Yesterday was quite a day; a fantastic day! It started ordinarily enough, but when she got up, Lyn proposed we go to the current 007 exhibition in the Barbican. Bond usually isn’t her thing, but I had been yearning to go for a few days, and I think she thought it best to get it out of my system. So off we went. I have such a great girlfriend!

I must say I was quite impressed with the exhibition. It focuses on the stylistics of the bond films – the sets, the locations, the cars, the costumes – and it was interesting to see such things deconstructed. You might say it was about the mise-en-scene of the bond films. I felt like a child in an amazing new playground: I got a thrill from seeing Scaramanger’s infamous Golden Gun (made from a pen and a cigarette box, apparently), but sadly I don’t recall seeing any jetpacks.

To round it all off, they had a martini bar, where I enjoyed my first authentic martini for a while. It reminded me of the one I had in Sydney, and I was able to say ”one medium dry vodka martini, shaken, not stirred” for the first time without the barman looking at me like I was some kind of freak. Lyn did not like hers, so I finished hers off. I then thought, perhaps foolishly, that I would try a Vesper, which I found I preferred. After that, feeling rather light headed, we started for home. I was thrilled at having seen this fascinating exhibition, and would highly recommend it to any bond fan or film student.