James Bond is 85 tomorrow - happy birthday!

That's Sean Connery, of course, who's 85th birthday is on 25 August. Great actor as Bond but also in so many other films that are too numerous to mention. Here's a nice summary on the BBC website of his career and how he moved on from the 007 character to star in some great roles.

The Bond blogs and discussion forums will I'm sure be alive with debates about whether he's the best Bond or not.

The Spectator on Fleming

If you haven't seen this article on The Spectator website, worth checking out (no subscription required). Interesting perspectives on the author of the Bond novels from the magazine, in which he and his books featured regularly and many of the staff of which he also new well. There's so much been written about Fleming it's always interesting to read slightly different perspectives.

Readers may then want to check out Len Deighton's recent e-book on Fleming and his (albeit minor) role in the character's on-screen development.

Fourth question & answer interview with Len Deighton – exclusive to the Deighton Dossier

The author kindly answers reader Q's

© Pluriform 2014 and © The Deighton Dossier 2014 - not for reproduction without permission

One of the nice bonuses of creating the Deighton Dossier website and blog a few years ago was that eventually it came to the attention of Len that it existed as the only major online presence for his work. Happily, Len’s always been very supportive of the blog and the site, as in the way of modern social media both have provided a way for fans to read more about Len and his work, and to share views and ideas about his work and connected genres.

With Len celebrating his 85^th birthday next month and enjoying retirement, it’s doubly positive that over the last three years he’s given up his time to answer some of my questions about his work and life, and indeed questions from other fans across the globe connected through the blog or the Facebook page. With interviews with Len in the media of a limited number, it’s great that he’s willing to give up time to write for this site exclusively. 

For the first Q&A interview of 2014, the questions are split between questions submitted by readers, and some of my own (an indulgence, as the blog editor!). My questions specifically focus on the Samson Series of novels, my favourites which I’m reading again. A number of blog readers submitted a variety of different questions which Len’s been kind enough to answer. I hope you find the responses stimulating and continue your discussions as readers in the comments section below.

There are some familiar stories retold, some fascinating insights into the writing process for the thriller writer, his thoughts on Bond's reading matter and, intriguingly, a hint of ‘what might have been’ (or even, perhaps, what ‘might still be’) regarding the ‘missing’ story of Bernard, Fiona, Dicky et all once the Wall had fallen. 

Now, what reader wouldn’t want to read that novel. It would definitely put the cherry on the spy fiction parfait!

Read on.

Deighton e-book published: a new take on James Bond

'Harry Palmer's creator & the father of James Bond

It's been seventeen years since Len Deighton last published a complete book: Charity, the last of the Samson triple trilogy. Readers interested in Len's writing style and knack for storytelling have had to make do with numerous forewords, a short story and a number of magazine articles.

Now, at the tail-end of 2012, he's back, back, back. To a degree.

Len returns to the world of the published author with a new electronic book, produced as a 'Kindle Single'. Sadly, it's not a new Samson novel or historical narrative (fingers remain crossed in that regard.) But it is a fascinating tale of how one of cinema's iconic figures came to be.

In a year that has seen the 50th anniversary of Ian Fleming's James Bond and the release of Skyfall to universal acclaim, Len has chosen to give his perspective - at some length, for the first time - on the origins of this most famous of screen characters and make a further contribution to the Bond mythos.

James Bond: my long and eventful search for his father, reads like a long article that one might read in The Sunday Times Magazine or an essay in The Literary Review. Published solely online - a first for Len - this 10,000-word book is available on Amazon priced £1.53.

You can find the book here.

As someone who was acquainted with Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory, the film producer who is one of the important figures in the development of the Bond mythos through his work on early drafts of From Russia With Love and subsequently on Never Say Never Again (the Thunderball remake), Len provides an unrivalled insider's view of the development of Bond as the character moved from page to screen.

Len was an insider and witness to much of what went on as the character made this transition to cinema. It is his attention to detail, and his capacity to recall in detail many of the meetings and anecdotes which, story by story, gives this book a ring of authenticity. It is also interesting to read again about the connections between the development of James Bond and the simultaneous development of Len's 'unnamed spy' character, subsequently of course Harry Palmer.

We read in the book about Len's first encounter with Ian Fleiming in said White Tower restaurant in Soho, a restaurant that "catered to soft-spoken, dark-suited tycoons, film people, politicians and advertising executives with fat expense accounts. It said a lot about Ian that he preferred such formality." It was over this lunch conversation that Fleming revealed his admiration for the agents he controlled from behind his desk in Naval Intelligence during the war; men like Merlin Minshall who were at the sharp end of the intelligence fight against the Nazis and had the colourful tales to relate.

Bond was, Deighton writes, "[Fleming's] screwball alter ego. Writing provided a chance to depict the forbidden dreams of this outwardly cool, but morose and moody Royal Naval officer."

The book goes on to recount the efforts to get Bond onto the big screen, and it is here that the story becomes interesting as it looks at the myriad elements behind Bond's creation - on screen and on the page - which have kept writers, fans and fiction historians entertained and intrigued.

The book provides an extensive re-telling of the whole story which has been document elsewhere by other authors and Bond fans in great detail, and also been the subject of extensive legal arguments over the decades. While some of the stories are familiar from previous articles, much of it seems new and refreshingly honest.

In a year in which Bond has shown himself to be the 'King Of All Cinema', Deighton maps out in compelling detail - such as his hint at the origin of the 007 moniker, and fascinating perspectives from Bond ground-zero, the bumpy road by which Bond moved from page to screen.

The last paragraph, in particular, is a real peach!

Let's hope too that, if this e-book proves a success, Len may be prompted to write more and take advantage of the world of e-publishing to reach out to his global fanbase.

Bond's origins continue to create debate.....

It's true that Deighton and Fleming met, mind...

A couple of interesting articles in this weekend's media about the origins of the Bond story which, in the fifth decade since the first film's release, is still a subject of some debate among authors and Bond experts like friend of this blog Jeremy Duns. Who inspired the character of James Bond? Was it one person, or a composite of many? The jury's still out.

The latest contribution in print is a new book by historial Sophie Jackson in which she makes the claim that Forest Yeo-Thomas - working under a wartime pseudonym of the White Rabbit - was the main inspiration for Ian Fleming's unfogettable spy character.

Her book reveals a link to Fleming and Yeo-Thomas in declassified archives: a memo from May 1945 in which Fleming, who also worked in intelligence during the war, briefs colleagues on White Rabbit and his escape from the Nazis. The book claims that this is the first time a documented connection can be made (Yeo-Thomas worked for the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and Fleming in the Naval Intelligence Division).

The book also draws out some similarities in the characters of Yeo-Thomas and Bond, as well as echoes of the escapades of the real life and fictional spy. Together, the article claims, this is strong evidence for Yeo-Thomas being one of the main influences on the make0up of Bond; indeed, Jackson claims, some of Yeo-Thomas' wartime experiences appear as elements of some of the early Bond stories.

The evidence? Yeo-Thomas had found himself having tea with Klaus Barbie on a train. Yeo-Thomas was wanted but, as he was fluent in French, he engaged Barbie in conversation and pretended that he was a supporter of the German occupation.

At the end of the meal he was uncertain whether the German had twigged who he was. But he managed to get away safely when the train reached Paris. The encounter has echoes of a scene from the novel, From Russia, With Love, in which James Bond is on the Orient Express and has dinner with an enemy agent, who is pretending to be an ally. Coincidence, or inspiration?

A couple of weeks earlier, in the Daily Mail, the paper reported on another potential source of the Bond myth. The book collection of Sir Fitzroy Maclean, former Conservative MP and diplomat, was sold at auction and among them were first editions of many of the Bond novels. A friend of Fleming, Maclean was an ambassador in Soviet Russia - witnessing show trials - and in wartime was Churchill's liaison with partisan leader Tito in Yugoslavia.

I guess you take your money and make your choice about which origin myth has the most credence.

America's Vanity Fair carries an interesting article about the hitherto little unknown background in US wartime intelligence of Harry Saltzman, Bond producer and also of course the producer of the 'Harry Palmer' films of Deighton's books. The indication is that records found by his daughter suggest Harry Saltzman was a U.S. intelligence officer working on some pretty secret stuff which - she believes - is still pretty sensitive. The conclusion his daughter draws is that at some point she thinks her father and Ian Fleming must have worked together in Europe. This motif is also backed up by the article's author, David Kamp, who believes that it was actually very likely that Saltzman and Fleming met and worked together.

It's tempting to think that in putting Bond and Harry Palmer in front of excited audiences in the 'sixties, Saltzman was drawing on his own wartime experiences. Did he meet, one wonders, a Blofeld, in wartime Europe?

Location, Bond .... Location!

Very interesting photo-gallery article in today's Daily Telegraph online - 18 of the many fantastic locations from James Bond films in London and around Britain, published as part of the 'Bond 50' celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the first film in 1962.

Among the locations included are places Elveden Hall - scene of Pushkin's assassination in The Living Daylights; Brompton Cemetery, which stood in for the Russian church in in Goldeneye; and The Eden Project, which stood in for Gustav Grave's ice air in Die Another Day. There are also some surprising locations such as the car park at the Brent Cross shopping centre, which was the hum-drum location for the escape in a remote-controlled BMW by Bond in Tomorrow Never Dies.

Fascinating stuff, reminding one of how many iconic locations the UK has provided not just for Bond films but for many other great movies over the years.

A similar exercise - though on a smaller scale - has been done by Kees Stam, moderator of the excellent Harry Palmer Website. He has a great section on the site in which he identifies all of the main locations (many in London) from the Harry Palmer films, based on Len Deighton's 'secret file' novels from the 'sixties.

I have also started - but not yet got around to updating and adding to it - a Google Map pinpointing some of the locations not just from the Harry Palmer movies but from the Bernard Samson triple trilogy too. Readers are welcome to make suggestions and add to this map.

Win a long-lost thriller by Bond script writer Berkely Mather! ....

Lost for something to read over the summer? How about a fantastic but neglected spy thriller by English writer Berkely Mather, set in the Himalayas?

Last year I ran a successful competition to win a copy of the long-forgotten - but excellent - Undertow by Desmond Cory, one of the long-lost classic British thrillers which are being resurrected by author Mike Ripley through his Top Notch Thrillers imprint.

This year, Mike's been very kind and given the Deighton Dossier another newly issued book to give away in a competition. I'm really happy to raise awareness of what Mike's doing: he's undertaking a one-man mission if you will to bring to light - Indiana Jones-style - some of the lost treasures of the crime and thriller world which, through neglect or simply going out of fashion, have been lost to modern readers.

Through the Top Notch series of reissues by Ostara Publishing, works by writers such as Adam Hall, Andrew York and David Brierley are now available again to enjoy both in print and in e-book format, which Mike informs me is by far the most popular way in which readers are accessing these hidden treasures.

The book available to win is The Pass Beyond Kashmir, by Berkely Mather.

“You only get one or two thrillers a year – if you are lucky – as good as Berkely Mather’s 'The Pass Beyond Kashmir….'.” was the verdict of Anthony Price in the Oxford Mail on the publication in 1960 of a thriller firmly in the British tradition of ‘ripping yarns’.

The plot? A delirious survivor from an ill-fated wartime surveying expedition to the foothills of Tibet raves… ‘Oil – all the oil in the world – on top of the bloody Himalayas!’ Years later, finding the papers of that expedition becomes a high priority for spies, mercenaries, oil companies and governments. Former army intelligence officer, unorthodox insurance assessor and freelance investigator Idwal Rees, an experienced Far Eastern hand operating out of Bombay gets involved in a dangerous game of hide and seek across India and Pakistan attempting to stay one step ahead of the opposition all the way to the pass beyond Kashmir…. where the invading Chinese army is lying in wait.

Among the many famous fans of Kashmir was Ian Fleming who wrote: "Takes the author triumphantly into the small category of those adventure writers who I, for one, will in future buy ‘sight unseen’". When the James Bond thriller Dr No was being filmed, it was Ian Fleming who insisted on using Mather as a scriptwriter and Mather’s subsequent film credits included the historical blockbusters 'Genghis Khan' and 'The Long Ships'.

To win, answer this question: to the nearest 10 metres, what is the height of K2, the second-highest mountain in the Himalayas?

This competition is now closed. The winner was Peter Greenhill. Thanks to readers who entered.

Note

• Closing date: 31 July 2012
• There is one book available for the winner, who will picked at random from the emails received
• The winner will be notified by email and the book posted off to them (overseas by surface mail)
• The blog editor's decision is final
• No correspondence will be entered into about this competition.

Twin Town ....

Trends are ephemeral. So are the magazines and media that seek to define them.

The lost Deighton book cover

In the swinging sixties, it was Town magazine that was the magazine that recognised men were becoming increasingly interested in fashion, food, culture, cars and all the other offshoots of a consumer culture.

Recently, I found on eBay a very rare copy of Town magazine from 1965, the cover of which references the filming at the time of The Ipcress File. It contains a superb article about Len Deighton in which, among other things, we learn that he thought the James Bond stories were a little "childish"!

The magazine - published by Michael Heseltine, before he became an MP - lasted only a few years, but in that time it was a unique part of London's scene. The magazine was never a money-spinner. However, it failed to meet the challenge of the colour supplements that appeared in the Sunday papers from 1962 and as a result it closed in 1967, having rarely made any money.

Town's 2012 incarnation

Imagine my surprise when last week, in WHSmith I discovered that Town magazine has been reborn. It's much thicker than its predecessor, and more expensive (£5, sir!), but in its DNA is the history of its earlier form. That means, articles about London trend-setters, tips on great restaurants, interviews with celebrities (although, I'm not sure if Pixie Geldof counts). One imagines that this new version of the magazine will be interviewing today's up-and-coming writers and film-makers, as it did in 1965. 


The cover of April 1965's edition of Town is definitely 'Bond-esque' and could easily be a cover of one of Fleming's novel. It has all the right elements: the girl, the gun, the micro camera, the knuckle-duster. Only this time it's referencing the new kid in town, Len Deighton and his 'unnamed spy'. Reading the credits on page 3, I discover who designed the cover: of course, it's Ray Hawkey, Deighton's friend and designers of the iconic covers of his first four novels! This is the great un-used Deighton book cover.

Another Ersatz-Bond announced ...

Not freshly ground

Is a Mini Cooper built by BMW, still an authentic mini? What about one of Damien Hirst's spin pictures, created by an artistic assistant - should we still regard that as 'by' the artist, even though he had no involvement in its creation? Or - conversely - can an idea, a character, an image exist independently - flourish, even - away from the source of its original inception?

This question of authenticity in art occurred to me on reading the news that William Boyd has been announced as the next author to follow in the footsteps of Kingsley Amis and John Gardner (see the previous post) and write a new James Bond novel. Boyd has, according to this excellent retrospective on Bond authors in the Daily Telegraph by Allan Massie, promised to take 007 back to his "classic" roots. It is curious to note that the James Bond character has now outlived his original creator, Ian Fleming, and that there are more ersatz-Bond books than were ever written by the first author. Some, indeed, might argue that many of the books written after Fleming's death have been of better quality - literary speaking - than much of Fleming's output.

However, is Bond - as imagined by Jeffrey Deaver, Amis, Gardner or Boyd the same Bond which Fleming imagined, or the same Bond which thousands of film fans believe in, many of whom will not have read any of the original novels? To what extent now does Bond exist as a character outside of his origins? Does he remain authentic when different authors have chosen to place him in different time periods, change key characteristics of his life, give him new enemies to fight, even - and this caused much media hubbub over the last week with news that Heineken has secured the licensing rights - a new favourite tipple?

It would seem to be the case. Bond has become a recognisable cultural prism through which the anxieties, preoccupations and obsessions of different cultural periods in western society are shot - he is a cinematic and literary mirror of what makes popular culture tick. In terms of enemies, he has taken on at various times the Soviets, global megalomaniacs, international criminals, the mujahadeen, and media moguls all intent on global domination, and all proxies for global sources of tension and fear which have shaped our society at different times. His car has changed as our tastes and auto technologies have shifted; the era of storytelling has moved back and forward in decades; his patterns of speech, the styles of the narrative, has waxed and waned; his love life has all proved mutable.

And yet, Bond is still Bond. He retains the classic evidence of a permanent fixture in the cultural firmament: the one-word moniker. The style, the insouciance is there. The gadgets remain, and are brought up to date. The fantasy, irrespective of the author, still appeals.

Clearly, this is what has kept Bond in the national consciousness while Harry Palmer or Bernard Samson, to some degree, have faded over time - the power of renewal and re-birth to add new life to a character, to give lustre and newness. Readers do not seem to mind that the character is now steered and guided by a different pilot every so often: the style of the journey remains consistently satisfying in most cases. And there is still a recognisable red line back to Fleming's original story.

Here's the question: could Harry Palmer be so easily re-imagined by another author? We can see already evidence that might suggest, 'no': the lacklustre films Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St.Petersburg were not a great tribute to the original character - even with the same character - as part of an attempt to re-tool Harry for a post Cold-War age.

Is the management of Bond's character by other author's successful precisely because Fleming's writing, in parts, was lacklustre? That his character was more than the sum of the written parts, that he has a life outside of his original creator? Whatever the reason, there's something about Bond that has created a cultural phenomenon which, conceivably, could keep being re-imagined into perpetuity.

Bond back in business ....

Interesting snippet of news from the world of publishing. Two years on from Harper Collins' decision to re-publish all of Len Deighton's fiction works, Ian Fleming's back catalogue of James Bond stories is to be relaunched.

The estate for Ian Fleming has signed a10-year deal with Random House to publish the books in print and e-book format. I imagine these will become collectables in their own time.

Next year will be the sixtieth anniversary of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, and one would image that there will be additional edition and a whole shed-load of Bond paraphernalia.

Check out the story on the BBC news website.

Greys and browns ...

Sir Ken Adam at The Museum of London

That was the colour palette which Ken Adam, production director, chose for Harry Saltzman's The Ipcress File to reflect the dreariness and earthy nature of 'sixties London and provide a counterpoint to the glamour of Bond.

This was just one of the anecdotes shared by Sir Ken Adam OBE in his talk before a special showing of the film as part of the Museum of London in Docklands' regular monthly film screenings.

Now a sprightly 91 years old, Ken shared his remembrances with over 70 people assembled in one of the former dockside warehouses now surrounded by the modernity of 'Docklands'. Already having worked to great esteem on Cubby Broccolli's sets for Dr. No and Goldfinger, Ken was brought onto The Ipcress File by Harry Saltzman to create "a poor man's Bond". But Ken and director Sidney Furie had a different creative approach, and fought the notoriously short-tempered Saltzman to film the movie for what it was, rather than what it wasn't.

One of the secrets of the film, Sir Ken said, was that 95% of it was filmed entirely on location, much of it in one of the grand buildings on Hobart Square, near to Victoria Station. This was a new experience for him, but what it allowed him to do was to emphasise the "greys and browns" of everyday London office life. The building on Hobart Square was used not just for Dalby's offices (the cleaning agency front) but to create Michael Caine's flat, and Colonel Ross's office. This move away from the traditional studio apparently caused friction, not least with the producer.

Harry Saltzman was insistent that Major Dalby's offices should be full of the latest computers and monitoring equipment. In contract, Ken Adam and Sidney Furie felt that the offices should have an authentic military feel - desk, camp bend, desk lamp, gas fire, and a bust of Churchill. This bare look was more barrack room than nerve centre, deliberately so. Yet later in the day Saltzman arrived on set with a truck full of computers, determined to have his way. Cue his breaking into an almighty temper, accusing Adam of trying to destroy the relationship with his director. The film unit, Ken said with a wry smile on his face, "loved these rows". Two hours later, it was all forgotten by the producer.

Sid Furie's lead cameraman on the set was Otto Heller, a Czech photographer and camera man who was old enough to have filmed the funeral of the last Habsburg Emperor, Franz Josef, Ken revealed. He never used a light meter and was the person responsible for many of the classic shots through keyholes and over Harry Palmer's shoulder. Apparently, while a perfectionist Heller never bothered to look at the final cut of the film. Ken called him "one of the greats".

Sitting in a converted warehouse in Docklands, Ken recalled how he used a warehouse nearby to film the sequences in 'Albania'. Furie, a Canadian, was not that experienced but outside on location, he had bags of energy and enthused the whole team to think creatively and embrace the cliched shots for which everyone remembers the film. In fact, they gave the film Adam believed the unique atmosphere that has made it a classic.

I asked him about the role of Len Deighton on the film. He revealed that Deighton was around on set and did share his views on the relationship to the story in the book. More practically, he was - famously - on the set of Harry Palmer's kitchen and taught Michael Caine how to crack eggs with one hand (though Caine eventually left it to Deighton to do this and it is his hands which appear in the final film!).

Having worked on both Bond and the "anti-Bond", Adam shared some interesting perspectives on the two. During a break in filming, Adam and Michael Caine went to the Bahamas, where Bond was filming, but Cubby Broccoli apparently would not allow Caine on the set alongside Sean Connery [perhaps, like when matter and anti-matter are combined, the space-time continuum would split!]. When filming had finished, that year Ken was invited to both Saltzman's and Broccoli's tables at the Bafta awards - both had booked the biggest tables in the venue. Cubby was sure that Adam would win him a Bafta for his work on Goldfinger - instead, he got it for Ipcress File. Cue stormy looks from Broccoli, who didn't talk to Ken for the next two months.

Having been warmed up with a view from one of the key creative forces behind The Ipcress File, I saw the film in a new light. And it is still a London classic!

Who can you believe in the world of spy fiction?

Christine Granville

I - and a number of other commentators - have read with interest a story being reported by Guy Walters in this week's Daily Telegraph about a new book on the origins of the James Bond story by Claire Mulley.

This book, cunningly titled The Spy Who Loved (do you see what the publishers did there?) is pitched as a history of espionage during wartime focusing on the life of agent Christine Granville - supposedly, the inspiration for the Vesper Lynd character.  As Walters writes, it has "that link with James Bond, with the implied licence to print money."

But, he writes, it’s all too good to be true. Much of what Mulley has written is as transparently wrong as a badly forged passport - and we owe the discovery of these facts in part to friend of this blog and "heir to Deighton" (c) Jeremy Duns, who has written a very long essay on the murky history of previous attempts to fabricate new wrinkles in the long literary history of Ian Fleming and the character of James Bond, and develop new theories about the origins of key characters, in particular the persistent link of Christine Granville with Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale.

Like an agent after two days of solid interrogation, Mulley's cover story it would appear is starting to unravel, and questions are now being raised about the publication of the book.

A tale about espionage, with duplicity, fabrication and cover-ups? There's a book in there somewhere.

Rest assured, on the Deighton Dossier, you'll only ever find fact about fiction, not fictional facts.

A new perspective on Fleming and Deighton

007 Magazine's latest edition, now in its thirtieth year, has in its latest edition a very interesting article - accompanied by some great press photos taken for the Daily Express - of the time when Len Deighton, creator of 'Harry Palmer' and Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, met over lunch.

In 1963, when The Ipcress File was riding high in the sales charts - Fleming had chosen it as one of his books of the year - Deighton was very much the arriviste in the spy fiction world. Peter Evans of the Daily Express brought the two authors together over lunch in The White Tower restaurant on Charlotte Street (together with designer Raymond Hawkey, though he is rarely mentioned in the subsequent article). This is quite a famous interview, which appeared in For Bond Lovers Only in 1965, along with the images reproduced in the magazine.

The magazine's editors have got quite a coup by getting Len Deighton to write a few words of recollection about this interview. Fans of both Deighton and Bond will be fascinated to read the new detail about this auspicious meeting. Sample quote from Deighton's new contribution:

"He [Fleming] was fussy about his food and wine and he knew I was writing about food in The Observer newspaper. I seem to remember we talked a lot about the menu before ordering the meal."

The magazine retails at £9.99 online. Well worth a look.

Another Cobra in the nest*

Armstrong Sabian over at Mister 8 has advised that we have another new member of the CO.B.R.A.S. stable (Coalition of Bloggers wRiting About Spies). The Illustrated OO7 is Peter Lorenz' blog looking at all thing Fleming and Bond-related from a design and book history perspective - he's clearly an avid collector. I'd encourage readers of this blog to take a trip over to Peter's and check out some of the great images that are up there.

* ...that's assuming Cobras live in nests!

MI:6 website covers Funeral in Berlin

Our friends over at Bond fansite MI:6 have updated their review of the Harry Palmer film Funeral in Berlin. The website finds a number of connections with the Bond films, which were developing an international following concurrently with the Palmer stories:

"The crew behind the 1966 production also included a number of past or would-be Bond family. Directed by four-time Bond helmsman, Guy Hamilton (who to date had directed "Goldfinger") and produced by 007's own co-producer, Harry Saltzman, this on-screen adaptation of Deighton's novel is very much in the style of the early James Bond adventures, but with a bleaker, darker edge."

MI:6 is a great website, worth checking out if you're a fan of Ian Fleming's super spy.

Radio 4 looks at the spy world

There's a new programme on BBC Radio 4 (which should be available to listen online for a week thereafter on the BBC's iPlayer facility) looking at the history of the intelligence service MI:6 and particularly its portrayal in fiction and popular culture, from Smiley to Bond.

This web article highlights how the public's imagination and knowledge of the secret service has been fed by fiction as much as lurid newspaper headlines, and looks at how this fictional side to MI:6 has developed from the 'spy scares' of the 19th Century through to the pre-First World War concerns about German spies crossing the coast to the post-war popularity of Bond and Le Carré.

Sir Colin McColl, MI:6 chief between 1989 and 1994, writes about the literary depiction of the espionage world: "I mean there were two feelings I think in the service over the years. There were those who were furious with John Le Carre because he depicts everybody as such disagreeable characters and they are always plotting against each other and so on… So people got rather cross about that. But I thought it was terrific because, again, it carried the name that had been provided by Bond and John Buchan and everybody else, it gave us another couple of generations of being in some way special."

Sounds like a fascinating radio series. I'm sure we can expect an appearance from 'Harry Palmer' in one of the three shows.

A man who can

A very interesting trip for me to Leicester to see James Pickard, book dealer and expert in all things Deighton, Fleming and Le Carre (he wrote the widely-acknowledged best bibliography of Ian Fleming's work), so he knows his onions when it comes to all the stories about the books which made these authors' careers. Through him I've now added some real gems to my Len Deighton collection and plugged a few gaps. His 'shop' is a real treasure trove of gems which would make most readers weak at the knees, and he's a great source of stories - he told me he was partly responsible for getting Len Deighton to contribute the foreword to the second edition of 'The Battle for Bond', the book which initially was banned by Ian Fleming's estate because of potentially libellous content. You can find a link to James' website on the link list on this blog.