Something of Boris

From the CNN review of the new James Bond movie:

Intriguingly, the new-look Bond seems to be developing a skeptical political outlook that would come as a shock to Ian Fleming.

Uh… maybe they’re thinking about a different Ian Fleming? One that didn’t write a series of novels about a government hitman?

This puts me in mind of my high-school James Bond campaign. (Me? Thinking of an old RPG game? Never!) The game started with the players as ordinary agents assigned to investigate a smuggling ring in London. After sinking a cargo ship full of contraband jeans, crashing cars, throwing people out of other cars and stealing those cars, setting off explosives, firing submachine guns, and generally… well… acting like James Bond… they were demoted to “Double-Oh” status.

The reason being that the “Double-Oh” department was stocked with dangerous (but loyal) thugs who could only be relied on to cause mayhem. In short, that’s where they sent all the player characters. Their first assignment involved blowing up a hotel in Monrovia. Actually, it didn’t. But they blew it up anyway.

In which Pyat visits old haunts

I went to "Elliot's Books" today, for the first time since about 1997. It doesn't go up as far as I remember - I recalled it as having four floors, for some reason. But the three floors were enough, each one smaller than the last, and reached with a progression of narrower flights of creaky stairs.

I bought a copy of Orwell's wartime broadcasts, and a collection of his essays I didn't already have. He really didn't like Salvador Dali.

I also popped into "Grey Region", and bought the copy of Pawns: The Opening Move quite possibly the same copy that I bought there in 1995, and sold back to him in 1996.

There had six copies of Chill! And a collection of Shoe comics!