At first it was fun. It's always nice to chat about your hobby with other like minded people. Then it took a downturn.
It was around the time Daniel Craig was cast as 007. In 2014, this seems like a bizarre thing to write, but his anointment as the sixth James Bond was horribly controversial among fans. Things got really bad, really fast. You were either pro-Craig or anti-Craig, and you couldn't be on the fence.
I was on the fence. Years of watching Bond films made me trust the producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson (or Babs and Mickey, as they were fondly known). If they saw something in this man that said 007, then who was I to argue? After all, they'd seen his audition.
Throughout 2006 the battles raged, two diametrically opposed sides who refused to budge. The tiniest mention of something not even related to the new Bond could ignite a war of words. People went ballistic.
When Casino Royale came out - and was a triumph - you'd have thought the battles would end. They didn't. Both sides had spent so long digging themselves in they were stuck there. The anti-Craigs refused to admit they were mistaken; the pro-Craigs became unbearably smug. It was all deeply unpleasant.
I lost my spirit. I still posted, still carried on with all these people I'd been talking to for years, but my heart wasn't in it. The camaraderie was gone. It wasn't helped by a bunch of new people, turned on to the series by Casino Royale, suddenly appearing and saying things like, "hey, is it true there are James Bond books?"
After a while I just stopped visiting.
I miss being able to talk about Bond. I miss people who know what I'm talking about when I say "double taking pigeon" or "Dr No and a load of guano". I have nowhere to let out those stupid ideas and theories and complaints about this series that's been a massive part of my life for twenty odd years.
Hence this blog. Hence, Anya's Woolly Hat.
Why is it called Anya's Woolly Hat? Because of this.
Barbara Bach, in The Spy Who Loved Me, wears this woolly hat to the secret underwater base of the villain, and I think it's one of the greatest moments in the entire series. It's awful, yet brilliant. It's stupid, but fun. It's horribly ugly, but it's stuck on top of an astonishingly beautiful woman. It's ludicrous. It's fantastic.
It's Anya's Woolly Hat, and it deserves to be commemorated.
If you've read my other blog, Round the North We Go, or any of my posts over at the Coronation Street Blog, you'll have some idea what I'm going to write about. Minutiae. Diversions. Rants. Wild theories. Devotional love notes to Diana Rigg. Lots of rude remarks about Talisa Soto's acting. Pointless stuff.
This is my James Bond. Welcome aboard.
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