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31 October 2008 12:16 PM

How well do you know James Bond? Take our quiz

Haven't seen Bond yet, but I did compile a Bond quiz which got squeezed out of the paper. Have a go if you like. Answers posted next week.

1/ What inspired Ian Fleming to call his hero James Bond?

a) he was writing a letter to his near-contemporary James Callaghan on Basildon Bond notepaper.

b) He heard the chimes of Big Ben while walking in St James’s Park and originally planned to call the character James Bong.

c) He owned a copy of Birds of the Caribbean by ornithologist James Bond.

2/ In the 1954 TV adaptation of Casino Royale – the first Bond adventure ever screened - who played James Bond?

a) Sean Connery

b) David Niven

c) Barry Scott

3/ How many gold bands are there on the Turkish-Balkan cigarettes made for Bond by Morlands of Mayfair, and what do they represent?

a) Two, symbolising the wedding rings he exchanged with his wife Tracy.

b) Two, symbolising the "double-O" prefix which indicates Bond is licensed to kill.

c) Three, symbolising the naval rank of Commander, shared by Fleming and Bond.

4/ In the earliest books in the series, who is Bond’s secretary?

a) Miss Moneypenny.

b) Mary Goodnight.

c) Loelia Ponsonby.

5/ Who wrote the James Bond theme first used in Dr No?

a) John Barry.

b) David Arnold.

c) Monty Norman

6/ What are George Lazenby’s first words as 007 after saving Diana Rigg’s Tracy from suicidal drowning and fighting off two thugs in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service?

a) "The name’s Bond, James Bond"

b) "Let’s get you out of those wet things."

c) "This never happened to the other fellow."

7/ Which of these was not called Goldeneye.

a) the spy satellite in the eponymous Pierce Brosnan film.

b) Ian Fleming’s Jamaican retreat, where he wrote all the books.

c) Ian Fleming’s Labrador.

8/ What, according to Fleming in The Man With the Golden Gun, is a sign of homosexuality?

a) Bond’s compulsive womanizing.

b) Wearing black leather sandals.

c) An inability to whistle.

9/ Who supposedly massaged their testicles so they retracted back into the inguinal canal, preventing them from harm in a brawl.

a) Oddjob in Goldfinger.

b) Wint and Kidd in Diamonds are Forever.

c) Tiger Tanaka’s ninjas in You Only Live Twice.

10/ Ursula Andress’s iconic first appearance as Honeychile Ryder, emerging from the waves in Dr No, may have disappointed Fleming’s readers because:

a) in the book she is described as a shapely brunette.

b) In the book she has an identical twin with her.

c) In the book she is naked apart from a belt and knife.

11/ Who described the Bond books as "pillow fantasies of an adolescent mind".

a) Ian Fleming’s friend, Noel Coward.

b) Ian Fleming’s wife, Ann.

c) Ian Fleming himself.

12/ What’s unusual about the stunt in Diamonds Are Forever, where Connery’s Bond bounces Tiffany Case’s Ford Mustang up on two wheels to drive it down a narrow alley?

a) Sean Connery performed the stunt himself.

b) It happened accidentally.

c) The car enters the alley balanced on the drivers’ side wheels, and exits balanced on the passenger side.

13/ Ian Fleming originally wanted his cousin to play Dr No, but the cousin ended up playing another villain. Was it:

a) Michael Lonsdale as Hugo Drax.

b) Charles Gray as Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

c) Christopher Lee as Francisco ‘Pistols’ Scarmanga.

14/ What do James Bond and Marc Forster, the director of Quantum of Solace, have in common.

a) They both have a fondness for Vesper martinis.

b) They were both expelled from Eton.

c) The both have Swiss ancestry.

15/ Gemma Arterton, who plays Agent Fields, is reportedly the first Bond girl with a unusual physical trait. Is it that:

a) She is taller than the actor playing Bond.

b) She is double-jointed, as Daniel Craig discovered during the love scenes.

c) She was born with a vestigial extra finger on each hand.

16/ Which of these singers did not appear in either the title sequence or as a character in the film for which she sung the theme tune?

a) Sheena Easton (For Your Eyes Only).

b) Madonna (Die Another Day)

c) Shirley Bassey (Goldfinger)

17/ The licence plate of Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 is:

a) D876 ELE.

b) JB1 007

c) BMT 216A

18/ Bond’s preferred champagne is:

a) Bollinger ’46.

b) Perrier Jouet ’51.

c) Dom Perignon ’53.

19/ Bond’s family motto is:

a) Cursum Perficio (I Have Completed the Course)

b) Gladius et fortitudo (Sword and Courage)

c) Non sufficit Orbis (The World is Not Enough).

20/ Which of these jobs did Sean Connery NOT do before becoming an actor and being cast as Bond?

a) coffin polisher.

b) milkman.

c) spy.

21/ In Die Another Day, Halle Berry became the first:

a) black Bond girl.

b) Short-haired Bond girl.

c) Oscar-winner to play a Bond girl.

22/ How old was Roger Moore when he finished filming A View to a Kill, his seventh and last film as Bond?

a) 45

b) 55

c) 58

23/ What does Q stand for?

a) Quentin

b) Quisling.

c) Quartermaster.

24/ Which of the following actors was NOT considered as Pierce Brosnan’s successor before Daniel Craig was anointed the new Bond?

a) Ewan McGregor.

b) Hugh Jackman.

c) Daniel Radcliffe.

25/ Which of the following accidents did NOT occur on the set of Quantum of Solace, leading to reports that the film was ‘cursed’.

a) Engineer Fraser Dunn crashed a £134,000 Aston Martin DBS into Lake Garda.

b) Daniel Craig had to have plastic surgery after suffering a facial injury.

c) Bond Girl Olga Kurylenko performed an entire scene with a piece of spinach stuck between her teeth.

 

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29 October 2008 4:13 PM

Catching up

This week I'd like to recommend:

- Nick Moran's Telstar, a surprisingly witty, sensitive and atmospheric dramatisation of the life and death of the pioneering, gay, 1960s record producer Joe Meek. Even if the shoestring budget is evident in the lack of locations, the feel for the stultifying and homophobic conventions of the period is strong.

- Jessica Biel's performance in Easy Virtue. The aristocratic Whittaker family in Coward's play - adapted for the screen by Stephan 'Priscilla' Elliott - seriously underestimate the resilience of her character, Larita, a racy American widow who has married the son and heir. Much as I always underestimated  Biel as an actress thanks to her purely decorative performances in The Illusionist and the execrable Next. It's a delight to see her get her healthy American choppers into mannered Britflick royalty, Kristen Scott Thomas and Colin Firth. Her performance alone makes this more than a by-the-numbers period flick.

- Waltz with Bashir. Deeply moving genre-busting animated documentary, in which Israeli Director Ari Folman claws back his own and his fellow former draftees' memories of the 1980s Lebanon War. The best evocation I've seen of the fact that war consists of long period of tedium studded by adrenaline-squirting moments of terror and a randomness that is as cruel and shocking as it is absurd.

- chef Igor Tymchyshyn's new menu at Orrery - three courses for £50 including excellent slices of cold, wine-poached foie gras, plus a deep-flavoured and not ridiculously-priced bottle of Pinot Noir recommended by the sommelier. On a more credit-crunchy note, the Theo Randall diffusion-line pizzas at Pizza Express are perfectly nice, especially the shrimpy one. In the last ten days, I've also, weirdly, had lobster caldereta (stew) at Es Pla in Fornells on Menorca, the favoured restaurant of the King of Spain, and a £4.99 frozen, pre-cooked Canadian lobster from Lidl. The Menorcan one was better (I thought I'd explode, I ate so much), but the Lidl one, though somewhat overcooked, was good value at the price.

- Gordon Ramsay's energy. I saw him cook for students at Tante Marie, the venerable cordon bleu cookery school outside Woking, which he's bought in conjunction with his friend (and Tante Marie graduate) Lyndy Redding. While preparing a three course meal with his talented associate and Claridge's chef Mark Sargeant, Ramsay, kept up a constant stream of patter then went on a whistle-stop tour of all the kitchens in the building, grilling the students, most of whom seemed utterly star-struck. He's no less dynamic in person but considerably more reflective than he appears on screen. Although there's still the odd joke and jibe (if puffins looked like Anthony Worral Thompson, he said, he'd never have got in trouble for eating them), he seemed genuinely hurt at having fallen out with former protege and best friend Marcus Wareing. I only got to ask him one question: did he let his customers eat cake at his new restaurant in Versailles? "Do I f***." he replied.

(The charming Lyndy Redding runs the catering company Absolute Taste, which supplies Ramsay recipes to large events; she also does all the catering for Formula One, and because her company is part-owned by McLaren, which is also near Woking, I got to tour their remarkable building. Built into a hummock that makes it almost invisible on approach, much of it underground, and with a vast curving glass frontage looking over an artificial lake, it's like a Bond villain's lair crossed with a Hobbit's home. Normally, only F1 drivers, employees, and people who can put down 50,000 Euros - as a DEPOSIT -  on one of McLaren's cars get to come here. Even though I have no interest in motor racing and little in cars, it was a gob-smacking place, from the pool and specially designed weights room where Lewis Hamilton builds up his neck muscles, to the spotless bays where the F1 cars are endlessly rebuilt, to the collection of vintage motors ranged behind the glass wall.)

- The restored River Cafe. Lovely room. Lovely food. Though I can also recommend a semi-improvised menu for a stew I made this week from sobrassada sausage, carrots and chickpeas.

- Waste at the Almeida and Six Characters in Search of an Author at Gielgud. It was fun to see the Young Vic flooded for Tarrel Alvin McCraney's In the Red and Black Water, although the script never really justified such a distracting device. A fine central performance brimming with emotion from Ony Uhiara, though, and swaggeringly potent support from Ashley Waters.

- the Ben Nicolson exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea. Even if you don't go to the exhibition, the seafront at Bexhill, and the modernist lines of the DLWP itself, are made for cold, bright days.

 

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