Literary Bond Lifestyle
The Bond Experience
Newtown, PAPosts: 5,490Quartermasters
I am looking to start a collection of literary Bond lifestyle items such as his hair creme, cologne, shaver, egg cup, books he reads, etc...I am sure there are one or two of you (DG) who could answer all my questions but the more the merrier. I realize this subject is talked about in several threads but I though it was worth it to have a single source thread. All you literary Bond experts please start the lists so we can all begin the hunt!
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For a start, I know he likes to wear woven ties.
TB2, I think you'll find they were knitted (not woven) ties, silk if I remember correctly.
i was going to make a replica of Bond attache case as its described the the FRWL novel... the the silencer being the handle of the case.. and stuff like that .. also maybe le Chrief's cigarete case from the novel CR with the razor blade inside etc
it was just an idea... tho
seriously nice Idea MANTIS..... I cant wait to see this new collection
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The organization really did a great job of pinpointing what products were used in what novels.
I've cut and pasted the first of several topics which speaks to adult beverages:
Daily intake is about a half bottle of spirits. You are never drunk in public, but you may have to act the part if mission circumstances warrant [M 6-7]. You primarily drink hard liquor, though there are wines that appeal to you.
Beer
You drink it occasionally; In Geneva, a Löwenbräu; in the states, a Miller's High Life, a couple of Red Stripes in Jamaica and as many as four steins of local brew in Munich if you find yourself with an ex-Luftwafffe pilot. But eschew English beer; It, like cider, belongs in pubs and 007 does not.
Whiskey
Bourbon is preferred: Old Grand Dad [LALD 10], I.W. Harper's [OHMSS 4], Walker's deluxe [TMWTGG 7] or Jack Daniel's [OHMSS 23]. Have the entire bottle brought, served on a tray with a bowl of ice and a tumbler. You prepare the drink as follows:
* Half fill the glass with ice and add three fingers of whiskey. Swill it around to cool it and break it down with the ice. Drink it down in two long draughts, feeling its friendly bite at the back of your throat and in your stomach. Refill the glass, this time with more ice than before and take it slower. A good opportunity to reflect on your current assignment [TMWTGG 7].
Bourbon on the rocks is good with a steak [LALD 15]. If you wish, you may dilute the drink with soda [DN 14]. Branch water is nice, at least when in the USA [DAF 17].
For long car journeys and outdoor missions, fill your flask with three qaurters bourbon and one quarter coffee [FYEO 2].
Irish whiskey is tolerable if yor find yourself killing some time, say, at Shannon Airport and wish to imbibe a Gaelic coffee: Hot black coffee, sugar and a large measure of whiskey are transferred to a wine glass and served with chilled double cream floated on top. You know how to prepare this expertly [DAF 6].
Rye whiskey is acceptable, if it is Canadian Club [DN 7].
Scotch is palatable, if its Dimple Haig served up with a splash of soda [LALD 5].
Gin
Beefeater [TMWTGG 8] or Gordon's [FYEO 4] only. Enjoyed with plenty of Angostura bitters or with tonic and fresh lime [G 10]. Gin is also a component of some of your favorite cocktails, but overall plays a small role in your universe compared to Vodka.
Vodka
Russian only. Stolichnaya is fine, but you seize upon pre-war Wolfschmidt from Riga, though you haven't run across a bottle in years [M 5].
Drink vodka neat and ice-cold as an accompaniment to caviar and smoked salmon. It should be served in a small crystal carafe nestled in a bowl of crushed ice [CR 8, M 5]
To impress with your knowledge of true vodka savvy, first sprinkle a few grains of black pepper in the drink. Explain that the grains absorb the fusel oils and other impurities as they sink to the bottom of the glass. The Russians taught you this trick in Moscow, and you just got to like the taste [M 5].
In hot weather, you enjoy a vodka tonic with a dash of bitters [T 11].
Brandy
You seldom drink Brandy, typically as a finale to a memorable French dinner [G 12]. But you also regard it as a medicinal drink for certain emergenceis and ordeals.
With soda and a couple of Phensic tabs, it makes a useful hangover remedy [T 1]. Mixed with ginger ale, it serves to ward off the effects of lengthy flights [OHMSS 8]. You once had a nasty episode in a health clinic traction machine when a Portugese-Oriental Count with links to the Red Lightning Tong tried to put a "lengthy" end to you. After that ordeal, a brandy on the rocks was most restorative [T 4].
Cocktails
You enjoy the following, always knowing how they are prepared, but seldom doing the mixing yourself:
Old Fashioned:
* Dissolve a level teaspoon of castor sugar in the minimum quantity of boiling water. Add three dashes of Angostura bitters, a squeeze of fresh orange juice and a large measure of bourbon. Mix. Pour on to ice cubes in short tumbler. Stir . Garnish with slice of orange and a Maraschino cherry [T 14].
Martini:
* Made with vodka, medium dry [Something like four measures of vodka to one of dry vermouth] with a twist of lemon peel [DN 14]. Shaken, not stirred.
The Vesper: The nearest thing you have to a "signature "cocktail. The bartender will need some instruction on this one:
* Three measures of Gordon's gin, once measure of vodka and a half measure of dry vermouth as shaken in a together until ice-cold. Serve in a deep champagne goblet with the ubiquitous large thin slice of lemon peel [CR 7].
You may need to explain that when on the job, you never have more than one drink before dinner. But you do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well made. You hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad.
(Since the war is long over, you no longer need to mention that bit of puffery that the drink would be better made with grain-based vodka rather than potato-based. It will have been made with grain alcohol; Potato-based vodka, the equivalent of bath tub gin, would no longer show up on either side of the erstwhile Iron curtain -- even if it were still drawn.)
The Negroni:
* One third gin, one third Campari and one third Cinzano. Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass or stir and serve on the rocks in a tumbler with a slice of lemon and a swizzle stick [FYEO 4].
The Americano:
* A mix of Campari and Cinzano with a large slice of lemon peel and soda [FYEO 1]. The least offensive of the musical comedy drinks served in Continental cafes. For the soda, stipulate Perrier. You know expensive soda water is the easiest way to improve a poor drink.
Champagne
You enjoy all the well-known cellars: Clicquot [CR 14], Dom Perignon [M 5], Krug [OHMSS 3], Pommery [G 2] and Taittinger [OHMMS 2]. Its best to go for a vintage about ten years old.
Champagne is a drink that inspires you to dine. Order either $250 worth of Beluga caviar [T 15] Explain to your companion that anything less than this amount would be a mere spoonful [T 5]. Ask the waiter to bring plenty of toast points, adding aside that "The trouble always is not how to get enough caviar, but how to get enough toast with it. [CR 8]. After such a repast, your companion may remark how an expensive a repast it is, to which you reply "Nonsense. Its only a good plain wholesome meal."
Otherwise, underline the simplicity of true elgance with a meal of scrambled eggs [CR 14]. And scorn the usual highbrow sneer laid at pink champagne; Clicquot rose is a nice choice [FYEO 1, T 15].
Should a champagne á l'orange made with fresh juice appeal to you at lunch time, similarly show your disregard for snobbery by pouring benzedrine powder into your Dom Perignon [M 5]. You always take your benzedrine in powdered form; Inhaler's, you notice, are strictly the accessories of sadists from the East [CR 11].
Table Wines
Not your specialty, by any stretch. But a ten year old claret from any reliable house will suit a meal of roast partridge [OHMSS 2]. A well-iced pint of rose d'Anjou will complement the sole meuniere [G 12] and a bottle of the rawest cheapest chianti available is just the thing with spaghetti bolognese [T 4-5], particulary if you have just endured a health cure at Shrublands and need to replenish yourself before a much needed session of lovemaking.
Liquers
You may order a glass of ten year old Calvado [OHMSS 2] or, following the lady's lead, a Stinger made with equal parts white creme de menthe and brandy, shaken with crushed ice and strained into a glass [DAF 9].
Soft Drinks
You don't.
All of these can be found under "Essential 007".
This category is entitled "Accessories".
As with your clothes, fairly quiet good taste rather than any kind of ostentation is your aim [FRWL 1]. Gold cigarette cases, gold lighters, gold wristwatches (especially if they feature little windows to tell the day of the month, the month and the phase of the moon), gold wristwatch bracelets, gold signet rings and gold stock-pins are all thoroughly undesirable [T 9, FRWL 25, TMWTGG 5]. Unnecessary ornament of any kind, in fact, is inclined to be suspect. Never even contemplate having a money clip made out of a Mexican fifty-dollar piece [FRWL 1].
Confine yourself to just three items. Each of them can be made to work actively for your 007 image:
* Luggage. Your suitcase is a straightforward pigskin Revelation, battered but once expensive [DAF 6]. Your small attache case, also of battered pigskin, is a different kettle of fish, or so you maintain. Concealed under the leather at the back, you say to your companion, there's a hidden compartment containing secret documents. Its very difficult to detect, obviously, you say. Your companion will find it impossible (You can't be expected to take the documents out to show her). This last factor gives the documents idea a considerable edge over the more authentic arrangements whereby the case contains a silencer and thirty rounds of .25 ammunition [DAF 6] or, more elaborately, fifty rounds of .25 ammunition, two throwing knives built by Wilkinson's, a cyanide death pill, and fifty gold sovereigns (And a silencer in your tube of Palmolive shaving cream) [FRWL 13].
* Wristwatch. You carry a Rolex Oyster Perpetual Chronometer on an expanding metal bracelet [OHMSS 15]. Explain that this is not just a matter of needing a reliable watch in your job. With the bracelet collapsed in the palm of the right hand and round the fingers so that the base of the watch lies across the middle knuckles - demonstrate this - the Rolex makes a most effective knuckleduster. Add meaningfully that a man you met in Switzerland could testify just how effective, if he were still around [OHMSS 16].
* Safety Razors. You use a Gilette of the old fashioned heavy-toothed type, or a Hoffritz of the same general pattern. The Gilette, with the shaft slipped between the first and second fingers of the left hand, so that the blade carrier rests flat along the knuckles - demonstrate this again - will serve as a twin of your Rolex for offensive purposes [OHMSS 15]. The handle of the Hoffritz is a hiding place; A reasonably sophisticated one, you say modestly [TMWTGG 8]. It may contain a code (random groups of numbers written out small), a microdot (any fragment of typescript that contains a full stop or a comma), or a cyanide pill (any sleeping or other pill thin enough to go into the handle).
The keynote here here is to avoid anything gaudy or flamboyant or obviously expensive. President Truman shirts, for instance, are out of the question [LALD 13]. So are sharkskin jackets [T 10], velvet smoking jackets [G 14], co-respondent shoes [MWTGG 5]. In the unlikely event of your being accused of dowdiness, say your job demands that you attract as little attention as possible, or else, your life is quite colorful enough without having to eke it out with flashy attire.
Your basic outfits are as follows:
Standard
Dark blue suit of serge [M 3] or tropical worsted [DAF 6] or alpaca [TSWLM 10] according to the climate. Dark blue socks [M 3]. Well-polished black moccasin shoes [M 3]. Heavy white silk shirt [M 3], Black knitted silk tie [DN 4]. Note: Use a regular round-over-and-through knot [FRWL 25]. Windsor knots are characteristic of SMERSH.
Evening
Single-breasted dinner jacket, heavy silk shirt, thin double-ended black satin tie [CR 8].
Informal
Trousers are as in Standard, Sea Island cotton shirt in white [OHMSS 2] or dark blue [DAF 6], black casuals [OHMSS 2] or sandals [FRWL 11].
Country/Golfing
Lightweight black-and-white dog-tooth suit [DAF 6], Saxone golf shoes, black windcheater [OHMSS 11].
With all of the above wear underclothes of nylon [DAF 6] or Sea Island cotton [TMWTGG 7].
Skiing
Equip yourself at Lillywhites with appropriate and sensible clothing, choosing the comfortable but old-fashioned type of ski-trouser in a smooth cloth [OHMSS 11]. On top, your golf windcheater. Underneath, long, ugly cotton-and-wool pants and vests. (These last are perhaps optional, because they won't be seen unless something very unexpected turns up).
Bathing
White linen drawers, dark blue leather sandals [CR 23]. For beach-jacket, use the dark-blue top of your pyjamas. (See below.)
Pyjamas
These actually consist only of a top. It's a pyjama-coat which comes almost down to the knees [CR 23], buttonless, with a loose waist-belt, sleeves wide and short, ending just above the elbow. Came across them in Hong Kong.
Final Note
Nothing in the above is specifically 007-ish. You need a weapon. Bond carried a .25 Beretta automatic [DAF 6] in a chamois-leather shoulder-holster under his left armpit, later a 7.65-mm Walther PPK automatic with a Berns Martin Triple-draw holster [DN 2]. These are not recommended in your case. Guns can be expensive, bulky and dangerous. And in a shoulder-holster they'll spoil the cut of your jacket and impede your swing at golf. Better go for a knife concealed between the sole of your shoe and the upper [G 16], the heel acting as a hilt. Tuczek of Clifford Street, W1, will do the shoes for you; Wilkinson Sword Ltd of 16, Pall Mall, SW1, will do the knives.
Thus equipped, you'll at least be able to open your fan-mail at any time.
Never invite anybody, certainly not a girl, to your flat for a meal. This indicates taking full responsibility for the selection and condition of the fare, apart from letting people see something of the way you live, which must remain forever a mystery. When you take a girl home for the night, insist on breakfasting at a hotel.
* Show no knowledge of how food is actually prepared. You have never cooked a meal in your life. What you eat is provided either by the Scottish treasure who keep house for you or by a girl or by a restaurant. [T 7, DN 20, OHMSSS 2] In your world, a meal appears, is devoured and vanishes.
* Generally, you love simple, quality meals. Scrambled eggs with bacon or sausage, and plenty of good strong coffee is suitable for breakfast, lunch, dinner or late supper. [LALD 3, DAF 10]. The champagne you typically wash such meals down with will make it clear you enjoy such meals for their taste, not their thrift [OHMSS 8, CR 14]. (At New York's Plaza Hotel, Felix Leiter could always get the chef to prepare your favourite egg dish -CC.)
* Eggs Benedict in a mousseline sauce [TMWTGG 7] or eggs en cocotte [G 12] are special variations, but always depicted by you as just solid old-fashioned egg dishes.
* When time is short, order a stack of ham sandwiches with plenty of mustard to satisfy your desire for strong tastes and sensations [G 7].
* Otherwise, dinner may bring grilled sole [OHMSS 2], escalope of veal [FRWL 25], a steak with french fries [LALD 15] or a simple plate of cold roast beef and potato salad [OHMSS 2]
* When abroad, you know and devour the ordinary simple food of that region: Cold langoustine in France [CR 6], tagliatelle verde in Italy [FYEO 4], or stone crabs and melted butter in the states [G 2].
* You are contemptuous of restaurants which boast of "specialities du chef" which are seldom more than poor cuts of meat hidden under wine or cream sauces [OHMSS 2]. You have a keen eye for the quality of food and have been known to point out to the waiter that you have been served the fly walk of the pate and demand a fresh slice.
* Scorn tea whenever it is offered, decrying it as a "flat, soft, time-wasting opium of the masses."
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However, I don't mind giving you a nice start. You can start off with the Chemex coffee maker.
It's still made today and is in the permanent collections of many museums including the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian. If you want one for your museum go here:
http://www.chemexcoffeemaker.com/
I will not give you my pattern for Minton because it's not made anymore and is hard to find, so you're on your own there. It took me quite a bit of research to find it and I don't yet have a full set yet.
DG
"People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." Richard Grenier after George Orwell, Washington Times 1993.
Amy more info on grooming products?
Bond uses a Chemex, but the novels do not specify the cup quantity, for instance. So it's up to you to decide.
DG
"People sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf." Richard Grenier after George Orwell, Washington Times 1993.
Fantastic objective. BTW Whoah...your collection is going to exponentially explode...what with Fleming's perchant to "product place..." Your collection can go in so many different directions. I started on the literary books and I can see where that is taking me already. Short of re-reading each book, there are a few compendium books which summarise a lot of what you are looking for...some of these have errors in them but are fantastic reference timesavers. I have one at home and will post the details asap. BTW a lot of the Commanders Club references come from the 1964/65 book with the reversible DJ "The Bible Designed to be Read as Lierature".
Fleming was given a bottle of Floris Lime essence. Long time was discontinued by Floris but Trumpers stocked it. Recently believe Floris resurrected fragrance.
The Floris 89 is classic cologne but in keeping with that tradition the fragrance is slightly "floral" in top notes and in keeping with the Continental tradition of the period with slightly floral scents for men. But it dries to a strong more masculine base.
I have first hand experience with the Floris Lime fragrance. Would not recommend it unless you want to smell like a hard, artificially flavored lime candy.
No. 89 is rather nice, though.
89 is odd... when you spray it on, it's quite strong and almost "old man" smelling; it has a strong baby powder-like scent at first. However, give it a 15 minutes to an hour to slowly fade, and it smells amazing -- a light floral scent that sticks with you throughout the day and can land you many compliments.
Yes, but that's expected with almost any fragrance. Additionally, I've found that my fondness for no. 89 grows with use. It's definitely a hidden gem, and if it weren't for the Bond community I would have never found it. It is among my favorite fragrances.
Yeah, but if you want all that Shatterhand67 has identified in hard-copy, then get Kingsley Amis' "The Book of Bond", written as Colonel William 'Bill' Tanner.
The Commanders Club pretty much plagarises - and indeed merely copied verbatim - the subjects Amis identifies.
Good stuff, though.
ASP9mm, would you also include any Nero Wolfe that Bond indicated he'd read to M in OHMSS?
And "the latest Raymond Chandler" novel Bond picks up at Idlewild in Goldfinger - probably "Playback" or "The Long Goodbye"?
Yeah, absolutely. You also have newspapers like the Daily Gleaner, Times, Country Life and Daily Express. Getting all this stuff circa 1950's and 60's is great fun and us quite inexpensive too, took me years before Ebay to find them.
To be carried about in "a slim, expensive-looking attache case" made by Swaine Adeney when travelling....
And don't forget to stock up your kitchen with Coopers Oxford Vintage marmalade, Tiptree Little Scarlet strawberry jam, Norwegian Heather honey from Fortnum and Masons and Jersey butter
Dunhill 65s in DAF. Supplied to Tiffany Case for transporting diamonds in NY in the middle of.
(And oddly the same type as used by Goldfinger himsef on the Royal St Marks. Where Bond uses...)
Penfold Hearts.