives on an island called Crab Key that is said to be the home of a vicious dragon. Bond soon realizes that he is being watched. His hotel room is searched, a basket of poisoned fruit is delivered to his hotel room (supposedly a gift from the colonial governor), and then a deadly centipede is placed in his bed while he is sleeping.
With help of old friend Quarrel (who also previously appeared in Live and Let Die), as well as the beautiful Honeychile Rider, who visits the island to collect valuable shells (who, apart from her belt and diving knife is completely naked when Bond first sees her), Bond discovers that Doctor No, who operates a business harvesting and exporting guano, is also working with the Russians and has built an elaborate underground facility from which he can sabotage American missile tests. Dr. No was previously a member of a Chinese "tong" (criminal gang) and he was tortured and then had his hands cut off by order of the "tong" leaders after he stole a large amount of money from the "tong" treasury. The "tong" hit men then shot him in the chest, but No survived due to having dextrocardia (heart on the right side of the chest). No survived all this without revealing the location of the money he had stolen, and was left with artificial hands — and great wealth.
Bond and Honey are captured by No's men after Quarrel is burned to death by the Doctor's dragon – actually a flamethrower-equipped armoured swamp buggy to keep away trespassers.
Doctor No is interested in the ability of the human body to withstand and survive pain and stress: Bond is forced to crawl and climb through an obstacle course constructed in a section of the facility's ventilation system. Bond is kept under regular observation, suffering electric shocks, burns and an encounter with poisonous spiders along the way. The ordeal ends in a fight against a captive giant squid, which Bond defeats through his ingenuity at improvised and stolen objects made into weapons, as well as physical toughness. After his escape he rescues Honey from her own "ordeal" – she had been pegged out to be eaten by crabs but the crabs ignored her.
Bond kills Doctor No by taking over the guano-loading machine at the docks and diverting the guano flow from it to bury the villain alive in bird dung. Bond and Honey then escape from Dr. No's complex in the dragon buggy.

7. Goldfinger (1959): The novel begins in a similar fashion to Moonraker with an acquaintance of Bond, (Junius Du Pont, from Casino Royale), meeting him at a Miami airport and requesting that he observe a two-handed Canasta game between himself and the eponymous villain of the novel, Auric Goldfinger. Du Pont suspects Goldfinger of cheating, and offers to pay Bond to confirm his suspicions. It turns out that Goldfinger is indeed cheating, and Bond forces him to admit his guilt and pay back what he has unfairly won from Du Pont.
After Bond returns to London, he inquires into the background of Goldfinger, to find that he is the richest man in England, the world's top gold smuggler, and treasurer for the Soviet assassination agency SMERSH.
Bond is sent to collect information from Goldfinger, and Bond manages to join him for what turns into a high-stakes game of golf. Goldfinger cheats by switching golf balls, but Bond beats him at his own game and wins. Bond is then sent on a mission to find Goldfinger's supply of gold that he has been smuggling, and bring it back to England. Bond manages to trace Goldfinger to a warehouse in Geneva where the white-gold armor of Goldfinger's Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost is regularly being melted into aircraft chair-frames, to be smuggled into India. Bond is then captured and tortured for information (being promised a slow death by buzz saw rather than a quick one, if he doesn't talk). This continues until Bond blacks out.
He then wakes up in New York and is taken to Goldfinger's warehouse, where he is told he and Tilly Masterton will be working for Goldfinger, essentially as secretaries and personnel managers. Bond had earlier offered his services, pretending to be a huckster, but had seemingly been refused and had expected to die. Bond has observed Goldfinger making dead drops of gold bars in Europe, for SMERSH. Bond learns that Goldfinger intends to finance SMERSH's schemes by stealing one billion USD worth of gold bullion from the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, an operation codenamed "Operation Grand Slam". This involves the help of Pussy Galore, the lesbian leader of an all-female criminal organisation from New York City called the Cement Mixers. They had previously been circus acrobats and cat-burglars. Her group, as well as various other mobs including the Mafia and the Spangled Mob from Diamonds Are Forever, have been employed to aid Goldfinger in the planning and execution of "Operation Grand Slam".
Bond, along with Felix Leiter, works to prevent the villain from executing his plan, which involves killing the soldiers of Fort Knox with water-borne nerve agent (GB, also called sarin) and then using a stolen U.S. tactical atomic bomb missile warhead to break into Fort Knox's impregnable vault. They do not succeed in stealing any of Fort Knox's gold, but they do manage to escape after failing the robbery when it becomes apparent the poisoning hasn't worked. Goldfinger's henchman, martial arts expert Oddjob, kills Tilly with a metal-rimmed bowler hat.
After foiling Goldfinger's plan, Bond is drugged and kidnapped by Goldfinger, and brought on board his private jet plane, which is bound to Moscow with Goldfinger's remaining stocks of bullion. With the aid of a concealed knife, Bond breaks a window in the aeroplane; the depressurisation sucks Oddjob to his death. Bond and Goldfinger grapple in the tumbling aircraft, with Bond eventually strangling Goldfinger. Bond then orders the pilots to crash-land in the ocean. As they recover on board a weathership whose crew fetches them out of the water, Pussy tells Bond that, as a child, she was raped by her uncle (she says, "Do you know what a virgin in [the south] is? It's a girl who can outrun her brothers. In my case, I couldn't outrun my uncle").

8. For Your Eyes Only (1960): "For Your Eyes Only" begins with the murder of a Jamaican couple who had refused to sell their estate to Herr von Hammerstein, a former Gestapo officer who is the chief of counterintelligence for the Cuban secret service. When they refuse they are killed by two Cuban hitmen at the direction of Major Gonzales, all three of whom work for von Hammerstein. The Havelocks turn out to be close friends of M, who served as the groom's best man during their wedding in 1925. M subsequently gives Bond a voluntary assignment, "off-book" from sanctioned Secret Service duties, to sneak into Vermont via Canada, track down von Hammerstein at his rented estate at Echo Lake, and prevent further harm to the Havelocks' only daughter by any means necessary. When Bond arrives on the scene, however, he finds the Havelocks' daughter, Judy, intends to carry out her own mission of revenge. Judy kills von Hammerstein from 100 yards by shooting him in the back with a bow and arrow at the exact moment he dives into a lake. A shootout then occurs between Bond and Major Gonzales and the two Cuban gunmen. Bond kills all of them.
Many of the details of this story are used in the film For Your Eyes Only, including the fact that a couple named Havelock are murdered by a hitman named Gonzalez. In the film, though, the daughter's name is Melina and the murder takes place in Greece. Melina Havelock does take her revenge in the film very much as Judy Havelock does in the story, but the subject of Melina's crossbow assassination is Gonzalez and he is killed while diving into his swimming pool.

9. Thunderball (1961): Thunderball begins with a meeting between M and Bond, during which he tells agent 007 that his latest physical assessment is poor, because of excessive drinking and smoking (sixty cigarettes daily). M sends Bond on a two week vacation to the Shrublands health clinic in the country to reduce the bad habits and improve his health. At the clinic, Bond encounters Count Lippe, a member of the Red Lightning Tong criminal organisation from Macau. When Bond learns this, Lippe tries to kill him by tampering with a spinal traction machine, in the effort that Bond will not connect him to SPECTRE. Bond, however, is saved by nurse Patricia Fearing, and he later retaliates against Lippe by trapping him in a steam bath, resulting in second-degree burns and a week's stay in hospital.
Upon returning to London, Bond is a new man, following a new diet and smoking less. The new Bond is ready for action when the SIS receives a communiqué from SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) telling them of having hijacked a Villiers Vindicator (V bomber) and so possess its two nuclear bombs, and will destroy two major cities unless a £100,000,000 ransom is paid to them.
SPECTRE is headed by mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld who is intolerant of failure. Count Lippe was dispatched to Shrublands to oversee Giuseppe Petacchi, of the Italian Air Force, at the Boscombe Down Airfield a bomber squadron base. Though Lippe was semi-successful, Blofeld considered him unreliable, because of his childish clash with James Bond; consequent to Lippe's hospitalisation, Blofeld has him killed.
Acting as a NATO observer of Royal Air Force procedure, pilot Petacchi is in SPECTRE's pay to hijack the bomber in mid-flight (by killing its crew) and flying it to the Bahamas. Once there, Emilio Largo (aka SPECTRE Number One), and the crew of the cruiser yacht Disco Volante, kill Petacchi as per Plan Omega.
The Americans and the British launch Operation Thunderball to foil SPECTRE and recover the two atomic bombs. On a hunch, M assigns agent 007, James Bond, to the Bahamas to investigate. There, he rendezvous with Felix Leiter, who is again with CIA, because of the Thunderball crisis (previously, Leiter was a private detective after having lost an arm and a leg in helping Bond in the Live and Let Die case). While in Nassau, Bond also meets Dominetta "Domino" Vitali, Largo's mistress and the dead Petacchi's sister. She is living aboard the Disco Volante, and believes Largo is on a treasure hunt. For reasons she does not understand Largo makes her stay ashore while he and his partners hunt hidden treasure. After they have sex, Bond informs her that Largo killed Petacchi, he then recruits her to spy on Largo. Domino reboards the Disco Volante with a Geiger counter to ascertain if the yacht is where the two nuclear bombs are hidden, however, she is discovered and made prisoner; Largo tortures her with fire and ice.
Bond and Leiter alert the Thunderball war room of their suspicions of Largo and join the crew of the American nuclear submarine Manta as the ransom deadline nears. The Manta chases Disco Volante to capture it and recover the bombs enroute to the first target. An undersea battle ensues between the crews, while Bond fights Largo. Bond, now very weak from his efforts to disable the bombs, tries to get away. But Largo corners him in an underwater cave and easily overpowers him. Before Largo can finish Bond off Domino shoots him through the neck with a speargun. The bombs are recovered and Bond spends the remainder of the story with Domino in the hospital.

10. The Spy Who Loved Me (1962): The central character and narrator of The Spy Who Loved Me is Vivienne "Viv" Michel, a young Canadian woman who ends up running a cheap motel in the Adirondack Mountains to pay for a trip through America. The novel is broken up into three parts: 'Me', 'Them', and 'Him'.
The first section of the book deals with Viv's past love affairs, the first being Derek Mallaby who took her virginity in a field after being kicked out of a cinema for indecent exposure. The physical relationship ended that night and Viv was subsequently dumped later when Mallaby sent her a letter from the University of Oxford saying he was forcefully engaged to someone else by his parents. Viv details her second love affair to her German boss, Kurt Rainer, who would eventually get Viv pregnant. After she learned of her pregnancy and informed Rainer, he dumps her and pays for her to go to Switzerland to have an abortion.
The second section of the book details Viv's return to her native Canada, her plans to journey through America, and how she came to work at "The Dreamy Pines Motor Court" in the Adirondack Mountains for managers Jed and Mildred Phancey. At the end of the vacation season, the Phanceys entrust Viv to look after the motel for the night before the owner, Mr. Sanguinetti, can arrive to take inventory and shutter it up for the winter. However, two mobsters, "Sluggsy" Morant and Sol "Horror" Horowitz, show up under the guise of working for Mr. Sanguinetti and say they are there to look over the motel for insurance purposes. In truth, the two have been hired by Mr. Sanguinetti to burn down The Dreamy Pines Motor Court so that Mr. Sanguinetti can make a profit on the insurance. The blame for the fire would fall on Viv, who was to perish in the fire. The mobsters, specifically "Sluggsy", are very cruel to Viv, beating her when she attempts to escape and threatening to rape her if she doesn't cooperate.
The two mobsters are stopped from raping Viv at the very end of the second section of the book when the door buzzer sounds. The third section of the book opens with British secret service agent James Bond appearing at the door asking for a room, having had a flat tire while passing by. Clued in by Viv, Bond quickly realizes that Horror and Sluggsy are mobsters. Pressuring the two men, he eventually gets the gangsters to agree to providing him a room. As a means of passing the time, Bond then tells Viv why he is in America. He recounts that in the wake of Operation Thunderball, which Viv recalls reading about in the newspapers, SPECTRE was engaged by the Soviet Union to assassinate a Russian nuclear expert who came over to the Allied side and now lives in Toronto. Bond was detailed to protect the engineer as part of his quest to ferret out SPECTRE's boss, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, as SPECTRE was hired to murder the Russian expert by the Russian government.
After recounting this story, through a series of Bondian events, he protects Viv through the night as Sluggsy and Horror set fire to the motel and attempt to kill Bond and Michel. Ultimately Bond kills Horror and then Sluggsy in two separate gun battles, and ends up sleeping with Viv.
When Viv awakens Bond has left, but he has left a note in which he promises to send her police assistance, and which he concludes by telling her not to dwell too much on the ugly events through which she has just lived. As Viv finishes reading the note, a large police detachment arrives. After taking her statement, the officer in charge of the detail, a rather fatherly man, reiterates Bond's advice, but also warns Viv that all men involved in violent crime and espionage, regardless of which side they are on - including Bond himself - are dangerous and that Viv should avoid them. Viv reflects on this fact as she motors off at the end of the book, continuing her tour of America, but despite the officer's warning still devoted to the memory of the spy who had loved her.

11. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1963): For more than a year, James Bond, British secret agent 007, has been trailing the private criminal organization SPECTRE and its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in 'Operation Bedlam'. This pursuit is partially described in The Spy Who Loved Me, where Bond explains to Vivienne Michel the aftermath of 'Operation Thunderball' and the escape of Blofeld. By the time of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond is convinced SPECTRE no longer exists. Frustrated by his inability to find Blofeld, Bond composes a letter of resignation for M. Meanwhile, Bond encounters a suicidal, beautiful, young woman named Teresa di Vicenzo and interrupts her attempted drowning. He and the woman are then captured by professional henchman.
They are taken to Marc-Ange Draco, head of the Unione Corse, the biggest European crime syndicate. Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo ('Tracy' to her friends) is the daughter and only child of Draco. Draco believes the only way to save his daughter is for Bond to marry her. To facilitate this, he offers Bond a great dowry; Bond refuses the offer, but agrees to continue romancing Tracy while her mental health improves.
Afterwards, in answer to a question, Draco uses his contact to quickly inform Bond that Blofeld is in Switzerland, but does not know precisely where. Bond returns to England only to be given another lead: the London College of Arms has discovered that one Ernst Stavro Blofeld has assumed the title and name Comte Balthazar de Bleuville, and wants formal confirmation of the title. Blofeld has undergone plastic surgery to physically pass as heir of the de Bleuville bloodline — to the degree that he has asked the College to declare him the reigning count.
On a visit to the College of Arms, Bond finds that the family motto of Sir Thomas Bond is 'The World Is Not Enough', and that he might be (though unlikely) Bond's ancestor. Impersonating a College of Arms representative, Sir Hilary Bray, Bond is able to infiltrate Blofeld's lair atop Piz Gloria, where he finally meets Blofeld.
At Piz Gloria, Bond learns Blofeld has been curing a group of young British and Irish women of their livestock and food allergies. In truth, Blofeld and his homely aide, Irma Bunt, have been brainwashing them into carrying biological warfare agents back to Britain and Ireland in order to destroy Britain's agriculture economy, upon which post-World War II Britain depends.
Believing himself discovered, Bond escapes by ski from Piz Gloria, killing a few SPECTRE opertives in the process. Afterwards, in a state of total exhaustion, he encounters Tracy. She is in the town at the base of the mountain after being told by her father that Bond may be in the vicinity. Bond is too weak to take on Blofelds henchmen alone and she helps him escape to the airport. Smitten by the resourceful, headstrong woman, he proposes marriage, and she accepts. Bond then returns to England and works on the plan to capture Blofeld.
Helped by Draco's Union Corse, Bond mounts an air assault against the clinic and Blofeld. Blofeld escapes down a bobsled run, tossing a grenade after the pursuing Bond, who narrowly misses being killed. Blofeld, however, escapes. He later avenges himself on James and Tracy Bond by killing Tracy in a drive-by shooting, shortly after their wedding.

12. You Only Live Twice (1964): James Bond, his career fading after the wedding-day murder of his wife Tracy Bond, is promoted by M to a special branch of MI6. M had been planning to offer Bond a dismissal from the secret service, but later changed his mind as a last chance opportunity for Bond to shape up. Bond is subsequently re-numbered as 7777 ("four sevens"), and assigned an impossible mission: convincing the head of Japan's secret intelligence service, Tiger Tanaka, to provide information about an informant within the Soviet Union, informally referred to as Magic 44. In exchange, Tanaka asks Bond to kill Dr. Guntram Shatterhand, who operates a politically embarrassing "Garden of Death" where people go to commit suicide, whether they later decide they want to or not. Bond accidentally discovers that Shatterhand is his nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and gladly takes the mission, keeping his knowledge of Blofeld a secret so that he can exact revenge for his wife's death. Aided by former Japanese movie star Kissy Suzuki, and, with make up and training, Bond attempts to live and think as a Japanese in order to penetrate Shatterhand's castle. Bond is renamed by Tiger as Taro Todoroki while on the mission.
Bond becomes an expert in sword fighting, karate, and judo. He also learns how to calm his senses with the practice of Yoga.
Bond ultimately exacts revenge on Blofeld in a sword duel, and kills Blofeld by strangling him, but, on escaping, suffers a head injury leaving him an amnesiac living as a Japanese fisherman/merchant with Kissy, while the rest of the world believes him dead. While Bond's health improves Kissy conceals his true identity so as to keep him forever to herself. Kissy eventually sleeps with Bond and becomes pregnant and hopes that Bond would propose marriage after she found the right time to tell him. At the novel's end, Bond browses through some of Kissy's personal papers and finds a newspaper article about Vladivostok, making him wonder if the far-off Russian city is the key to his missing memory.

13. The Man with the Golden Gun (1965): A year after James Bond disappeared during a mission in Japan, he is presumed dead. Then, a man claiming to be Bond appears in London and demands to meet M. After much scrutinising and interrogation, the man's identity is confirmed, but during his debriefing interview with M, Bond tries to kill him with a cyanide pistol; the attempt fails. The British Secret Service soon learns that after destroying Blofeld's castle in Japan, Bond suffered a head injury and subsequent amnesia. Having lived as a Japanese fisherman for several months, Bond travelled north into the Soviet Union to learn his true identity. While there, he was brainwashed and assigned to kill M on returning to England.
Now deprogrammed, Bond is given a chance to prove his worth as a member of the 00 section following the assassination attempt. M assigns him to Jamaica and the seemingly impossible mission of killing Francisco "Pistols" Scaramanga, a Cuban assassin known as "the man with the golden gun" (because of his golden revolver) who is believed to have killed several British secret agents.
Bond locates Scaramanga in a Jamaican bordello, and manages to become Scaramanga's temporary personal assistant under the name of Mark Hazard. He learns that Scaramanga is involved with a hotel development on the island with a group of investors that consists of a syndicate of American gangsters and the KGB. Scaramanga and the other investors are also engaged in a scheme to destabilize Western interests in the Caribbean's sugar industry and increase the value of the Cuban sugar crop. The group is also involved in running drugs into America, smuggling prostitutes from Mexico into America, and operating casinos in Jamaica that will cause friction between tourists and the local people.
Bond discovers that he has an ally who is also working undercover at the half-built resort. Felix Leiter has been recalled to duty by the CIA and is working ostensibly as an electrical engineer while setting up bugs in Scaramanga's meeting room.
Scaramanga tells Bond to control the other gangsters in case things turn nasty and guard the door while he is meeting privately with individual "investors." However, while eavesdropping on one of Scaramanga's meetings, Bond learns that Scaramanga plans to eliminate "Mark Hazard" when the weekend is over.
Bond's identity is confirmed by the KGB agent, and Scaramanga makes new plans to entertain the gangsters and the KGB man by killing Bond while they are riding a sight-seeing train to a marina. However, Bond manages to turn the tables on Scaramanga, and with the help of Felix Leiter (who smuggled himself aboard the train) kill most of the conspirators.
Scaramanga escapes, wounded, into the swamps, where Bond pursues him. Bond finds Scaramanga and holds him at gunpoint while trying to get up the nerve to shoot and kill his wounded enemy. When he asks Scaramanga if he has any last words, a message to be given to someone, or someone he wants Bond to "look after," Scaramanga laughs and asks Bond if he plans to give him his gun and leave him alone so that he can kill himself in private. Scaramanga adds that if Bond actually did that he would crawl after Bond and kill him with his own gun.
However, when Bond tells Scaramanga that the time has come, Scaramanga begs for the opportunity as a Catholic to say a final prayer before he is killed. Bond allows him to do this, and Scaramanga lulls Bonds off-guard with a lengthy prayer and then shoots him with a golden derringer he had hidden behind his neck. Bond is hit but returns fire and shoots Scaramanga several times—killing him at last.
Scaramanga's bullet had been "dipped" in snake venom so that even a slight wound would be fatal, but a doctor recognizes the symptoms of snakebite and administers antivenom in time to save Bond (Leiter is also injured in the process of killing the gangsters but is also found in time and nursed back to health).
Bond is offered a knighthood for his achievement. Bond already has CMG for past and present services to Britain, but says that he does not wish to become a public figure, so he refuses it.
The story ends with Bond enjoying the company of Mary Goodnight but with the realization that he will never be able to settle down with one woman for very long.

14. Octopussy and The Living Daylights (1966): Before his death, Ian Fleming reportedly had intended to compile a second book of short stories in the same vein as For Your Eyes Only. After his death, Glidrose Productions followed this plan.
Initially, the book contained only two short stories: (i) The final James Bond short story to be published, "Octopussy," which was first serialised in the March and April 1966 issues of Playboy magazine, some two years after Ian Fleming's death; and (ii) "The Living Daylights", which was first published in The London Sunday Times colour section on February 4, 1962. It was later printed in the American publication Argosy in the June 1962 issue under the title "Berlin Escape" and again under the same title in the November, 1965, issue of Intrigue Magazine.
1967 Pan Books paperback first edition. Added "The Property of a Lady" for the first time. Note shortened title.
When the first paperback edition of the collection was published in 1967, it was expanded with a third short story, "The Property of a Lady" which Fleming wrote, in 1963, for inclusion in The Ivory Hammer, the annual publication of Sotheby's auction house. (The story was subsequently reprinted in the January, 1964 issue of Playboy). In the collection's second edition, the title was shortened to Octopussy: Most paperback reprints of the 1970s and '80s used the abbreviated title.
The third edition of the collection appeared in 2002, expanded with a fourth short story, "007 in New York." Titled by Fleming in its manuscript form as "Reflections in a Carey Cadillac," it was however first published under the name "Agent 007 in New York" in the New York Herald Tribune in October of 1963. In 1964, it was retitled simply "007 in New York" when published in the American edition of Thrilling Cities. The short story was written as a consolation to readers in New York City due to Fleming's otherwise expressed grim opinion of the city. This story was never published in Britain until the late 1990s.
Editions of the collection published since the mid-1990s have used the original full title, Octopussy and the Living Daylights. As of the third edition of 2002, the order of the stories is as follows: "Octopussy", "The Property of a Lady", "The Living Daylights", and "007 in New York". Like the For Your Eyes Only compilation, however, each story is a standalone and there is no narrative continuity between them, so they may be read in any order.
It is not known for certain whether any of these stories were ever actually earmarked by Ian Fleming for his never-completed collection, though it is likely "The Living Daylights," at the very least, would have been a strong contender since it (unlike the others) had already been widely published by 1964.
"Octopussy" provided the title of the eponymous 1983 film, and the background for the movie character Octopussy, who in the short story is an Octopus whom the villain attempts to befriend, but who in the film is said to be the villain's daughter. The film also used plot elements from "The Property of a Lady" (specifically the Sotheby's auction sequence; the story's title is also referenced in dialogue). In 1987, "The Living Daylights" was closely adapted for part of Timothy Dalton's first James Bond film of the same title. According to some sources (such as The Bond Files by Andy Lane and Paul Simpson), The Property of a Lady was to have been the title of Dalton's third James Bond film to be released in 1991, but it went unfilmed; little of the original short story would have been available for use, given its having been used in the Octopussy film. "007 in New York" provided the name of a character, Solange, who appeared in the 2006 version of Casino Royale; otherwise, no other plot elements from the story have been used as yet.

15. Devil May Care (2008): A savage execution in the outskirts of Paris starts a chain of events designed to lead to global catastrophe — a narcotics tide threatens to lethally engulf Sixties Britain, a British airliner disappears in Iraqi airspace, and the thunder of war echoes throughout the Middle East.
James Bond is assigned to the case, and first meets Dr Gorner at a tennis match, through Scarlett Papava, who wants him to help her rescue her twin sister, Poppy, from Gorner. Bond defeats Gorner at tennis, and learns about his factory in the Middle East, where Poppy visits him at risk to her life. Bond travels to Persia and meets his contact there, Darius Alizadeh, before investigating a warehouse, identified by Poppy, to find an Ekranoplan stored there that Gorner uses to smuggle drugs into the Soviet Union, before shipping them round the world to his other factories.
Bond returns to his hotel room, where he meets Scarlett again; she accompanies him to the warehouse again where Bond attempts to photograph the Ekranoplan, but Gorner's right-hand-man, Chagrin, awaits and captures them. He takes them to Gorner's desert base, where Dr. Gorner shows off his factory to Bond, and reveals that he hates Britain and wishes to flood it with drugs, but is impatient and has decided to attack the Soviet Union with nuclear warheads using his own pilots and a stolen airliner disguised as a British aircraft to provoke a Soviet nuclear counter-attack against London. At this point he orders Bond to accompany Chagrin in transporting drugs across the desert, where Afghani rebels usually attack them.
Bond is used as a distraction to draw their fire, while Chagrin and his men travel past safely. Bond barely survives the ambush and, after making a failed escape attempt, is taken back to the base where Gorner reveals his plan to force Bond to fly the stolen airliner/bomber into Russia.
Bond is returned to his cell, but manages to escape and lets Scarlet escape from the building to hide aboard the airliner, while allowing his recapture. In the morning, he is taken aboard the aeroplane, but, before the airliner can bomb the Soviets, Bond kills the guards, with Scarlet's (who had been hiding in the airliner) help. They parachute to safety as the stolen British airliner crashes into the mountains.
Meanwhile, Felix Leiter and Darius know about the Ekranoplan and a potential attack on the Soviet Union and meet with CIA agent J.D. Silver (A.K.A Carmen) , who goes to call Langley to have them dispatch fighter planes to shoot down the Ekranoplan. Silver is working against them, and tries to stop communications with Langley. Darius manages to contact 'M' before he is shot and killed by Silver, who is about to kill Felix, when Darius's driver, Hamid, saves him by killing Silver by hitting him over the head with a rock. RAF Vulcan bombers attack the Ekranoplan in time, destroying it before it reaches its target.
Bond and Scarlet travel through the USSR, returning to Helsinki, but Chagrin attacks them aboard a train from Leningrad. With Scarlet's help, Bond overpowers Chagrin, killing him when they push him out of the carriage window; Chagrin is decapitated as the train enters a tunnel.
Bond and Scarlet arrive in Helsinki, then travel to Paris, where Bond reports to 'M', who tells him he must meet the new agent 004, after the last one died in Germany. Bond travels around Paris; he boards the Mississippi paddle steam boat Huckleberry Finn, to kill time until his meeting with agent 004, however, Gorner has followed him and tries killing him aboard the paddle boat; Bond overpowers Gorner's assassin before hunting Gorner. Bond shoots and wounds Gorner, but he derives no pleasure from it; Gorner jumps into the river to escape, but is pulled into the wake of the Huckleberry Finn's paddle, which crushes him dead.
Bond goes to meet the new agent, 004, after René Mathis clears up matters with the local police about Dr Julius Gorner's death. Bond learns that agent 004 is in fact Scarlett Papava, who had made up the story about her twin sister Poppy so that 007 would allow her to help; had he known Scarlett was a double-O agent, she feared he wouldn't have worked with her.

By Richard Moody

Eastmas 08

For Christmas I got DVDs I got a DVD of Shameless, Gavin and Stacey, Little Britain USA, Doctor Do little four and DVD of Stereo phonics

On Christmas day I watched Shameless that I got for Christmas, then we had dinner and we had roast duck with roast spuds and stuffing balls.

On Boxing Day my Aunty Rosemary and Uncle Graham, my cousin Nicola my Cousin-in-law Simon, my Cousin David my uncle Peter and my grand parents came to my house, on boxing day evening and we had a buffet.

On new years eve night I went to the 3 horse shoes the music was loud like in a nightclub they had one of them really big speakers, I had half a mind to call home and get some ear protectors but I didn’t want to look silly.

On New Years Eve me and my dad went to Ponds forge, we went down the flumes and in the wave machine and in the whirl pool. It was really good fun.

Christmas

For Christmas I got DVDs I got a DVD of Shameless, Gavin and Stacey, Little Britain USA, Doctor Doo little four and DVD of Stereo phonics

On Christmas day I watched Shameless that I got for Christmas, then we had dinner and we had roast duck with roast spuds and stuffing balls.

On Boxing Day my Aunty Rosemary and Uncle Graham, my cousin Nicola my Cousin-in-law Simon, my Cousin David my uncle Peter and my grand parents came to my house, on boxing day evening and we had a buffet.

On new years eve night I went to the 3 horse shoes the music was loud like in a nightclub they had one of them really big speakers, I had half a mind to call home and get some ear protectors but I didn’t want to look silly.

On New Years Eve me and my dad went to Ponds forge, we went down the flumes and in the wave machine and in the whirl pool. It was really good fun.

My Christmas Interview By Richard Moody

Christmas

What Did You Do in Christmas Day?
I was watching “Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death” & “Blackadder: Christmas Carol.” I had a turkey, cranberry sauce, sprouts, crokettes, potato carrot sauce, gravy, peas, Yorkshire puddings, sausage & bacon, stuffing’s & mustard & mayonnaise.

Who you Saw Over Christmas?
Uncle John came to stay for Christmas dinner.

What You Did over the two weeks?
I’ve been walking in woods in winter I usually stayed at home I was watching “John Mills” War Movies I remembered I watched “Time Bandits” with Grandma & Dad my Grandma finds it funny she said it was from a pantomime show. I also watched “Dick Whittington, Aladdin, Cinderella & Jack & The Beanstalk” pantomime TV shows Julian Clary was in all four pantomime TV shows.

What Did You do in Boxing Day?
I was with mom, Wendy & James to see a movie called “Australia” with Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman & Bryan Brown we went to “PREZZO” I had a Calzone and Chocolate Biscuit Cake for desert back at home I was watching “Casanova” with Heath Ledger who plays Casanova I’ve got his biography book at home.

What Did You Do in the New Year?
I was watching a DVD with Grandma called “Airplane” with Robert Hays, Leslie Neilson, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges & Peter Graves. I was gonna watch “Life of Mammals” but Dad wanted watch “Shrek 2.” I missed Shrek back in 2004

What you Enjoyed?
The bit I enjoyed was I was listening to CD biography called “River Phoenix” when I was watching “Carry on Cowboy” Going to Cinema to see “the Spirit & Bedtime Stories.”

Did you like coming back to college?
I was a bit scared about new changes coming back to college like Ben Lindley was leaving in January but I think I’ve got it wrong. My first day back was I was fine I was OK with David the transition worker I remember James was here and Ben was Ill he came back at second week of January.

By Richard Moody

Christmas

On Christmas day I went up to my mums house to open my presents and I got Lap top computer, jumper, and 1000 jigsaw puzzle with Disney & Bullseye in my pocket key ring.

On Christmas day I had some turkeys for dinner and a Christmas pudding.

For 2 weeks I stayed at Dads house over holidays for new years eve I been up to mums house to say happy new year.

I enjoy my Christmas holiday because I’m excited bu Christmas.

It was ok to see everyone back at college.