007: Licence to make a killing

Plus: ♞ Chess is war | 🏅 Golden Hockney | 🤴🏻 The "Chairman of Everything"

View online 16 October, 2022 On the money Ursula Andress and Sean Connery in Dr No, 1962 007: Licence to make a killing The very first James Bond movie, Dr No, was released 60 years ago this month to a "mixed critical response", says Ben Schott in Bloomberg. Not least from Ian Fleming, who left an early screening looking "sad and distracted". But despite its virtually unknown leading man (Sean Connery), Dr No was not just a commercial hit in its own right – raking in more than 16 times its sub-$1m budget – but inaugurated "one of the most valuable and venerable franchises" in cinema history. The 25 Bond films have grossed billions of dollars at the box office, and created "one of capitalism's most successful and sophisticated brand collaboration ecosystems".  Over six decades, dozens of companies have placed their products in James Bond films – more than 30 appear in No Time to Die alone. The commercial appeal of linking your brand with a "handsome, debonaire, alpha-male spy" requires no explanation, but it's also true to the books: "Fleming's novels glitter with luxury marques." Bond "drives a Bentley, shoots a Leica, wears a Rolex, putts with Penfold Hearts, bathes in Floris bath essence, zhushes his hair in Pinaud Elixir and smokes cigarettes specially blended by Morland & Co of Grosvenor Street". Naturally, and rather helpfully for advertisers, not all of 007's tastes are so exotic: he uses a Ronson lighter, drinks Gordon's gin and shaves with a Gillette. No brand was too arcane for Fleming to specify. The lift in Dr No's lair, Bond observes, was manufactured by Waygood Otis. Inside politics Chinese President Xi Jinping has acquired so many titles he's known as the "Chairman of Everything", says Katie Stallard in The New Statesman. In 2018, term limits for the presidency of China were abolished, the only constitutional barrier to him "staying in power for life". The Chinese Communist Party's National Congress, which begins on Sunday, is expected to hand him another five years as party leader, but he could go on for decades. Unlike his predecessor Mao, who "revelled in chaos", the 69-year-old Xi is "obsessed with stability" – witness his zero-Covid crackdowns, state control of big business, and political repression in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. This obsession "may yet turn out to be his country's greatest threat".  From the archives David Hockney's lost Desert Island Discs "I didn't enjoy school at all – I hated it really," David Hockney tells Roy Plomley on a resurfaced episode of Desert Island Discs from 1972. He was a non-conformist, and from the age of 10 he knew, "definitely", that he wanted to become an artist. Unusually for the era, his parents were supportive: "They just thought, well maybe it's a good idea to be an artist, and never gave it another thought." At 16, Hockney started at the Bradford School of Art. He remembers the college asking him if he had any form of private income, "and I said I didn't know what that was. And they said, well, if you've not got one you can't be an artist because you'll never make a living at it." After that he was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Art in London, and started exhibiting and selling pictures. In his final year he was awarded a gold medal by the school, choosing to receive it in a gold lamé jacket. When asked about the accessory, Hockney is dismissive: "It's not really gold, but their medal wasn't gold either." Listen to the episode here.  🎵 Fedora, Monte Carlo Opera Orchestra  🎵 I'm Through With Love, Marilyn Monroe  🎵 Liebestod, Richard Wagner  🎵 Verachtet mir die Meister nicht, Richard Wagner  🎵 Les Biches, Francis Poulenc  🎵 La Belle Excentrique, Erik Satie  🎵 Symphony No 5, Ludwig van Beethoven  🎵 San Francisco, Jeanette MacDonald 📕 Route 69, Floyd Carter  🎁 Paper, pencils and a battery-operated sharpener Sport The Queen's Gambit. Netflix Chess has always been full of controversy, says The New Statesman. It's a war game, after all, with "checkmate" a corruption of a Persian phrase meaning "the king is dead". Bloodthirsty conquerors from Charlemagne to Napoleon have been obsessed by the game; matches between Americans and Soviets were a kind of "substitute for nuclear war". King Canute, however, "could no more command the 64 squares than he could the waves". According to a medieval saga, he once cheated while playing chess with one of his earls, Ulf, who was so enraged "he overturned the board". As punishment, Ulf was later "butchered by Canute's henchman". The artist Michel Duchamp also came to grief over the chessboard. On his honeymoon, he was so engrossed in the game that his new wife glued his pieces to the board in revenge. "Divorce ensued."   Enjoying The Knowledge? Click below to share Share on WhatsApp Share via email Comment "Control language and you control thought"  A decade ago, The Guardian issued a bizarre style guide banning the word "grandmother", in case older women didn't want to be defined by the fact "their offspring had themselves produced offspring", says Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times. Other casualties included "illegal asylum seeker", "gypsy" and "turn a deaf ear", which could "offend deaf people, although not, presumably, if you whisper it". I didn't think too much of it: after all, it was The Guardian's usual "asinine leftish effluent". But now the Local Government Association has decided to devise a similar rulebook for councillors. "Mother" is to be swapped for "birthing parent"; it's an "office offence" to use the words "white", "homeless", "disabled", and "deprived neighbourhoods". As George Orwell recognised in his novel 1984, "control language and you control thought". That's exactly what the authors of this guide are doing: using language to push their radical political agenda. They want to banish the idea of the "nuclear family" as the norm and entrench a notion of "perpetual victimhood" among those who are not "white and straight", fostering social division. But not calling someone "disabled" doesn't alter the fact that the person we are referring to is "disabled". These descriptions aren't used to "demean" or be "un-inclusive", but to identify people for "practical purposes". That's why "wokespeak" is so ridiculous: it's "deliberately delusional" and works against identifying problems. "And it is here, coming to a local council near you."   Property THE COUNTRY HOUSE The Tower is a four-bedroom home that forms part of Avon Carrow, a 19th-century former hunting lodge on the outskirts of a small village in Warwickshire. It retains a wealth of period features, including ornate stone carvings, stained glass windows and turreted staircases. It also has a private roof terrace offering views over the surrounding countryside, and shares six acres of communal gardens. Trains from nearby Banbury station run direct to London Marylebone in around an hour. £1.1m. Quoted "If you want the rainbow you gotta put up with the rain." Dolly Parton  That's it. You're done. Been forwarded this newsletter? Sign up for free to receive it every day Unsubscribe from the newsletter https://link.newsletters.theknowledge.com/oc/60897464f90441077868de3chhnko.hrl/87ea18e4&list=mymail