Features

The United States seems to have held a particular fascination for Ian Fleming and was certainly not as familiar a destination for British readers when he was writing the James Bond books as it is today. These were the years just after the Second World War that are considered to be a golden age for […]

The first time in the books that James Bond visits France is Casino Royale, when he is sent to the fictional town of Royale-les-Eaux to defeat Le Chiffre at the gambling tables. However, he visits France on several occasions afterwards, including the drive down through France into Switzerland while tailing Goldfinger, or the events contained […]

If you think of Brazil then probably a few things come to mind; the carnival in Rio de Janeiro, beaches and football for instance; or Sugarloaf mountain, the statue of Christ the Redeemer, Bossa Nova rhythms and the Amazon rainforest; or, more recently, the pro-reform protests. James Bond touched down there in Moonraker, after finding […]

While Greece may not be one of the first countries you think of when it comes to James Bond, it does have a couple of Bond connections. The first of those is Colonel Sun, by “Robert Markham”, but for most people the greater link is with For Your Eyes Only, Roger Moore’s fifth outing as […]

While most Bond fans are aware of James Bond’s paternal Scottish lineage, many who have not read the books are unaware that his mother was actually Swiss; Bond’s (premature) obituary in You Only Live Twice tells us that his mother was Monique Delacroix of the Canton de Vaud. Bond visits Switzerland while engaged on two […]

Although Italy hardly appeared in the books at all, James Bond has visited the country a number of times in the films, most recently with Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. In the short story Risicco, James Bond visits first Rome and then Venice while trying to break up a heroin smuggling operation, meeting Kristatos […]

Although it may not much feel like it at the moment, summer is fast approaching after a long winter that seemed to takeover spring, but finally the weather (at least where I live) has turned. The central heating is off at long last and although the mountains in the distance still have plenty of snow […]

A number of years ago I bought a copy of Gary Giblin’s “James Bond’s London” on Amazon. The book takes a pretty exhaustive look at the London locations from the books and films up until The World Is Not Enough, as well as locations related to Ian Fleming; in fact it was from Giblin that I […]

Recently I watched Octopussy and then The Man With The Golden Gun on successive nights, which was an interesting experience as it allowed me to compare two Roger Moore Bond films from the late and then early part of his reign. The Man With The Golden Gun is frequently ranked by fans towards the bottom […]

January 2014 Note: The swimming shorts identified as being in Thunderball discussed in this article later turned out to be no such thing, despite appearing in the Designing 007 exhibition. In two of the three Daniel Craig Bond movies James Bond has appeared in brief scenes clad in nothing but swim shorts, but going back to […]