Devil may care

Went to the Imperial War Museum briefly this afternoon and popped into the For Your Eyes Only exhibition about the world of Ian Fleming. The kids were playing up so it was impossible to be in there for more than five minutes. But even in that space of time it was possible to come to the conclusion that it was disappointing.

It was quite expensive to wander through and discover that Fleming came from a background of wealth and privilege. Then there was a short bit about the cold war and then the success of the films. I thought they might take it beyond Fleming a bit and do more about the real world of espionage but there just didn’t seem to be much there.

But there is going to be plenty of opportunities to see what it was all about with the large amount of activity on the Bond front. The Times used up a fairly large chunk of its magazine yesterday to give an extract to Sebastian Faulks new take on the world of Bond, Devil May Care. It had the Fleming style, cool clipped sentences that show Bond is in control.

As the Imperial War Museum exhibition showed, graphically with a wall of translated Bond paperbacks, the market for Fleming's world was wide and presumably Penguin will be hoping for the same again as it publishes Devil May Care.