People always talk about the opening sentence of a novel, but no-one ever reads the first sentence of a blog. My book about bdsm opens with: “About twenty-one thousand years ago a tribe crunched across white grass in the frozen landscape that is now Russia.”

That’s okay, as beginnings go. It’s not about bdsm, but at least it suggests the possibility that the cast will turn out to be wearing lambskin boots and fur bikinis. As seen in pretty much all films about caves, clubs and fire-starting.

Hammer Films' idea, in 1967, of what women wore in 1,000,000 BC. The fur bikini offers excellent protection from pterodactyls, but may be unsuitable for swimming.

Raquel Welch is the obvious example, from the film poster that became a lot more famous than the film it publicised. That was “One Million Years BC”, from the Hammer Horror crew in 1967, and it had babes, dinosaurs, grunting-as-dialogue and Harry Harryhausen’s stop-motion pterodactyls. Also a man-eating brontosaurus, which must have annoyed dinosaur-savvy kids even at the time. Raquel Welch plays “Loana the Fair One”, and she’s out-acted by the pterodactyls. But it’s still a cool film.

Anyway, by the time I get readers this first post will be long buried.

But greetings to anyone who finds this. If you’re a web archeologist from 2023, drop me a note and I’ll send you a Special Gift.