Ian Carmichael - still going at 86

Jonathan Calder quite rightly draws attention to the remarkable career of George Cole, who appeared in Diamond Geezer on ITV last night.

In terms of longevity of his acting career, it is worth sparing a thought for Ian Carmichael. Although not a child screen actor like George Cole or James Fox, Carmichael was on stage acting from 1939 and film acting from 1952. As well as being in some hilarious Boulting Brothers films in the 50s (usually as the butt of the jokes), he has been a regular on TV ever since. Only recently, he completed three series of Royal for ITV where he played Mr Middleditch, the hospital secretary. He looked remarkably young for his 86 years.

Mr Bean's holiday

Not late with this one. Well, I do have a ten year old daughter and we watched it being filmed in Paris last May (left), so we had to go.

Not a bad film. Laughed out loud several times. The end was quite rousing. Emma de Caunes (pictured) is captivating. A very good bit of entertainment. But it is always good to have a child to take to this sort of film!

Starsky and Hutch

Yes, late again. Not a great film. It seemed on a par with some of the TV episodes. It killed 101 minutes. I find it very difficult to get past Owen Wilson's nose.

Master and Commander

I always seem to be late watching films. Not only did I watch this on Film4, but it was Film4+1 because I was late for the start. What a wonderful action film! The battle scenes were stunning. I now wish I had watched it on the big screen, because seeing it in "letter box" format was a bit restricting.