Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/30/recently-declassified-documents-there-was-an-actual-mi-6-agent-in-the-60s-named-james-bond.html
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I’m not surprised considering the background of the author of the books.
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The name James Bond came from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, a Caribbean bird expert and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies. Fleming, a keen birdwatcher himself, had a copy of Bond’s guide and he later explained to the ornithologist’s wife that “It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born”.[4]
(from Wikipedia)
Fleming’s publication history is curious – James Bond novels, a travelogue, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
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Next you’ll be telling me that SMERSH was a real thing.
Never mind
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A favored piece of Bondiana.
In the original first novel (Casino Royale) by Ian Fleming he establishes the character by describing him physically.
Sean Connery? Roger Moore? Daniel Craig? Woody Allen?
Nope. Fleming rightfully explains that Bond’ s appearance could not be one of conspicuous good looks or manliness. As an agent he needed to fit in as inconspicuously as possible.
Who did Fleming model Bond after physically ( besides himself)? This guy…
That’s the man who wrote Stardust which at one time was the most recorded tune in history.
That’s Hoagy Carmichael.
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@allenk I loved “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” saw it in a huge theater with a bunch of other kids.
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Yes.
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Not to mention intelligence operations that were wilder than any of his famous fictional works.
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One could argue that the Bond of the novels was the sacrilegious one. A shaken martini? Really!?!
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The guy likes tricked out cars and exotic locations, alright?
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According to Professor Tolan1), if you mix a martini by shaking instead of stirring, the alcohol content is slightly higher near the surface of the drink. Given that Bond not always has the time to finish his drink this might give him an edge.
1) Professor of experimental physics at TU Dortmund and science slammer. His field is x-ray scattering from soft-matter thin films. But he also likes looking into stunts and effects in James Bond and Star Trek films and figuring out whether they would be possible or not. The results are sometimes quite amazing.
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Interesting. I wonder what the overall abv was compared with stirring? I actually got into a speculative discussion years ago and posited that perhaps he preferred them shaken to get a lower abv and maintain his edge. But it was also the 50s and the prevalent belief seemed to be that being hammered actually gave you an edge.
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Bond would have been an officer not an agent.
A genuine spy to read about is Sidney Reilly.
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As portrayed by a young and devilishly handsome Sam Neill in the 1980s.
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And the real agency is SIS… but there’s no way James Bond would have kept his real-life job and security vetting for more than five minutes. So it’s perfectly cromulent to say that 007 is an agent working for MI6, which has a big enough budget and lax enough internal controls that he can go through multiple customized Aston Martins a year without even having to sign for them.
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I’m sure this knowledge has been a source of amusement at MI6 office parties for decades
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Just found the missing Bond novel “The Spy Who Left Us”
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