Bond, James Bond

24th September 2021

We’ve had another great week in school and college. This long half term needs us to all (pupils, students and staff) work at pace and with a consistency. I’m confident that we all understand that and we will all endeavour to meet those standards, over the coming weeks.

As we move into autumn it’s important that we all have things to look forward to. I’m not sure whether I should admit this but I am looking forward to the release of Daniel Craig‘s final outing as James Bond, in his new movie: No Time To Die. It’s something like 18 months since its original release date, later than expected, but it is welcome nonetheless. Maybe the release of this film does finally indicate that we are moving out of the strictures of the COVID world.

Daniel Craig has pulled off a neat trick. The character of Bond and the films made around that character were becoming tired, clichéd, out of touch with the modern world; irrelevant? Daniel Craig seems to have made the character somewhat more acceptable to a 21st-century audience and, as a consequence, the films he has starred in have broken box office records.

The past is past and what the Bond franchise indicates is that if you can move with the times and have an understanding of contemporary culture and attitudes you stand half a chance of making progress.

None of us are stuck in a place or rooted to particular behaviours and attitudes. We all can grow and evolve. Sometimes it’s tough being a little older and feeling out of touch however, I think it’s incumbent upon all of us who work with children and young people to try to understand something about contemporary culture and attitudes, their world, without dumbing down.

I’m not sure I’m getting, or have got, there but I’m certainly trying. Unlike Daniel Craig, who is bowing out of the Bond franchise as he ages, I’m not ready to step aside just yet. I feel there’s much more to be done and in doing what needs to be done I will endeavour to continue to grow and evolve. I will not be running through walls though!

I’m looking forward to my night at the movies.

‘There comes a time in every man’s life when he realises he will never be James Bond’. Rhys Darby

’One of the bibles of my youth was ‘Birds of the West Indies,’ by James Bond, a well-known ornithologist, and when I was casting about for a name for my protagonist I thought, ‘My God, that’s the dullest name I’ve ever heard,’ so I appropriated it. Now the dullest name in the world has become an exciting one’. Ian Fleming

Hopefully the film will leave me shaken, not stirred.