The Adventures of Triple P

Clémence Poésy

2012-01-27T18:26:00.000Z

Can there possibly be a more melifluous name for a young actress than Clémence Poésy?

Sometimes Agent Triple P spots an actress in a minor role who impresses him to such an extent that he looks her up afterwards. We did it some years ago when we spotted a teenage Rachel Weisz in an episode of Inspector Morse. We just did the same with Mlle Poésy.

We have to take someone to the new Harry Potter exhibition at Leavesden Studios later in the year but given that we had only watched half of the first film on an aeroplane flight we felt we needed to know more about the phenomenon; otherwise the hours we will no doubt have to spend there could be incredibly tedious.

So we setlled down over about ten days and watched all eight films. It was quite strange to watch the young cast grow up in such a concentrated time period. We can't think of an equivalent where a junior cast matures over the course of a series of films like this. The nearest equivalent, we suppose, would be The Waltons TV series.

Anyway, we got to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (or Goblin of Fire as S insists on calling it) where there is a sort of wizarding Olympics. Cue the arrival of the all-girl French team, in fetching blue outfits, led by their chief witch, Fleur Delacour.

Clémence, as Fleur, didn't have a lot to do in the film, really, but always looked elegant doing it and had the dubious honour of being the only girl to appear in a Harry Potter film in skimpy clothes (a very snug swimsuit). She was, at twenty two, rather older than the rest of the juvenile cast.

Mlle Poésy, coincidentally, is currently appearing on the BBC in an adaption of Sebastien Faulks' World War I drama, Birdsong.

She was born in a suburb of Paris and her father is a theatrical director and actor. She had her first acting role at the age of fourteen and is now twenty nine.

Apart from appearing in three Harry Potter films and in French films and TV she has also been in, rather incongruously, Gossip Girl. She has just finished making a film with Michael Caine.

Not surprisingly she has done some modelling notably for the perfume of the fashion house Chloé.

Unlike most French actresses, who seem happy to strip off for the camera at the first opportunity, she was unhappy with her topless scene when she was eighteen; complaining that it was inappropriate for a director to ask her to do that. She now has a clause in all her contracts which say that nude scenes of her (she hasn't said she won't do them) are not to be used as publicity stills or in film trailers.

Sorry Clémence, but if you do the scene, whatever your contract says, there is always the print screen button!

Agent Triple P likes a girl with a strong nose and full lips so hopes Clémence will go far!

Calendar Girl January 2012: Kelly Brook

2012-01-18T10:21:00.000Z

Another new year and for us here in Great Britain its the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics. So what better way to start the year than with the gorgeously regal Kelly Brook.

Turtley scrummy!

Kelly has been as busy as ever of late. In November she was in Belgium filming for the SF series Metal Hurlant Chronicles and looking very fetching in black leather.

Just before Christmas she posted this effective picture on her Twitter account to prove it was, indeed hers. She could have photographed herself wearing some sensible Jeans and a tee shirt but Kelly is all about Glamour with a capital "G".

Here she is, in another self-post, at Christmas demonstrating an enviable way to deliver presents.

At present she is promoting the (rather good) range of lingerie she has designed for New Look.

This picture of a young Kelly (right) with her brother Damian and her mother, Sandra, demonstrates where she got her looks from. We have Sandra to thank for encouraging her daughter to take up modelling.

As a result the sixteen year old Kelly started off doing page 3 shots for the Daily Star, which was famous for being the first newspaper in the UK to have colour photographs; much to the derison, at the time, of its competitors. It meant, however, that their babes were in colour whilst The Sun's remained in black and white. Here is one of Kelly's early page 3 shots for the Star.

Special K girl Merissa Porter

2012-01-16T17:39:00.003Z

Special K, the girls low-calorie breakfast cereal, that looks and tastes just like cattle feed, are running one of their post Christmas blowout campaigns at present. Daring women to wear red (for some unfathomable reason that obviously makes sense to advertising people) their TV, internet and print ads feature the really rather delectable model, Merissa Porter.

27 year old Merissa hails from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, although more recently she has been living in Surbiton just a few stations up the mainline from where triple P lives.

Other than the lovely Merissa, Biggleswade is famous for being the birthplace of music hall producer and performer Charles Penrose (1873-1952), whose really rather sinister 1922 song The Laughing Policeman used to give Triple P nightmares when he was little.

Talking of music, guitar playing Merissa was in a singing group a few years ago called Mr Skillz and the Crazy Girls (above, second from right) but they only seem to have only released one single, in 2007.

Oddly, given the low calorie nature of Special K, Biggleswade is also the home to decidedly high calorie breakfast cereal Jordans Original Crunchy. Originally bringing the alien concept of granola to the UK in the early seventies, Jordans sells itself on a healthy image despite many of its cereals, such as Jordans Original Crunchy, containing bucketloads of sugar (28% for raisins and almonds version) and saturated fat.

It's also ironic that a girl whose first job at the age of sixteen was in Pizza Town in Biggleswade is fronting a campaign aimed at slimmers.

Merissa's own 34-24-34 figure looks like it needs very little help from Special K!

Splendid!

The return of Dancing on Ice

2012-01-07T16:23:00.000Z

Jennifer Ellison gets her skates on

Another of Triple P's guilty TV pleasures is Dancing on Ice, which returns tomorrow. Although very much a poor relation to Strictly Come Dancing it usually has enough fit young women in tiny outfits to keep us amused for an hour or two on a Sunday evening.

Charlene Tilton a very long time ago

This year the level of celebrities competing rarely gets above D grade. Indeed we have only heard of five out of the twelve. The biggest two names this year are: Charlene Tilton from Dallas who is universally known in the UK as "the poison dwarf" (thanks to radio DJ Terry Wogan who had a thing about her in the eighties) and diet guru Rosemary Conley. Both of these are there to fight the accusations of ageism that is besetting TV channels here.

Lingerie model Jennifer Ellison has never appealed to Triple P because of her plastic bust (allegedly- she claims its natural) and enormous forehead. She ballooned in weight after having a baby recencly so it is all credit to her for losing an amazing five stone (that's 70lbs for those who don't understand our medieval system of weighing people) to get ready for the show.

Jennifer Ellison after the birth of her baby

Triple P will be supporting local girl, Olympic skiier Chemmy Alcott, who is using her stint on the show as part of her rehabilitation from a horrific crash last year. One of her legs is now mostly metal.

Chemmy Alcott

Also worth looking our for is Jorgie Porter, an actress from the TV show Hollyoaks, which is only really famous for producing an endless line of identikit "blonde" starlets.

Jorgie Porter displays the sort of strong rear needed for skating

None of these splendid ladies will win, of course, as the nature of the voting viewers will mean that it is likely to be the male soap actor. There is one intriguing entry this year, Frenchman Sebastien Foucan, one of the creators of freerunning, who appeared in the opening sequence of Casino Royale (2006) being chased up a crane by James Bond. He should have good balance anyway.

Holly Willoughby

The biggest disappointment for Triple P is the replacement of the pneumatic Holly Willoughby (two of the main reasons to watch the show) as co-presenter by the rather more average WAG, Christine Bleakley. Bleakley has already stated that she won't try to compete with Willoughby's notorious plunging necklines.

Christine Bleakley

More interesting to Agent Triple P is the inclusion on the judging panel of Olympic gold medallist Katarina Witt who we always had a thing about. The only woman to make figure skating sexy, largely because of her very unskater-like figure where she was a woman amongst a host of twiglets.

Katarina Witt

More features on some of these ladies as the series develops, no doubt.

Calendar Plane of the Month, January: Supermarine Spitfire Mark I and Messerchmitt Bf 110c

2012-01-01T22:01:00.001Z

Agent Triple P has two calendars this year: one of girlies, of course, and another featuring pictures of box art from Airfix model kits. Agent Triple P, like many of his contemporaries, spent a lot of time making Airfix kits when he was younger and one of the earliest he remembers building was the "dogfight doubles" kit of a Spitfire and a Messerschmitt 110.

The version that Triple P built was this one with a typically wonderful box art painting by Roy Cross. This is something of an anachronistic painting in that it puts a Mark IX Spitfire alongside a 1940 vintage Me 110 D. The new kit, more accurately, has a Mark I Spitfire instead. These paintings persuaded Triple P to part with most of his pocket money at the time. Later on, political correctness meant that aircraft couldn't be shown in combat action and, for a time, a photo of the models themselves was used on the box but the reality of these, however well made and painted they were, could never fire the imagination like Cross' artwork.

These days, the cover paintings are produced digitally rather than by using paint but they are still effective and its good to see the action scenes have returned. These new digital pictures are the work of technical artist Adam Tooby who has managed to put some painterly life into his digital images and has avoided the sterile look that most computer generated artwork has.

Foie gras: nearly a nasty moment

2011-12-31T12:42:00.000Z

Part of a dead animal

Over Christmas we were informed by a young lady of our acquantance that Britain had made it illegal to sell foie gras. This was something we didn't know and caused us some momentary alarm as we are very partial indeed to foie gras.

Triple P does not find all "luxury" foods worth eating, as you are often paying for rarity rather than taste. We quite like truffles, for example, but the price asked for them is ludicrous. We once had truffles with our pasta in the Adlon Hotel in Berlin and they actually shaved bits on to a pair of miniature weighing scales in order to price it. We have never liked oysters. Foie gras is quite different, however, as it is totally delicious.

Now we have found out that it is not, in fact, banned in the UK, although production of it is. Very few countries now produce it; in Europe only Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Hungary and Spain do so. In the European Union production is actually prohibited but there is a typically European loophole (no doubt put in there by the French who are responsible for 79% of the world's production and don't want to lose their growing market in Asia) in that production can continue "where it is current practice". The French rural code, Article L 654-27-1 (passed in 2006) states that "Le foie gras fait partie du patrimoine culturel et gastronomique protégé en France." So given that it is part of their cultural and gastronomic heritage they would no doubt fight to the last man (unlike the Battle of Quebec in 1759 for example where they surrendered after 15 minutes of fighting) for it. Actually Quebec is somewhere else that produces very fine foie gras which we have enjoyed on trips to Canada, although we are surprised that the politically correct Canadians haven't stopped this yet.

An example of human civilisation

The issue is, of course, that the geese or ducks that produce the fattened livers are force fed on corn mash (nutritionally pretty much the same as tortilla chips and simple carbohydrate bread that is causing most of the obesity in the west) which animal rights people don't approve off. This is a simple one for Triple P. We eat animals (because humans are designed to) and we know that many animals produced for food are treated badly (if they weren't, meat would be too expensive for poorer people to eat.) An interesting fact that Triple P learned from a TV programme over Christams was that the consumption of fowl (chickens, ducks, geese etc) by most people in England is very recent - certainly within the last 100 years and, in many cases more recently that than. This is because, before battery farming, it was simply too expensive for most people to afford chicken. Now it is a cheap meat. We do buy free range eggs, but that is because they taste better. We are not so fussy about the source of our bacon and sausages, however. it is difficult, if not impossible, in most cases, to know what conditions animals are reared in. As for geese; we hate geese and have been attacked by them several times so we are quite happy for them to suffer to produce foie gras. We hate cows too, which is why we eat a lot of beef. Actually, we have always found sheep a bit sinister. We have seen films of cows being slaughtered and geese being force fed and it doesn't for a minute stop us wanting to eat them. It does some people and that is fine but we are afraid that we just don't care about the fate of food animals.

It seems to me that you have to be all or nothing on this issue. Either you eat meat or you don't (and if you don't you shouldn't wear leather either). As we do, we do not differentiate as to how that meat is produced. We will continue to eat foie gras even though there is an increasing celebrity-led movement in the UK to ban it from our restaurants. The French would no doubt argue (as does our Parisian friend N) that the production of foie gras, being a modification to the natural order of things for the purpose of taste, is a sign of civilisation not barbarism and we would have to agree. Certainly the geese have a hard time of it but so do many of the animals that we harvest for our various purposes. Exploitation of animals is part of the natural order of things. That is why humans run the planet and geese don't.

Solar Wind Ship by Frank Tinsley

2011-12-28T16:24:00.000Z

Here is an elegantly spare illustration of a solar wind ship by Frank Tinsley from 1959. Approaching Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons the aluminium foil covered sail ships trail a nuclear powered ferry rocket for lunar landing missions. This is a very effective illistration just using a black, white and yellow pallette.

This is one of a series of pictures that Tinsley did for advertisements for the American Bosch Arma Coporation between 1958 and 1960. Arma was originally founded in 1918 and supplied searchlights to the US Navy. They merged with the American Bosch Corporation in 1954. ABAC supplied theinertial guidance system for the Atlas missile and some of the electronics for the Apollo Lunar Module.

This 30 foot tall unicycle's purpose was for exploring the moon. A spare tyre acts as a bumper for when exploring narrow defiles. A solar powered "parasol" provides power.

The picture for this advertisement related to the realisation that in the future the world would be encircled by dead satellites. Rather then letting them fall to earth at random this pictuire contemplates a salvage tug positioning them so that when they drop there is no chance of them landing on inhabited areas.

This 1958 picture shows the construction of a space station in the traditional, for the fifties and sixties, wheel shape. Presumably this shape was because it was contemplated that they would spin, in order to create artificial gravity, something we haven't managed yet.

Here is a supply rocket landing at a moon base. The advertisements contemplated rockets the size of the Empire State Building being powered by a nuclear pulse engine firing out atomic bombs.

The final picture is of another nuclear powered rocket approaching Mars. It is designed to fly nose first as a rocket and then tail first when it reaches the Martian atmosphere as a ramjet.

AgentTriple P loves these views into a future that never was from the height of the space race.

Aviation and space specialist illustrator Frank Tinsley was born in Manhattan in 1899. After high school he worked as an apprentice artist in the research department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His brief military service in World War One was spent in the Design Section of the War Department.

By the twenties he was a freelance illustrator selling pictures to magazines such as Air Stories, Air Trails, Bill Barnes Air Trails, Lariat Story, Sky Birds, War Birds, and Western Story. By the forties he also had his own newspaper comic strip, Yankee Doodle later changed to Captain Yank.

In the fifties he wrote and illustrated articles for Mechanix Illustrated. He died in 1965.

Frank Tinsley

Calendar Girl December 2011: Michelle Keegan

2011-12-26T16:23:00.001Z

We have just managed to squeeze in our last calendar girl of 2011 before the end of the month. Miss Michelle Keegan is someone else we have never heard of until we wrote this post.

Twenty-four year old Miss Keegan is best known for being an actress in Manchester-set Northern TV soap opera, Coronation Street. Manchester-born herself and having worked in a department store and as an airline check-in girl she got the part in the soap on only her second ever audition in 2007.

Coronation Street is the longest running TV soap in the world; having been first broadcast in December 1960. Triple P's mother used to watch it back in the sixties and seventies when all the women in it (and Manchester, presumably) looked like this (above).

It has changed somewhat if they are now featuring actresses like Miss Keegan. British TV, however, has changed a lot in the last fifteen years; with actresses easily as attractive as those on US TV being the norm. Before this it was certainly the case that the actresses in our TV shows were much more ordinary (i.e. normal) looking compared with those in US TV shows.

Nothing very ordinary about Miss Keegan who says she owes her exotic Mediterranean looks to a Gibraltarian grandmother. Gibraltar, for our overseas readers, is a tiny British territory attached to southern Spain, much to the annoyance of the Spanish who want it back. The British and Dutch captured the strategically located port in 1704, during the War of the Spanish Succession, and it was ceded to the UK in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This hasn't stopped the Spaniards trying to get it back ever since, despite the legality of the treaty.

Equally controversial as the Gibraltar question has been the nature of Miss Keegan's bust. She insists that her 30FFF assets are entirely natural, despite her very skinny frame.

She is only 5'4" tall, however, so it is within the bounds of possibility, we suppose, as shorter women are more likely to possess a naturally curvy figure than tall ones.

So, goodbye to our last calendar girl of 2011. It will soon be time to get January 2012's up, although we are contemplating moving our calandar girls across to our other blog, Venus Observations, as they are a bit of a relic from when we only had the one blog. However, the calendar girls are somewhat overdressed for the latter blog. Hmm. We have five days to decide!

A Happy Christmas...

2011-12-24T09:52:00.001Z

..to all our readers!

Hollywood: The Puppini Sisters

2011-12-23T19:50:00.000Z

Triple P likes British forties retro harmony group The Puppini Sisters. They mix recordings of old standards with vintage style versions of more modern music such as Wuthering Heights, I will Survive, Walk like an Egyptian and, our favourite, their utterly bonkers version of Crazy in Love. Recently their profile has been somewhat higher due to some recent work with Canadian crooner Michael Bublé.

.

We were excited to hear about their new cd which features songs from Hollywood films, therefore. Rumours were that their next album would all be self-penned songs but we have to say that we are glad that these are largely classics. Due to be released on 26th December we were delighted to find that it's already available for download on Amazon UK. A very nice early Christmas present to ourself!

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey trailer

2011-12-21T11:20:00.002Z

We don't usually post film trailers but we are very excited about this. We have only watched it twice and are already humming the song!

Ola Jordan to be Axed from Strictly Come Dancing?

2011-12-20T13:12:00.002Z

Bad news at the weekend in that it seems that Polish poppet Ola Jordan is likely to be the victim of a BBC Strictly Come Dancing shake-up.

The BBC regularly dump popular dancers on the show, especially when they get older, but it seems poor Ola is a target because of grumpy husband James' arguments with the Strictly team backstage (particularly the eminence gris of the show Craig Revell Horwood).

They should dump him (he always comes across as a slightly nasty piece of work) and keep her but I suppose she wouldn't agree to that.

Ola is one (two?) of the main reasons to watch the show for Agent Triple P and it just won't be the same without her annual catsuit outing. Oh well, we will have to make do with Aliona and Katya to provide glittery sex appeal next year.

Classic FM: Too many carols!

2011-12-15T17:46:00.000Z

Agent Triple P does not like Christmas or, rather, he does not like the ever extending Christmas season. Christmas should be confined to three days at most. Contributing annoyingly to the ever more bloated Christmas is Classic FM at the moment. It has been rather better of late with some music that we haven't heard before but recently it has been overcome with treacly dollops of Christmas fa la la la la nonsense. Every other track seems to be some choir performing arrangements of Christmas carols. Triple P listens to Classic FM because he likes classical music and hopes that, occasionally, he will discover a worthwhile piece of music he hasn't heard before. Indeed, only last week we heard, for the first time, Dvorak's tremendously symphonic "American" string quartet, written shortly after the New World symphony when he was on holiday in Iowa. We don't listen to the station for third rate (and most carols are musically third rate) Christmas slush sung by the amateur choir of some ghastly northern town.

The best piece of Christmas music that Triple P knows is Rimsky-Korsakov's Christmas Eve but Classic FM wouldn't play that as it lasts half an hour. So instead we have yet another arrangement by a minor British contemporary composer of Ding dong merrily on high or, as S calls it, for some reason, We who Wiggy wig below. Ding dong is my least favourite Christmas carol; it just conjures up images of pompous looking people making silly, over-theatrical faces when they sing (something that many people in amateur choirs are very prone to do).

Oh well, at least it's better than Andy fucking Williams' (as he is known to S and me) It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Bah, humbug!

X Factor Dancers

2011-12-07T21:32:00.000Z

X factor dancers appear to flash their busts at last year's competitor Wagner in one of their controversial performances in 2010

As we have observed before the only reason to watch the X Factor is some of the lady backing dancers. Since last year's furore as regards "inappropriate" routines during performances by Christina Aguilera and Rhianna the producers have ensured that this season's dancers costumes are less revealing, unfortunately. However, the ladies themselves are often so fine that despite having to look somewhat more dowdy they still brighten up a winter's evening.

Still, we had some very nice shorts in last week's programme and it is interesting to observe the Crazy Horse technique of different height heels to ensure that posteriors are lined up at a nice regular level.

Cute! Cute! Cute!

Its not often that a backing dancer breaks free from the background but this was the case for one of the 2009 crop of X Factor dancers, the lovely Sianad Gregory, who we first noted as she pranced around a lucky Olly Murs, in her little witches outfit, during the Halloween themed show.

Miss Gregory in all her glory

Not surprisingly Mr Murs was very taken with Miss Gregory and was desperate to obtain her phone number after the show. Whether he did or not we do not know!

Siniad (right) with Margarita Hall in Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009)

Miss Gregory is not only a dancer but an actress, appearing in a supporting role in 2009's amazingly unfunny Hammer horror spoof (a loose remake of the Karnstein films) Lesbian Vampire Killers which, with a title like that should have been a lot better than it was.

She also appeared in the recent dance film Street Dance 3D (2010) where she looked enticing in legwarmers.

5'6" tall Sianad is from Wales and has appeared in Welsh language TV programmes as well as having had parts in medical dramas Holby City and Casualty for the BBC.

With her long legs, gamine face and cute tummy we hope the twenty-three year old goes far! Forget the terrible singers, let's just have more dancers like Miss Gregory hitting the limelight and then the show will at least have done something worthwhile.

Launch of the new Martian Rover

2011-11-29T22:12:00.001Z

Lift-off on Saturday 26th November 2011

The big space news this week, of course, is the launch of the Mars Science Laboratory mission which blasted off from Cape Canaveral on Saturday using an Atlas V launch vehicle.

Destination Mars: Gale Crater

Carrying the big new Martian rover, Curiosity (named by a schoolgirl as part of a competition), it is due to arrive at its landing site, Gale Crater, sometime in August 2012. The mission is designed to see if Mars could, or has ever, hosted life.

The Curiosity rover hangs beneath the lander

Landing on Mars is tricky. The atmosphere is too thick to use purely a rocket descent (like the Lunar Module) but too thin for conventional parachutes. The Rover and its lander will use a combination of both. The rover will be lowered to the Martian surface by the new sky crane system which hasn't been used on a mission before. After parachuting through the atmosphere, at about a mile above the surface the rover and the lander will seperate from the protective aeroshell in which they have travelled from orbit. The lander will fire its hydrazine rocket thrusters and slow the descent. The rover will be lowered by the sky crane system until it hangs around 25 feet below the lander. A soon as it is confirmed that the rover is on the surface the lander will sever the connections to the rover and fly off to one side for a crash landing. This sounds like proper space exploration but there does seem to be an awful lot that could go wrong. Anything involving cables and explosive severing systems sounds like a recipe for disaster! Let's hope not!

Mock-ups of the Mars Exploration Rover (Spirit and Opportunity 2004-2010) left, Mars Pathfinder (Sojourner 1996) centre and the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity 2012-2014) right showing size comparison

The rover, which can move at about 30 metres an hour, is designed to operate for 686 days, which sounds like an odd amount but is actually the length of a Martian year. Curiosity is much bigger than previous rovers. The original tea tray sized Sojourner rover weighed 11.5 kilos and was 65 centimetres long. Curiosity weighs 900kg and is 3 metres long; about the size of a small car. Sojourner is about the size of one of Curiosity's wheels. It is about five times the size of the more recent Mars Exploration Rovers.

This picture of technicians working on Curiosity at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory gives an idea of its scale. It will be the biggest vehicle to land on another body in the Solar System. It is about the same length as the Lunar Rover but is more than four times the weight.

Those fun loving scientists have cut the initials of JPL in Morse code into the vehicle's wheels so it will literally leave a trail of their name across the Martian landscape.

Its all engagingly science fiction -like, although it seems a long way from the Edgar Rice Burroughs Martian novels which Triple P read when he was younger.

Bruce Pennington's evocative cover for the New English Library paperback of A Princess of Mars (which Triple P still has up in the loft somewhere)

Actually, there is a strange connection between the Curiosity rover and the Burroughs novels. Avatar director James Cameron was working with the JPL team on a 3D camera for the Curiosity rover but, sadly, they couldn't get it ready in time. Cameron himself has admitted that one of his major influences on Avatar was A Princess of Mars!

James Cameron (right) and the Curiosity rover camera team

There is a big budget film of A Princess of Mars due out next year; although they have re-named it John Carter, after the hero, but the trailer we have seen so far doesn't look brilliant. In fact, we prefer the look of the low budget Princess of Mars which came out two years ago. Dejah Thoris, the princess in question, is far too overdressed in the new version, for a start, which is the downside of having Disney behind it! But, who knows, maybe Curiosity will find a crashed Martian flier.

Strictly Come Dancing: Ola's catsuit of 2011

2011-11-21T17:40:00.000Z

Our weather has, at last, turned normal for the time of year (i.e. cold damp grey and foggy) so it was nice to get Polish sex bomblet Ola Jordan in a catsuit on Strictly Come Dancing this Sataurday to warm things up. The BBC sensibly waited until their big Wembley Arena spectacular before unveiling Ola in this year's little number and it did not dissapoint. We were concerned that we may not get a catsuit this year because, after all, when she first wore one there were complaints and the BBC said at the time they wouldn't be putting her in another one.

Given the current "anti raunchy" campaign led by the Daily Mail to stop anything remotely sensual on TV we thought that this might be a catsuit free year but, no, Ola appeared on Saturday resplendent in a lacy blue number with silver trim, although we were not sure about her big hair.

This year's version was well up to standard without, perhaps, topping the original shiny leopard print version she wore with Andrew Castle in 2008.

There are some who feel that the ne plus ultra of Ola catsuits was the red one she wore with Chris Hollins in 2009 (the year they went on to win the trophy). Although it was even more abbreviated than the leopard print one it falls short for Triple P as it conceals her cute tummy button.

Our third favourite after the leopard print and this year's blue number was the one she wore last year for her showdance with husband James. No wonder he always looks so irritatingly smug!

X Factor 2011

2011-11-20T10:16:00.000Z

Cowell endures this year's finalists

Triple P is not a big fan of the X-Factor (although he has watched it in the past) but this year it has become the Z-Z-Z-Z Factor and is interesting only in seeing how a once mighty force on TV declines week upon week. The reason for this is quite simple in that it has become a parody of itself and Simon Cowell, absent in the US, is struggling to exert his smarmy, manipulative presence from afar. It was always funny when, as a judge, he pretended that "the producers" were doing things over which he had no control as if he was just a minor cog in the X-Factor machine when, of course, he is the machine itself. This year from the scripted comments of Gary Barlow to the mock arguments to the ever-increasing number of sob stories of the contestants it has all now got so fake that even the British public have started to realise that they are being manipulated for the sole reason of making Cowell even richer while he spends time grovelling to the American public in his US show. The one thing that appears to have ruined his life is the fact that he isn't an American. No doubt he soon will be.

Misha B naked

This year there aren't even any good singers. The judges have obviously been told (by Cowell whose taste in music seems to start and finish with shouty, Afro-American/Caribbean, female RnB singers- the modern definition not proper RnB) to push Misha B despite her having a nasty voice and obviously being a horrible person. Now the whole team is having to try to rehabilitate her with the public as she nearly went out last week. Let's hope she gets kicked out this week, although that now looks unlikely given the programme has unearthed her long lost mother (who can probably smell the money) and was playing it for all it was worth.

The judges: irrelevant, third rate, incomprehensible and catatonic.

Cowell must be wondering about replacing the whole judging panel if the show comes back next year. Walsh is an increasingly doddering irrelevance whose limited repertoire of comments could be delivered by a randomly programmed robot. Tulisa, who seems to be under the impression that people have actually heard of her or her third rate band (they were playing the ice rink at Ryde in the Isle of Wight last year, for heaven's sake), can only relate to people from her own trashy background, so we have had some nasty class-driven decisions. Rowland, seemes to have developed her own language which is like a bad parody of blaxploitation jive and is, therefore, mostly incomprehensible. Finally, the catatonically dull Barlow, under the impression that he exudes some gravitas, looks to be hating every minute of it. The average IQ of this year's panel must be 50% down on last year's and that had Cheryl Cole in it!

By this stage one or two leading contenders have usually emerged but this year no-one has distinguished themselves, really. Cowell must be preparing to write off this year and thanking his lucky stars for One Direction from last year. You only have to see a bit of the American X-Factor to realise how lacklustre the UK entrants are this year in comparison. So who else has Cowell left? Craig, who he won't know what to do with as he was originally pushed as comedy light relief until they found he could sing but doesn't have the looks to be a star. If he wins (unlikely) he will be dumped in record time. Marcus, an engaging and polished performer who might just pull it off but he's not the sort of act Cowell likes (he drops all of his solo male acts as soon as he can). Janet, who hasn't lived up to her early favourite billing and just looks like an increasingly baffled rabbit caught in headlights as she croaks her way through unforgettable song after unforgettable song. Little Mix, three average looking girls and a hobbit whose only claim to fame is that they are doing better than previous girl groups on the X Factor, probably on the basis that they are so plain that they don't annoy the (largely female) voting public. Could win by default. Finally, there is growling rock chick Amelia, who was thrown out in week one and is now back in thanks to Frankie's (Triple P walked past him in Victoria last week - he is very small and grumpy looking) sacking.

More power to Strictly Come Dancing, says Triple P!

Big Breakfast of the Week 13: The Gossips Cafe, Yarmouth

2011-11-09T22:00:00.000Z

We haven't had a Big Breakfast for a while and at present we are reading a novel which features Algernon Charles Swinburne, who was brought up on the Isle of Wight and is buried there (in Bonchurch). We are also preparing a post on the artist George Apperley who was also from the Isle of Wight so why not go back to a breakfast that we had there one sunny morning in August, we thought?

It is to West Wight we go, rather than Bonchurch, which is on the eastern end, to the pretty port town of Yarmouth. Triple P used to visit Yarmouth regularly on his uncle's boat when he was small and, frankly it has changed very little over the years.

Yarmouth Pier from the cafe

The Gossips Cafe has a great location at the foot of Yarmouth Pier and, in our corner table we could see along the pier one way and the other way across to the ferry terminal at the boats coming over to the island from Lymington.

Yarmouth Castle and the ferry from the cafe

The cafe has a good choice for breakfast with everything from toast and marmalade for £1.70, through a hot bacon baguette (£3.80) to the full English breakfast which is what, of course, Triple P took. This consists of a fried egg, two rashers of bacon, a jumbo sausage, mushrooms and tomato. Also included in the £7.30 price is an orange juice, two slices of toast, marmalade and a pot of tea. There are lots of optional extras too, so we added baked beans for 60p.

Although the cafe was pretty busy when we went there, service was quite quick although there was one mistake made on our order which was quickly rectified. The food quality was fair although, inevitably, the sausage was poor quality. The difference in price between poor and good quality sausages is fairly small and yet, almost always, these cafes almost always serve inferior sausages whereas their bacon was good quality.

Inside the cafe is bright and clean and decorated in the tourist friendly nautical style. All in all a very pleasant place to have breakfast, given the excellent views, the food was acceptable so overall we can happily give it 7/10.

Calendar Girl November 2011: Diora Baird

2011-11-07T14:41:00.001Z

We have featured the extraordinarily constructed Diora before, as a calendar girl back in January 2010. We have no problem with looking at them, er, her, again, however.

When we first scanned the pictures for last year's post they had a rather odd colour cast to them which we have now corrected.

So here (above) are a few more pictures from her Playboy shoot which we didn't feature in our last post.

Since we featured her nearly two years ago she has appeared in a number of B movies, the most well known of which is Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) where her appearance was uncredited.. However, she managed third billing in two horrors 30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010) (direct to DVD, sadly) and Night of the Demons (2010). She is likely to remain one of those actresses who remains more well known for her modelling than her screen appearances it seems. In Diora's case we can see nothing wrong with that!

Oxford!

2011-11-02T22:05:00.000Z

There was some quite nice light today

Agent Triple P was unexpectedly in Oxford today, which brought back a few memories (mainly of redheads, we have to admit!) Although details of the city have changed much of it, particularly the colleges, naturally, have changed little.

Triple P once had a very intimate escapade at the top of the church tower overlooking his college

Triple P popped into his old college but the quads were full of fenced off building materials while they completely rebuild the college kitchen. Food at Triple P's college, whose not too distinguished alumni include Michael Palin, the current Prime Minister, and...er..., well, a lot of judges, was pretty good by Oxford standards of the time. Some of the meals we had at other colleges were diabolical (Christ Church springs to mind). Merton always had the best food when we were at Oxford; the story being that a rich American was so appalled by the food his son had to eat when he visited there that he paid a top chef to take over the running of the kitchens. Our biggest problem at college dinner was the fact that you got a communal bowl of potatoes or rice between eight of you. This had to be shared and was fine unless the dish was rice and you were sitting next to Mr Chung, a mysterious graduate student from China who appeared to speak no English. Actually he didn't appear to speak at all. Mr Chung was quite capable of demolishing the entire bowl of rice on his own before you fot so much as a spoonful so it was very important that you never sat anywhere near him!

Boots seem to be de rigeur with the current crop of lady students

The female students we observed today were quite different from the ones that we had (so to speak) when we were there. Apart from the fact they were all glued to mobile phones and were carrying laptops (which would have seemed like complete science fiction to us in our day) all their clothes were much more figure hugging and their skirts, of course, were much shorter. We were there in the days of long, high collared Laura Ashley dresses and before the days when stockings made their comeback. That said, notable exceptions must be made for C, Triple P's principal girlfriend in his first year and MS a girl whose rather obvious charms tended to divide the men in the college's opinion in the same way that Marmite does with most people. We hate to be ungallant but the looks of the female students do not seem to have improved in the last three decades as much as the looks of girls from the general population of their age; which just goes to show that brains and beauty combined are a rare thing.

Triple P's rooms in the first year were on the top floor of the second building from the right. The left hand window was his living room and the right hand window was his bedroom. This was unheated and, as a result, Triple P developed a taste for intimate activities on the floor where you could be next to the gas fire and you could admire your young lady naked with out her freezing to death, particularly if you could toast crumpets for her on said fire. The bedroom, apart from containing a large hospital bed with an iron bedstead which also, at least in the summer, facilitated our first bondage sessions, had a wooden box containing a large knotted rope which was, it seems, the only provision for a fire escape. Best to keep a close eye on the crumpets (so to speak) therefore.

Triple P's college from ground level

All in all an enjoyable day but we must return soon as we were in something of a rush and would have liked to have visited a few more of our old haunts!

Martini of the Week 11: The Orient Bar at the Pera Palace Hotel, Istanbul

2011-10-21T12:17:00.002+01:00

Agent Triple P likes Istanbul and it is always a pleasure to return there, as we did last month. After Canada we think it is the country that we have visited most often. True, Istanbul is hopelessly over-crowded (nearly 14 million people or nearly 20% of the population of Turkey) and can be horribly noisy but the location for this week's (yes, we know we never actually post one a week) Martini, the Pera Palace Hotel, perched overlooking the Golden Horn, is quieter than some places that Triple P has stayed in the city.

The Pera Palace was built in 1892 specifically for travelers on the Orient Express arriving from Paris. It was the first European hotel in Turkey and the first building, other than Ottoman palaces, to have electric lighting. It also had the first electric lift in the city which is stil operating today. It was closed in 2006 for an extensive renovation and reopened about a year ago.

Ravioli

They have done an excellent job on it although, sadly, as is often the case these days, the site of the restaurant has been moved from its original grand room to something more contemporary and characterless downstairs. Nevertheless the food at the new restaurant is excellent even if the decor is a bit at odds with the more traditional look of the rest of the hotel. Triple P had splendid ravioli followed by guinea fowl for lunch one day.

Triple P and his companion, B, were sat in the Orient Bar; a great favourite of Ernest Hemingway. Other famous guests include Ian Fleming, Great Garbo, Jackie Kennedy, Alfred Hitchcock and Sarah Bernhardt. Famously, of course, Agatha Christie stayed at the hotel and penned Murder on the Orient Express there. You can even stay in her old room and the restaurant has been re-named Agatha's.

The Orient bar today (or, rather, last month)

The decor of the refurbished bar is a bit relentlessly purple for Triple P's taste but, fortunately, there are enough original elements remaining to still provide a vintage experience. When we last visited the bar was more yellow and traditional although it was looking a little tired, but the updating has been done well we think.

Orient bar about six years ago

In its heyday

The service was truly excellent and the only negative was the slushy jazz/funk muzak. We are not suggesting that they should have gone twenties retro (or even Richard Rodney Bennett) but something more appropriate to the surroundings would have been nice.

Orient Bar terrace

On the evening Triple P and B were there it had been 27 degrees centigrade and so most people chose to sit out on the new terrace. This was very nice and, indeed we sat there another night but Triple P wanted to experience the bar proper. The lighting was engagingly dim and curtains blocked out the bright evening sunlight very effectively, making it seem later than it actually was.

B who was in a particularly expansive mood had a glass of the local (from the Marmara region), and trendily labelled ,Arcadia Suavignon Blanc-Sauvignon Gris. She drank this in two gulps, justifying herself with a trying day, so we ordered a bottle. Not as assertive as a New World Sauvignon and, indeed, it showed quite a lot of grapefruit taste. Not in an English white grapefruit sort of way but in a fruitier red grapefruit sort of way. Fortunately the grassiness of the Sauvignon Blanc took away what could have been a sweetly cloying aftertaste. Wine is expensive in Turkey, due to UK-style high taxes, but this was certainly better value than the imported wines. A normal bottle of French Champagne, for example was over £200 a bottle.

At this point B berated Triple P for writing wine notes rather than paying her the attention she undoubtedly deserved in her white silk with cerise flowers cocktail dress. This was certainly a better outfit than the following morning's effort which consisted of some, admittedly fetching, olive green shorts with white trim and a Freddie Mercury teeshirt. Oh well, it was only for going down to the spa, we suppose. Still, the elegant public spaces of the hotel suggest something more formal should be worn at all times.

Anyway, Triple P's Martini was gratifyingly cold and made with Absolut vodka. It only had two olives, rather then rather increasingly prevalent three or even four and B kindly removed the second one.

We finished the evening with a very restorative (Triple P had had to get up at 4.15am to catch his early morning flight from London) cup of truly delicious Turkish tea. Happily it wasn't full of sugar, as it often is. Because of his fatigue Triple P retired early (around nine pm) whilst B gave him a demonstration of how harem girls serviced their virtually immobile masters in a series of gyrations which, she claimed, were the origins of belly dancing.

Most diverting!

This Week's Films: 9

2011-10-20T15:48:00.004+01:00

We are still watching True Blood, and am now on the second series, but also have managed a few other films lately, although, yet again, we have bought more than we have watched!

All Ladies Do It (1992)

The story

Housewife Diana (Claudia Koll) is finding married life a bit dull and embarks on a series of affairs to bring some passion back into her life. Meanwhile she learns the joys of anal sex from a poet and attempts to persuade her husband to indulge her in it.

Claudia presents herself to a plastic penis

Seen it before?

No, this was a first time, although most Tinto Brass films feel like you have seen them before: stylised sets, lingering shots of his actresses posteriors (anus inlcuded), sex scenes with prosthetic penises etc.

Any good?

Not as jolly as some Tinto Brass features we have seen and elements of it leave a rather bitter aftertaste, but a reasonably worthwhile way to spend an hour and a half, particularly if you are fond of the female posterior. Make sure you buy the Italian language subtitled (and uncut) version rather than the horrible dubbed version.

Notable for...

Making a star out of Claudia Koll (real name Caludia Colacione) who, after a series of erotic movies, later became a born-again Roman Catholic.

Any good girlies?

Lots of attractive Italian women but Claudia herself is an absolute knockout. Pretty close to perfection for Agent Triple P!

King Arthur (2004)

The story

Arthur and his Samartian knights are about to finish their 15 year stint in the Roman army in Britain when they are sent on one last mission that will bring them into conflict with Merlin and his Wodes (by which they mean Picts but the producers thought the real name sounded funny and this from a film where the director is called Fuqua) and a Saxon invasion force.

Seen it before?

Half of it before our original DVD stpped working.
Any good?

There have been a few Late Romans in Britain films and all of them have been dull and historically inaccurate (don't even start Triple P on the Roman armour in this one). This had a few good scenes but was let down by dreadfully wooden acting from Clive Owen (Arthur) and Keira Knightley (Guenevere). Nice scenery (mainly shot in Ireland), though.

Big wall

Notable for...

The producers building a one kilometre long recreation of Hadrian's Wall. The producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, insisting that Miss Knightley wore a bizarre (and unhistoric) costume to show off her tummy muscles.

Eat some pies, girl!

Any good girlies?

It depends what you think of Keira Knightley, as basically she is it. Classically beautiful actress with a talent for period roles or hopelessly wooden clothes-peg with the figure of a boy. Personally, we think it's not her finest hour although she looks surprisingly convincing in the action scenes, despite her delicate muscles..

The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery (1966)

The story

A group of train robbers stash their loot in what is to become the new St Trinian's School. The girls move in and the robbers have to get it back. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education is trying to get the school closed down.

A fine selection of baby doll nighties

Seen it before?

Once, on TV in black and white decades ago.

Reg Varney appreciates being down the stairs

Any good?

The first St Trinian's film to be shot in colour it is notably more "sixties" than the fifties feel of the earlier three. Most of the original cast has gone but there is a whole cohort of new character actors who would become British TV stalwarts for years to come: Reg Varney, Terry Scott, Arthur Mullard, Larry Martyn who join the older brigade of Raymond Huntley, Richard Wattis, Eric Barker et al. Dora Bryan is splendid as the new headmistress and Frankie Howard, although only working on three cylinders, keeps things moving as well. George Cole returns for the last time but the girls themselves are rather anonymous and play second fiddle to the other characters more than before. The weakest of the original four.

Gratuitous low-angle shot

Notable for...

Being based loosely on the real great train Robbery of 1963. An appearance by original Dr Who companion Carloe Ann Ford.

Margaret Nolan takes off

Any good girlies?

Other than the few brief appearances by Margaret Nolan (the girl in the Goldfinger credits sequence) the girls are more background dressing, although some of that dressing is very nice indeed. Rather more sixties baby doll nighties than stockings and suspenders (although they reappear in the second half of the film). Margaret Nolan, as the school art teacher, manages to combine the two whilst doing a striptease.

More films soon as we have a backlog!

The Playboy Club TV series cancelled

2011-10-13T12:23:00.000+01:00

The new The Playboy Club TV series has been cancelled after only three episodes. Feminist Gloria Steinem, who went under cover to work as a Playboy Bunny for an expose in 1963, and a pressure group called The Parents Television Council are all claiming that there efforts resulted in the show's cancellation.

Gloria Steinem, er , undercover in 1963

In fact, it was much more likely to have been its very poor ratings which got worse with every broadcast. It seems to have been partly hamstrung by the notoriously conservative US network guidleines so, despite the protests, was not pornographic (or anything approaching it). Perhaps it would have done better on a cable channel although the consensus (and the views of our particular friend S in Vancouver) was that it just wasn't very good. There weren't even enough episodes to make a DVD release as they stopped filming halfway through episode six. Apparently, the other sixties-set new series, Pan Am, isn't doing that much better either and is looking very vulnerable too in the cut-throat world of American network TV.

As regards the conservatives' protests, these were largely about the promotion of Playboy (who were very involved in the show) as a company, focussing on their hard core TV station rather than the content of the TV show per se, although their were accusations that the show glamourised prostitution.

Triple P was always faintly amused by the strict TV censorship on network TV in America compared with Britain, Germany, France, Italy (or frankly any other country in the western world). We reasoned that it must have something to do with America's Puritan origins ("Lets face it", as S has said, "America was founded by a bunch of people who were forced out of England for being too old-fashioned and ultra conservative in the early 17th century!"). Whatever, the reasons for America's peculiar attitudes to sex and nudity (bad) as opposed to violence (good) we are starting to see worrying signs of increased censorship here in the UK.

Only this week, the government announced that people signing up to internet services from four of the major providers would have the ability to opt out of all "adult" subject matter for their service. There is now pressure on TV shows such as The X Factor not to allow performers like Rihanna (Christina Aguilera and Rihanna were both critised for their inappropriate performances in last year's X Factor final) indulge in "raunchy" (their favourite word) routines during peak-time viewing and threats of sanctions against TV music stations for showing racy videos (which would be most of them, by their definition). I have also noticed that some supermarkets (notably the Coop) are putting "modesty covers" over magazines with pictures of girls in bikinis (not just nudes) on the cover in their shops. Interestingly this only happens to magazines aimed at men. Identical types of shots on the covers of women's magazines go uncovered, bizzarely.

This is all about protecting children, apparently, although why no-one has questioned why sexuality (a major driving force of human life) is something children need to be protected from does not seem to have been discussed much. Anyway, it seems unlikely to address the the biggest problem relating to children and sexuality in tthe UK which is the fact that we have the highest rate of underage teenage pregnancy in Europe; a Europe that is much more relaxed about depictions of nudity and sexuality than we are (and we are streets ahead of the Americans). Its all a bit odd!

Lady Forsyth

2011-10-12T13:42:00.001+01:00

Sir Bruce and Lady Forsyth at Buckingham Palace this morning

Cheesy but engaging entertainer and Strictly Come Dancing host Bruce Forsyth, whose showbusiness career has lasted longer than most people's lives, was knighted by the Queen this morning.

Winelia as Miss Puerto Rico

Good for Brucie and all that but what he really should be congratulated on is his stunning wife, Winelia Merced, now Lady Forsyth. A former Miss Puerto Rico (the only country named as a result of a cartographer's error) and Miss World in 1975, she is 54 years old (Bruce is 83) and still looks quite wonderful, Triple P thinks!

Splendid!

Calendar Girl October 2011: Kara Tointon

2011-10-06T11:54:00.000+01:00

We had to confess to never having heard of Kara Tointon when we featured her as a calendar girl back in early 2010. All that changed with her triumphant appearance on Strictly Come Dancing last autumn.

No doubt as she hoped, it re-ignited her career leading to her starring as Eliza Doolittle in the West End production of My Fair Lady for which she picked up stunning reviews; The Daily Telegraph saying that she was "an actress of truly great potential". She is currently working on a feature film.

Whilst she continues to look nice photographed in lingerie her Strictly regime gave her a body that led to some excellent dance-style photographs.

Kara does Flashdance

For Strictly publicity she recreated the role played by Jennifer Beales in Flashdance (bearing in mind that the body in motion in the film was dancer Marine Jahan). Whatever, it showed off her toned thighs to perfection.

No doubt this is what led to this superb set of her in wet dance attire by Shoreditch-based photographer John Wright.

Splendid!

Season of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

2011-10-03T15:15:00.000+01:00

Apples on our tree this afternoon

Well not really. We are having bizarrely unseasonable whether here in the South of England this week. Driving along in the car this morning all the trees are turning and swathes of leaves are dropping in the breeze but the temperature has been hovering around 30 degrees centigrade (that's 94 for you Americans). It's all coming from France (or Turkey - they don't seem to be able to agree). Over the weekend it was hotter here than in Mexico, Spain or Cuba! We had the hottest October day since record began; and that's about 350 years! Phew! Nice to see all the girls giving their little outfits one last outing, though!

Trouble is we need a taller ladder!

Never mind, the wet summer followed by a sunnier autumn is doing wonders for the fruit in Triple P's garden. Our chillis, which have been relentlessly green all summer are now turning red, we've had a few strawberries and the apples and grapes have been the best we have ever seen.

The grapes are looking good too

Back to normal weather later this week sadly.

Traffic Jam lights

2011-09-23T18:28:00.000+01:00

For the last week they have been digging up the main road close to Agent Triple P's house, again. With the road down to one lane the resultant congestion has meant queues of up to half a mile in length during the rush hour.

This morning Triple P left the house early for a doctor's appointment in the village and the lights had failed. Guess what? There was no queue whatsoever. People just took it in turns to drive when it was clear. Triple P is reminded of the town in Denmark which removed all of its traffic lights, road markings and warning signs to find that the traffic flowed better and the accident rate dropped.

A lesson, here, we think!

Cheryl Cole in Afghanistan

2011-09-15T17:15:00.000+01:00

Former UK national treasure, and now somewhat fallen angel, Cheryl Cole has been in Afghanistan cheering up the troops in a bid to become the new "forces sweetheart". This will no doubt severely, annoy busty Welsh warbler Katherine Jenkins whose own trip to Afghanistan some time ago propelled her into that position.

Unlike Katherine, who seemed to confine herself to having tea with the troops, Cheryl has been firing weapons, taking part in a mock raid and even meeting with the local Afghan leaders.

Coffee, tea or me, pet?

On her way out she served delighted troops with their meal, perhaps practising for an alternative career if it all goes horribly wrong (again).

Most people on the internet are saying that it is yet another publicity stunt to get her back into the public's favour and we are sure that her agent highlighted the opportunities. Nevertheless, Helmand province is a very dangerous place and she deserves credit for going out there. Well done Cheryl!

Calendar Girl September 2011: Marisa Miller

2011-09-15T12:21:00.001+01:00

September's calendar girl is American model Marisa Miller who we have featured before as our calendar girl for November 2007. Here she is perfectly attired for a bit of lawn mowing. Actually, Agent Triple P's grass is a bit on the long side at present, due to the warm but damp weather we have ben having, so we could do with someone like Marisa to give the lawn a trim.

Marisa at the Victoria's Secret fashion show November 2007

Ms Miller's profile has increased significantly since 2007. The same month as her 2007 calendar page she made her first appearance at the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show in Los Angeles and, indeed she also modelled at the following year's event which was held at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, only a week before (frustratingly) Agent Triple P stayed there.

In 2008 she became the first spokesperson ever employed by Harley Davidson motorcycles and has since worked in several campaigns with them getting her own bike (we are sure that she got a good discount) and motorcycle licence.

2010 saw two more campaigns: Firstly, for Captain Morgan rum which saw her flown to Puerto Vallarta in Mexico for a series of advertisements shot by Tom Munro.

Secondly, and more controversially, she was chosen by the National Football League to front their publicity for the 2010-2011 season, including the International Series game held in London. The NFL was still reeling from accusations of "inappropriate" behaviour by some of its players when a female reporter had conducted a locker-room interview and, in another incident, a quarterback had been accused of having sent suggestive texts and explicit photographs of himself to a female sideline reporter. At this point, when articles were being written about the inappropriateness of having scantily clad cheerleaders, Miller's advertisements for the NFL just added fuel to the fire. Nothing became of it, of course.

More importantly, in 2010, she topped the FHM US edition poll for world's sexiest woman. Surprisingly, she came third in the UK "poll", considering she is not that well known over here given that Sports Illustrated is not widely on sale in the UK, as the featured sports are largely irrelevant to the average British sports fan.

At the ripe old age of 33 it is important for Miller to diversify away from being just a model to being, as she acknowledges herself, a brand. She has made a few TV appearances and was even mentioned as a possible host for the US X-Factor.

Marisa in Perfect 10

Miller has been modelling for seventeen years now and has been high profile since she appeared in the very first issue of Perfect 10 magazine in 1997. Incidentally, of course, Perfect 10, would not use models with artificially enhanced breasts so we know that Marisa'e svelte shape is all her own.

Models these days do go on to longer careers than in the past (perhaps its something to do with the existence of Photoshop) so we will see what Marisa's staying pwer is like in these critical years before she hits forty. To achieve this she will have to have the impact of a Cindy Crawford or Claudia Schiffer which, we suspect, she has not really achieved yet, despite being heralded as the new great American supermodel.

Nevertheless, we think Ms Miller is quite splendid and her most important asset, as far as Triple P is concerned, is, indeed, World class.

NASA announces new Space Launch System

2011-09-14T18:48:00.000+01:00

NASA has revealed today some early concept illustrations of its proposed new Space Launch System which is being designed to replace the former Ares I and Ares V with one multi-purpose vehicle as mandated in the NASA Authorisations Act of 2010.

The idea is to use as much existing technology as possible to keep the costs down. For example it will use five of the R-25 main engines from the Space Shuttle and the same solid boosters as well, although there is a plan to have competing boosters designed by Aerojet and Teledyne Brown.

The first flight is scheduled, ambitiously, for December 2017 with a possible manned Lunar orbital flight in 2021. In 2025 it is thought that they are planning a possible manned asteroid exploration flight with the big manned mission to Mars by 2031, although they haven't officially announced these dates.

The cost, for the next six years until the rocket launches, will be $10 billion for the vehicle itself, $6 billion for the crew vehicle and another $2 billion for upgrades to the Kennedy Space Centre to allow it to launch the huge rocket.

Its initial lift capacity will be 50 tonnes growing to a possible 130 tonnes as the system is developed and the more powerful boosters are designed. This compares with the 22.7 tonne payload capacity of the Shuttle. The entire stack will be about twice the height of the Shuttle launch group and at 335 feet only 30 feet short of the Saturn V.

NASA, with its eyes firmly on the budget, has designed the project so that the initial high development cost portion will be front-loaded to early in the programme so that inflation doesn't eat into the near on $60 billion budget. Using a lot of Shuttle technology means that they will be able to re-employ many of the technicians and companies that lost work when the Shuttle was cancelled.

As a child of the Space Race, Agent Triple P never really took to the Shuttle, an aesthetically unfortunate creature that looked like it was a collection of plastic toys sellotaped together. For Triple P space exploration means big rockets and we think the new SLS (they will have to find an appropriate name for it) does the job perfectly. We have lift-off!

This Week's Films: 8

2011-09-14T15:49:00.000+01:00

We didn't watch anything whilst we were away in August and latterly have been watching TV series(principally True Blood -excellent) but have managed a few films of late.

Frauleins in Uniform (1975)

The story

German girls do their bit for the war effort by "entertaining" the troops on the Russian front.

Seen it before?

No, this was a first time.

Shower scene!

Nazi striptease party!

Girls on manoeuvres!

Any good?

Originally titled Eine Armee Gretchen (and also known as She Devils of the SS) this German film is similar, at first glance, to the Nazi sex and horror exploitation films churned out by the Italians in the seventies. Whilst it has plenty of sex and nudity it, thankfully, eschews the nastiness and at times resembles a X-rated episode of Benny Hill. All the actresses take off their clothes and all the men keep their trousers on during simulated sex. We get many examples of prototypical scenes from the genre: a group shower scene (of course), several lesbian trysts, a striptease, stripping for a medical inspection and, most bizarrely, running naked from captivity whilst really large and dangerous looking explosions go off.

Not a bad way to spend an evening's viewing with a nice bottle of Rheinpfalz.

The lovely Karin Heske and, look, real Russian T34/85s!

Notable for...

Surprising veracity in the portrayal of correct uniforms, weapons and vehicles. It puts many conventional WW2 films to shame in this regards

Is this the best naked girls in a church scene in the history of cinema?

Any good girlies?

Lots of them! All of them quite splendid too! If we had to pick one, however, it would be the gorgeous Karin Heske.

Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965)

The story

An American and British pilot both try to win the same girl whilst competing in a London to Paris air race in the early years of flight.

Seen it before?

This is another film that was a staple of Triple P's Saturday afternoons when he was younger but we haven't seen it for some time.

Any good?

It holds up surprisingly well although much of the pleasure comes from seeing a host of chracter actors going through their paces, the real aircraft built especially for the film and Christopher Challis' luminous photography. Not quite as funny as it thinks it is, it is still a pleasure to watch a cast that includes James Fox, Robert Morley, Gert (Goldfinger) Frobe, Eric Sykes, Terry-Thomas (marvellous), Benny Hill, Flora Robson, John LeMesurier, Millicent Martin, Tony Hancock. and many others. The miraculous cast is full of walk-on surprises (Cicely Coutneidge and Month Python's Graham Chapman to name but two).

Dastardly and Muttley

Notable for...

Terry-Thomas' (in a film stealing performance) character being the inspiration for Dick Dastardly from the series of Hanna-Barbera cartoons originally starting with Wacky Races (1968) with Eric Sykes's "Muttley" delighting everytime his master's plans go wrong. Ron Goodwin's well known theme music.

Irene Demick is painted by John LeMesurier

Any good girlies?

Leading lady Sarah Miles is quite cute but miscast so the honours have to go to French actress Irena Demick who plays multiple parts as a series of girls from various countries.

Red Sonja (1985)

The story

Girl whose sister is killed by an evil Queen must avenge her sister and save the world from an out of control crystal.
Seen it before?

We have seen this once before on TV.

Any good?

Even given the constraints of sword and sorcery films it is only OK but does have some striking set and costume design from Danilo (Flash Gordon) Donati and Ronald Lacey riding his brief world-wide fame from Raiders of the Lost Ark. It could have been a lot better and even Arnold Schwarzenegger reckons it's the worst film he ever made; which is saying something. The problem is it suffers with an excess of "comic" relief as director Richard Fleischer (who also helmed the inferior Conan the Barbarian (1982) sequel Conan the Destroyer (1984)) isn't quite sure how to pitch the tone of the film. Not a bad soundtrack from Ennio Morricone either and the Italian scenery looks great.

Notable for...

The first film appearance by Danish model and later Mrs Sylvester Stallone, Brigitte Nielsen, as Sonja.

Oh happy horse to bear the weight of Brigitte...

Any good girlies?

Sandahl Bergman chews the scenery as the evil Gedren but the film is really all about Nielsen and, in particular, the way her incredible leg muscles flex. We could watch her just climbing things for hours! Nielsen, before she became a physical parody of herself, never looks anything other than completely gorgeous and handles herself brilliantly in the fight scenes.

The return of Strictly Come Dancing

2011-09-11T15:41:00.000+01:00

Strictly's Ola Jordan

One of Triple P's guilty pleasures is Strictly Come Dancing (Dancing with the Stars in the US) so we were delighted to watch the preview programme last night.

Usually there is a TV babe or two (like last year's winner Kara Tointon) to enjoy but this year, hammered by accusations of ageism as regards women the BBC has presented a celebrity line up of older ladies. We have to say that sixties pop poppet Lulu still looks great at 62. The show does feature Australian actress and warbler Holly Valance though, who Triple P admired a few years ago.

Holly in her heyday

The lady dancers haven't changed this year so we have the welcome return of grumpy dancing Pole (as opposed to pole dencer) Ola Jordan and Triple P's current favourite, the classically gorgeous Canadian-Lithuianian Katya Virshilas.

Katya Virshilas: Hot to foxtrot

We're looking forward to seeing them all gyrating around in tiny sparkly outfits over the next few months.

Christine Bleakely in school uniform

2011-09-09T12:21:00.001+01:00

Oh dear, the Daily Mail is having a right go at TV presenter, and fiance of England footballer Frank Lampard, for showing up at her old school in her old school uniform. Yesterday's report was merely factual noting that her morning TV show, Daybreak, was doing a back to school week and she had appeared at her alma mater Belfast's Bloomfield Collegiate grammar school where she had been head girl.

Today, however, following dozens of negative comments from women on the Daily Mail website the ever-fickle newspaper's attitude has changed, with one of the columnists launching a nasty attack on what was, after all, just a fun TV stunt. Yesterday the Mail reported that she had "slipped" into her uniform whereas today she "squeezed" into it implying that it was too tight, which it patently isn't. Probably all these grumpy women are just annoyed that in increasingly obese Britain a 32 year old woman can still get into her school uniform at all.

The thrust of the objections being that dressing like this will encourage perverts to prey on schoolgirls. This is somewhat bizarre logic, we feel, as Ms Bleakely is patently all-woman whereas we would have thought that paedophiles would prefer young girls. We are much more disturbed by young girls dressing inappropriately as adults (inspired by the likes of Rhianna et al) than a woman dressing in what is her actual school uniform. It's not as if she turned up looking like something from St Trinian's.

This is not to say that there isn't a certain frisson about Ms Bleakely's outfit (its probably the dark socks) but all the pictures do to Triple P are to make him much more interested in the heretofor unregarded Ms Bleakely rather than go hanging around school gates.

We actually think Ms Bleakely looks quite splendid!

Cheryl Cole 2012 calendar

2011-09-06T20:03:00.000+01:00

Cheryl has been publicising her new calendar and whilst we are not that taken with most of the pictures we think that this image, for September, is very fine indeed.

We haven't been able to identify the photographer (there were two for the calendar we think) but it was shot in the South of France. This image, particularly as regards the lighting and make-up, has a lot of that old Patrick Lichfield Unipart calendar vibe from the late seventies and early eighties.

Agent DVD is off to the South of France imminently so perhaps he might be inspired to take some similar photographs!

Kelly Brook on a bike!

2011-09-05T09:59:00.000+01:00

Kelly yesterday

The lovely Kelly Brook was out and about in London again yesterday for the mayor of London's Skyride, which promotes cycling to work. Unfortunately, the only way to make cycling to work appealing to Triple P is by having Kelly accompanying him and, as they did, closing the roads to traffic.

Kelly promoting the ride, next to the London Assembly, in August

What Mayor Boris doesn't seem to realise is that cycling to work only becomes viable if employers provide a secure place to leave your bike. Triple P has seen unlocked bikes on the streets of Copenhagen and in Switzerland but in London, however well shackled it is, someone will come along with a pair of heavy duty bolt cutters and make off with it to sell in those breeding grounds of criminality, car boot sales. Until that happens, only the very brave and those with expensive folding bikes (like Agent DVD; who keeps his bike under his desk during the working day) will risk it; especially in London where cycling is akin to running the rapids sat in a rubber ring.

Kelly in August

Poor Kelly has attracted some criticism, both for yesterday and her earlier promotional shoot in August, for not wearing a helmet and having unsuitable shoes whilst promoting the ride. We think her outfit and shoes are perfect for doing what she is doing: posing around for photographers to successfully get publicity. Honestly, do people really think that a glamour model is going to cram her carefully coiffed hair into a helmet just to give out a safety message? If she had, guess what pictures the newspapers would have used. Yes, the ones after she had taken her helmet off!

In the middle of the ongoing internet debate about the importance of cycle helmets, a helmetless Kelly not being a good role model for cycling youngsters (er...she is a glamour model) and other safety issues, we were amused by the inevitible messages from girls asking where she got her shoes and top (actually God, on a very good day, created her top). This, we are afraid, as Triple P's father once said, is why men rule the planet and women do the ironing.

Anyway, we think the ladies have it right. Much more important for encouraging cycling are her little Skyride outfits. For 2011 she had the currently trendy faux-fifties look with her pink mini dress for the promotional shots in August and then the rather more practical red top and jeans (still with five inch heels we should note) for the ride itself.

May 2010

Last year we had three promotional doses of Kelly. In May she appeared in a flirty, low-cut dress (and five inch heels). Very fine outfit, this.

August 2010

The August launch event featured this elegant little number in red and blue.

2010

Jeans again for the ride itself but a much more low-cut top compared with this year.

In 2009, both the promotional photoshoot and the ride itself were in September. For the earlier shoot Kelly's dress had a far too voluminous skirt for a bike although the wily photographers did manage to get this enticing shot.

For the ride itself, later in the month she also wore a dress. Given that she does actually cycle the route on the day perhaps this explains the appearance of jeans for the last two years.

One final thought. It is all very well to give cyclists traffic free roads in the capital once a year but in both Paris and Bogotá they have been doing it every Sunday! In Bogotá they close 70 miles of street for the Ciclovia so people can run, walk and cycle. Promote that Kelly and Boris!

Hollywood TV re-makes: 1 Hawaii Five-O

2011-08-30T22:51:00.000+01:00

Triple P's memories of the original series of Hawaii Five-O are hazy even though the series ran from 1968 until 1980. We certainly remeber watching it early in its run but nothing about it stands out other than Mort Stevens wonderful title music and the accompanying visuals; between them combining for one of the greatest TV titles sequences ever.

We also remember the lovely face of model Elizabeth Malamalamaokalani Logue turning to face the camera and the frantic hip gyrations of Hula dancer Helen Kuoha-Torco as well as the splendid shots of the coastline.

Jack Lord as Steve McGarret managed the clever trick of being simultaneously wooden and hammy and everyone else in the show just revolved around him in a faintly awestruck way. Still, its extensive use of location filming, at a time when this was still unusual, gave such a major boost to Hawaii's tourism that no sooner had Hawaii 5-O finished than the state ensured that Magnum P.I. carried on this promotional role.

Now the series has been re-made with a new cast but many of the same characters. The original show was unusal for the time in having major ethnic characters but these days, of course, it is necessasry to ensure there is a woman in the cast too. Sensibly the producers have hired the altogether splendid Grace Park from another old show re-make, Battlestar Galactica.

Lots of pictures of Ms Park filming on the beach have emerged although we have to say that maybe she should indulge in a few more meals featuring that Hawaiian food staple, Spam, as she looks like one good Kona wind would blow her away like a loose palm frond.

The new cast of Hawaii 5-O

The producers have retained the original theme music and have put together a nicely updated title sequence which makes appropriate references to the original including a big wave.

Agent Triple P was about two hours from getting on a plane to Hawaii from Los Angeles once but sadly the trip failed to materialise. We shall have to content ourselves with picking up the new (rather well received) series or, perhaps, maybe the original which, with its sixties cars, architecture and fashions would be a far groovier experience.

Calendar Girl August 2011: Kelly Brook

2011-08-20T09:07:00.000+01:00

Our calendar girl for August is the luscious Kelly Brook of whom we have many, many pictures on this blog so don't feel the need to post any more. Oh alright then, just a few.

So here are just a few more pictures from her recent trip to Italy. We'd hesitate to call these paparazzi photographs as that implies that they are being taken against the will of the subject and we suspect that is certainly not the case here!

That said, few women take as good a reportage candid as Kelly. Maybe she just always assumes there will be a photographer lurking nearby and dresses accordingly.

As we have noted before she does look splendidly ripe at present and we definitely prefer her carrying a bit more weight as it seems to accrue to all the right places.

This is a telling shot as Kelly strides ahead of her friends in an attempt to make sure that she is the only one in focus. Nice retro-looking swimsuit. Triumphant again, Kelly!

Yachty Totty at Cowes Week

2011-08-18T14:26:00.002+01:00

Triple P has had a request for more yachty totty (or is it yachtie tottie?) so here are some pictures we took at Cowes. We are just back from Cowes Week, the world's biggest yachting regatta, where the scenery was enlived by the usual influx of Sloane Rangers down to race or, more likely, just watch and shop whilst Giles, Dominic, Jonty, Hugo etc. raced.

Equally inevitably, busloads of local "talent" (we use the term loosely and loose is as good a description as any) arrive at the Red Jet terminal on the number 1 bus from Newport every night in ridiculously high heels and short skirts looking for likely looking men who can buy them drinks. They are usually ludicrously over made up in the hope that people won't recognise the fact that ther are mostly under age.

The local girls, we are sorry to report, may have good figures (some of them really do) and nice brown legs (the Isle of Wight has a better sunshine record than most of the rest of Britain) but can be less attractive than their "overner" sisters.

Now there are some pretty girls from the island; Triple P worked with one many years ago who was quite gorgeous, but, on the whole, they largely fall down in the face department. This is because there is a recognisable Isle of Wight profile, where the slope of the forehead continues straight into the nose, giving them the same profile as a Norman helmet. There is, we are afraid, something vaguely Neanderthal about it.

It may well be because they are more inbred; given the surprising lack of adventurous spirit as regards travelling off the island to the mainland (or the North Island as they refer to it). Even travelling from, say, Bembridge in the east to Yarmouth in the west (about twenty miles) is viewed as something akin to HM Stanley's expedition down the Congo.

Anyway, some of these young ladies may be locals but we suspect that most of them are not. The local girls tended to appear at twilight (they are very much crepescular creatures) when the light was too poor for photography.

This specimen demonstrates the "just off the Red Jet" (fast catamaran from Southampton) look, with no effort made to dress like a yachty as yet.

Soon, no doubt, she will look like this.

Shorts were very much the thing this year (not surprisingly for a sailing event) but the new development was the ubiquity of denim shorts which, unusually, were adopted by the local "shazzers" as well as the yachties. Shazzers, for our overseas readers, is a derogatory term in the UK derived from the name Sharon as Sloanes believe that most lower class girls are called either Sharon or Tracy.

One ridiculous aspect of some of the denim shorts on display was that they were obviously cut-off jeans and, therefore, had the pocket linings hanging down below the hem of the shorts. This, we feel, looks just ludicrous!

Denims are not really the thing for Cowes Week (they don't work with salt water very well) but we thought this young lady (below) carried off her skinny jeans very effectively. Of course nicely toned thighs work wonders.

The more authentic sailing look is better exemplified by these two. The "blonde" hair, as can be seen by looking at most of the other examples in this post is, of course, de rigeur.

Finally, it was pretty windy this year which is excellent for sailing (although we admit to sitting out the 48 knot winds on one of the days in the second half of the week in favour of cooking a coq au vin) but not so good for encouraging girls to strip off and sunbathe.

Away from Cowes, in a rather more sheltered spot down the coast, we did come across these two fine examples decorating a motor boat. Motor boat girls are different in many ways from their wind propelled cousins and we may examine them another day if, as seems likely, we return for the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes powerboat race.

A fine way to end...

London Surrey Cycle Classic brings out the moaning motorists

2011-08-15T15:41:00.001+01:00

Crowds by Triple P's road watch the race

The road where Agent Triple P's lives is just off the route of next year's Olympic cyling road race and yesterday they ran a full test race on the circuit. There were 140 international cyclists including some top professionals who had recently been racing in what turned out to be the best Tour de France for over twenty years. We had to make a few adjustments to our planned day as regards moving the car to inside the loop of closed roads and it did mean we had to walk a couple of miles to do so but it was worth it to see such a big event racing through what has just been voted the WAG's favourite village.

These signs have been up for a month at least

Today, however the bike-hating newspapers are full of moaning motorists who couldn't get where they wanted to. One man complained it took him two hours to do a two mile drive. IDIOT! It took me exactly 28 minutes to cover the two miles to and from where we had left the car on foot. Walk, you lazy moron! These people have got so car-centric they go into panic mode if their vehicles are denied them for a few hours. There were signs up everywhere for weeks beforehand and whilst it is conceivable that people coming into the area from far away might have been surprised it was mainly locals who claimed they knew nothing about it. This is just another manifestation of some a vocal anti-Olympics stance over here, wound up by the press. Triple P thinks it is great that the Olympics are coming to London for the first time in over fifty years and people who moan about their precious transport plans being altered slightly should be a bit less self-centred. Britain, more than ever at present, need to be positive not negative.

The breakaway goes past tennis player Andy Murray's favourite pub in "Britain's answer to Beverly Hills" (TM)

There was no TV coverage of the race, annoyingly, but we were surprised to see the field so broken up after just two laps of Box Hill. With nine laps in next years race it might conceivably generate a breakaway that got further ahead than yesterday's. There had been at least one crash as evidenced by the ragged state of some of the stragglers off the back of the field yesterday. It all ended well for our Olympic hopeful Mark Cavendish who managed a sprint win on The Mall even though his lead-out train were all competing for other countries and were, therfore, working against him not with him. Can't wait for next year's real thing!

Big Breakfast of the Week 12: Eegon's of Cowes

2011-08-14T08:55:00.001+01:00

Triple P's breakfast of choice at Eegons: the All Day Breakfast for £5.50

Very much a feature of Cowes Week for many is a pre-race breakfast at Eegon's Cafe in Cowes High Street. This is a classic English cafe (pronounced "caff" in this instance) and you are just as likely to be sharing it with the hard working chaps from the Isle of Wight street cleansing department (they start work at 2.00am quite often during Cowes Week) or lifeboatmen (especially as the new RNLI station will be virtually next door) as yachties.

Triple P usually takes the £5.50 All Day Breakfast which consists of two eggs, two rashers of bacon, two sausages, fried bread, baked beans or tomatoes and toast. There is also (for girls, presumably) a half breakfast for £4.50 which only has one sausage, one rasher of bacon and one egg.

The new Regatta Platta

The range of cooked breakfasts is simply marvellous although woe betide you if you try to ask for any changes to the menu. Asking for scrambled, rather than fried eggs, for example will be met with a polite refusal. A new offering this year is the Regatta Platta: a sausage, a rasher of excellent bacon, fried bread, toast, mushrooms, baked beans (or tomatoes) and saute potatoes plus a drink all for £5.

Proprietor Rod Ainge is a Cowes fixture, heavily involved with the commercial life of the town so you are just as likely to eavesdrop on unofficial meetings between council officials and representatives of the local retailers as discussions about sailing.

Breakfast Bonanza

The biggest challenge used to be the enormous Breakfast Bonanza, a plateful so vast you actually got a certificate if you finished it (Triple P has one, of course). Two eggs, two sausages, two rashers of bacon, mushrooms beans or tomatoes, hash browns, black pudding, fried bread and toast for £7.50. This year the new Steakfast looks even more of a challenge! We haven't tried the latter yet.

This year thay have also introduced a loyalty card where, if you amass ten stanps you get a £5 voucher. this, of course, encourages you to visit even more than you should.

Breakfast at Eeegons is not perfect, the sausages (compared with the bacon and eggs, say) are low quality and the sauces are generic catering sachets rather than HP or Heinz but even so for the sheer choice and value it gets 9/10

Calendar Girl July 2011: Abbey Clancy

2011-07-16T11:16:00.000+01:00

FHM must really like Abbey Clancy (or maybe she is cheap to hire for photoshoots) as she features again in this year's calendar, as she did in 2010.

As such we have already featured her here so don't need to delve into her Scouse background again.

Ms Clancy was much in the news recently due to her marriage to oversized footballer Peter Crouch. This was despite him allegedly cheating on her with silicone busted, teenage, Spanish prostitute Monica Mint (!). How are we going to find out such important world-shaking news without the News of the World?

Monica Mint: £800 an hour, apparently

Mint said that Crouch had horrible shoes and wasn't attractive (unlike the £800 he had to pay for an hour with her) but she said he was a "nice person" (which we are sure Abbey was pleased to hear).

Luckily for Crouch, Clancy forgave him and she gave birth to their daughter in March this year. They got married at the end of June and paid for all 200 guests to stay in the country house hotel where the wedding took place. They gain some points for not selling pictures of their wedding to a celebrity magazine.

Despite having given birth only 14 weeks before Clancy looked admirably trim in her rather tastelsss £10,000 wedding dress. The strapless Giles Deacon confection caused a minor nipple slip as she thrust her bouquet into the air, much to the amusement of her gangling spouse.

Unlike many WAGS, who are largely a triumph of presentation over content, Abbey is a very atractive woman so no doubt we will be seeing more of her again.

We still can't get around the Liverpool origins, however.

Kelly Brook in Italy

2011-07-15T16:02:00.000+01:00

Kelly Brook has been flaunting herself for the cameras again down in Naples where she is attending the Ischia film festival. The lovely Kelly, who is looking rather heavier than of late (and that is not a bad thing) has been staying at the trendy L'Albergo Della Regina Isabella.

Lickable!

Posing for photographs with an ice cream in a fifties style Jaspar Conran frock she had plenty of time to mention her new swimsuit line. Lo and behold she was then snapped by a, no-doubt well tipped off, photographer in two most effective bikinis.

Tour de France 2011 and this year's podium girls

2011-07-14T13:10:00.001+01:00

Agent Triple P is enjoying this year's Tour de France thanks to ITV4's live coverage which he can watch in the evening with a bottle of wine from the appropriate region (where possible- we baulked at getting cidre for the northern stages). Today's route up to the Pyrenees is in the Haute-Garonne and the Hautes-Pyrenees which means something like Vin de Pays du Comte Tolosan (We think Tesco has one, although its getting more and more difficult to get French regional wine in the UK given the primacy of New World wine these days).

This time shift is possible due to yet another kind technology transfer (its like the Royal Navy transferring their past-it frigates to India -something that soon, no doubt will be happening in reverse) from Agent DVD who has kindly given me his old Pace TV hard drive recorder thingy to replace Triple P's ancient video recorder.

Cavendish gets the green jersey yesterday

The race itself has been unpredictable this year, partly due to the large number of unfortunate crashes which saw several favourites knocked over and either losing lots of time (Contador - good) or out (Wiggins - bad, Vinokourov - good) in the first ten days. Rather more predictable has been the form of Mark Cavendish who, after mistiming it on Tuesday blasted to his third stage win and green jersey yesterday. Lets hope he can hang on in the mountains to take it into Paris. The grumpy wombat, Cadel Evans, actually looked happy for once when he won a stage and he is looking good for the mountains today but the Schleck brothers have stayed out of trouble, not exerted themselves and are looking cool and collected. Evans will have to be less reactive and attack for once if he wants to win. Maybe this year's stage win, where he did attack, is a sign of things to come.

Teen vampire friendly podium boy

More importantly, with relation to the tour, we haven't been that impressed by the podium girls this year. Even worse, after the first stage the Tour organisers fielded a podium boy for the first time. A spokesperson for the Tour de France stated, “We want to show that our sport has an equal following of both men and women. This will modernize our image by having both sexes represented at our podium presentation from now on.” Er, yes but all the cyclists are men and although you garlic crunchers may be happy kissing other men I can't see that it would impress Cavendish that much. Interestingly, we haven't seen another podium boy since the first stage so maybe they realise that they have made a mistake. Our particular French friend N opined that at least the podium boy was more attractive (compared with most men) than most of the podium girls (compared with most women) and we have to agree, actually.

Thor Hushovd and the slightly disappointing yellow jersey girls (the one on the right is by far the best)

The podium girls are, traditionally, usually models and around 500 apply each year to be the Maillot Jaune girls. 50 are interviewed and four are chosen to present the jersey at the end of the race. There are other girls selected to present the stage winner's prize, the polka dot jersey for the climbers, the green jersey for the sprinters (technically the most points won on selected intermediate "sprint" locations -only one in each stage this year) and the white jersey for the best placed young rider (under 26).

Welshman Geraint Thomas takes the white Jersey this year

Actually, the white jersey girls this year have been the best of the bunch, we think, whilst we like the green jersey girls' natty little dresses.

The ne plus ultra of podium girls: Julie Blanc

Certainly there is no-one this year of the quality of Julie Blanc. The riders are absolutely forbidden to flirt with the girls but if they do its the girls, of course, who get into trouble. Probably the rider gets fined. The Tour organisers like to fine riders for anything they can think of.

Melanie Simonneau in 2003

In 2003, George Hincapie (this year riding his 16th Tour de France, amazingly) liked the look of one of the podium girls, Melanie Simonneau, so much he tried to send a message to her through some people working for the jersey's sponsor, Credit Lyonnais. Unfortunately this meant that she was kicked off the Tour. Hincapie was persistant however and they married and now have two children.

Melanie Hincapie enlivens the Tour once more in 2007

This Week's Films: 7

2011-07-13T11:47:00.000+01:00

Whilst we have watched quite a few films of late we have bought rather more than we have watched over the last week or so which means that we are not really eroding the mountain very much!

The Happiest Days of Your Life (1950)

The story

Due to a mix up by the Ministry of Education a girls' school is co-located with a boy's school. Havoc ensues when parents of the girls and governors of the boys' school headmaster (Alastair Sim) is trying to move to arrive simultaneously.

Seen it before?

Several times on TV in the seventies.

Guy Middleton shows his appreciation

Any good?

Easily the best of the comedy school films from the fifties and sixties. Alastair Sim and Margaret Rutherford, as the girls' school's headmistress, spark off each other delightfully and there is a great cast of character actors backing them up. Richard Wattis plays slightly against his later baffled civil servant type roles with an acidic turn as a cynical teacher. Joyce Grenfell steals all her scenes as the prototypical daffy games mistress. Triple P's favourite is Guy Middleton as the rakish games master. Regaling some of the older girls with his wartime exploits he pauses as the impressed lovelies saunter through a gate and says: "I say, you girls are bang on for seventeen!" Probably couldn't get away with that now!

Notable for...

Being a dry run for the later St Trinians films including many of the same cast (Sim, Wattis, Middleton and Grenfell all appeared in various St Trinians films).

Any good girlies?

Unlike the later St Trinians films the schoolgirls look like schoolgirls not models although we have to confess that nineteen fifties gym gear is quite effective.

Pulp (1972)

The story

Mickey King (Michael Caine), a writer of lurid pulp novels, is asked by a former star of gangster films (Mickey Rooney) to ghost write his memoirs. But then the film star is murdered...

Seen it before?

Yes, a couple of times on TV.

Any good?

Caine (who was co-producer) is on fine wisecracking form and the Mediterranean (Malta standing in for southern Italy) setting is picturesque. Its almost an atmosphere piece and what story there is comes to a rather sudden halt. Still, a reasonably enjoyable way to spend an hour and a half.

Nadia Cassini in Malta

Notable for...

Being Mike Hodges and Caine's follow up to Get Carter (1971). This film is best describes as quirky. Also features a great soundtrack by the Beatles' producer George Martin.

La Cassini on location in Malta

Any good girlies?

It was through watching this film that we discovered the goddess that is Nadia Cassini, who slinks through the film in a succession of eye-popping seventies fashions: thigh length boots, miniskirts, hotpants etc. Gorgeous!

Waterloo (1970)

The story

Napoleon (Rod Steiger - miscast) escapes from exile on the Island of Elba and returns to Paris in triumph before attempting to wipe out the Prussian and Anglo-allied armies in Belgium.

Seen it before?

We first saw this when it came out with our father who was very interested in the Napoleonic wars.

Any good?

As an Italian-Russian co-production with an international cast it suffers from annoying dubbing syndrome which also means that there is quite a lot of physical over-acting. Rather a lot of Vietnam era anti-war peace movement attitudes and some very inappropriate seventies hair cuts. Steiger method acts as though he was in a different film. The film is saved by Christopher Plummer as Wellington, a great score from Nino Rota and the depiction of the battle itself.

Notable for...

Using 20,000 extras from the Red Army, including an entire brigade of Soviet cavalry, to produce battle scenes the like of which will never be seen again.

Any good girlies?

Virginia McKenna as the Duchess of Richmond looks elegant and there is a token attempt to inject some love interest using a couple of actresses but really this is about the boys.

The Pure Hell of St Trinians (1960)

The story

The schoolgirls burn down their school and end up in court. The Judge (Raymond Huntley), infatuated with one of the sixth formers (Julie Alexander), sets them free to the charge of an academic (Cecil Parker) who promptly takes the sixth formers to Arabia so as to sell them to a sheikh. Can the redoubtable fourth form rescue them from capitivity?

Julie Alexander in the dock

Seen it before?

Once, back in the mists of time.

Any good?

Not quite as good as the first two and it has a very convoluted plot focussing more on the adults than the girls but the opening scenes at the trial are very good and lots of British character actors (Eric Barker, Irene Handl, Dennis Price, John Le Mesurier) turn up to good effect.

Notable for...

An uncredited appearance by young actress Edina Ronay (in her first film) who would go on to found a famous fashion house.

Any good girlies?

With each successive film the amount of sixth form totty on display increased. Pure Hell was blessed by the luminous presence of former top model Julie Alexander who is seen as a nightclub dancer doing a belly dance striptease to great effect.

Final flight of Atlantis...and the Space Shuttle

2011-07-11T14:37:00.001+01:00

Atlantis blasts off on 8th July

So, the final space shuttle launch took place a couple of days ago and after this 12 day mission to replenish the ISS Atlantis will join its sisters in a museum next year. Atlantis will be the most spectacular Shuttle exhibit of the three; suspended in a special building at the Kennedy Space Centre against a rotating backdrop of the earth from space.

Atlantis was the second to last Shuttle built and its current and final mission STS 135 will be its 33rd space flight. Its first flight was in October 1985 but was shrouded in secrecy as it was a Department of Defence mission. Since then it has had the reputation of being the international launcher. The first Mexican, Swiss, Belgian and Italian in space all flew on Atlantis. The current crew is only four to allow rescue by a Soyuz if there are any problems. The Russian spacecraft, which is now the only way to reach the International Space Station, couldn't handle a bigger crew in a rescue mission.

This then, was the final launch of the Space Shuttle after 134 successful launches since its first flight in April 1981. Although it never achieved the original target of fifty launches a year (the two disasters befalling Challenger and Columbia led to two periods totalling five years without a flight) it generally performed well and could likely have continued operating for another decade, without budget cuts.

Atlantis and its flights

The retirement of the Shuttle is a sad day for the conquest of space as its a step back to the technology of thirty years ago and non-reusable rockets. Russian rockets, initially, and then possible Ares (if the Americans can find the money) or a private sector solution to service the ISS. We have lost our only real spaceship. Its rather like developing diesel powered high speed railway engines and going back to steam...

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley at Transformers 3 New York Premiere

2011-07-06T10:24:00.000+01:00

Another premiere, another posh (Antonio Berardi) frock for Rosie, Rosie. Having been in midnight blue for London, Huntington-Whitely does red for New York.

Poor Rosie, Rosie looks very glum as she goes through her own autobot fashion model poses (leg just so, angle of elbow bend precisely this, foot placement exactly right) on the red carpet. Maybe its because she has read her reviews and still has to go around plugging the film knowing that almost everyone thought she was rubbish in it.

'British model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is awful – awful! – sucking the life out of every scene she appears in like some pneumatic Dyson sexbot" Total Film. Pneumatic? One thing she is not!

"Poor Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. She may be beautiful but she can't act for toffee". Daily Mail.

"You’ll believe a robot can fly, but you won’t believe a Huntington-Whiteley can talk". Empire.

"Huntington-Whitely is only present for one reason... Certainly, it’s not for her acting ability." Daily Express.

Oh dear, it really is all sounding like Cindy Crawford in Fair Game! Back to modelling knickers Rosie, Rosie! Before she does this, however, we would suggest that she scoffs a few pork pies as she is looking far too thin!

Big Breakfast of the Week 11: Brasserie Roux at the Sofitel St James

2011-07-04T11:34:00.001+01:00

The Sofitel St James is a convenient location for Triple P: close to the Canadian and South African High Commissions, the Institute of Directors, Quebec Government House, the Commonwealth Secretariat and other places where Agent Triple P can be regularly found. So it is quite often that Triple P finds himself there for breakfast. Now breakfast at a boutique five star hotel like this should be a pleasurable experience but, we have to say, that we have been regularly disappointed at the Sofitel.

The interior designed by Pierre Yves-Rochon

Breakfast is either a buffet or, as Triple P prefers, a la carte. The problem is the indifferent service from grumpy Eastern European waiters. Eastern European women have been a great boost to the restaurant trade in the UK: friendly, nice looking and efficient. Their male equivalents. however, seem to resent the fact that they aren't making a packet as plumbers or carpenters. The staff in the Brasserie Roux consistently let down what could otherwise be a good restaurant.

The red grapefruit juice which Triple P requested was nice and cold, although perhaps a little on the small side. This didn't matter as they offered us a refill (although whether we would have had to pay for that wasn't clear). The teas, served in one of those trendy iron teapots, was curious as, on opening the lid, Triple P found neither a tea bag nor leaves. This meant that there was no way of adjusting the strength of the brew. As for the breakfast itself at least this time they got TripleP's order correct. In the past they have omitted items because, like increasing numbers of waiters and waitresses in London, they don't write orders down.

The breakfast itself was not as hot as it should have been although the sausage was truly excellent. It did come with some very good wholewheat toast. The all inclusive price was £23.50 which is on the high side for London but did include drinks and toast so that makes it rather better value than it first appears. An automatic 12.5% service charge was included which given the service was offhand (perhaps they are just trying to be Parisian) was a bit much.

So it loses marks for the poor quality tea, the lukewarm eggs, the rather unattractive dining room and the service.

All in all a disappointing 5/10.

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley at Transformers 3 London Premiere

2011-06-27T11:10:00.000+01:00

The lovely, lovely Rosie, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley was looking imperiously elegant at the premiere of the new Transformers film in sweltering London last night.

She certainly scubs up nicely and her extremely slinky midnight blue Burberry frock was just the thing for our current mini-heatwave. It was over 28 degrees yesterday and a predicted 30 degrees plus today. Even with our French windows open it is 30 degrees in Triple P's study this morning (10.15am).

Rosie, Rosie replaces pitted-cheeked Megan Fox as the obligatory tottie for the older boys who want to watch a film that flogs Japanese toy cars. Fox blotted her copybook with producer Steven Spielberg (who should be ashamed for involving himself in this tripe) by referring to director Michael Bay as "like Hitler". Super-sensitive about anything to do with the Nazis, Spielberg gave Fox the boot and replaced her with lovely, lovely Rosie, Rosie.

Huntington-Whiteley on the cover of GQ

The film company's publicity machine has been working at full blast to promote Rosie, Rosie (actually to the point of neglecting to say anything about the actual film) who has become fairly ubiquitous in the press of late. Never mind, Triple P is always happy to gaze upon someone so lovely; the ultmate presentation of whom, so far, is the current cover of GQ where she looks absolutely edible.

This is a magnificently sensuous photograph which is all about that swathe of fabric between her thighs and that point where the inner curve of her right thigh swerves into her bottom. In fact, we think this has replaced the famous cakes picture as our favourite Rosie, Rosie image.

Now, we wonder whether she can actually act...? Not that it matters, really.

Calendar Girl June 2011: Audrina Patridge

2011-06-20T10:58:00.001+01:00

For June we have another young lady we had not previously heard of, one Audrina Patridge.

Audrina, it seems, is one of those girls who is famous for being famous (well, not that famous, obviously) originally coming to prominence on an MTV series called The Hills. Now, MTV, Agent Triple P would suggest, is almost singlehandedly responsible for the death of popular music in that it shifted the music industry's approach from aural to visual, resulting in the current crop of beautifully filmed but musically barren material that passes for popular music at present.

It has meant the inexorable rise of interchangeable, attractive (Lady Gaga excepted), no-talent girl "singers" and a total lack of musical creativity; possibly, for Triple P, reaching its absolute nadir with an excruciating piece called Like a G 6 by Far East Movement (the Far East movement in question obviously being one from the bowels, having eaten some dodgy fish bladder soup in Vietnam, or some such). This inexplicably popular track features a woman speaking a very limited lyric in a flat monotone over some random key board noises that appear to have been recorded from a Major Morgan the Electric Organ toy.

Now just in case it is thought that Agent Triple P thinks all modern dance music is utter rubbish and there has been no worthwhile popular music since 1985 (largely true) we did enjoy the recent hit by LMFAO, Party Rock Anthem. It made Like a G6 look like Mahler's Third Symphony in comparison.

Anyway, we digress. Miss Patridge first appeared in the MTV show The Hills a "reality" show which purported to show the lives of several young women living in Los Angeles. The fact is, of course, all these people are hired and paid a salary to appear so perhaps the term "alternate reality" might be more accurate.

Miss Patridge, who was born in Placentia, California and is now 26, was working as a receptionist at a film studios before appearing in The Hills. Having appeared in more episodes than any other "character" she is trying very hard to break into acting; the highlight being, so far, the straight to DVD sequel to the dire Into the Blue (only worth watching for the scenes of Jessica Alba swimming underwater) called, naturally, Into the Blue 2.

A number of modelling assignments, minor TV presenting and internet presenting (oh dear) jobs have followed. Currently she is reduced to a projected new reality show showing her life after The Hills.

She also appeared on Dancing with the Stars in the US in 2010 (she came 7th out of 12). This is a re-make of the BBC series Strictly Come Dancing where a lot of C-list celebrities try to revive their careers by becoming the country's favourite ballroom dancer. Audrina seems to be attempting to by-pass the becoming famous bit by jumping straight in to revive a career that never really took off in the first place.

In March 2008 some of these nude photos of Audrina appeared on the internet resulting in the usual American starlet disclaimer. In Audrina's case she said they were taken just after she left high school when she was starting off as a model and that she was "naive" when they were taken and was worried about what her "young fans" might think. Wouldn't it be nice if once in a while someone said "yes, I posed nude and I looked absolutely amazing, so there!" The real issue, of course, is that apart from worrying about upsetting notoriously conservative US TV "family values" (do American families not walk around nude at home?) they don't make any money from the release of pictures. We also wonder exactly how naive she was given that they were, apparently, specifically taken to be submitted to Playboy (they were rejected).

One result of the appearance of the pictures was that everyone said that it was obvious that she had had breast implants; something she denied. In fact, she denied having her nose and lips done, she never specifically included her bust in this denial.

Recently, it has been suggested that she has had bigger implants and the calendar picture at the top of this post seems to confirm this (compare with the picture underneath it).

Whether we will hear any more of Miss Patridge seems doubtful (unless one habitually watches dismal American "reality" TV shows) although we have to give her credit for trying hard.

Never mind, her calendar shot is quite nice and it is always pleasing to see a brunette rather than yet another bleached blonde, so we have enjoyed having her on our wall this month rather more than some of the previous entries this year.

This Week's Films: 6

2011-06-13T21:31:00.004+01:00

Most of Triple P's recent viewing time was spent finishing Spartacus: Blood and Sand which we will look at another day. However, we did watch a couple of films and only bought one (A French Mistress).

Blue Murder at St Trinian's (1957)

The story

Following the imprisonment of their headmistress the school is under the control of the army for the protection of the rest of the country. The schoolgirls cheat in a national schools competition so that they can win a trip to Italy where they have been told by Flash Harry (George Cole) that a prince is looking for a wife and will consider the girls as candidates. Meanwhile a jewel thief (Lionel Jeffries) is forced to pose as their headmistress on the trip.

Seen it before?

Once, on TV in about 1975.

Any good?

A worthy sequel to The Belles of St Trinians although Alistair Sim (apart from a small cameo) is missed. The trip to Italy opens the film out somewhat and Terry-Thomas is a great addition as the unscrupulous owner of a coach company.

Sabrina

Notable for...

Being a sequel at all in the days when a successful film almost never provoked one. The first use of the words of the St Trinians school song with words by producer Sidney Gilliat:

Maidens of St Trinian's, gird your armour on.

Grab the nearest weapon; never mind which one.

The battle's to the strongest; might is always right.

Trample on the weakest; glory in their plight.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Our battle cry.

St Trinian's! St Trinian's! Will never die.

Stride towards your fortune boldly on your way,

Never once forgetting there's one born every day.

Let our motto be broadcast: "get your blow in first!"

She who draws the sword last always comes off worst.

Gilliat's other lyrics were a little more highbrow, as he wrote the libretto for Australian composer and former Master of the Queen's music Malcolm Williamson's opera Our Man in Havana, based on the novel by Graham Greene.

Lisa Gastoni

Any good girlies?

Definitely more big girls in small school uniforms than the first film. Honours are shared between the buxom Sabrina and the lovely Lisa Gastoni.

The French Mistress (1960)

The story

The new French master at an all boys school turns out to be a mistress, in the glamourous shape of Agnès Laurent with predictable but amusing results. The headmaster's son (a young and miscast Ian Bannen) takes an understandable shine to her but an incident from his father's past threatens their burgeoning romance.

Seen it before?

This is another film fondly remembered from Triple P's childhood but we probably hadn't seen it for over thrity five years.

Any good?

After the huge success of their previous film, I'm all Right Jack, this gentle Boulting brothers comedy, based on a play by Sonnie Hale, received rather lukewarm reviews at the time and is certainly less frenetic in tone than the St Trinian's films. However, there are some wonderful performances by the likes of James Robertson-Justice (before he became a complete caricature of himself), Raymond Huntley and, as the ever baffled headmaster, Cecil Parker. The film is stolen by Irene Handl's bolshie dinner lady.

Notable for...

An early appearance by Jeremy (Boba Fett) Bulloch as one of the schoolboys.

Agnès Laurent with Scott Finch (who later appeared in 633 Squadron)

Any good girlies?

Agnès Laurent is delightful in this and we wonder why she never lived up to her billing as the next Brigitte Bardot. She made fifteen films between 1956 and 1961 and then disappeared. She died last year.

Belle Epoque (1992)

The story

A young deserter from the army is taken in by an artist in 1930's Spain (actually filmed in Portugal) and is seduced by the man's four gorgeous daughters.

Seen it before?

We have definitely seen it once but not sure where: maybe at Agent DVD's house.

Any good?

Drenched in Iberian sunshine this is a perfect film to watch with a nice cold bottle of rose Rioja and some tapas. Touching and comic with wonderful performances throughout. Delightful!

Notable for...

The second cinematic appearance by an eighteen year old Penélope Cruz. Winning the best foreign language film Oscar 1994, although some felt it was a bit lightweight to do so. We disagree!

Maribel Verdú in Belle Epoque

Any good girlies?

All four actresses who play the sisters are delightful in their own, individual, way but the stand-out for Triple P is Maribel Verdú, later to be seen in the steamy Y Tu Mamá También (2002).

Space shuttle Endeavour docked with the International Space Station

2011-06-09T17:30:00.000+01:00

Agent Triple P loved this fantastic photograph of the Space Shuttle Endeavour docked with the ISS, which was published by NASA this week. Given the Shuttle has flown to the ISS over thirty times (although that includes construction of course) it is amazing that this is the first picture taken of it docked to the space station.

Endeavour lands following its final flight

The photograph was taken on May 23rd this year, by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, from a departing Soyuz space craft. This will be the only way to move personnel to and from the ISS until Project Ares comes online in 2014 (if it ever does). Mission Control Moscow ordered a 130 degree change in attitude so Nespoli could take pictures and video from about 600 feet away. There was an equally striking photograph of Endeavour as it landed at Kennedy Space Centre on June 1st after its final flight. After 25 flights, 299 days in space, 4,671 orbits and 122,853,151 miles flown the Endeavour is being retired to a Californian museum: almost certainly prematurely. Now there is just the final Shuttle flight of Atlantis due to launch next month.

Martini of the Week 10: Saigon, Saigon Bar, The Caravelle Hotel, Ho Chi Minh City

2011-06-07T22:04:00.000+01:00

During our visit to Asia a couple of months ago we stopped off in Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon, as most of the locals still seem to call it. Triple P was staying at another historic hotel there, the Caravelle, but historic for a different reason. Built in 1959 this was the headquarters, during the Vietnam War of the press corps with ABC, NBC and CBS all having their Saigon bureaux there.

Caravelle Hotel in May 1975 shortly after the fall of Saigon

Caravelle Hotel 2011

It was from the Saigon, Saigon bar on the top floor of the Caravelle (then the tallest building in the city) that the press corps watched the North Vietnamese army roll into the city. The hotel is now owned by the Vietnamese Government but if you are imagining some sort of Soviet Intourist look forget it. It is a quite splendid five star hotel that employs some of the prettiest girls Triple P saw in Vietnam and that is saying something!

Caravelle hotel staff wearing the traditional ao dai

The Saigon, Saigon bar is a great place to have a quiet lunch and a Bia Saigon overlooking all the manic traffic below. In the evening, however, it becomes one of the places to be in HCMC crowded with a mixture of locals, hotel guests and American Vietnam War veterans.

Served by waitresses in fetching off the shoulder red tops it is one of the most characterful bars we have ever visited and must be on any must-visit bars around the world list. It's certainly more attractive than the nearby Rex rooftop bar which has equally strong Vietnam War credentials. They also have a great Cuban band playing from 10.30 on most nights.

Triple P's companion did not join him in HCMC as he was only there one night. He arrived quite late so took a substantial snack to accompany our Martini. The Saigon, Saigon Vodka Martini was large and cold (although not quite as cold as Agent Triple P likes). It was made with standard Smirnoff and had too many olives, however. Still, one of the better efforts we had in Asia.

All in all we rate it 6/10

How much for a garden chair?

2011-06-06T13:52:00.000+01:00

Here in "Britain's answer to Beverly Hills" we get a number of free "lifestyle" magazines posted through the door, full of advertisements for estate agents, interior designers, private schools, supercar dealers etc etc. This month's Elmbridge Lifestyle Magazine had a feature on garden furniture. Oh good, we think, we could do with a new chair for the garden so we can sit and read in the sun, especially as we have a heatwave predicted for this summer (although its actually raining today for the first time in weeks).

The one at the top of the page is called an Altea chair and is made by Varaschin and you can pick one up in Modern and Classic Interiors in Esher, just down the road. That is, you can pick one up if you have £11,638 to hand. £11,638! For a garden chair! That's over $19,000! You can buy a reasonable brand new Japanese car for that! Good grief!

Big Breakfast of the Week 10: Le Beaulieu Restaurant, Metropole Hotel Hanoi

2011-06-06T09:47:00.000+01:00

It looks like Agent Triple P is going to be off on his travels again later this month so it's probably time for a another foreign big breakfast review.

Le Beaulieu in the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi is a restaurant with a long heritage. The restaurant has been in its current location ever since the hotel opened in 1901. The hotel has recently been sensitively renovated keeping all of its colonial style whilst bringing the facilities up to a level that Triple P has rarely seen elsewhere.

Outside the restaurant is a pavement cafe: very French!

Normally we don't like hotel restaurants that have to serve breakfast lunch and dinner but Le Beaulieu doesn't have the canteen elements of many modern multi-purpose hotel restaurants and for breakfast the setting is exquisite with a cool and relaxing atmosphere. Less formal breakfast is available in the nearby L'Orangerie.

As usual, Agent Triple P likes to start breakfast with tea and grapefruit juice. This always throws waiters around the world who expect everyone to have coffee and orange juice, annoyingly! The grapefruit juice was, unusually, white but none the worse for that. The tea was nicely served but suffered from French style (UHT we suspect) milk.

Our companion's breakfast illustrates how she stays so slim and gorgeous! The grapefruit segements were massive! The usual selection of Asian, continental and cooked breakfasts were available. The selection was quite good without being exceptional. The sausages were slightly unusual in taste but were excellent. The bacon was streaky but not cooked into carbonised sticks like most international hotels. This is sort of the worst of both worlds. Streaky bacon in the UK is largely used for covering a turkey to prevent it burning. No self respecting English person would actually eat it! Back bacon is proper bacon which is cooked so that it is still soft not crispy. The baked beans didn't have that weird spicy taste you often get in Asia and the tomatoes, mushrooms and hash browns were just perfect.

Eggs were cooked fresh by a helpful young lady and were particularly good. All in all one of the nicer hotel restaurants Agent Triple P has had breakfast in of late. A pretty good selection and excellent service let down by the strange milk and dubious bacon.

Still, gets a good 7/10

The Bunnies are back in London!

2011-06-04T14:50:00.000+01:00

The new London Playboy Club opens today and Hugh Hefner has actually got dressed and flown to the UK for the event. On Thursday he recreated a famous picture from the past as he posed with some of the new London Bunnies on the tarmac of Stanstead airport.

The press over here reported that the picture was a re-creation of a famous one for when he flew to London for the opening of the original club in 1966. In fact this shot was taken in Jamaica for the opening of the Ocho Rios club on January 1st 1965 but the effect is still striking. Agent Triple P is not sure about the new opaque black tights the new Bunnies are wearing but I am sure the young ladies themselves find them more flattering.

Membership of the new club costs £1200 a year plus a £1000 joining fee and nearly a thousand members have signed up, a third of whom are women. Today, however, feminists plan to demonstrate outside the club in a rather sixties style protest. These women don't seem to have realised that many women today, from a generation that takes its freedoms and equalities for granted because of, admittedly, the work of protestors in the past, feel that one of those freedoms is to be able to openly flaunt their sexuality in a way that was previously only acceptable to men. Playboy had a lot to do with this (although not quite as much as they tend to claim) in that it promoted the fact that women weren't just unwilling particpants in sex but did actually enjoy it themselves. Agent Triple P can, himself, remember discovering with delight that, much to his surprise, the women he met at university at the end of the seventies had not been programmed, as he had been led to believe, to resist men because they only wanted one thing. In fact for many of them that "one thing" was exactly what they were after.

Today's protestors seem to have missed the fact that whilst women, rightly, want equal treatment at work and by society generally they also want to be able to wear sexy lingerie, strip off on beaches and wear very revealing clothes (it's 24 degrees today and some of the outfits we have just seen on Walton on Thames high street beggar belief); in short be women but with the same rights as men. The feminist groups objecting to the Playboy club today are arguing that Playboy as an institution legitimises pornography. Do they not realise that most of the young women Agent Triple P knows enjoy pornography and do not think it is a bad thing at all as they are comfortable about their sexuality. That is the real sexual revolution of the last decade or so, one these women seem to have missed.