Can James Bond survive the off button?

I'm sure this post is going to tread on some toes but being the free thinking independent-minded young 90's woman I am, I'll run that risk and not give a flying fat one when I get hate mail.

Much better than Connery and starred in the
Spice Girls film. Obviously a career high.

I'm surprised at how often people either ask who the best James Bond is or just simply state that it is Sean Connery. This is a school that my elder brother subscribes to and being a dutiful younger brother I profess that it shagging well isn't. I originally dropped this truth bomb just to get a rise out of him and I still bring it up from time to time because he swells up to his full five inches shorter than me and he begins a volcanic tirade about Connery's iconic place in popular culture. As soon as he pauses for breath I just mouth the words Roger Moore at him and he's off again. It is tremendously gratifying. I don't believe for a second that Roger Moore was the best Bond at all. What I do believe is that asking who the best Bond was is like asking who was the best tennis player at the Outer Mongolian Open in 1963 because there just isn't a less consequential question to be asked. The whole Bond concept is utterly infantile, unrealistic and twee. I was thinking about this the other night when I was at a Japanese restaurant and I was served some sake, as Connery was in You Only Live Twice. He is offered a cup, takes a sip and says "Sake. And served at the correct 57.3 degrees Fahrenheit." Well fuck me: you're in Japan and sake is most likely to be served at its proper temperature there. Not only this, how is he supposed to know that it is 57.3F? I have reviewed and rated over a thousand beers and my appreciation of temperature lies between zero and twenty degrees. In between those ranges I can identify 'too cold', 'too warm' and several degrees of just right. I rather fancy that not even the best trained palate would be able to ascertain variation of temperatures to a tenth of a degree Fahrenheit and if it had been served to him at 57.4F he wouldn't have bloody noticed. I would further advance that stating to his host that he is being served sake at the right temperature is a pretty pompous thing to say and that Ian Fleming should have been slapped for writing such a thing.

"Do you exshpect me to talk."
No Mr Bond, just shut up.

It isn't just individual moments of pomposity that irk me. It's other things as well. Take for example Bond's womanising - if there was any justice in the world James Bond would have caught every STD under the sun and his knob would have dropped off. He is never rebuffed by a woman with a well-deserved knee in the groin and when he is sleasing on some unfortunate woman, he is never dragged outside and given a bloody good hiding by her husband. I am also irked by what the bugger gets away with, and I really must insist you open this link and watch the video to reinforce my point. Yes causing damage to other people's property is very funny, let's see how you enjoy having a tank driven into your town's war memorial you bastard, but Bond lives a life without consequence. He has never lost anything dear to him except when he lost his wife in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. The acting was so lamentably bad that the concept of him losing a loved one was completely unconvincing and there seemed to be no on-going profundity attached. George Lazenby was dumped after this never to appear again and it was such a waste of an appearance of Diana Rigg by the way. There is something far more serious that Bond is responsible for and that is that he is responsible for fifty years of people butchering martinis: a martini should be made with gin and should always be stirred, never shaken. Vodka martini shaken not stirred indeed - if he'd come into my bar and ordered that I'd have belted him around the head with the cricket stump I usually kept handy* and handed him over to Blofeld. A properly made martini is a beautiful, well balanced drink. Shaking the shit out of it reduces its temperature so drastically that the subtler flavours of the botanicals in the gin cannot be appreciated, likewise the fruity herbal characters of the vermouth component. How many more innocent Martinis have to suffer an ignominious end because neither patron 'nor barman know any better?

"Mr Bond, I am arresting you for the murder of dozens of
 innocent Martinis and because you're a cock. Now, get in
the Jag and shut the hell up. Constable, fetch me a pint."

So James Bond is a womaniser, a smart-arse, a reprobate and a first class ruiner of good cocktails. Generations of men have fallen in love with the idea of emulating James Bond, armed to the teeth with gadgets, fending off women of dubious moral character and murdering people at will. This can't be a good thing for society. I'll admit that I was not immune and I used to watch the movies and I enjoyed them too, but I haven't bothered in years because I think I just grew out of them. I haven't seen a new film since Casino Royale and I won't bother either. It just doesn't interest me anymore and I find that the franchise has lost its importance. If I am asked who the best Bond is, I'll always mention Roger Moore or Timothy Dalton for sheer devilment but in reality it is a non-issue.  Who is better, James Bond or Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby? No contest. Give me a bloody good murder to watch any day. There is one thing that James Bond will never survive and that is being ignored.

*I had two, one named Cancer the Punishment Stump and the other called Uncle Chop Chop's Stick of Love. I still keep them handy around the house just in case some burglar is silly enough to break in while I am home.