James Bond not up to standard?

[Tango589]

Who'da thunk it? A violent borderline alcoholic with a total disregard for the law wouldn't have a place in MI6!

The chief of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, Alex Younger, acknowledged on Thursday that the organisation’s most famous fictional agent, James Bond, is both a blessing and curse.

The upside of the Bond novels and movies is that MI6, as SIS is more commonly referred to, is one of the best-known intelligence agencies in the world, and guarantees that almost anyone Younger invites to lunch will attend. The downside to such “fictional stereotypes”, he said, was that Bond created a view of an MI6 officer that bore no resemblance to reality.

Younger mused about the impact of the Bond movies during a rare public speech by the chief of an organisation whose existence was not even officially recognised until 1994.

Younger, the 16th chief since MI6 was founded in 1909, is known as “C” – like all those who have held the position since the service’s first chief, Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming – rather than “M” as in the Bond films.

Younger, the only member of MI6 who can be publicly identified, assumed office in November 2014. Only few details of his life have been published. The former army officer, 53, joined MI6 in 1991, specialising in counter-terrorism and serving in the Middle East and Afghanistan. He was involved in organising security for the London Olympic Games.

“I’m conflicted about Bond. He has created a powerful brand for MI6: as C, the real-life version of M, there are few people who will not come to lunch if I invite them. Many of our counterparts envy the sheer global recognition of our acronym,” Younger said.

“And to be fair, there are a few aspects of the genre that do resonate in real life: fierce dedication to the defence of Britain, for example. The real life ‘Q’ would want me to say that we too enjoy – and, indeed, need – a deep grasp of gadgetry. But’s that’s pretty much where the similarity ends. And, were Bond to apply to join MI6 now, he would have to change his ways.”

MI6 officers do travel to exotic and dangerous parts of the world but, according to Younger, someone as reckless and immoral as Bond, who broke the law with such frequency, would not be welcome in MI6.

*Article copied from Guardian Newspaper*

[August]

Originally Posted by Tango589

MI6 officers do travel to exotic and dangerous parts of the world but, according to Younger, someone as reckless and immoral as Bond, who broke the law with such frequency, would not be welcome in MI6.

It would be their loss then because Bond never failed a mission no matter what the odds and the missions he got almost always involved saving the world.

[Commander Wallace]

Originally Posted by August

It would be their loss then because Bond never failed a mission no matter what the odds and the missions he got almost always involved saving the world.

Not to mention saving all the lovely ladies from a long and boring evening.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by August

It would be their loss then because Bond never failed a mission no matter what the odds and the missions he got almost always involved saving the world.

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

Not to mention saving all the lovely ladies from a long and boring evening.

True that

[Eichhörnchen]

I got offered the part of James Bond when I was about 22... honest; it was the Reliance Mutual Insurance Society's Amateur Film Club of Tunbridge Wells. I turned it down. What was I thinking?

[Platapus]

Spies tend not to want attention drawn to them. The book Casino Royale discussed that.

I don't know what to call Bond, but he was not an intelligence officer nor a spy. He was pretty much an assassin.

I really liked the internal monologues between Bond and Brand in "Moonracker" that went into this further.

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Eichhörnchen

I got offered the part of James Bond when I was about 22... honest; it was the Reliance Mutual Insurance Society's Amateur Film Club of Tunbridge Wells. I turned it down. What was I thinking?

Who'd want to type cast as an international playboy with gorgeous women falling all over you? I mean who?

[fireftr18]

Originally Posted by August

It would be their loss then because Bond never failed a mission no matter what the odds and the missions he got almost always involved saving the world.

That's because he was always paired up with the world's best funded and dumbest criminals.

[jayni]

I always preferred George Smiley and Neil Burnside as spies.

[August]

Then there is pulling a Homer.

"To succeed despite idiocy"

[Jimbuna]

^ One of the great funny moments in an excellent comedy movie