Is Nothing Sacred?!

According to my cyber-chum Shelina [do read her admirable and entertaining writings to be found at: www.spirit21.co.uk/] the new James Bond is one to be missed by a country mile.

The problem would appear to be not so much a matter of Bond qua film as Bond qua Bond, the man having been ripped from his true identity of fearless old-school warrior battling would-be dominators of the world [don't think we've ever had any would-be dominatrix, though that would be fun] with suave cunning, some nifty if implausible gadgets and probably more chest hair than should be actively encouraged in civilised society.

When not so engaged in searing acts of bravery and jocular fortitude our Bond - the true fellow - dedicates his sparse leisure time to sweeping pneumatic [sometimes at least as implausible as the gadgetry] blondes off their feet and onto a convenient chaise langue or other to hand couche d'amour.

Now this sort of clear cut - if not entirely clean living - hero is one much to my liking, not least because when watching such adventures a deux, as H and I are occasionally wont to do, I am able to whisper gently to the beloved as our hero performs one more extraordinary feat of courage under fire or seduction under cover [Bond films being decently coy after all] - "All loosely based on my own life I think you'll find, dear."

H never fails to grin appreciatively at my enduring Walter Mittyesque fantasy that a life of reckless, wild adventuring could so easily have been mine, had I not willfully opted instead for sedate conjugal and professional sobriety. But for a single turn in an early road of life and one would not be out in the sticks ministering to the slightly troubled souls of a English village parish. One would instead be in some mountain fastness fighting to save the very life of the planet from the clutches of a deluded monster with one's best and not entirely clothed gal by one's side.

Even this fancy is - according to the fragrant Shelina, now film critic to the nation as well as social reporter and all round raconteur - to be denied me as, we are told, the new Bond is a caring Bond and - worse - a fallible human Bond, much given to hearing other people's pain and revealing that he only became a spy because of some unresolved childhood trauma and that, given the chance, he'd drop all this spying 'n' seducing malarky for a spell of voluntary work with Greenpeace! (I guess to the details but one gathers it's more or less in this line.)

Is indeed nothing sacred! Pah, time for a large whisky before Evensong. "The name's Palladas. Reverend Palladas." - that'll wow them!