The James Bond exhibition at the Fleming gallery was surprisingly good. It’s only small but it really gives you an idea of the global reach that the James Bond films have. When we came out of the gallery we came across a newspaper advertising the new James Bond novel “Devil may care”. It featured the new book, in a glass suitcase, being held by a leather clad model, in a speedboat on the Thames. Now any one of these things would peak our interest but together they seemed like a blockbuster idea.
The idea then began to form in our minds, where could you play at being Bond (without getting arrested for stalking). We dragged the dinner jacket out of the wardrobe, gave the cocktail shaker a quick wash and then off went off to play super spy!
Our first port of call was to decide what the best opening scenes were (cue major arguments about who was the best Bond was) and then find ways to recreate them (the hard part)
We settled finally settled on three scenes:
• The River Thames chase scene from The World Is Not Enough
• The bungee jump and sky dive from Goldeneye
• The ski jump scene from The Spy Who Loved Me (our particular favourite)
The River Thames chase and the sky dives were surprisingly easily to recreate.
For the speedboat race book a space on a speedboat tour of the Thames and whiz past the monuments and buildings of the chase scene in your own twin engined boat (We’re going to review this properly soon so keep yours eyes peeled for the write up). Then visit the 02 arena (the old Millennium dome) and finally book a hot air balloon ride (Essex or Surrey ones are perfect for this re-creation).
To recreate the skydiving scene you don’t even have to go on in a plane. Indoor skydiving is available and at the moment your friend can go for free. This is UK's first and the World's largest skydiving wind tunnel. The air speed is a 170mph. It also includes a DVD box set for you to place on the shelf next to your bond collection. If you really want to jump out of a plane, you can do that too.
The ski jump in the spy loved me cost £500’000 to film and was completed by stuntman Rick Sylvester in 1976. He made the jump from Canada’s Mount Asgard in 1976. Now obviously we can’t beat that but you can still gets some air while proudly displaying a union jack. Try some of these ideas out:
- Take part in a flugtag, build you own replica and see how far you can jump.
- Learn to water ski jump (learning to ski jump could be quite expensive but there are water sports centers all over the UK)
- Our favourite is to take part in the water jump at Tignes. Choose Ski, Bmx or your own body as your vehicle of choice.
Flights to Tignes
Take a lakes and mountains holiday
Next we asked some Bond officiandos where in the UK Bond was filmed and we came up with some surprising results. Here are some examples from Goldeneye
The tank chase scene from Goldeneye was filmed at Leavsden Aerodrome
Somerset House doubles as St Petersburg’s central square
The Queens stand at Epsom racecourse doubled as St Petersburg airport
Brompton Cemetery doubles as Our Lady of Smolensk church
The famous bungee jump (voted greatest stunt of all time) took place at the Tusker Dam in Hittnau Switzerland.
The fight scenes on the radio telescope took place the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
We couldn’t make it to all the sites but we tried our best with the UK ones! We even discovered that you can recreate a tank chase by taking part in tankballing in Leicestershire (this is something that we HAVE to do this summer).
After searching high and wide for the best way to become Bond, we decided to go back to school and learn his craft. While Bond’s schools include both Eton and Fettes, our schools are located in Hertfordshire and Staffordshire. You can learn such essential items as: using covert hidden cameras, sniper rifles, machine guns and even axe throwing
After mastering speedboat chasing, weapon firing, tank warfare and skydiving it would only be right to propose a toast to the original and best Bond. Why not don the dinner jacket and take a hip flask of vodka Martini (shaken not stirred) to Sean Connery’s old house in Edinburgh. His plaque can be found at 176 Fountainbridge Street
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