The Quantum of Sustainability

The man stroking the white Persian cat touched a button on the arm of his over-sized swivel chair and said coldly "Send in the new Number Two."

The door open and a woman appeared. Her sober business suit failed to hide a sleek and elegant figure. Raven-black hair that cascaded over her shoulders, but there was a fierce intelligence behind the black rimmed glasses.

Number One remembered the hideous features of the previous, and now sadly deceased, Number Two and wondered if there were any women in his organisation that just looked 'normal'? Were they all either angels or gargoyles?

The new Number Two took a seat in front of him, a thick ring binder file resting on her long legs.

"Welcome to SPEKTRA, Number Two," he said in an accent that started somewhere east of the old Iron Curtain.

"Please call me Mary," she replied politely. "I find the personal touch leads to more effective meetings. May I call you Ernie?"

"No you may not," he replied sternly. "You will call me Number One." He stroked the cat. "Anyway...Mary...you are probably wondering why the Special Executive for Kidnapping, Terrorism, Revenge and Assassination has chosen to employ a Director of Corporate Social Responsibility."

"I assume you think there is some room for improvement?" Mary replied.

Number One nodded. "It has come to my attention that recent failures have been the result of poor management, so I have decided to learn from the best modern business people. However I am still sceptical that an organisation such as ours really needs to 'integrate social and environmental concerns into our business operations'".

"Well Number One, I disagree," said Mary. "I have looked at your business plan and frankly, this organisation is going nowhere.  I mean, what is the core business of SPEKTRA?"

"Assassination, kidnapping, torture..."

"Well exactly. This is a very crowded market. What's more, the state sector is heavily involved. They are not required to make a profit and enjoy considerable freedom from the legal restrictions on a corporation like SPEKTRA. It is very difficult for a private company to compete."

She paused and saw Number One looking rattled. His finger began to reach for one of the buttons on his chair. Quickly she continued. "However I believe that CSR can save this company. By promoting ourselves as sustainable we can develop a unique brand image that will allow us to compete in a challenging market."

Number One looked at her. "You believe SPEKTRA can become 'sustainable'?"

 "Oh yes," said Mary.

"Well, I have my doubts." The cat purred. "However you come highly recommended by your previous employer. I hope he is out of prison soon."

"If he'd listened to me he wouldn't be in jail," said Mary.

"That's what he said. However I must warn you, you may find SPEKTRA is very different from the motor industry."

"I have experience of a wide variety of corporate structures," Mary replied.

"I'm not sure you realise what sort of an organisation SPEKTRA is. We blackmail governments to get our way".

"The oil industry is very similar," Mary said. "However I was still able to help them improve their Human Rights record."

Number One looked at her. He continued "The people who work for me, I do not care if they live or if they die."

"The garment industry was the same".

Number One dispatched the cat with a wave of his hand. "I believe you have a report?"

Mary tapped the large file on her knee. "I have taken the time to study SPEKTRA and evaluate its performance against a range of criteria."

"And what have you found?" asked Number One.

"First I looked at the environmental impact of our operations. The clandestine nature of SPEKTRA's operations have resulted in a surprising small ecological impact whilst your pioneering use of nuclear power has reduced our carbon footprint." She paused. "Although there have been problems. The explosions that destroyed our Caribbean and Japanese operations has caused widespread radioactive fallout, although as these are being blamed on the actions of the British Government we have so far escaped any legal responsibility for this."

She continued. "On Human Rights our record is far from perfect, however for a large company it is relatively good. When I looked at Human Resources though it was a mixed picture. On the one hand we have a highly motivated and diverse workforce and employ people with disabilities in senior management roles. I note though that no employee leaving the organisation has ever filled out an exit questionnaire."

"That's because they are all dead," replied Number One.

"Well I think that means we are losing a valuable opportunity to learn from the people who know us best, our own staff. May I suggest we stop executing ex-employees and start interviewing them?"

"I will ... consider it. Do you have anything else?"

"Oh yes. It appears a large number of our staff die in work, mainly due to elementary failings in health and safety. Given the high cost of recruiting new staff, especially with the highly specialised skills we require, we really need to do better."

Number One nodded. "Is that all?"

"Oh no, not by a long way." She uncrossed her legs. "But let's move on to what we're going to do about making SPEKTRA sustainable."

"What do you suggest? Lead-free bullets? Biodegradable poisons?"

"Supply Chain Management." Number One raised an eyebrow. Mary continued. "At present SPEKTRA employs renegade assassins from government intelligence agencies and international terrorist groups on a 'no questions asked' basis." Number One nodded. Mary shook her head. "I'm sorry, but this won't do. This lax approach is do doubt responsible for the very high failure rate of our contractors, which results in serious damage to the SPEKTRA brand image. It is vitally important that all the agencies we deal with share our values and ideals."

Number One looked at her. "Anything else?"

"Corporate governance," said Mary. Number One raised his other eyebrow. "It's obvious that most of our recent failures are poor management in our local offices and project teams. It is essential that all regional franchises operate to same high standards."

"Is that all?" asked Number One.

"No, I have a dozen other recommendations."

"And I need to hear them?"

"Oh yes," Mary replied. "Believe me, this report could save SPEKTRA."

"Well I regret that it must wait for another day. You must excuse me Num...Mary, I need to make my latest demands to the United Nations. Igor will show you to your office."

******************************************

An hour later Mary was sat at her new desk thinking about her report. She was sure there was something she'd forgotten.

A small window over the desk looked out onto the interior of the volcano that was the SPEKTRA base. She noted with interest the monorail efficiently carrying the armed guards to their stations, and the zero emissions electric vehicles ferrying the nuclear warheads about.

Was the job really worth it? Was there an easier way to earn a living, to change the world? Would an NGO suit her better, possibly an environmental one? No, CSR was what she'd chosen. Here she was at the heart of the machine with a chance to make it better. Even if she could only shift SPEKTRA the tiniest atomic distance towards sustainability, it would make a huge difference to thousands of people. She would carry on.

Besides, she was looking forward to meeting the assassins. She's always liked dangerous men, far better than those macho do-gooders from the Green groups who were only interested in...

Suddenly the window to her office exploded in a shower of glass. A figure swung in through the gap. Unfastening his climbing harness he turned and faced Mary. He was dressed for a rather more formal occasion than her.

"Good afternoon," he said, in an accent that came from several parts of the British Isles simultaneously. "I'm here to save the world." He looked Mary up and down. "But I think I have a few minutes to spare." He started to remove his bow tie.

Oh no, thought Mary. Not another one.

The man leaned in close.

She hit him over the head with her report.

Mary looked done at the body sprawled on the floor. Suddenly it came to her. She flicked open her laptop and started typing: new policy on sexual harassment in the workplace.

The Worst of Bond

So it's half a century since 007 appeared on the silver screen.

Fifty years, twenty two films and not a single Oscar. Not a great record really for a British icon. I suspect if the Carry On team had made it through fifty years even they might have won something.

I enjoyed the Bond books. I liked the concise Chandleresque style, the celebration of gluttony and alcoholism and the chance to get inside the mind of the sort of right wing nutter I usually only meet on the Guardian's Comment is Free section.

I even liked John Gardner's books, which started off not knowing if they were a sequel to the books or the films and were at first a pastiche of both before developing a quirky style of their own.

As for the films though? I remember happily watching Goldfinger every Christmas when I was young, I remember thinking From Russia With Love was surprisingly good when I rewatched it recently, I may be the only person in the galaxy who thinks On Her Majesty's Secret Service is good in part because of George Lazanby and not just despite him, I enjoyed the Daniel Craig reboot and thought Skyfall was a very good Judi Dench movie. But the rest of them? So so.

Various nominations for the best of Bond are flying around at the moment, but what about the worst of Bond? Here are my nominations.

Worst Car Chase - Dr No 

You can usually rely on some four wheeled action in a Bond.

Who can forget Goldeneye with Famke Janssen in her attractive Ferrari 355 taking on Pierce Brosnan in his Aston Martin DB5? Or Never Say Never Again with Barbara Carrera in her sexy Renault 5 Turbo being chased by an fifty-something Sean Connery riding a motorbike in a toupe?

But when it all began in Doctor No the budget didn't quite run to that sort of thing. So here we have a rather tragic back projection, with the inevitable tire squeal even though this is a gravel road, cars going over the same bit of road twice and the one that goes over the cliff at the end is not the one that started the chase. But worst of all we have Mr Bond, in his sports car, being menaced by a hearse.

Yes, a hearse.

Oh dear.

Worst Joke - Goldfinger

Connery's Bond was known for his wit. Really though this was just metaphors taken literally, such as, to a man shot by a spear gun, "he got the point". To a man electrocuted in a bath, "shocking" and so on.

Bond was also a bit of a snob then as well. In From Russia With Love he had Robert Shaw, one of the best Bond villains ever, bumped off after he revealed himself to be a SMERSH agent by ordering red wine with fish. Actually a lot of red wines go well with fish, but clearly it's not the done thing in the Secret Service.

In Goldfinger Bond decides to try to combine wit with snobbery when he comes out with "My dear girl there are some things that just aren't done, such as drinking Dom Perignon '53 above 38 degrees Fahrenheit. That's as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs". 

Bond appeared in the movies pretty much the same week the Beatles appeared on the air waves.

Both are sixties icons, but only one is cool.

Worst Fight - You Only Live Twice

Over the years Bond has fought Her Majesty's enemies with a wide variety of weapons; rifles, pistols, machine guns, knives and a sofa.

Yes, a sofa.

Roald Dahls's script for You Only Live Twice, the first film where they ditched Fleming's book entirely, is pretty much the archetypal Bond film. Travel to an exotic location, superpower confrontation, lots of seemingly random violence, some (implied) sex and a showdown with the supervillain in his preposterous secret base. Indeed you can argue they've been remaking the film over and over again for the last 45 years.

Since then nobody has beaten the Nehru suited Donald Pleasance as a Bond baddie, but 007 has at least found more dangerous weapons to use.

Worst Outfit - The Spy Who Loved Me

If the image of Bond in the sixties is Sean Connery in a dinner jacket, for the seventies it has to be Roger Moore in a Safari suit.

Before I go any further though I should add that it is the decade that is at fault here, not Mr Moore, who had been quite dapper himself in the sixties when he played The Saint.

Of all the fashion disasters he was forced to endure though, the prize goes to the yellow ski suit in this film. It even has flares.

The real thing is perhaps not as bad as the Action Man version, and Bond does at least accessorise well with rocket firing ski sticks and the Union Jack parachute, but it is a Grade A seventies fashion crime.

The ski jump is good, I'll admit, and all the more impressive for being done without CGI, but the rest of the film is the familiar story of exotic location, superpower confrontation, lots of seemingly random violence, some (implied) sex and a showdown with the supervillain in his preposterous secret base - in this case a ship.

The Bond franchise itself was tanking by this point and with a ludicrous sub-Star Wars space battle in Moonraker the series really did Jump The Shark. Moore carried on even though he was clearly too old to be seducing anyone without a bus pass, until eventually put out to grass, with his Safari suits, in the nineties.

Worst Car - Tomorrow Never Dies

Bond of course always had the cars. The Aston Martin DB5 with the machine guns is justly famous. The Lotus Esprit submarine justly less famous. I mean, a Lotus that goes underwater? Come on. Most can't even keep out the rain.

However by the nineteen nineties we had a corporate Bond for a corporate age in Pierce Brosman, and guys in suits had realised there was money to be made in product placement. Out went venerable British machines, and in came whoever would pay the most money, in this case BMW.

But which Beamers would he take. The 320is that had recently won the British Touring Car Championship? No. The 'repmobile racer' the M5? Nope.

Instead they went for the 750il, the one that accountants drive.

Whilst it's amusing to think of 007 fuming at side junctions 'cos nobody would let him out, this isn't really the hard living image Ian Fleming did so much to popularise (and practise). This really was Bond plc and the rest of the film is just as dull, nothing but exotic locations, superpower confrontation, lots of seemingly random violence, some (implied) sex and a showdown with the supervillain in his preposterous secret base - in this case a ship.

(If you liked this, why not read my other blog on crime fighting cars of the sixties and seventies.)

Bond or bondage?

Details of the rather unconventional private life of MI6 officer Gareth Williams may have come as a bit of a surprise to people brought up on the image of the spy as straight-up-and-down Alpha Male, but I suspect they were less of a revelation to those of us brought up on the James Bond books.

On screen Bond was usually shaken but not stirred by his adventures, in print he was usually tied up, gagged and beaten bloody at least once along the way.

From the infamous carpet-beater-on-the-knackers-whilst-tied-naked-to-a-chair in Casino Royale to being captured by the KGB and brainwashed in The Man With The Golden Gun, Bond spends so much time being tortured you wonder if he really sees it as an occupational hazard or more a perk of the job.

As far as I can remember, in between he was tied up and dragged over a coral reef (Live And Let Die), given a few blasts of a steam hose (Moonraker), given a 'Brooklyn stomping' by gangsters (Diamonds Are Forever), shot and left for dead by a SMERSH assassin (From Russia With Love), made to negotiate a torture-based obstacle course (Dr No), tied up ready to be sliced in two by a circular saw (Goldfinger), stretched on a medical device called 'the rack' (Thunderball) and finally captured by Blofeld and made to take part in a bizarre duel (You Only Live Twice).

You'd think at some point Bond would have either joined a union or demanded his employers conduct better risk assessments, or failing that ask if there were any vacancies in Q Branch, but no, our hero carried on regardless.

Which makes you wonder what exactly was going through Ian Fleming's head when he wrote this.

Although hardly a year goes by without the press digging up some hero of the Second World War and proclaiming he was the real Bond, it's fairly clear that Fleming basically wrote about himself. His last holiday destination was usually the location of the baddies base and at some point Bond will eat a lavish meal accompanied by a gallon of champagne, which is what Fleming spent the profits of the books on.

I know of no rumours that Fleming himself was fond of what was known at the time as 'a bit of slap and tickle', but as a gentleman of the old school I imagine that psychologically he thought that there must be a price to pay for having too much of a good time, so poor old Bond had to get the carpet beater.

That at least one real MI6 officer was similarly inclined is an interesting example of real life imitating art.

The Spy Who Loved Me

I watched this film the other week with my boys as they'd never seen a James Bond film and wanted to know what one was like. We didn't survive past the credit sequence, but for the few minutes I was watching I was struck in quick succession by these thoughts.

- How did they think they could get away with just remaking You Only Live Twice just by substituting nuclear submarines for space ships? I suppose Roald Dahl's 1967 script, with its gratuitously exotic location, outlandish plot to take over the world, random and bizarre assassination attempts on Bond and climatic battle in the baddie's lair, is what they've been remaking for the last 44 years, but this is a bit blatant.

- Barbara Bach is decent eye candy, but who told her she could act?

- On the other hand, how did an ugly git like Ringo Starr end up marrying her? (Yes, I do know the answer.)

- What does Roger Moore think he looks like in that yellow ski suit? It even has flares.

- The opening stunt though is really, really good. There had to be a reason we watched this rubbish, and Rick Sylverster's leap into the abyss is one of those reasons.

Even in these days of CGI wonders, it's still jaw dropping. In fact the way it is so obviously not CGI is what makes it so great. Sylvester actually does what James Bond does; ski off a sheer cliff and then wait an interminable age before deploying his parachute. The tracking shot as he falls in absolute silence is heart stoppingly good and makes the corny Union Jack parachute forgivable.

We switched off then, and from memory the only thing I missed of interest in the rest of the film was the gorgeous Caroline Munro, star of various seventies fantasy films, usually involving Doug McClure and a rubber dinosaur, who has a cameo as a baddie helicopter pilot.

Unfortunately this was her only Bond film, a pity because she's have acted the likes of Barbara Bach off the screen.