Lord Peter Wimsey: Bond - Shaken and Stirred

For a person who values memories, I don't really remember very much of my childhood. Certain images stand out, of course but these are vague and fleeting.

Running to meet Kelvin's Kindergarten schoolbus is one. I can still recall the rush of excitement that would well up when I heard the distinctive sound of the green-ish schoolbus. I had never been lonely before that, you see, we were practically twins and did everything together. But he had to go to Kindergarten and thus it began...the separation of our lives.

Anyways... the other memory is of an excited Daddy coming home with a whole bunch of musty-smelling, dark-covered books. He had stumbled onto a second-hand book sale and had bought me half a dozen or so. I was as excited as he expected and only vaguely heard Mummy's background rumbling on whether such adult-looking books would be "appropriate". As it turned out they were not. But by then (I was anywhere between 8-11, can't remember exactly), my god-fearing parents had let me read the Bible from cover to cover. There was really nothing more popular fiction could "teach" me.

One of those books was Ian Flemming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which remains to this day the only Bond BOOK I recall reading, and what a read it was. There was a tortured heroine who walked resolutely into the sea. There was this wonderful, HUMAN being who was also one of the world's top spies. There were villains who were not mere cardboard cutouts. There was action galore.

For years after that I would go to see the Bond movies and search for the Bond I had read. Roger Moore smirked too much. Sean Connery was gorgeous but had no heart (and contrary to popular opinion the real Bond, the Bond of the books, had a heart). Timothy Dalton went by in a blur. Pierce Brosnan was too polished but in my opinion came the closest. I had never even seen OHMSS with George Lazenby, though it remains my favourite Bond book, so am not able to pronounce on the merits of Lazenby as Bond.

And then suddenly, he was here. My Bond, Ian Flemming's Bond. I wish Flemming could have seen him (he never liked Sean Connery, actually).

Addendum : So we finally got 50 tickets (yes it is a record, I thought there were 70 for Charlie and Chocolate Factory but on further recollection it was 40). Bond girls were allocated, and some sportingly turned up suitably attired...(why do people listen to my crazy ideas? - it's a mystery).

A new Bond era begins.

I hope they re-do OHMSS!