I load up my revolver, sharpen up my knife, some redneck messin' with me man, I'm bound to have his life

It was sad to read about the death of Larry Hagman last week, an actor who will always be remembered as J.R, Ewing the larger than life likable rogue from the 80s TV series Dallas

Dallas was huge back then and the hype and excitement that surrounded the "Who Shot J.R?" episode gripped a whole nation and was even covered on National news bulletins

At the time Hagman was negotiating a new contract so for a while it was touch and go whether J.R. would pull through or not but the makers realised that Dallas without J.R. would be like Taggart without Taggart, so he pulled through to fight dirty another day

I remember that time very well. My wife was eight months pregnant with our first child and we were living in a one bedroom flat in Cathcart. Blondie were at number 1 in the charts with "The Tide Is High", soon to be displaced by Abba with "Super Trouper" which was number 1 when my first son was born. Ayr United had narrowly missed out on reaching the Scottish League Cup Final as a result of some extremely dubious decisions which went in favour of Dundee in the Semi-Final, a pint of beer cost 35p and John Lennon was still alive. Good times. (Oh, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and Ronald Reagan had just become president of the U.S.A...make up your own mind about those ones)

I do not watch Eastenders or Coronation Street or the likes so in my lifetime the only other TV episode which seemed to cause such widespread excitement was when Richard Kimble finally caught up with the one-armed man in the last ever episode of "The Fugitive" in 1967

Dallas was full of excellent characters although even J.R. didn't seem to notice when his mum changed from Barbara Bel Geddes to Donna Reed for a while and then back to Barbara Bel Geddes again

At least when actor Jim Davis died they had the good grace not to replace him as Jock Ewing but instead to introduce Howard Keel as Miss Ellie's new beau. I always half-expected him to burst into "Bless your beautiful hide"

His loving wife Sue Ellen suffered much at the hands of J.R. but at least he did give her a reference as "a drunk, a tramp and an unfit mother"

His brother Bobby's wife played by Victoria Principal (most of the time) had the unfortunate distinction to be involved in probably the worst plot line ever when she awoke to find her husband in the shower at the start of Season 10. This came as a shock to most of us who had seen Bobby die at the end of season 8. This was explained away as just a dream by Pamela which left the whole of Season 9 as never having happened. I believe I gave up at that point or I may have just dreamt that I gave up. Who Knows? Who cares?

They even made a Dallas spin-off series called Knots Landing which I managed to avoid and I could not bring myself to watch the recent revamped production of Dallas currently showing on TV

Hagman also starred in the 1960s comedy series 'I Dream of Jeannie' which was remarkably similar to the 1960s comedy series 'Bewitched' but 'Bewitched' had Elizabeth Montgomery and her twitchy nose which always won me over

His fellow Dallas stars Patrick Duffy and Linda Gray were both apparently with him and his family when he died and spoke very highly of him. It seems in real life he was nothing like the scheming character he played so well on screen and he will be sadly missed

Wherever he is now he should take note of one of his own quotes as J.R.:
"Like my daddy always said: if you can't get in the front door, just go around the back"

You messed about, I caught you out

Last week Chris Gayle of the West Indies hit a six from the first ball of their Test Match against Bangladesh.

The first Cricket Test Match was in 1877 and since then there have been over 2,000 more and yet this is the first time this has ever been done in a Test Match

It comes as no surprise that it is Chris Gayle who has created this record. I watched him recently as he set about destroying teams in the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and he does hit a cricket ball an incredibly long way. He played a major part as West Indies went on to win the competition beating hosts Sri Lanka in the final. My dad had an expression he used to use when he watched cricket, "Hit out or get out!". I think he would have approved of Chris Gayle.

I am not a huge cricket fan but I started watching it on TV in the late 60s and early 70s when I should have been studying for exams. Some of the greatest players I remember were part of the West Indies team over the years. The one and only Sir Garfield Sobers who famously hit 6 sixes from one over in 1968 whilst playing for Nottinghamshire. Sir Viv Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Clive Lloyd and Brian Lara all produced great batting performances over the years. Lara scored 400 and 375 against England and also managed to score 501 for Warwickshire in 1994

West Indian fast bowlers have a history of terrorising the opposition and I well recall the likes of Malcolm Marshall,Curtly Ambrose, Joel Garner and Michael Holding doing just that on a regular basis. Micheal Holding now commentates on the cricket on TV and has one of those voices you could listen to all day

The West Indian Cricket Team is made up of a Sporting Confederation of 15 countries, British dependencies and non-British dependencies which probably explains why there so often appears to be a lack of team harmony but on their day they are probably the most entertaining cricket team in the world

It has always surprised me that our friends from across the pond have never taken to cricket. It is a game full of statistics which American sports fans just love and if they can get excited about really tall men running up and down a court and throwing a ball through a hoop and also have a 'World Seies' for 'Rounders' why can't they also embrace this riveting sport. Just think of all the advertising revenue from TV adverts over a five day Test Match.

....and then there are the fielding positions in cricket....backward short leg, deep cover point, silly mid-off, long off, long on, gully...and we are merely scratching the surface here. Surely that has more appeal than pitcher, catcher, shortstop, first baseman, second baseman, third baseman, left fielder, centre (sorry, center) fielder and right fielder. I mean come on guys let's use a little imagination here. Couldn't you find room for a deep square leg somewhere in there?

I leave you this week with my Top 10 Cricket Related Songs

1. It's Over.............................................Roy Orbison
2. Bat Out Of Hell..................................Meatloaf
3. Run, Run, Run....................................The Velvet Underground
4. Cover Me...........................................Bruce Springsteen
5. Catch Us If You Can..........................The Dave Clarke Five
6. Long Leg(ged) Woman Dressed In Black....Mungo Jerry
7. Slip Sliding Away........................................Paul Simon
8. The Point Of No Return...........................Jeff Lynne
9. Silly (mid-on) Love Songs........................Wings
10. Theme From 'The Third Man'.................Anton Karas

I am going to declare at this point. See you next week! 

........Just for one day

So, in the course of a week Young Ben's obsession has moved from Fireman Sam to Spider-man.

His mum bought him a Spider-man Comic with a free Spider Gun and that was that. Inside the comic were mini-posters of Spidey and other Superheroes and I remembered that years ago I used to cut out figures from comics (probably footballers) and paste them on to card so that they could stand up. Well with the help of an empty Coco Pops box and using my best Blue Peter skills Spider-man, Captain America, the Torch, the Thing and Wolverine were suddenly displayed in their 2D prime

Being made from paper and card they are not going to last long in Ben's World but he appreciated the effort just the same

During lunch with my brother this week we were discussing Superhero Comics and growing up you tended either to be a DC Comics fan or a Marvel Comics one. He is a bit older than me and was always a DC man but I embraced the brave new world of Marvel Comics with open arms

In the interests of fairness I will give you my Top 5 Superheroes from both camps and you can make up your own mind

TOP 5 DC SUPERHEROES

1. Superman........the Man of Steel who wore his underpants outside his trousers and hid his real identity with a pair of glasses is probably still the most famous Superhero of them all. Christopher Reeve famously played Superman in four movies in the 70s and 80s and Brandon Routh played him in 2006. There was also the long running TV series Smallville in which Tom Welling starred as the young Clark Kent. My favourite Superman adversary was Mr Mxyzptlk from the Fifth Dimension (the place not the 60s pop group). He could only be stopped by tricking him into saying or spelling his own name backwards. This always intrigued me as most of us could not even say his name forwards never mind backwards

2. Batman..............The Caped Crusader is currently having a massive resurgence as The Dark Knight played in the cinema by Christian Bale but I best remember him from the 60s TV series starring Adam West and Burt Ward and featuring wonderful villains like The Joker, The Riddler, Penguin, Catwoman and Mr Freeze

3. Only at Number 3 and already I am struggling....The Flash....he could run very fast. I guess that makes Usain Bolt a modern day Superhero

4. Aquaman......if any wrongdoings were happening at sea then he was your (Aqua)man but as brilliantly portrayed in Family Guy any misdeed on dry land would result in him being only a water treading spectator

5. Green Arrow/Green Lantern.....really scraping the barrel now. Take your pick....one had a bow and arrow, the other had a lantern but they were both green

TOP 5 MARVEL SUPERHEROES

1. Spider-man......."with great power there must also come great responsibility"...after Peter Parker was bitten by that radio-active spider things were never quite the same again. Tobey Maguire played the webslinger in three Spiderman movies and Spidey is played by Andrew Garfield in 'The Amazing Spider-Man" released earlier this year. My own favourite villains in Spider-Man were Doctor Octopus, The Green Goblin and Sandman

2. The Fantastic Four.....the Beatles of the Superhero world consisted of The Human Torch (a flying fireball), the Invisible Woman (I am not sure what she could do), her husband Mr Fantastic who could stretch all parts of his body into incredible lengths and shapes which was a huge bonus for Mrs Fantastic and my personal favourite The Thing, a sort of grumpy Mr T with stone-like flesh

The Thing never lost a game of Rock/Paper/Scissors with his friend Edward Scissorhands

3. Iron Man....he has been brilliantly brought to the big screen by the excellent Robert Downey Jr who has almost single handed managed to turn this somewhat run of the mill Superhero into a major player

4. The X-Men....the X-Men have had more changes to their line-up than Fleetwood Mac but the ones I remember from my early comic buying days were Cyclops/Iceman/Arch-Angel/Beast and Marvel Girl (obviously less PC back then or they should have been called the X-People)
The X-Men have now become a major movie franchise and the 2000 movie starred Halle Berry as Storm, so nothing bad to say about that one whatsoever

5. The Hulk....."Don't make me angry.You wouldn't like me when I'm angry"....the not so jolly green giant with the heart of gold was supposedly inspired by the story 'Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" and somehow Bruce Banner's trousers always seemed to still fit the mighty torso of the Hulk. The TV series always seemed to end each episode with Bruce Bannerwalking along some country road with suitably depressing accompanying music. On the big screen he has been portrayed in recent years by both Eric Bana and Edward Norton

Captain America, Thor and The Silver Surfer don't even make the Top 5 so I do believe the strength in depth shown by Marvel outweighs the contribution of the undoubted talents of Superman and Batman

As Robin would have put it..."Holy Superheroes Batman! I think we have a winner!"

I met you in a cave, you were painting buffalo, I said I'd be your slave, follow wherever you go

The silhouettes of a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Stegosaurus loom menacingly against a dark November morning sky.

Where else would you be but Glasgow? Last Saturday morning Young Ben and I dropped his dad off in Anniesland to play football and carried on out Great Western Road to Jurassic Parr in search of Golf and Dinosaurs

Armed only with an apple and a banana we entered the enclosure, protected on all sides by high fences and barbed wire.

We followed the dinosaur footprints and were soon in the company of giants from another age

A Triceratops mocked my feeble attempt at a four footer as we halved the first hole

Young Ben's concentration was broken by grunting noises from the bushes. He told me to stop trying to put him off

A helicopter in the middle of the 6th green made judging the line of your putt somewhat difficult

Despite having several T. Rex figures at home Ben was rather unsure of the main attraction at Jurassic Parr. He was OK when it was still and silent but as you pass it you set off a sensor and the T. Rex moves and roars. Ben was not altogether happy with this

Given that I was two holes down I had to resort to setting off the T. Rex sensor just as Ben was taking his shot. All is fair in love and mini-golf.

Not exactly Jack Nicklaus on the Swilcan Bridge at St Andrew's but Ben was in no mood to pose as he had fallen behind by this time

Ben informed me that if my ball was in the nice friendly Dragon Serpent's mouth I could get it back myself and that it would cost me a penalty shot

A passing Brachiosaurus proved an unnecessary distraction as I dropped yet another shot and Ben drew level once again

Ben strides down the 18th in victorious style as a collapse of Adam Scott proportions allows Grandpa to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Ben thoroughly enjoyed his time at Jurassic Parr and although I would have liked to have seen a life size model of Raquel Welch in her fur bikini amongst the prehistoric creatures I also thought it was excellent

By the time we left the sun was shining and in the afternoon I saw  my team Ayr United crush the mighty Inverness Clachnacuddin 2-1 in the Scottish Cup so all in all a more than satisfactory day all round.