Advertise on podcast: Bondfinger

– Ah, I make it just on half-past three. – Eight, Holmes. – What on earth are you talking about? – Half-past eight, see. – Watson, we are on New York time. – Oh. Oh, well I’ve always found Greenwich time perfectly adequate to me needs. I see no reason for changing it now. This month: New York! With a horribly miscast Roger Moore as Sherlock Holmes and a horribly misjudged John Watson in Patrick Macnee, Sherlock Holmes in New York is the story of a ruddy-cheeked and thoroughgoingly heterosexual consulting detective, his toffy-nosed dimwit sidekick, and their inexplicably beautiful girlfriend (Charlotte Derampling), who all harbour a dark secret, in the form of an appalling American moppet called Scott. Plus, all of the world’s gold has been stolen, or at least shifted to a nearby floor. Which is why, dear listener, it took us two attempts to work up the courage to even watch this. (Don’t) see the film If you want to spend some money here, a plastic disc release of the film is available. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU) If not, it’s currently up on YouTube, for some reason. Follow us! Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley , Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast. We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll send you some unsolicited tickets to the opening night of our next show.

– Actually, I wanted a word or five about the old Groupee, official magazine you know, I’m acting as PRO. – From the HQ? – BHQ. – On TTR? – JJV. seconded from RHB. – Oh really, how’s the GCM.? – A-1. – MY? – 50 PPR. – Downgraded to 007, eh? This month, Steed and Mrs Peel are joined by John Le Mesurier, while we are joined again by Steven B, ably assisting us as we investigate various military bigwigs with improbable facial hair, who appear to be leaking valuable secrets to our enemies. Meanwhile, Diana Rigg’s Spotlight photo is getting one hell of a workout. Which is impossible to object to, really. See the episode As is now well established, Series 4 of The Avengers is also available in a lavish Blu-ray box set. Which is how we watched it. (Amazon US) (Amazon UK) (Amazon AU) Follow us! Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley , Brendan is @brandybongos, Steven is @steedstylin, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood . You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast . We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we’ll sponge your best suit so thoroughly that you’ll be able to see your face in it.

– I see. Oh! Are you going to tie me up? – You bet I am. – Well, I don’t mind, really, but may I fix my face before I die? It’s in such a mess. This month, we’re joined by Steven B from New to Who to investigate the theft by some puppets of the blueprints for a new atomic weapon. Inevitably, Lady Penelope gets tied to a bomb or something, and we have mere moments to locate her before she is completely exploded. The sets are lavish, the hardware is impressive and the eyebrow lifts are the most expensive and time-consuming eyebrow lifts until Rodge takes over as Bond. Thunderbirds are go, in The Man from MI.5. See the episode The episode is available for purchase through various online retailers, but it is currently available in full on YouTube. Follow us! Brendan is on Twitter as @brandybongos, Steven is @steedstylin, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter as @Bondfingercast. We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we won’t turn up at your wedding, accuse you of bigamy and generally ruin your life.

Can I just have one nice evening before the world explodes? After a disastrous attempt to record a commentary on No Time to Die results in several cinemagoers calling the police, we decide to regroup, get some drinks in, and hold a roundtable discussion of Daniel Craig’s last film in the role. So: when SPECTRE holds a Christmas drinks thing despite Covid restrictions and everyone ends up feeling quite unwell, James Bond, Felix Leiter and 007 (it’s complicated) team up (sort of) to find the renegade scientist responsible. A whole bunch of things happen, and a generation of Bond fans are scarred for life as a result. Be warned. There will be spoilers. Here is a link to the #IAmNotYourVillain campaign by Changing Faces UK, which calls on filmmakers to stop using scars and disfigurement as a signifier of villainy. See the film The film is currently screening in a cinema new you, at last. Streaming and DVDs and things will all come later. Follow us! Nathan is on Twitter as @nathanbottomley, Brendan is @brandybongos, Richard is @RichardLStone and James is @ohjamessellwood. You can follow the podcast on Twitter at @Bondfingercast. We’re also on Facebook, and you can check out our website at bondfinger.com. And if you rate or review us on Apple Podcasts, we won’t suggest that the Bond producers abandon facial disfigurement as a signifier of villainy and start making all their villains avid podcast listeners instead.

– It’s nothing much. It’s only serious. This month, advertising account executive Gary Fenn (Roger Moore) and fiery underwear model Marla Kougash (Claudie Lange) find themselves on the run as they try to foil a violent fascist takeover of Great Britain. Meanwhile Richard (Martha Hyer), James (Dudley Sutton), Brendan (Mark Ruffalo) and Nathan (an extremely rosaceous Sir Bernard Lee) take copious liquid advantage of the recent lifting of Sydney’s lockdown by slurring their way through the long-forgotten quota quickie Crossplot.

– You’re not the first person to pass through my hands, Stirling. – I never thought I was. – They all broke eventually. – I’ll try and spoil your record. This month, James finds himself drugged, sweaty and trapped in a prison cell with a wastepaper basket and no visible means of escape, while Richard insistently questions him about the identity of the mysterious Renfield or something. Meanwhile, Brendan and Nathan flap about uselessly outside. It sounds like a job for The Champions.

– I might try singing an antidote note. – Then do it! – Oh, but that’s three octaves above high C! Nobody’s ever done it before! My voice would be gone! I’d rather die! Holy Peripheral Relevance, Batman! This month, the Dynamic — er — Four have pursued patron-saint-of-the-podcast Joan Collins to Gotham City, where she makes a surprising guest appearance in an episode of Batman as the mesmeric Lorelei Circe, whose voice has an uncanny power over heterosexual men. (Fortunately we’re all very neatly tucked and wearing the Bat-Earplugs for this one.)

– Do I look like a burglar? – No. You look rather ch— Don’t move, stay where you are, put your hands over your head and lean against the wall. – Nor am I a contortionist. This month, it’s a queasy mixture of the Swinging Sixties and the Punching-People-in-the-Face Seventies, as Steed, Purdey and Gambit try to discover who is encouraging so many sweaty government security personnel to discotheque themselves to death, and why. It’s The New Avengers in Angels of Death.

Then he’s blessed. I’m forever plucking stray hairs from my comb and brush. Positively demoralizing, but an inescapable part of the human condition. Hmm? Does any of this say anything to you Miss Holt? It does to me. It fairly shouts Remington Steele is an elaborate ruse. He does not exist. You invented him. This week, we answer the eternal question, “Why the hell are we watching this?” with a resounding “Dunno”, as we plumb the depths of Reagan-Era film-noir-lite with the first episode of the TV show that gave the world Pierce Brosnan — Remington Steele.

– Oh well, sir, in that case, some of the credit must go to Drake here. I mean the men in the field. — Rubbish, the glamour boys always get all the credit. I hope you don’t mind my saying this, Drake. – On the contrary Mr. Ambassador, it is the man behind the desk who does all the planning, all the real thinking. We just carry out orders. This month, we’re off to Geneva to rescue the handsome Captain Munro from Spearhead from Space, who has been abducted and held captive in the Romanian Embassy by some people who are apparently doing the accent. It’s a jolly old heist, involving Patrick McGoohan, the lovely Jane Merrow, Mr Range from Frontios and, in the true spirit of the Kate O’Marathon, Kate O’Mara herself. For a few minutes.

– You wouldn’t trust your mother, would you? – Her least of all. She used to spy for the Egyptians. This month, we resume last year’s abortive Kate O’Marathon with an episode of The Persuaders! from 1972, in which Tony Curtis and Roger Moore join forces to fail to recover a retired spy’s sensational memoirs, while Marla and Melania conceal a dark secret about their husband’s astonishing hairpiece.

Oh, I discovered then, nothing beats a good lashing. (Mind your head.) Take India. You can have a good ten inches overnight there. You know, one should never fear being wet. This month, we commemorate the death of Sean Connery by revisiting the first nail in the coffin of his movie career, the 1998 film The Avengers, starring Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman as crude robot replicas of John Steed and Mrs Peel, who go up against the wet sporran of Connery’s single most villainous role, Sir August de Wynter — a man who selflessly tries to provide the population of Great Britain with something interesting to make small talk about.