Strikes me that in 1967, trusting the phone network to not mess up a live show was quite brave. I think some villages didn’t even have proper trunk dialling by then.

I’ll have to search it out - am uneasily aware of how much *other* stuff Dickens wrote that I haven’t read!

Small correction - The Magic Fishbone was 20 years earlier than that.

Was it on that Wogan that he told the story (also in CWL I think) about the Golden Shot contestant who was ringing from a call box and couldn’t see the TV screen?

Happy memories of finding Desmond King-Hele’s 60s book Observing Earth Satellites in my school library. How to determine artificial satellite orbits with a stopwatch, a cool new hobby he was *massively* into. Full of celestial mechanics and quotes from poetry, a really charming combination.

Bond’s attitude to health is established in canon but now has to be soft-pedalled in a daft way. He doesn’t smoke like a chimney any more, but still boozes heavily in a way that makes it difficult to avoid the impression he’s drink-driving all the time.

I always feel sorry for Bond when he’s seen using a product-placement laptop or mobile phone. Apart from the fact that they now look comically ancient, I don’t like to think of Bond having to do a password reset or ring a helpdesk.

Interesting how fannish brain was analysing Bond so early (Kingsley Amis’s ‘Dossier’ in the 60s!) Bond fans love finding things Wrong; it’s slightly forgotten now how many fans *hated* it when Craig was cast.

I seem to recall the sainted John Cole’s background was fairly solid Labour (though specifically Northern Ireland Labour Party, which was perhaps obscure enough to mainland folk to not look troublesome)