You have a point there. For the Seventies, his dresses were actually more on the “conservative” side. But that plaid jacket (always my number two after the pink tie)… when I first noticed it a few years ago, my initial thought was “How is it possible that you’ve seen this film so many times and still didn’t catch eye cancer?” 
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To be fair, wasn’t the plaid jacket Q’s way of tracking Bond…?
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I actually wanted to go for Craig’s purple (or was it pink?) tuxedo, but unfortunately he only wore it to the NTTD premiere, so I had no choice but to opt for Connery’s pink tie at DAF. No other notable competition that even comes close. 
Yeah, you can’t judge Bond on the actors, very questionable, personal choice
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For September 28
Viva me!
O glorious underdeodorised plebs of the country, how you flatter me by coming to the walls of my Winter Palace and Justifiable Vivisection Complex and creating such exuberant hullabaloo. I would have expected more brandishing of flowers than cutlasses, but one accepts that blooms are not in season and my great agricultural plan has yet to grind enough human bonemeal to take full effect.
All seven hundred of my dogs need exercise and human contact and I shall soon be releasing them amongst you. They’re very playful. And very hungry.
As Father of the Nation, I address you in this radio fireside chat, not least because I have shut down all the vile running-dog television studios with their “news” and “experts” and “limbs”, and I haven’t paid the broadband bill. Me, is what you get. Me, is all you need (trying out a re-“election” slogan, there). I am here to provide guidance, reassurance and avuncular warmth. Talking of warmth, shove another orphan on the coals, the last one’s nearly out.
I acknowledge that recent days have been economically tough… for some, and I wanted to reassure you of steps I will be taking to ensure the continued existence of my power, if not of you.
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Tomorrow, I shall be replying to the kind invitation to join the UN for cocktails ‘n’ nibbles in The Hague; I need to keep the private jet fuelled for other reasons, and that trip would have been an extravagance in such cost-conscious times. They should know better. Tsk!
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I shall be progressing with the building of The Wall on the southern border, to honour my manifesto pledge to keep more of you in.
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As it was only ever an emergency measure in order to bribe the newspapers, Thinking Tax will finally be cut (rejoice!) along with the throats of the “loyal” opposition (rejoice!). You’ll never have to do any more thinking, so that tax can never return! Read my lips, if read you can – no new taxes.
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New taxes on public gatherings of more than one person, demonstrating, loudhailers and placards. 100% tax on vigils, and warrantable executions for any involving tealights and frickin’ Paddington.
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Persistence with my most successful policy, the banning of a word appearing more than once in a series or franchise. Think (now that it is tax-free) how it has relieved you all of the tragic burdens of Teen Wolf Too, Basic Instinct 2 and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo (although the last one is a shame, but it’s all for The Greater Good and we must all make sacrifices. Mine involve screwdrivers). The reassurance that this cultural correction continues will keep you warm over winter; nothing else will.
Therefore, and because I have a particular personal investment in this one, the word for James Bond is “Live”.
It has been pointed out to me that Live and Let Die (Novel) and Nobody Lives For Ever have already been smeared from the slate; I would like to thank the minion who did so and I will honour my promise to send a bunch of knives to the street-cremation/dumping in a skip. Accordingly, to draft in numbers, close relative The Living Daylights will be press-ganged into taking part, a piece of joined-up legislative application with the Act that entitles me to target the families of miscreants, all their relatives, everyone they’ve ever met and everyone with the same number of heads as them.
Only one survives.
- Live and Let Die (film)
- You Only Live Twice (novel)
- You Only Live Twice (film)
- Live at Five
- The Living Daylights (short story)
- The Living Daylights (film)
0 voters
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My emotional reaction is LALD - my first film and all that goes with that (an experience put so well into words in “The Man Who Saved Britain”).
But to mix it up - how about YOLT (film and book). It’s the first time that EON go off on their own. It’s the last “completed” Fleming novel (depending on how one feels about Golden Gun), and the source material has most definitely hung over the cinematic franchise for the last decade, or even longer. And now, after NTTD, it’s seems a fait accompli that it will never get the kind of adaption that it deserves. No, it’s not a perfect novel, far from it, but it’s got enough moments and themes to deserve more than will ever get their due.
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I chose YOLT-the book because I find the last part especially exciting and also satisfying: the garden of death, Bond being captured and then the final confrontation with his nemesis Blofeld.
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While I like The Living Daylights film better, I did not choose it (or the short story) since it doesn’t actually say “Live”. As a result, I went with Live And Let Die (film). It’s a good start for the Roger Moore era, and I like it better than You Only Live Twice (film or novel).
As for Live At Five, I don’t think it should be on this list as it is pronounced Live with a long “I” sound as in “Five” rather than the short “i” sound as in give. 
I agree - the book is extremely influential and I couldn’t imagine the character existing in quite the same way without it. Which is a remarkable thing to say given how late it came in Fleming’s output. His true masterpiece in my opinion.
Bear in mind the selections are coming from the thinking of someone not quite in their right mind.
And, remembering school days, if you can say this out loud without stumbling, you win a lollipop.
Give, hive, live, five
Dive, give, live, seive
Live, scythe, give, jive
Live, seive, hive, give
And why that was rejected over “Another Way to Die” still defeats me.
Anyway, onwards…
For September 29
Basically, when it comes to the Bond films, even the worst Lewis Gilbert film is better than the best of John Glen.
- Agree
- Disagree
0
voters
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Disagree. With four of his five films, John Glen made highly entertaining and solid James Bond movies–three of which are in my top four 007 films and four of my top nine–only A View To A Kill fails to live up to its brethren. Of Lewis Gilbert’s films, however, only The Spy Who Loved Me can match Glen’s best four.
Glen is very adept at action scenes and his best four films excel in that regard. For Your Eyes Only and The Living Daylights are solid, tightly wound Cold War thrillers. Octopussy is as well and, I believe, is one of the three most underrated Bond films. One of the others is Licence To Kill which, at the time, was a highly original Bond entry and my favorite 007 film. While Gilbert’s You Only Live Twice and Moonraker are entertaining, they fail to reach Glen’s level, so Glen easily comes out the winner in comparing his best to Gilbert’s worst.
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Although Lewis is “The Man” for me, cause he made two of my three favorite Bondfilms (Spy and MR),
Glenn did make the third favorite with FYEO. I thought Glenn’s films are getting less with each film and I am not a big fan of the Dalton Bond movies.
Comparing Glenn and Gilbert is comparing apples to oranges. They have 2 different aims and ideas for what the series should be, Gilbert is as high fantasy as the character will allow, Glenn was going for just off reality. Their respective favourite films of theirs couldn’t be more opposed - TSWLM vs LTK: pick your extreme of Bond
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Some might argue Gilbert had an advantage here since he got 3 tries to make the same film. 
I don’t know that I’m comfortable with terms like “best” and “worst” when it comes to Bond, but one test is how often I choose to re-watch one film over another. By that standard, FYEO and OP…and probably TLD…beat out YOLT, so I have to check the “Disagree” box for this one.
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Point to consider: Gilbert films have Ken Adam; Glen films do not.
Beautifully stated. And achieving just off reality is most probably more difficult than what Gilbert was aiming for. Glen hits the mark with FYEO (I have been converted).
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“Better” is of course the most subjective of terms…so…I’ll say this:
Glen’s films (AVTAK exempted because, well, because it’s AVTAK), all were paced in a way that Gilbert’s were not. OP and LTK especially pick up steam as they move through the acts. It’s only TLD that has a lull between Tangiers and the airfield battle.
While TSWLM moves well, never flagging for a moment, instead exhaling at just the right moments, both YOLT and MR struggle. Maybe it’s the “travelogue” nature of both, but there are too many moments when the pacing is off.
To be fair, Gilbert’s career shows that “talking” pictures where his strength - anything that has its roots in the stage or page (Alfie, Educating Rita) have less need for the pacing that thrillers by their very nature depend on. It’s no accident that Glen came to the director’s chair from the editing room and therefore a more inherent sense of how things need to move.
I’ll say this for any director - you can make a film and hope that audiences will rewatch it. I think the bar is higher for everyone who has directed a Bond - they must know, even subconsciously, that what they’re making will be rewatched and rewatched.
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Hum… that’s not how I experience it. I find Gilbert’s films much faster, as modern blockbuster action films often are. The Glenn movies often have moments for me, when the story comes to a standstill, or scenes go on too long, with the exception of FYEO.
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For September 30
From the desk of your leader:
To all underlings / commoners / mob / nameless labour units / proles / herd / hoi polloi / rabble / riff-raff and scum.
It is with a heavy heart that I write these words, albeit the heavy and still beating heart that I’ve cut out of my conniving pigferret of a deputy, with a rusty chisel. Given the national shortages of both, aortal blood is a sound substitute for ink and the left ventricle a surprisingly fine replacement for chewing gum. Top tip!
It is clearly now the will of your governing party, despite my having ann-i-hil-ated most of them, that there should be a new leader of that party (more a wake, tbh) and therefore a new Darth.
In the last few days I’ve tried to persuade what remains of the remains of my colleagues that it would be eccentric, and downright really, really dangerous for their kiddies’ lifespans, to change governments when we are delivering so much, but them’s the breaks. Of their legs. And arms. And skullseys.
I have considered the letters submitted to the Chair of the party backbench committee, because I intercepted them, so I have the names of those voting against me. The only letters left for them to contemplate are R, I and P. To set the record straight, I must take issue with their allegations, accordingly:
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Massive tax fraud? How is that even possible, given my diktat that I am absolved from taxation, retrospective to my very first after-school job of peep-show booth wiper? Why would I perpetrate a tax fraud when I don’t pay it? Unless that’s the point… oh.
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Theft of classified documentation? It’s not classified if I think it’s not classified. Here’s a thought immediately declassified: I’m going to do you.
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Cruel and inhuman immigration policy. I reject this assertion; all of my policies were of equivalent cruelty and inhumanity so to single this out is just MSM fake news wokery liberal do-gooder smearing.
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Refusal to accept the obvious result of a vote of no confidence. Rubbish; frankly, I did win that vote. I voted forty-seven times using forty-seven natty disguises (inter alia druid, nun, Jennifer Capriati and “tree”); how could I lose?
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The “torturing” thing. Look, there’s no point having power if you cannot abuse it. You can’t make an omelette without hot fat and a whisk. Let’s leave that image there.
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Crashed the currency after only days in power, thus destroying everyone’s pension. I strongly dispute the word “everyone”. Tee-hee-hee.
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Instigated a catastrophic legislative programme, including gruel-for-all and the banning of repeat words in series or franchises. Nonsense; gruel is necessary roughage and the nation’s sanitation remains second-to-none. That is, very nearly non-existent.
However, with great reluctance and even more violence I must accept the decision whilst I am still alive to do so and like Cincinnatus, I am returning to my plough, if only to dig up all that silver I buried.
I would like to thank my family. I’d like to, but they appear to have buggered off to Switzerland with all my money, my bras, the car keys and the wifi password.
The helicopter taking me to asylum in Baffin Land awaits, but as for that allegation about the banning of words, I see that as my legacy. That and the craters. Accordingly, perhaps for the final time, the curare-tipped thorn in my flesh as far as the Bond series goes is “Man”. (The Man with the Golden Gun, both entities, went in the “Gold” round, and A Hard Man to Kill has already been expunged; as with many, many of you, not so hard after all. Cease your snivelling).
One of the choices might break the books/films rule but it’s an emergency situation, it was my law anyway and I RULE. For about three more minutes, admittedly.
Only one can survive, and although I rather hope that Man is me; odds do look a bit fragile, though.
- The Man from Barbarossa
- The Man with the Red Tattoo
- By Royal Command
- CommanderBond.net
0 voters
As the man said, Hasta la vista. I’ll be back. If it bleeds, we can kill it (the first line of the new National Anthem). Also – GET TO DA CHOPPA!
Ta-ta.
For now.
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I went with The Man With The Red Tattoo. It has a good plot with mosquitoes being used to start a pandemic, it has a great henchman in the form of The Kappa, Junji Kon, the welcome return of Tiger Tanaka, and a great secondary Bond girl, Reiko Tamura (who should have been the real Bond girl).
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I voted for self-preservation. Surprisingly?
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