THE NAMES LEATHERBARROW,TIM,LEATHERBARROW .(AH WELL, WHATS IN A NAME,JUST A LOT OF LETTERS ,JUST TOO MANY IN MY NAME TO BE A GOOD SPY.)

The other day amidst a heap of junk in the shit'ole of a studio i occassion to visit from time to time on the rare times i put inky brush to heavily pencilled paper, i came across a few photos. These particular photo's were of 'your hero(me !), on a caricature job, gig ,as us rock n' roller caricaturists like to refer to them. I looked 'dead smart ,in a dinner suit n' dickie bow .There was a photographer there (obviously.) .But he was taking pictures of people as JAMES BOND. There was the gun barrel film opening titles graphics ,as a background ,a variety of pistols and shoulder holsters, so everybody could have a good pose, imagining they were our 'fave' SECRET(?) AGENT. It was all very silly and childish, and were there many 'takers?...You can bet your bottom GOLDFINGER, There was takers galore ,in fact there was takers HONEY GALORE(ok ,sorry!)...And yours truly was up there at the front ,cocking my eyebrow ,fit to bust, uttering the imortal "THE NAMES BOND, JAMES,BOND!"...Even tried "THE NAMES LEATHERBARROW ,TIM,LEATHERBARROW!"....But even with the music playing behind me ,it didn't quite ring true.Ah whats in a name ,just a lot of letters ,a few too many in mine to be a good spy name.

But when it comes to 'good spy names,what is there? NAPOLEON SOLO, ILLYA KURYAKIN, MAXWELL SMART , CALLAN, HARRY PALMER, ANTHONY BLUNT( The names Blunt ,Anthony Blunt ,dear boy,hmmm?). JAMES BOND ,is the bench mark against which all spies are named and must compete. The new kid on the block JASON BOURNE ,isn't too far from JAMES BOND, is it when you look at it? The funny thing is that IAN FLEMING, when he sat down to write CASINO ROYALE ,was looking for his hero's name and found it on a bookcase over his desk. Apparently it was the author of a book about birds .The worlds greatest ,coolest ,smoothest ,bravest,most dangerous ,sexiest secret agent ,killing machine ,trained assassin is ,A BLOODY ORNITHOLOGIST ,A BIRDWATCHER ,A TWEETER!!!!.....If IAN FLEMING had been around a bit later ,the worlds greatest ,coolest,smoothest,bravest, most dangerous,sexiest secret agent and trained killing machine and assassin could've been none other than ..BILL ODDIE.....

Could you imagine SEAN CONNERY ,or DANIEL CRAIG uttering those immortal words..."THE NAMES ODDIE, BILL,ODDIE !"