COMING SOON!

VULCAN 607 - Rowland Wright

What a fantastic read! This book is definitely one for the boys. Forget about all that Biggles rubbish, this is the real thing with real planes, real bombs, and a real enemy to take by surprise. I had serious trouble putting this book down and got a real ear-bashing for apparently ignoring everyone at home.

The book is written in two parts. The first part deals with the build up to the Falklands War, The immediate aftermath of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands, and the steps taken by the British Government to retake the islands. One of those steps was to fly a bombing raid on Port Stanley airfield to render the runway unuseable to Argentine aircraft. The birth of Operation Black Buck, and the preparation and training of the Royal Air Force's V-Force which enabled Black Buck to take place are covered quite extensively.

Part Two of VULCAN 607 is where this book really came alive for me. It takes you right through the Black Buck raid from start to finish. By the time I had read it all I felt like I had been sat in the aircraft and actually flown the mission to bomb Port Stanley Airfield. Aircraft and men were pushed way beyond their respective limits and it is testament itself to the quality of the men who flew this mission, the men who flew supporting aircraft, and the men on the ground who made it possible to keep the aging V-Force in the air. It was the longest bombing mission ever flown by a single RAF plane and it was fitting that both Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris and James Doolittle ( the man behind the B25 raid on Tokyo almost exactly fourty years earlier) were still alive to see it take place.

Buy this book and read it. Besides being a documentary on the end of the service life of the Avro Vulcan, and the part played by the RAF's V-Force during the Falklands War, it is also one of the greatest adventure stories I have ever read, and everybody who went on the adventure came back.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

Lets be honest right now. This is one cowpat of a film. As a book I thought it was one of the better ones to roll off the Harry Potter production line but it was big, too big really. It hasn't transferred well to the big screen and the script writers have done a real hatchet job on it. I have never heard of director David Yates before and if this is the best he can do then I shan't be looking at any of his other work. I am surprised that J.K.Rowling (who has tried to retain as much control over Harry Potter as possible) hasn't distanced herself from this film. It is certainly the worst one of the series to date, and it is definitely the one most removed from the books. Anybody watching this film who hasn't read the book is going to be completely lost from the very beginning. The story is seriously disjointed and it doesn't allow the film to flow properly. It is more like watching a collection of unrelated scenes that have been tagged together. The vision has gone and, more importantly, so has the magic.

Harry Potter has become a franchise directed at extricating money from the pockets of the paying public without giving them what they are paying for. I sincerely hope that the last two films are made by a director with some vision and imagination, otherwise I would have to question whether it is worthwhile continuing. The magic needs putting back to make it "believable" fantasy otherwise we will just get more of the same. I'm sorry to say it but Phoenix is just a pile of unadulterated crap and a real disappointment! 2/10.