"You . . Used . . All . . The . . Glue . . ON PURPOSE!"

Darren McGavin, "My old man" in A Christmas Story and Carl Kolchak in The Night Stalker has died. A Christmas Story, a cracker of a good movie in its own right, captured the cultural feel of my youth to a T. And The Night Stalker, grandfather to The X Files, not only could scare the sox off you, but it got the metaphysics right for the traditional spooks and goblins of western civilisation. Dr Summers would have approved. (And if you catch the right episodes of The Night Stalker you'll see some gorgeous shots of the spiky Gothic interior of old St Joseph's Church in Los Angeles before it burned to the ground.)