Eurovision 2025

The Eurovision Singing Competition Caturday is always a highlight of the cat calendar every year (except for the year the mannys forgot to do it). Even as it increasingly becomes serious business for the mannys who sing the songs, we cats watch it for the lols so will always prefurr the colourful, fun, entertaining songs over the heartfelt ballads.

Here are my highlights from this year's entries...

Luxembourg set the bar early (they performed second, which by an old rule of Eurovision meant they were not allowed to win) with their strange visuals, including some giant hands (with giant thumbs) to help the singer out as though she were a cat.

Latvia's six singers had eyes painted on their eyelids, which was... not right.

Dragon doesn't normally show much interest in Eurovision, either sleeping through it or else watching Taskmaster repeats over on a different channel. But for some reason he really enjoyed the Poland entry.

The singer from Greece wore big specs, a bit like these late '70s ones worn by Diane Keen when she was in The Sandbaggers.

My favourite entry this year was the song from Malta, which was very colourful and even featured giant CGI cats in the background. My friend Kitkat was watching Eurovision with us for the first time and she also liked the Malteser.

But don't forget Sweden! They chose to do a comedy song this year, which is quite unusual for them. They did quite well and came fourth. Estonia also did a comedy song and came third. Either of these would have been worthy winners in the eyes of the cats of Europe.

But the voting is done and the winner decided by mannys, who - as always - vote in an way incomprehensible to all right-thinking felines. The two songs they gave the most points to were not ones we rated at all highly, but at least the one that won - from Austria - was the more deserving of those two.

I have heard a persistent rumour that mannys don't always vote for the song they like the best, and sometimes they just vote for the country they like the most. Mannys can be incredibly stupid, so I find this a very plausible theory, but I'm sure it can't really be true.

Except for Cyprus always voting for Greece. That is true. Mew.

Who will get the 12 points? It's not exactly keeping us in suspense.

Further Adventures of the Musketeers

Made by the BBC in 1967 and not, as one might expect given the title and the vintage, a series of unconnected episodic adventures about the Four Musketeers taking the characters from the books but not the plots (in a similar vein to The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, among other series of the black & white era of television), but rather this is an adaptation of the middle of the three Musketeers novels - not the most famous one where they save the honour of the queen of France by recovering her necklace (as used for the main plot of Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds), nor the final one involving the manny in the iron mask, but the one where they lol about in France and England getting involved in various civil wars.

No? Me neither.

Joss Ackland stars as DogD'Artagnan, with BRIAN BLESSED backing him up (and stealing the show as often as not) as Porthos - superb casting - and the title characters are rounded off with John "Armageddon Factor" Woodvine as Aramis and Jeremy Young (a familiar face, but I'd be hard pressed to say what he's best known for) as Athos.

The most notable in the secondary cast are Edward "As you can see, the INTERNET is extremely complicated" Brayshaw as Rochefort, Nigel "Look Around You" Lambert as Planchet, Vernon Dobtcheff as a minor antagonist Monsignor de Gondy, and - during the episodes where the Musketeers are loling about the England of 1649 (this can be dated precisely due to the actual historical execution of King Charles i being a key plot point) - Geoffrey "Masters" Palmer as Oliver Cromwell, in a surprisingly nuanced (and almost sympathetic) portrayal, even though he is an antagonist to the royalist-supporting Musketeers.

I have no idea if the depiction of Cromwell was lifted from the novel since, although I have read a few of Dumas's novels (English translations, naturally, since translations into Cat are surprisingly hard to come by) including The Count of Monte Cristo and the Marie Antoinette romances, I haven't ever read any of his D'Artagnan stories. This means I can't judge the series' quality as an adaptation either - although you can pretty much tell that it must be an adaptation because the pacing and episode structure feels different to most stories written specifically for the format of a television serial. For example, despite being 16 half-hour parts, it fair flies by with constant twists and turns, but the most dramatic moments don't often line up with the climactic moments of individual episodes.

There's an unusual format point where each episode begins with a recap of the story so far that is delivered in-character by one or more of the main characters (often including D'Artagnan, but not always) addressing the audience directly, but in a conspiratorial fashion, as if letting us in on a secret. This is done in voice-over only, with still images of the characters as the only visuals, so I wonder if this was added after the main filming of the story was complete.

Loads of swashbuckling tropes are included, as you might expect, and a lot of swordplay - plenty of which occurs out on location, so this was no studio-bound production as might have been expected from the BBC in the 1960s. Some of the duels were really well done, inclusing several between our heroes and Brayshaw's villainous Rochefort (he's no Christopher Lee, but still very good in the part), but my favourite fight was between Porthos and Rochefort and didn't involve swords - Porthos used his fists and Rochefort used whatever props and bits of scenery he could get his hands on that BRIAN BLESSED hadn't already been chewing upon.

It was directed by Christopher "First Morbius Doctor" Barry so no wonder this was a polished production for its time. That said, there was still a lot of studio-based action, and at least one scene where a door needs to be broken down and the whole wall wobbles as it is struck, lol. Also a few fluffed lines, and I think I caught one bit where Ackland seemed to forget his line entirely for a moment. None of this detracted from my enjoyment - in fact I would say it added to it, since it is fun to watch these old series warts and all.

Big Gay Longcat and Expensive Luxury Cat review James Bond: Moonraker

Recent news about the expensive luxury James Bond films having been bought by the Amazon Corporation of America has reminded us cats that back in 1979 James Bond already fought against a baddy who was a megalomaniac, space-obsessed billionaire with a secret lair in the Amazon.

This was Moonraker, the fourth of the seven expensive luxury James Bond films to star Roger Moore. It had the unenviable task of following on from the iconic Bond outing The Spy Who Loved Me, and it did this by going even more Over The Top than its predecessor - thanks to a little inspiration taken from the late-70s zeitgeist, a.k.a. the post-Star Wars era.

In the first scene some baddys steal a space shuttle off the back of a plane and then the plane blows up. It cuts to M in his office talking on a red (i.e. serious business) telephone asking

"What happened to the Moonraker?"

Clang! Well that didn't take long.

Bond is having kiffs with a lady in a different plane when she pulls a gun on him. Oh noes, she is really a baddy! This is exactly what happened with the lady Bond was having kiffs with at the start of The Spy Who Loved Me, except this one didn't even wait for him to leave before turning out to be a baddy. She has a manny with her for Bond to have a fight with. That manny ends up falling out of the plane, and then Jaws turns up and pushes Bond out too.

We cats love Jaws, he makes any Bond film he is in (all two of them) even more expensive and luxury than they would have been without him.

Bond doesn't have a parachute, and unlike cats he cannot expect to land on his feet, so he sends his stuntmanny to have another fight with the manny over the one parachute between them. Jaws arrives to have a mid-air fight with Bond, but Bond uses the parachute to escape from him. Jaws then lands on a circus tent for some reason.

This leads in to the title sequence. The theme song for Moonraker is rubbish, and would be much better if they had just reused the Goldfinger song but replaced the word "Goldfinger" with the word "Moonraker." The lyrics wouldn't make sense, since the baddy is called Drax and not "Mr Moonraker," but when has lyrics not making sense ever stopped them?

The titles are followed by the traditional Bond briefing scene. Bond gets sent to look for the missing Moonraker space shuttle (what do mannys want to rake the moon for, anyway? Silly mannys, always making W-word for themselves for no reason) and he also gets given a gadget by Q - a watch that can fire darts that will either explode or be poisonous. We can look forward to both of these types coming in useful for him, in accordance with the law of conservation of narrative detail.

Bond goes to visit Hugo Drax at his French chateau in California. A bit like Columbo, Bond has immediately identified the main baddy as being the richest, most obnoxious manny in the film in order to save time. Drax, the ultimate snob, is played by Michael "Grigoriev" Lonsdale, still three years from his role of a lifetime when this was made - and I'm presuming he got that part because they were practically rounding up former Bond Villains to be in Smiley's People.

Bond and Drax have a superficially friendly first meeting but, as soon as Bond leaves, Drax says to his henchmanny

"Look after Mr Bond. See that some harm comes to him."

Lol, this is a classic Bond Villain line.

Bond goes to meet Dr Goodhead, who turns out to be

"A woman!"

This bit would have been... how shall we put it... old-fashioned (to be rather more polite than it deserves) in a '60s Bond film, never mind one made in 1979. However the film quickly makes it clear that it is Bond who is being sexist, not the film itself, since Dr Goodhead soon gets her own back by patronising him for his lack of knowledge about her. She claims to be a trained astronaut

"On loan from NASA... the Space Administration."

Her explaining things to Bond as though he is thick as shit, and then Bond trying to salvage some dignity by showing off about the few things he does know about, is actually quite a clever way of getting exposition to casual viewers who may not be as knowledgeable about space as Monkeys With Badges us cats.

Dr Goodhead dares Bond to have a go in a machine that spins mannys round and round really fast. Presumably for the lols. Once it has started the henchmanny sabotages it so that it won't stop when Bond presses the stop button.

Bond makes a face to let us know he is in trouble, then uses his gadget to shoot the machine with an explosive dart - breaking the machine's main rivet, I presume, and therefore stopping it.

Bond decides to kiff some information out of Corinne Dufour, whom he met when he first arrived, on the grounds that as a named character she must have a clue for him. The henchmanny sees them, but he doesn't do anything about Bond yet.

In the next scene we see Drax and some henchmannys hunting and shooting at some birdys for no reason, just in case we hadn't realised that they were the baddys yet. Drax invites Bond to have a go, but instead of shooting a birdy he shoots a henchmanny that was about to shoot him.

Drax: "You missed, Mr Bond."

Bond: "Did I?"

After Bond has left, Drax sacks Corinne for helping Bond. He the sends his two doggys to chase her. The incidental music for this bit is very dramatic, verging on sinister, although I'm quite sure the doggys are well-behaved doggys who only want to play. The last we see of Corinne is when the doggys catch up with her to give her friendly cuddles and licks. Maybe Hugo Drax isn't so bad after all?

The scene changes to Venice, where Bond is here following up the clue he got from Corinne. He sees Dr Goodhead is also there and decides to follow her through the streets of Venice. That doesn't take long so then he decides to talk to her about why she's here. Each of them thinks the other might be a baddy, so they don't trust one another.

Bond is sitting in a gondola minding his own business when a manny hiding in a coffin starts throwing knives at him. Bond throws one back and kills the manny - the punchline to this bit being that the manny is already in his coffin when he goes

A speedboat starts to chase Bond, and it turns out that his gondola is really a speedgondola. We know by now that Roger Moore's Bond loves a chase scene almost as much as Jon Pertwee's Doctor, so this is a good bit which successfully blends the exciting peril with a number of komedy moments.

Bond escapes the speedboat by turning his speedgondola into a hovergondola and taking it across the land. This provokes a number of amusing reaction shots from the bystanders, including Double-Take Manny (returning from The Spy Who Loved Me to make his second appearance in the film series), and even one of Venice's world-famous double taking pigeons.

At night Bond stealths into Drax's base where he discovers a secret room that you can only get into by playing the music from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I wonder if Drax has other rooms that use different late-70s sci-fi themes as their keycodes? I expect there must be at least some, because if you only had one then Blakes 7 would obviously be your first choice.

This secret room is a laboratory where some mannys are doing experiments on mouses... or possibly the mouses are doing experiments on the mannys - Double-Take Manny does look an awful lot like Douglas Adams, after all. Thanks to Bond's meddling, the mannys get poisoned when they release some gas, but the mouses are unharmed by it.

Bond is trying to get away when he gets attacked by Drax's main henchmanny, leading to a big fight. They quickly take the fight into a glass museum, where they do their best to ensure that everything that could be smashed gets smashed. In the midst of the fight, Bond finds a clue - a lot of boxes addressed to Rio de Janeiro.

After winning the fight by throwing the henchmanny through a big clockface into a piano, Bond visits Dr Goodhead. He finds she has gadgets because she is also a secret agent, although hers are concealed inside lady things like perfume and a pawbag instead of a manly thing like a wristwatch. Dr Goodhead W-words for the American CIA, and now they team up in a reversal of the UK-USSR team-up of the previous film, only with even less trust on both sides.

Bond takes M and the Minister of Defence to see the secret laboratory (presumably this is meant to be the next day, although it is unclear how much time has passed - clearly it must have been enough to allow M and the Minister to travel from London to Venice, but we don't know if they did that as soon as Bond said "come and see this secret laboratory what I have found"), but Drax has already replaced the entire room with more chateau-type stuff. The Minister orders M to take Bond off the case, and so Bond says he is going on holiday to Rio.

Drax needs a replacement for his main henchmanny, so he telephones an unseen manny to arrange it. This cuts to a scene where we see Jaws getting on a plane to Rio. It is not often that we see the process of henchmannys getting employed and sent on missions - normally they just turn up and attack Bond - so this is a nice little peek behind the curtain.

Obviously there's a carnival going on in Rio when Bond gets there and starts looking for clues. There's a superbly sinister scene as his MI7 contact Manuela is waiting for Bond in a dark alley with carnival going on around her. A manny in a giant clown mask approaches her, then takes off his mask to reveal it is Jaws.

This scene helps to re-establish Jaws as looking like a credible threat after his last few appearances have all been unsuccessful attempts to kill Bond - particularly the pre-titles sequence which was mostly played for lols. Jaws is about to nom Manuela when Bond sees them and jumps on Jaws for a fight. The carnival then carries them apart, delaying their eagerly-awaited rematch.

Bond meets Dr Goodhead again. They are in a cable car when Jaws stops it and noms his way through the cable to make sure it stays stopped.

This is an iconic scene for Jaws, and is followed by a great fight sequence as he goes out to try and kill Bond on the roof of the cable car. Bond and Dr Goodhead escape as Jaws gives chase, his henchmanny (henchhenchmanny?) controlling another cable car and sending it after Bond. As Bond and Dr Goodhead get out of the way in time, Jaws crashes into the building below.

Jaws is rescued from the wreckage by Dolly and, as the incidental music informs us, they fall instantly in love.

Some mannys arrive to capture Bond and Dr Goodhead, and take them away in a fake ambulance. Bond escapes, but falls out of the back of the ambulance before he can rescue Dr Goodhead, so she is taken away still a prisoner.

The next scene sees Bond arrive at a monastery dressed as a cowboy. Bond is dressed as a cowboy, I mean, not the monastery. Mew. Sorry, but this is a very silly bit. Bond sees Miss Moneypenny and Q. Q is testing some experimental gadgets, which is not too unusual for him (save that he doesn't normally do it in a monastery), but one of them is a pewpewpew gun - foreshadowing all the mannys having pewpewpew guns later on. Q has found out that the poison gas Bond found in Venice was made from a rare orchid found in the Amazon jungle, so now Bond's task is to go there to look for his next clue.

Bond is travelling along the river in a boat when he gets attacked - yes, that looks like a clue to me! Several other boats chase him, one of which has Jaws aboard. They shoot at Bond's boat, but naturally it has gadgets on board which Bond uses to fight them with - mines, torpedoes, and one simply labelled as "roof." Obviously Bond uses each of them in turn, and the last of them releases a hang-glider that he uses to glide away and thus escape from a waterfall. Jaws isn't so lucky and his boat goes over the edge - he makes a great "oh noes!" face as it does so.

In a scene that would make Barry Letts proud, Bond hang-glides about for a bit in front of a greenscreen, until he crashes in the jungle. He then follows a scantily-clad lady who leads him to Drax's secret base. There he sees so many scantily-clad ladies that his eyebrow can hardly cope.

Bond has been in too many SECTRE lairs to fall for the old bridge-turning-into-a-trapdoor-while-you're-walking-over-it ploy, but he is then caught out by the unassuming-rock-tips-you-into-the-water trap and gets wet. Oh noes! The baddys send a snake to try and nom Bond, but he escapes and is instead captured by Jaws.

Drax comes in and explains why he - and by extension most if not all of his fellow evil masterminds - always tries to kill Bond in overly elaborate ways:

"Mr Bond, you defy all my attempts to plan an amusing death for you."

Bond is taken from the ancient temple part of the secret lair to the futuristic space part. He sees Drax launch multiple "Moonraker" shuttles into space, and learns that the Moonraker that was stolen at the start of the film was needed by Drax to replace one of his secret shuttles that had become borked.

Bond is put into a room where he meets Dr Goodhead again. This turns out to be directly underneath the next Moonraker that will be launched - Drax's plan being that when the shuttle takes off, they will be killed by the fire. This bit is lifted from the original Moonraker novel, which is good because it prevents The Girl Who Was Death from otherwise being an inarguably better adaptation of the book than this film is.

Bond uses his gadget to explode open a door and so they escape. After stealthing around the base for a bit, they steal some henchmanny costumes and use them to get on board the next Moonraker scheduled for lift off. Bond has disguised himself as a spacemanny before, and it didn't go so well for him then, but there's no Number One here to spot him this time.

Bond and Dr Goodhead launch into space and fly after the shuttle with Drax and Jaws aboard - an exceptionally elaborate way of chasing after the baddy, even by Bond's standards. Luckily for him, Dr Goodhead knows what all the space buttons do - Bond is like a cat, getting her to do all the W-word.

A bit like this, really:

They fly towards 

"An entire city in space."

(thanks Dr Exposition Goodhead) and dock with it.

Now that they're in space, all the actors get to do lots of pretend slow-motion weightless acting, which is the closest thing this film has in it to padding. 

Drax makes a pretentious speech to his assembled henchmannys which lays plain his megalomania:

"First there was a dream. Now there is reality. Here, in the untainted cradle of the heavens, will be created a new super-race. A race of perfect physical specimens."

Does he not know that cats already exist? Oh, wait, he's talking about mannys, isn't he? As if they could ever be as perfect as cats, mew. He goes on:

"You have been selected as its progenitors. Like gods, your offspring will return to Earth and shape it in their image. You have all served in other capacities in my terrestrial empire. Your seed, like yourselves, will pay deference to the ultimate dynasty which I alone have created. From their first day on Earth they will be able to look up and know that there is law and order in the heavens."

He thinks he can be Ceiling Cat!

Bond and Dr Goodhead disable the city's radar jammer so that the mannys still on Earth can spot it. We get a fleeting appearance by General Gogol as the Soviets and Americans communicate with each other to find out that neither of them is responsible for making the city in space, so therefore it must have been a Bond Villain! The Americans launch a shuttle of their own to investigate and, if necessary, have a big space battle for the climax.

Meanwhile Drax starts launching his poison gas bombs at the Earth.

Jaws captures Bond and Dr Goodhead and takes them to see Drax, who says

"James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season."

Great though this line is (and delivered in such a deadpan way by Lonsdale), I have to wonder which season he's talking about? It can't be any of Blakes 7's four seasons, that's for sure. Drax is such a snob he's probably taking about Doctor Who's 24th season, even though it is actually much better than its reputation.

Another great bit is how Bond escapes from his predicament - pointing out how Drax will kill anyone "not measuring up" to Drax's "standards of physical perfection" within earshot of Jaws and Dolly. Jaws realises this means Dolly, because she is too tiny. He refuses to kill Bond when Drax orders him to, and Drax has a classic moment of realising his previously loyal henchmanny has turned against him:

"Jaws! You obey me!"

Bond pushes a button that turns off the gravity, and all the mannys start floating around. 

Drax's spacemannys and the American spacemannys start having a pewpewpew fight in space. Anyone who tells you that "in space, no one can hear you scream" obviously hasn't watched this bit, since here the mannys clearly scream whenever they get pewed.

The Americans get on board the city and team up with Bond, Dr Goodhead and Jaws. Bond chases after Drax when he tries to run away from the fighting, but then Drax gets his paws on a pewpewpew gun and aims it at Bond.

"At least I shall have the pleasure of putting you out of my misery."

he quips. But then Bond shoots Drax with a poison dart from his gadget watch. Bond puts Drax in an airlock and outquips him with

"Take a giant step for mankind."

Dr Goodhead asks Bond

"Where's Drax?"

"Oh he had to fly."

With Drax ded it can be safely assumed that his henchmannys will be defeated offscreen by the Americans. However Drax had already launched three poison gas bombs at the Earth that will "kill millions" (thanks again Dr Exposition). Also because Drax is ded his space city starts to suffer from a lack of ontological inertia, so Bond and Dr Goodhead have to dodge explosions and the set falling down around them.

They escape in one of the Moonrakers, while Jaws and Dolly search for each other in the wreckage. As the last two mannys on board, they sit and drink a toast. We hear Jaws's only line of dialogue in either of the films he's in:

"Well, here's to us."

Bond tells Dr Goodhead (and the viewers at home)

"Don't worry, they'll make it. It's only 100 miles to Earth."

While I can understand them not wanting audiences to think Jaws is ded because he is such a great character that they might want to bring him back in later Bond films (although they didn't, mew), surely he is the one character who can be safely assumed to somehow survive offscreen, like he has done multiple times already? This line of Bond's smells to me of a late addition to the film, perhaps after test audiences were too sad at Jaws's final scene.

Dr Goodhead flies the shuttle and Bond pews the three bombs. For the last one the targeting computer can't hit the bomb, so Bond has to use the Force pew it manually. While one could see this as re-establishing the superiority of mannys over machines, really it is just ripping off the ending to Star Wars.

On Earth, the NASA mannys hack into the shuttle's on-board cameras to see Bond and Dr Goodhead having kiffs and getting up to naughtiness with no clothes or gravity on. M, Q and the Minister are also there, and M just says

"Double-Oh Seven!"

in a disappointed tone of voice that makes Bond's code number sound like a rude word. And then we end on an absolutely stone-cold classic James Bond double entendre moment as the Minister asks

"My god, what's Bond doing?"

Even though this was presumably a rhetorical question, Q replies

"I think he's attempting re-entry, sir."

Expensive Luxury Cat's rating: Very Expensive and Luxury

Moonraker!

Ridiculous or Ridiculously Awesome moments from Mahabharat: The Wilderness Years

1. Bhim's wife and son turn out to be Monkeyesque baddys [Episode 53]

At one point during the Pandavas' 13 years of exile, Bhim is wandering alone when he sees a giant menacing a family and demanding that one of them come with him to be a human sacrifice - this has a strong resemblance to a typical plot you might expect to see in an episode of Monkey, even down to every member of the family offering up reasons why they should be the one to self-sacrifice. Bhim steps in and demands that he be taken, and the giant agrees to this since he is obviously a much finer specimen of a manny and so more suitable for sacrifice than any of the family would have been.

The giant takes Bhim home to where his mother lives, and it turns out that the giant's mother is Hidimbi, a demoness who Bhim married the last time he was in exile, after the incident with the House of Wax. This means that the giant is actually Bhim's son, called Ghatotkacha, and as a half-manny-half-demon he has many magical powers.

Upon seeing that her son has brought her husband and his own father for sacrifice, Hidimbi immediately sees the error of her ways and decides not to sacrifice any more mannys. Ghatotkacha pays his respects to Bhim and receives his blessing, in the traditional way for characters in this series, and then they embrace as father and son.

2. Arjun goes to heaven and gets more than he came for [Episodes 53-54]

Arjun goes to heaven, which looks all cloud-like in a very similar way to the Western Heaven we saw in Monkey. I'm not saying they reused the same sets, but they may as well have done. There he obtains divine weapons from the gods, and is then ordered by Indra, king of the gods (and also sort of Arjun's father by way of Kunti's magic spell), to learn music and dance from Indra's own musician. This was because Indra knew that such skills would be useful to Arjun in the future.

The goddess Urvashi decides to seduce Arjun, but he rejects her by comparing her to a mother - a dire insult, judging by her reaction. Urvashi responds to this rejection by cursing Arjun with impotence, or possibly (the subtitled translation seems unable to make up its mind which) to become a eunuch.

Indra is unhappy about this, and not just because of his paternal fondness for Arjun - he rules that this was not a justifiable use for divine cursing. But it is too late for Urvashi to take back the curse completely (that seems to be completely against the rules), so instead Indra makes her modify it so that Arjun is only a eunuch for one year, and at a time of Arjun's choosing. Once again Indra has peered into the future and seen that this will aid Arjun at a time when he needs it the most - a blessing disguised as a curse.

3. A drink of water kills four Pandavas [Episode 55]

Wandering the forest looking for water to drink, Nakul finds a likely looking lake and stops to take a drink. A bodiless voice (which in this series is a sure sign that a god is involved) challenges him to answer its questions before he drinks, but Nakul ignores this and drinks anyway. He promptly falls down ded. His twin brother Sahadev then finds the body but considers it more important to have a drink from the lake before doing anything about this. He too is challenged by the voice to answer questions before drinking, and he too ignores it. He drinks, with the same result as before.

Arjun is sent to look for the twins, and he finds their bodies lying by the lake (only noticing them when they are visible in the same shot as he is). A yaksha spirit with a big moustache appears floating in the air and tells Arjun what has happened, and that the same thing will happen to him if he drinks the water without answering the questions first. Arjun is angry at the death of his brothers and so drinks some water just to defy the spirit, but he then dies in the same way as they did. Next Bhim arrives on the scene, and exactly the same thing happens with him - only with even more overacting as he dies.

Soon Yudhishthir finds the four bodies and, because he is the wisest of them (except when it comes to gambling), he goes along with the spirit's demand that he answer questions before drinking the water. The spirit seems to be trying to trick Yudhishthir by asking nonsensical questions or questions that have no answer, but Yudhishthir is equal to this game and may even be trolling the spirit with his answers. Judge for yourselves:

Q. "What is heavier than Earth?"

A. "Mother"

Q. "What is higher than the sky?"

A. "Father"

Q. "What is faster than the wind?"

A. "The mind"

Q. "What is more in number than twigs?"

A. "Worry"

Q. "Who is the friend of a person close to death?"

A. "Charity"

Q. "Where does religion, success, heaven and happiness reside?"

A. "Religion resides in Awareness. Success in Charity. Heaven in Truth. Happiness in chastity."

Q. "What is a man's soul?"

A. "His son"

Q. "What has covered the Earth?"

A. "Ignorance"

Q. "What is laziness?"

A. "Ignorance of Religion is laziness"

Q. "Who is truly happy?"

A. "The one free of debt"

Q. "What is true cleansing?"

A. "The cleansing of the mind"

Q. "What is darker than eye black?"

A. "Disrepute"

Q. "Which is the best religion?"

A. "Piety!"

Q. "What can prevent mourning?"

A. "Keeping the mind in control"

Q. "What is shame?"

A. "Keeping away from unworthy things"

Q. "What is Piety?"

A. "Wishing happiness for all"

Q. "What kills the nation?"

A. "Slavery"

Q. "What is the true test of Brahminhood? Dynasty, Character, Teaching or Knowledge?"

A. "Dynasty, Teaching or Knowledge do not prove Brahminhood. Character is the true test. A Shudra with Character is better than a born Brahmin who has only Knowledge but no Character"

Q. "Is Religion in Logic?"

A. "No!"

Q. "Is it found in the philosophy of Sages?"

A. "No! Because each Sage differs from the others. None has the complete Truth"

Q. "Where is the complete truth?"

A. "In the heart of the believer"

Q. "What is the greatest wonder?"

A. "The greatest wonder is that each individual knows that Death is the ultimate Truth and yet believes that maybe he is immortal."

For answering all of his questions "correctly" the spirit brings Yudhishthir's brothers back to life. Yudhishthir recognises that this is not really a Yaksha but a god. In fact it is Yama, who is Yudhishthir's divine father in much the same way Indra is to Arjun, and this was all a test to prove Yudhishthir's wisdom and worthiness.

4. Pandavas in disguise [Episodes 56-58]

After 12 years of exile, the final part of the forfeit for losing the dice game with Shakuni was that the Pandavas had to play hide and seek, remaining undiscovered anywhere in the world for a whole year - or else if they were found out in this time then they would have to spend another 12 years in exile. In the independent kingdom of Matsya, not too far from Hastinapur, they hid under a variety of cunning (read: wafer thin, but still surprisingly effective for that) disguises. It was here that Arjun's divine curse came to his assistance - as the most famous and recognisable of the brothers, he was the hardest to disguise, but nobody would think to look for the ace archer and proud warrior among the eunuchs of the women's quarters.

I think Arjun's disguise is so particularly effective because he doesn't have his distinctive moustache.

The king of Matsya's brother-in-law, who is also their army's general, makes improper advances towards Draupadi, so Bhim and Arjun have a big fight with him and kill him - although all Arjun does is play suitable incidental music for the fight scene, and it is Bhim who actually does all the killing, Arjun plays the drum so dramatically that his paws end up covered in his blood.

5. Arjun gives himself away... or does he? [Episodes 59-62]

With the rest of Matsya's army lured away in the wrong direction thanks to a diversionary attack, the young prince Uttar is left to defend the kingdom on his own. Well... not quite on his own, as he takes with him Arjun, still in the guise of the eunuch Brihannala, to act as his charioteer. When faced with all the mighty warriors of Hastinapur, the prince has second thoughts and tries to run away, so Arjun makes him be the charioteer and let Arjun do the fighting in his place.

Arjun may still be in disguise, but he will not fight without first observing the proper ceremonies of the warrior, so he blows his conch horn to announce himself. Duryodhan hears this and believes he has pierced the "veil of anonymity" around the Pandavas, thus meaning they have lost the game of international hide and seek.

Arjun goes on to defeat in turn Karna, Kripa, Drona, Ashwathama, Dushasan, Karna (again), Bhishma and Duryodhan, but does not kill any of them even when they are at his mercy. Duryodhan insists that the Pandavas must forefeit and undertake another 12 years of exile, but the Kuru elders disagree and say that the year of anonymity was over before the invasion of Matsya began.

This ambiguity is necessary in order to drive the conflict in the next part of the story - with both sides believing they are in the right and so unwilling to back down to the other side's counterclaim - but there is one piece of evidence that the year was not yet over that seems to be overlooked: why was Arjun's year-long curse of impotence still in effect, instead of ending at the same time as the year of exile?

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Six

Robin challenges Guy of Gisbourne to a duel. Guy tries to say "I do not duel with vagrants" but Marion says

"You may tell him that Sir Guy is afraid."

and this convinces Guy to accept the challenge.

Litle John worries that Guy won't fight fair, and he wonders why Robin is so confident. This prompts Robin to tell him of the prophecy from back in part one that he can only die by a woman's paw. This also reminds the viewers at home about this, because otherwise we might not remember it because it hasn't been mentioned since then. John asks

"Did she say by a woman's hand, or for a woman's hand?"

since he knows Robin is fighting for Marion's sake more than just to avenge the death of her uncle Sir Kenneth.

Robin and Guy have a big fight in a wood while the Merry Mannys and some soldiers look on. As one would hope for a big climactic fight in the final episode of the series, this is the best choreographed fight so far, so even though it goes on for a while it does not get boring. Eventually Robin wins, and Guy lies down as though to have some sleeps.

Robin rescues Marion and takes her to her uncle's house, which is now her house.

Meanwhile, Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham have been off in their own plot, which involves having noms with a bishop. The bishop bores them senseless by going on and on about how good King Richard is, which is a shortpaw way of letting us viewers know that he is a goody bishop and not a baddy bishop, so he refuses to team up with them.

It is the law that any series about heroic outlaws has to have a plot where the baddys pretend to be the outlaws in order to discredit them - a typical (though hardly good) example of this can be seen in The Water Margin episode 13 When Liang Shan Po Robbed the Poor. Since we haven't had that plot in this series yet, and this is the last episode, we get that now. Some fake Merry Mannys ambush the bishop and murder him, but let his friends escape thinking this was done by Robin Hood. Previously friendly villagers start turning against the Merry Mannys and helping the soldiers to capture them. Zzzzz.

With the bishop ded, Prince John now has enough power to take over as regent, so he has the current regent arrested. He just has time to sit on the throne and try on the crown before his mother and King Richard arrive to take it away from him.

Some scenes of Friar Tuck walking around while being ill go on for waaaaay too long, and seem calculated to undo the goodwill for the episode we got from the high standard of the earlier fight scene. Between this and the fake Merry Mannys plot this episode has really nosedived in quality.

Fortunately the fake Merry Manny who robbed and killed the bishop is caught when using the items he stole to pay for his drinks, and he admits to Robin that the Sheriff made him do it, so at least this plot is being dispensed with. But I am disappointed in the Sheriff for resorting to such a dreadfully clichéd scheme, mew. Maybe he was just doing it to troll us?

King Richard rounds up all of Prince John's supporters, until only the Sheriff and his henchmanny-of-the-week Sir Brian are left. The Sheriff decides to escape from the castle using the secret passage from part five.

At the same time Robin tells the king about the secret passage, so that when the Sheriff comes out he is immediately captured. The king says the Sheriff has done so many crimes that "the pity is you can only die once" - yet another reason why mannys (even ones played by Paul Darrow) are rubbish and cats are best.

This is the last we see of the Sheriff of Nottingham, but at least we know Paul Darrow will be back the next time the BBC decide to make a series about outlaws. The king pardons Robin, and there is a happy ending if you turn the DVD off at this point.

Robin goes to his house at Huntingdon now that he has been made the earl again, but then he gets ill with the same sickness as we saw Friar Tuck had earlier on. Guy of Gisbourne's sister comes in and gives him poison instead of medicine.

This is followed by another tedious scene of Robin staggering around, which clearly seems to be the director's preferred method of padding out an episode to reach the required length. Eventually Robin goes

This series is very variable in quality. Every scene with Paul Darrow in it is great (as you would expect), and the bits where he has his top off even more so, but you have to sit through a lot of padding and questionable story choices to get to the good parts.

Made in the mid-70s, this series was clearly a reaction against earlier versions of the legend of Robin Hood (clang!), most obviously the superb Disney animated movie made only a couple of years before this. Generally these earlier film and TV adaptations featured larger-than-life characters and swashbuckling adventures, so perhaps this was an attempt to make a down-to-earth, realistic version by way of contrast.

Unfortunately, I think they went way too far in that direction, and the decision to kill off many of the main characters - starting with Will Scarlet and finishing with Robin himself - was a mistaik because it made the series much less fun to watch. Not to mention greatly reducing any chances of there being a second series with further adventures of the Sheriff of Nottingham Merry Mannys, possibly with them getting in a new manny to be Robin Hood.

What was really needed was a middle ground between the OTT heroics of the earlier Robin Hoods and this all too grim and gritty interpretation of the 12th century. Perhaps ITV would have more success with their retelling of the legend of Robin Hood when it was their turn to have a go in the 1980s...

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Five

The news from the crusade is that King Richard has been captured by Leopold of Austria, who is demanding 150,000 moneys as ransom. This sounds like quite a lot, if only there was a well-known idiom to describe it, mew.

The Merry Mannys find out that Prince John has been keeping the taxes for himself instead of sending them on to the Chancellor.

Prince John tells the Sheriff of Nottingham his latest scheme is to pay Leopold even more moneys to keep the king prisoner forever. The Sheriff says

"Such skill. Such a simple plan. And so watertight.

The future begins to look very bright."

He's a poet and he know it.

Sir Kenneth has finally realised what a baddy Sir Guy of Gisbourne is, and regrets getting Marion engaged to him. He summons Robin to meet him, and swears Robin to secrecy before bringing in Queen Mother Eleanor (last seen by us in part two). She asks Robin to help her raise the ransom moneys for Richard, and he tells her about the moneys that Prince John has been keeping. Eleanor makes Robin her deniable agent and gives him an mission to steal the money for her, if he chooses to accept it.

One of Sir Guy's spies tells him about Eleanor and Robin's meeting, and Sir Guy tells the Sheriff, who quickly deduces what the meeting was about, making Robin's mission even more impossible. When the Merry Mannys find out about the increased security that Sir Guy puts on the moneys, Friar Tuck deduces that they know that they know about it.

Little John knows about a secret passage into Nottingham Castle, so the Merry Mannys sneak in. Robin captures the Sheriff and Sir Guy, and the Sheriff makes an "oh noes!" face, lol.

The Merry Mannys escape with the moneys in sacks, and leave the Sheriff and Sir Guy tied up. As soon as they are gone, one of the henchmannys frees the Sheriff and he shouts

"Guards! Guards!"

The guards, guards chase the Merry Mannys and have a fight with them, but we don't see much of the fight because it is dark outside.

Most of the Merry Mannys escape, but Little John gets captured. The Sheriff tries to seduce Little John into betraying Robin and the others, and I use the word "seduce" advisedly...

"You're a big, strong, healthy fellow, well able to enjoy the pleaseures of life, I'll wager. They will be yours, in abundance, when you tell me what I want to know."

Purr. Well I'd be convinced, but somehow Little John resists the temptation.

Sir Guy has a different plan to find out where the Merry Mannys are headed with the moneys. He kidnaps Marion to try to force Sir Kenneth to tell him, but all this results in is Sir Kenneth having a swordfight with him. This ends with Sir Guy stabbing Sir Kenneth, who goes

The rescue attempt for Little John involves the Merry Mannys infiltrating the castle grounds in a variety of disguises, including a couple as women for some good old-fashioned komedy hijinks when one of the guards takes a fancy to them.

Before sending him to be hanged, the Sheriff asks Little John one last time if he will tell him where the rest of the Merry Mannys have gone, and it seems as though Little John has finally succumbed to the Sheriff's charms (well... he's only a cat manny) because he says he will tell him.

Sheriff: "Excellent! Where have they taken the money?"

Little John: "Next time you see a rainbow, run as fast as you can. They're going to bury the money at the end of it."

Lol, he totally pwned you there, Sheriff! This makes the Sheriff very angry, and so he demands that the hangmanny make Little John dance.

The hangmanny is revealed to be Robin in disguise, and he rescues John instead of making him dance (or hanging him, mew). When they get back to their base, they find out about what happened to Sir Kenneth and that Marion is still Sir Guy's prisoner.

This is a proper cliffhanger, what with it even ending on a sudden cut to Robin's mildly concerned-looking face.

This instalment feels like a proper Robin Hood story, and on top of that it has loads of good scenes for the Sheriff in it, so this is comfortably the best episode since part two.

Big Gay Longcat reviews The Legend of Robin Hood: Part Four

Here's a promising start to the episode, as the first scene features the Sheriff of Nottingham (purr) who was badly underused in part three. He meets with a messenger (played by Roy "Sandbaggers" Marsden - alas he has no scenes in common with Diane "Sandbaggers" Keen) acting on behalf of a mysterious "superior." It seems there is another secret plan being hatched. Sir Guy of Gisbourne is worried that Robin Hood will interfere, what with him being the hero, so the Sheriff tells his henchmannys to try and catch Robin.

Robin and his Merry Manny Ralph are not so merry when they find a village has had all of its noms taken by Sir Guy and the Sheriff's soldiers as taxes. The village head manny is played by William "Crown Court barrister Martin O'Connor" Simons, but even his extensive legal experience can't help him here when the laws are whatever the Sheriff says they are.

Robin and Ralph get into a fight with the Sheriff's henchmannys at the same river where Robin first met Little John (well you can't blame them, really... location scouting is a tricky business, mew), and things look bad for them until the other Merry Mannys arrive to help. This victory makes Robin bold, so they decide to go on the offensive against any baddys who enter Sherwood Forest, robbing from them to give to the poor.

The first manny we see them rob tells them "[the Sheriff] shall hear of this!" to which Robin replies

"I hope he will. And be sure to tell him that you have also paid Robin Hood's taxes."

The Sheriff doesn't take this news well, and again threatens his henchmanny with punishment if he doesn't catch Robin. He also takes it out on the villagers Robin helped, increasing their taxes "by half." I think that means he has just reduced their taxes to half of what they were, which is nice of him.

When he sends out henchmannys to tell the villagers this, the Merry Mannys capture them and hang them up in just their underwear, lol.

The Merry Mannys capture a knight called Sir Richard of the Lea, and we can immediately tell he must be a significant character because he's played by Bernard "Marcus Scarman" Archard - and you don't waste him on a small part unless you're Krull.

Sir Richard says he knew Robin's father, and then tells his tale of how he owes the "Abbot of St Marys" 400 moneys and was on his way to tell the abbot he could not pay it. Robin gives him 400 of the moneys they had robbed as a present before he sends Sir Richard on his way.

This evil abbot isn't the one who got stabbed back in part two - he is a different, other evil abbot, played by Kevin Stoney. Roy Marsden's character turns out to be his Brother Prior, and presumably one of the other ones is an equally dickish Brother Jerome. Sir Richard comes in and begs the abbot for more time, but then when the abbot says no he throws down the moneys and insults him, calling him "a shame to his office" in front of all his monks. This is a serious diss.

Sir Richard thanks Robin for his help by telling him that the abbot will be meeting with the Sheriff and Sir Guy to discuss their latest plan to team up and help Prince John become king.

Several long, slow scenes of Sir Guy leading the baddys - both monks and soldiers - through the forest do their best to build suspense send us cats to sleep, before the Merry Mannys finally spring their ambush. There is a big fight and Will Scarlet goes

but the goodys win in the end, and this convinces the evil abbot not to team up with the Sheriff and Sir Guy. The story ends with the Sheriff making a 'whyioughtta...' face at Sir Guy for his failure, lol.

This is a better episode than part three, with a lot more Sheriff of Nottingham in it, but it is still quite ponderous and surprisingly unexciting - even in the action scenes.