The highs and lows of Bond
QUESTION What is regarded as the worst opening sequence to a Bond film?
HAVING worked on the first five James Bond films, I was shocked at the way Quantum Of Solace was presented and one of its faults was without doubt the opening sequence.
Starting a film with a car chase without any storyline to justify it made no sense at all to the audience. All one could do was sit back and watch cars driving at speed, and note the occasions when the driver was Bond. What the director was thinking is impossible to imagine, but no other Bond opening has been subjected to such criticism.
Norman Wanstall, Burford, Worcestershire. EVER since the second 007 movie, From Russia With Love (released in 1963), every official James Bond film (those made by Eon Productions Ltd) has featured an opening sequence that comes before the main titles.
These scenes are known to Bond fans as the Pre-Credits Sequences (PCSs) and generate much debate about their relative merits. Some of the sequences, such as those in GoldenEye (1995) and Die Another Day (2002), introduce key characters and plot points, while others, for example Goldfinger (1964) and Octopussy (1983), are standalone mini-adventures with no relevance to the rest of the film.
From 1977 onwards, with the iconic ski-jump/Union Jack parachute opening of The Spy Who Loved Me, the PCSs have tended to be big-budget affairs, featuring thrilling stunts. Consequently, the lower-key scenes from the earlier movies are often less well regarded, particularly by younger 007 fans. Chief among these is probably the opening of Live And Let Die (1973), which features the killing of three MI6 agents and in which Bond does not appear and is not referenced.
Of the later movies, some fans felt that the PCSs of both Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Quantum Of Solace (2008) were simply generic action sequences, lacking the usual Bond flair.
The use of a cover version of The Beach Boys’ California Girls in A View To A Kill (1985) dismayed Bond purists; and the PCS of The World Is Not Enough (1999) was extended to include the boat chase along the Thames, after preview audiences found the initial opening sequence, showing Bond escaping from an office using a cord from the blinds, to be underwhelming.
There are, however, more ways to rank the James Bond PCSs than there are people on the planet, and there are plenty of fans happy to sing the praises of even the weakest sequence. Paul George, St Columb, Cornwall.
QUESTION Which was the first church to be designated a cathedral?
A CHURCH where the bishop’s throne (cathedra) is located is a cathedral. There are various early claimants to the title. Tradition holds that Etchmiadzin Cathedral in Armenia was built in about AD303 by Gregory the Illuminator, the founder and first official
Catholicos, or supreme bishop, of the Armenian Apostolic Church. The core of the current building was built in AD483-4 after the cathedral was damaged in a Persian invasion.
A case has also been made for Trier Cathedral in Germany. The site has a rich Christian history dating back to at least AD270 and legend has it that a cathedra was established there by Bishop Agritius sometime in the second half of the 3rd century.
We know the original St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City was built in AD333 but it is not a cathedral. It is a major basilica overseen by the Pope. The cathedra of the Pope as bishop of Rome is at the Archbasilica of Saint John Lateran.
J. B. Peters, Canterbury, Kent.
QUESTION Where does the saying ‘sky-blue pink’ come from?
THE TERM sky-blue pink refers to a non-existent colour.
It appears to have American origins, with references dating from the late 1800s: ‘“I can’t tell the colour,” said Binns. “It was like a sky-blue pink, with a shade of greeny brown, or something like that.”’ (Arizona Weekly Journal-Miner, 1893).
The sense of a non-colour was popularised by the prolific children’s author Howard R. Garis, who wrote more than 11,000 Uncle Wiggily stories, featuring a rheumatic old rabbit called Uncle Wiggily Longears.
Uncle Wiggily would often use the phrase, for example: ‘But, in case I don’t fall into the washtub with my new suit on, and get it all coloured sky-blue-pink...’
Post-war, lots of regional variations of the phrase developed, such as sky-blue pink with yellow dots, and sky-blue pink with a Finny-haddy border. Jim Preece, Durham.