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Oh man, I remember reading all of the Fleming books when I was a kid. This is going to be fun.chitoryu12 posted:The later books definitely take inspiration from detective fiction. The biggest difference is probably that Bond is a dude with very particular tastes obsessed with eating fine food and drink and taking full advantage of his unlimited mission budget, so in between finding clues and interrogating people he’s waxing poetic on fine dining and drinking absolutely dangerous amounts of whiskey. In one of the earlier books, at least, I remember there's a short passage about how MI6 frowns on a lot of his living-it-up expenses, but he does a lot of them (particularly his gambling) with his own savings. While he's living at home he lives a modest but comfortable roast-beef-soft-boiled-eggs-and-other-British-staples sort of existence. He has a government pension waiting in the future, but in truth it doesn't matter; he expects that one day before then he will take a mission where he doesn't come back alive. Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow, Mr. Bond, you expect yourself to die.
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Jun 27, 2018 19:39
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chitoryu12 posted:I think the quoted amount Bond gets for his salary is (adjusted for inflation) something like $30,000 a year. He just gets an unlimited expense account on missions, and at the Casino Royale he's specifically being bankrolled by MI6 to gamble. The books show off more of Bond's talent as a card shark where the movies just display gambling as a pastime to add flavor. Bond definitely gets a lot of MI6 resources thrown behind him when the mission calls for it, but I remember being interested in the characterization that he lives big on assignment with the expectation that his future isn't worth saving for. It's just a little hint of that stone-cold government-thug Bond that you mentioned. The sophisticated, cosmopolitan "Bond, James Bond" is as much a character to himself as to the rest of the world.
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Jun 27, 2018 20:45
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Lemniscate Blue posted:What is the significance of the "M" cut into Bond's hand by the SMERSH agent? It's not an M per se; it's something that looks like an upside-down M. It's a 'ш', the cyrillic first letter of the Russian word for 'spy'. The idea is to leave an easily-identified, highly-visible scar, destroying Bond's value as a spy in the future. He undergoes some skin grafts so he can keep going and not get shot on sight, but I believe the rest of the series does mention he has some scarring there visible under close inspection. Cassius Belli fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 18:54
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I saw this LEGO kit and thought of you, Bond Book Thread. I hope some of you like it.
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Aug 7, 2018 20:34
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Runcible Cat posted:I've got a distinct suspicion it's because Solitaire wanted something he didn't and it's Not Manly to let women choose what to eat. Note that she doesn't get to choose either then or later in the diner; she eats what Bond orders. It might be intended as some kind of characterization and scene-setting. Vesper orders her own food and Bond was quite taken with her, but she was a very different woman in a very different place. Solitaire is a bit more sheltered, in some ways, so mumble mumble mumble...
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Aug 21, 2018 21:15
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chitoryu12 posted:How popular was Haig & Haig back in the 50s? It's been seen everywhere from Normandy to New York City to St. Petersburg. At the time it was have been one of the most popular Scotch whiskies in the world, pretty much where Johnnie Walker is today (though I understand Bond drinks Macallan these days). Playboy was barely a spark this early in the 50s, but later (and through the 70s) you'd have been hard pressed to find an issue without at least one of Haig's ads in it. Their Five Star (now Gold Label) was the #1 best-selling whisky in Britain from the late 30s through the 70s, and Dimple or Pinch (depending on which side of the ocean you were on) would have been a pretty common and recognizable upgrade.
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Aug 22, 2018 21:20
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Trin Tragula posted:Who's George Lazemby? He's the Bond actor from On Her Najesty's Secret Service.
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Sep 6, 2018 21:15
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Midjack posted:I'm not the one who missed the joke. Check the title you quoted. It was admittedly a bad joke.
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Sep 6, 2018 22:45
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chitoryu12 posted:It's hard to think of a villain's death in the Bond novels that's more drawn out and gruesome than this. I read (I think) the whole run of Fleming books back when I was a kid, and... yeah, this one sticks out particularly. Even a good twenty years later I remembered that particular image - the dark shape of Mr. Big's head above water, his teeth bright white against the night, as he screams in rage as much as pain - very clearly when we started this book. It mirrors what happened earlier to Felix, in that karmic-retribution kind of way, so it fits the story very well, but it's hard to escape that Bond didn't outthink or outfight anyone here; he just got really, really lucky.
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Sep 11, 2018 06:35
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chitoryu12 posted:I have a feeling that current intelligence agency cafeterias don't exactly let you drink half a carafe of wine by yourself with lunch. Heck, I wonder how many current intelligence agency cafeterias will serve you "a grilled sole, a large mixed salad, some Brie cheese and toast." That's tech-company-perk territory these days. The past fifty or so years of austerity have people just standing in line at the secure Starbucks.
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Sep 28, 2018 21:18
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chitoryu12 posted:It really is just us going along on Ian Fleming's vacations. I like to imagine that Fleming was just pioneering the modern Instagram lifestyle-blogger technique of framing these as 'research' so he could make them tax-deductible.
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Oct 2, 2018 00:33
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I eyeballed the New York, tourist trap, and fake-fancy-dining markups and guessed that this cost $18, and then scrolled back up and realized you'd said already. I guessed low by a buck, yeesh. I wouldn't say it was "piled" onto the lettuce; it looks like one single lonely slice draped over it, so thin you can see the lettuce through it.
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Dec 29, 2018 22:13
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chitoryu12 posted:It was 3 or 4 slices, draped on the lettuce in a way that when served it looks like a heap of salmon. That's slightly less offensive, I guess.
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Dec 30, 2018 02:14
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Strategic Tea posted:To be fair, wasn't that basically how the regular officer corps were recruited at the time too? It was still a vast improvement from the 1700s and 1800s; up through 1871 one common way to get into the Army officer corps (or promoted) was just to slam a couple years' pay on the table and buy the rank outright. Retiring officers would sell their stations to younger ones and provide for their retirements this way.
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Mar 10, 2019 08:16
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Epicurius posted:Or a Russian spy. One or the other. Both is an option.
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Mar 11, 2019 19:06
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The only way Bond could have done worse was if Grant had offered last month's countersign, and Bond shrugged it off because it was the first of the month and maybe this junior operative had rushed out overnight without getting the new one yet.
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Mar 29, 2019 21:40
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quote:‘American doctor. Written a book my Washington people sent over for our library. This man talks about how much punishment the human body can put up with. Gives a list of the bits of the body an average man can do without. Matter of fact, I copied it out for future reference. Care to hear the list?’ M. dug into his coat pocket and put some letters and scraps of paper on the desk in front of him. With his left hand he selected a piece of paper and unfolded it. He wasn’t put out by the silence on the other end of the line, ‘Hullo, Sir James! Well, here they are: “Gall bladder, spleen, tonsils, appendix, one of his two kidneys, one of his two lungs, two of his four or five quarts of blood, two-fifths of his liver, most of his stomach, four of his twenty-three feet of intestines and half of his brain.” ’ M. paused. When the silence continued at the other end, he said, ‘Any comments, Sir James?’ Given his drinking, smoking, and diet, Bond has probably taken out all the bolded parts just as matters of recreation.
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Apr 10, 2019 20:49
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ishikabibble posted:I think the more impressive aspect here is Bond disassembling something where you literally cannot remove anything without a screwdriver, by hand Depending on the exact way the grips and screws are cut, on some guns you can use a case rim as a screwdriver and work from there. On the revolver this would probably be a modification, but the 1911 has this as part of its original spec. 
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Apr 26, 2019 13:58
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This wasn't published for a few more years after Goldfinger, but I saw this come across my recommendations and thought the thread might like the small insight into Fleming's philosophy of writing: Ian Fleming Explains How to Write a Thriller
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Jun 6, 2019 08:26
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chitoryu12 posted:I'm an Orlando native and theme park fan, but the idea of Bond gushing about Disney is still bizarre. I think he would like it despite himself, but I would have rounded out the scene a different way. Imagine him taking a seat by the statue of Walt and breaking down into quiet tears for a moment, because under all the brute force and sex and rage there is a little orphan boy who has walled himself off from the world and wishes he could have grown up to be one of the happy, carefree people around him. Then Bond the man gets control of himself again, stands up, sets his jaw, and goes off to finish his mission.
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Jul 23, 2019 05:22
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chitoryu12 posted:
I read this ("half a bottle") as Tracy having drunk half the thing already, vs a demi (half-bottle), especially since Fleming uses the usual phrasing for Bond's Krug later.
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Oct 24, 2019 17:31
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chitoryu12 posted:A half bottle is 375ml. Many varieties of champagne come in them, but Pol Roger didn’t at the time of writing. We saw quarter bottles in Casino Royale as well. Right, I know that part, but the text reads like Tracy ordered a standard 750 of Pol Roger and drank half of it before Bond caught up with her, not that she had a 375 in front of her. That's a pretty fair amount of alcohol, but we all know the best Bond girls can go toe-to-toe with him as a minimum.
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Oct 24, 2019 20:29
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Pershing posted:So I'm drinking along with the thread. Which of these whiskys is the Suntory they're drinking? Does it exist anymore? None of those whiskies were around in the 1960s. Since Fleming doesn't call out a specific appellation (by the 60s they had a number of upmarket labels) it's probably the old Shirofuda (extinct) or "Kakubin". I'd place my bet on Kakubin as Shirofuda was not an especially successful whisky to Japanese palates. Kakubin's a "convenience store" kind of whisky, though I understand one of the better things you'll find there. Their bottle would have looked something like this:  e:f,b Cassius Belli fucked around with this message at 19:53 on Jan 5, 2020 |
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Jan 5, 2020 19:50
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Somebody Awful posted:People in the west have fallen for flimsier ruses. I remember reading about some vicious pranksters who would call up stores and persuade the staff to go outside and strip because of a supposed chemical attack or some such thing. It didn't even take that much. They just claimed to be cops, or in one case a regional manager for the company. It's a very weird story. Ichabod Sexbeast posted:There was that Prussian guy who cobbled together a second-hand military uniform, comandeered a platoon of soldiers, ordered an inkeeper to give them all beer and lunch for free, then ordered a bank manager to empty the vault before ordering the soldiers to load it into his car (or onto a train). No explanation was proffered at any stage, just authoritative teutonic commands. That's "Captain of Köpenick", Wilhelm Voigt!
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Jan 17, 2020 23:01
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Torquemada posted:I have trouble imagining her career will survive a failure of scholarship that large. Eh, she'll probably get by on personal connections and general low-grade academic celebrity. Michael Bellesiles didn't just misinterpret his evidence; he made poo poo up wholesale, and while he's not back to his old post at Emory, he's still teaching and gets occasional publishing deals from The New Press. That's pretty far from 'ruined forever'.
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Mar 3, 2020 01:06
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chitoryu12 posted:Despite being a heavy smoker in his 40s, Van Dyke successfully filmed the entire one-take dance sequence. Dick Van Dyke is a song-and-dance machine. This was him at 89. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoPugqYMISM I remember reading somewhere that Arlene (who appears in the video!) says that living with him is pretty much like the video suggests; he just has that kind of incorrigibly playful performing spirit all the time.
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Mar 5, 2020 19:48
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Midjack posted:If that's a serious interview that guy is a piece of poo poo. If that's a joke interview that website is a piece of poo poo. The Hard Times is a 3Edgy4U alt-culture version of the Onion.
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Mar 19, 2020 21:15
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Thanks for the trip down memory lane, chitoryu! I'd read these books as a kid but I'd never realized quite how much real-ish world travelogue there was going on in there. It was a lot of fun to come back with grown-up eyes and a guide to see how they held up (or in some places... didn't quite).
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Mar 27, 2020 07:39
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