The Backstory:
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
”Dyspeptic Memories & The Curse of Scotland”
Inspiration for a painting can come from one of those inexplicable and unexpected parts of Fleming’s writing. Normally, we race through a story, relishing the action and adventure, the seduction and rejections, the wealth of detail surrounding our favorite spy, and invariably, we find ourselves comparing what we have read to what we have seen in the films. What did they edit out of the novel to make the cinematic flow more interesting to the viewer? What dialogue did they cut to trim the characters on screen time, or enhance it? What musings and ruminations of Bond get the axe because they don’t translate visually? 
For a painting, we inevitably end up looking for visual clues in the text for things that will be cool to draw and paint. Things that are recognizably “Bond.” His favorite cigarette. The Walther PPK in it’s chamois holster. The bottle of Haig’s Dimple Scots or Walker’s Bourbon. Or some other personal element of the villain or Bond’s latest female conquest. These sorts of things there for us in spades, as Fleming was one of the best for introducing exotic and expensive brands into his stories, and making them more believable - and enticing - to the reader. Selecting either the most obvious thing, or conversely, the most obscure, still leaves us with a plethora of choices. We find ourselves ranking them in order of importance to the visual.
One of the problems - or challenges - with painting OHMSS is the wide ranging action and multiple plots that all converge to the unexpected death of Bond’s bride in the very last paragraphs of the story, leaving a devastated Bond and the escape of his nemesis, Blofeld. This vulnerability and humanity of Bond is impossible to communicate in a visual manner, so it leaves us with representational “things” that hopefully will speak to the viewer. 
Facing these difficult choices, I was determined to find something else that would be relevant to the story and be the perfect subject matter for the painting. This required at least 5 or 6 readings, copious note-taking, and highlighting of text. I would frequently read passages aloud to my wife and seek her editorial input. So it was in a moment of serendipidity that I chose to read out loud two long paragraphs near the end of chapter two - “Gran Turismo.” I was struck by the hilarious and unexpected combination of Fleming’s snobbery about food, humour in his choice of descriptive words, and the flaunting of his intellectual superiority and classical education. We found ourselves laughing out loud at the writing - writing that would most likely be passed over as incidental and perhaps irrelevant to the plot line. It would never see the light of day in a film…I found it the perfect foil for my painting.
We know that Bond was not a gourmet and that breakfast was his favorite meal of the day. We also know that he loved good food, and when in France his meals would be described in detail by Fleming - in French, of course. In chapter two, it is Turbot poché, sauce mousseline, and roast partridge - all washed down with Mouton Rothschild ’53, a ten year old Calvados, and three cups of coffee. We know that Fleming, too, loved his food and drink, so it makes sense that Bond would be a reflection of himself in this regard.
But what was so amusing about the two paragraphs was Bond’s critique of food and wine that was foisted upon him when motoring from the Italian border to the (fictitious) French northern coastal town of Royalé les Eaux. Bond ruminates: he had had enough of the “sucker-traps for gourmandizing tourists.” All the restaurants with their flowery names - “Vielles Auberges, the Relais Fleuris.” Then the menus, designed to appeal to the unsuspecting diner, flaunting their “Bonnes Tables, and their Fines Bouteilles with Spécialités du Chef.” He was fed up with the mock-Breton auberges, selling sleazy and expensive provender that was passed off for food in the “Belly Region” of France. From “lip-smacking rituals of winemanship and foodmanship” to the indigestion that followed requiring large doses of Bisodol…this was such unexpected Flemingesque humour. 
In the second paragraph Bond describes some of the tourist traps in detail. Hammered copper and brass untensils and antique bogosities. “Bogosities” - I had never before seen that word in print! Sham interiors and exteriors with florid window boxes and flower arrangements. Fireplaces with electric logs. Fake wooden beams, china animals frolicing across gabled roofs. Interiors decorated with tacky signage and tables sporting cheap serving ware bearing inscrutable slogans designed to con the unwary. Surly waiters, “fly-walk Paté” and tasteless wine. Fleming leaves no tourist trap restaurant leaf unturned! 
I know enough basic tourist French to get in trouble, but one slogan kept puzzling me: “Icy Doulce France” versus what I thought should be “Ici Douce France.”  They both mean the same thing - “Here is Sweet France” - but according to a friend who was trained in classical old French, “Icy” is now “Ici” and “Doulce” is now “Douce.” Minor sticking points, but I’m betting that Fleming was showing off his classical French training and education to his readers! 
One could only imagine Bond, hungry and tired from driving, and being subjected to the very worst of French food and culture…this was such un-Bond-like fodder for a spy novel, that I felt it HAD to be the subject of my painting. The only recourse Bond had was to find better food and drink - anything, in fact - to “efface these dyspeptic memories”…
There was the title of the painting…”Dyspeptic Memories.”
A quick look at the OED produced the textually appropriate definition of this seldom used word. Dyspeptic - tetchy and disagreeable, .
But, there are more disagreeable and dyspeptic memories throughout the book, and I had to include some of those as well. The wedding ring Bond gave Tracy: a baroque white gold ring of diamonds and clasped hands. Being beaten at Chemin de Fer by the tycoon from Lille, who chomped his cigars and smoked them with an amber holder. The tycoon’s winning card - the nine of diamonds - described by Bond as the “Curse of Scotland.” Some things related to Blofeld were a must: his restaurant at Piz Gloria (matchbook), and the SPECTRE octopus hidden in the hand-painted escutcheon, commonly found upon the walls of the tacky restaurants. Sea shells from Bond’s childhood playing on the beaches of Brittany and Picardy. I could envision French travel posters of the 40’s and 50’s, promoting wines of the region and the sandy beaches, so I found two vintage posters to use - one for wine and the other of Cannes - that I changed to Royalé Les Eaux. Both were (probably) screen-printed with flat, solid colors, so to recreate this effect, I painted them using opaque Gouache - a medium I haven't used for about 45 years. So great was the trepidation, that I had to paint those to objects first. 
The other items in the painting were created with traditional watercolours. A tacky porcelain restaurant ashtray. A ceramic cat chasing a ceramic bird. Tracy’s hotel room key and one of the casino blood-red counters of 10,000 old francs. The packet of Bisodol to efface these dyspeptic memories. Bond’s family coat of arms, disguised as part of the wine lable with a new motto on the “instant Pouilly-Fuissé” bottle - broken by Bond (and me) and adorned, last but not least, by the Chopping Fly. 
All dyspeptic memories that Bond tried hard to forget…but which haunted him until the last pages of the novel. 

The Backstory:
The Living Daylights
”Killing Time”
In a nod to Bond book illustrator, Richard Chopping - a Green Bottle fly sits on the label of a bottle of Stolichnaya. A shot glass stands ready. Killing is such a thirsty and nasty business. The weapon of choice - an AK-47 - lies at hand, ready to receive the sniper scope. Three rounds of 7.62 millimetre ammunition await the deft hand of the sniper to load into the magazine. A Russian burled walnut cigarette case, open and filled, lacks only a match to light one of the calming tubes of nicotine. A cello and bow are complemented by the score from Alexandre Borodine’s Prince Igor - Polovetsian Dances, Choral Dance Number 17. The sniper’s cover? Posing as a member of a Russian women’s orchestra. Operation Extase has been given the green light. It’s to be a saturation job to take out British agent 272. If successful, he will end up not only dead, but strawberry jam. The assassin? Russia has put their best sniper on the job. Code name: Trigger.
And where, is Bond? For two boring days, he was “killing time” with visits to museums, art galleries, the Berlin zoo, a film, espressos at Café Marquardt, walks around the lake, and a high tea consisting of a double portion of matjes herrings smothered in cream and onion rings, and two Molle mit Korn - the Berlin equivalent of a boiler maker and his assistant - schnapps, doubles, washed down with draught Löwenbrau. When perched in his own sniper’s aerie at the corner of Kochstrasse and Wilhelmstrasse, he smoked, drank Dimple Haig and feasted on tinned food, eggs, bacon and toast. Bond would lie on his bed, engrossed in his dimestore German thriller - Verderbt, Verdammt, Verraten* and lose himself in the trials and tribulations of the heroine, Gräfin Liselotte Mutzenbacher. Its spectacular cover of a half-naked girl strapped to a bed was sufficient titilation. If nothing else, it took his mind off the nervous perambulations and annoying musings of Captain Sender - Number 2 of Secret Service Station WB (West Berlin).
So why was an imagined scene from Trigger’s room chosen? Precisely because it was a completely plausible scenario that could have taken place in Fleming’s own mind as he wrote this tightly crafted thriller. That made it more real and possible to me.
The Living Daylights is a treaure trove of imagery and minutiae of our favorite British spy. This plethora of detail makes it hard to single out a representative scene, without delving into some potential cliché. From the shooting range at Bisley using a .308 calibre Winchester experimental target rifle; to his briefing with M - head sunk into his stiff turned-down collar in a Churchillian pose of gloomy reflection; from the detailed description of Berlin - that glum, inimical city dry varnished on the Western side with a brittle veneer of gimcrack polish, rather like the chromium trim on American motor-cars; to his sniper’s hole-up - smelling of cabbage, cheap cigar smoke and stale sweat; Fleming’s own experiences as a spy come through loud and clear. It’s a nasty job, but one that must be done well. Add in a liberal dose of class-tinged humour taking Captain Sender to the woodshed with his old school tie - in his case, Wykehamist - and his Civil Service background, Fleming adds in the truly believable to a mix of the somewhat plausible, and serves up a crackerjack story in 26 pages.
As every story must have a romantic interest, so does The Living Daylights with Bond’s sniperscoped long-distance relationship with Trigger - unbeknownst at the time as just a girl in the orchestra. But what a girl! In classic Bond fashion, Trigger is tall, willowy, with wind-swept, molten-gold hair falling to her shoulders. Alive and vivid with movement, part of a gay, happy little crocodile. Bond ponders over the conundrum of life under the stark reality of the Soviet system and how some people were still able to find a life filled, somewhat, with fun. Fleming’s choice of the word crocodile is also filled with double meaning. We find it defined as the following: Crocodile: a large predatory semiaquatic reptile with long jaws, long tail, short legs, and a horny textured skin, using submersion and stealth to approach unseen prey. A line of schoolchildren walking in pairs. Irony most likely intended, Trigger is a predatory animal who uses stealth and submersion - in this case posing as part of an orchestra - to approach her unseen prey - Agent 272. Did Fleming knowingly use the word with this intent? It is just an odd enough expression that I would argue he knew exactly what he was doing and writing. The fact that he wraps it up as a column of happy women (schoolgirls), to me, clinches it. Bond, of course, is totally smitten, stricken with a stab of grief that lances his heart in a pang of longing, something not felt since he was young. He tries to dispell this tempting visual and long-lost memory with a “get on, damn you. Get back to your job…”
But nagging at his mind is the thought, “why in hell did she choose the cello? There was something almost indecent in the idea of the bulbous, ungainly instrument between her splayed thighs.” Leave it to Fleming to snap the reader back into life erotique of a spy. We can have it all. Bureaucratic boredom, exotic locations, intense drama and excitement, and sex. Served up in spades. Yet Bond doesn’t get, nor kill, the girl - just the chance to scare the living daylights out of her. In his book, that was enough. In mine, too.
I chose the title “Killing Time” because of the double meaning of the words - depending upon which word is emphasized. One can, as Bond did, spend two days “killing time” or, as Trigger did, preparing for her “killing time.” 
Note: original back story appeared on the Literary007 website on March 14, 2017
https://literary007.com/2017/03/14/the-living-daylights-killing-time-by-gerald-wadsworth/

The Backstory:
Diamonds are Forever
”The Trouble with Tiffany”
Fleming at his best, Diamonds are Forever is one of those stories that suck you into the pages of the book and don’t let go until Bond is either reveling in a secluded location with his Bond Girl du Jour, or wrapping up the assignment with yet another license to kill notch in his 007 belt. In this case, he gets both - Tiffany Case and “Bofor’ing” ABC’s helicopter out of the French Guinea desert air, thus closing down the pipeline and putting an end to the global smuggling operation. 
With a story as iconic as Diamonds are Forever comes the responsibility of the artist to provide a visual interpretation that does the story justice, gives the viewer a new perspective on characters, events and subplots, or fills in the lacunae of the reader’s imagination - all inspired by the text and the author’s skill at creative myth-making.
Diamonds are Forever is a difficult task-master - the story leaps and bounds across the globe - from the deserts of Africa, to the posh purveyors of luxe goods in London and New York, from the monied aristocracy and the purebreds of the racing set at Saratoga, to the mob-run casinos of Las Vegas and back again. It’s a dizzying flight of imagination, colored by Fleming’s prose and acerbic wit. There’s Fleming’s line by Bond vis-a-vis the mob: “There’s nothing so extraordinary about American gangsters. They’re not Americans. Mostly a lot of Italian bums with monogrammed shirts who spend the day eating spaghetti and meat balls and squirting scent over themselves.” Or, Bond reading about Saratoga through the eyes of Post sports columnist, Jimmy Cannon. “The Saratoga…of the twentieth century looked out at him from that piece of newsprint and bared its teeth in a sneer.” There were the usual “hicks and hoodlums” running the show, and the article ends with “It was a stinking town…but all gambling towns are.”
Finding a line or scene to encompass the collective attributes of the story is one of the hardest I have encountered to date.
Despite the globe-trotting aspects of Diamonds are Forever, and the constant flux of characters and cast, I found myself focusing upon just one member of the tale: Tiffany Case. What she provided was a constancy, from beginning to end, and her introduction to Bond was a goldmine of visuals and inspiration for the painting. 
In her intro chapter, Feuilles Mortes, Tiffany greets Bond with her back turned to him, sitting half naked astride a chair, and staring into a mirror. “The black string of her brassiére across the naked back, the tight black lace pants and the splay of the legs whipped at Bond’s senses.” I’ll bet! A record was playing - Echoes of Paris by George Feyer, with rhythm accompaniment - a Vox 500 recording. Bond takes it all in…they discuss how he will smuggle diamonds into the US. How his payoff will be made. The crew of mobsters he will be working with. And some cautionary admonitions about the retribution he might face if he tries any “funny business” on his own. Tiffany then dresses to go out, wearing a “heavy gold chain bracelet” - presumably from Tiffany’s of New York. She reveals how she was named after the store, and after settling on the details of their caper, leaves to make contact with her mob controllers. In typical Bond fashion, he asks her out to dinner - once they successfully get to New York City. 
I found the Feyer album in perfect condition on Ebay. Bond’s golf balls - Dunlop 65’s - were there as well. Incredibly, a 6” long Pandinus Imperator scorpion (Chapter One, The Pipeline Opens) was available online. It came dried out and mounted in a display case, but I was able to rehydrate it and manipulate it into an attack position. Fleming mentions beds of “forced gladioli” - a neighbor’s garden provided the flowers. Tiffany boxes were found. My Fairbairn-Sykes commando knife served as the visual for the mobster’s throwing blade used to prise the smuggled diamonds out of Bond’s Dunlop 65’s. The chapter Acme Mud and Sulphur describes the mauve paper ticket Bond received for his $1.50 treatment in the baths. A few cigarettes were tossed into the flower beds, and fake diamonds rounded out the imagery. 
Lest I forget, a fly - in a nod to the master Bond book illustrator, Richard Chopping - perches on top a Dunlop 65 golf ball. Thank you Richard!
Note: original back story appeared on the Literary007 website on August 1, 2016
https://literary007.com/2016/08/01/diamonds-are-forever-the-trouble-with-tiffany-by-gerald-wadsworth/

The Backstory:
MOONRAKER
”Disinformation Served - Coffee & A Coverup”
One of the many joys of the creative process and working with the Bond stories is the “what if” opportunities the character offers us. We can imagine some event that precedes a new assignment, or, conversely, conceive of a “what happens next” scenario. We are given a broad palette of personal characteristics, behavioral consistencies and idiosyncrasies, flaws and desires, and we are able to recreate some new or imagined event within that framework, just so long as the details and character ring true to the original. 
In From Russia With Love, we have within the chapter The Soft Life an exacting description of Bond’s favorite meal of the day - breakfast. It begins with a category of personal tastes: “very strong coffee, from De Bry in New Oxford Street, brewed in an American Chemex, of which he drank two large cups, black and without sugar. The single egg, in the dark blue egg cup with a gold ring around the top, was boiled for three and a third minutes. It was a very fresh, speckled brown egg from French Marans hens owned by some friend of May in the country. Then there were two thick slices of whole-wheat toast, a large pat of deep yellow Jersey butter, and three squat glass jars containing Tiptree “Little Scarlet” strawberry jam; Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade and Norwegian Heather Honey from Fortnum’s. The coffee pot and the silver on the tray were Queen Anne, and the china was Minton, of the same dark blue and gold and white as the egg-cup.”
Fleming notes that whenever Bond is back in London at his Chelsea flat, his breakfast is always the same. This is what I imagined Bond would sit down to after his successful conclusion of the Moonraker affaire. I pictured his breakfast table with the addition of his gunmetal gray cigarette case, a Morland’s cigarette with the three gold bands, an empty toast rack, and for his postprandial enjoyment, a bottle of Haig & Haig Pinch whisky that features in Moonraker as his and Gala Brand’s “last drink” whilst held prisoner of Drax. And, a ubiquitous copy of The Times newspaper of London - the only paper Bond ever read.
As Tom Cull of Literary007 guest-wrote for the Haig Whisky Blog: “And it wasn’t just Bond that imbibed on Haig & Haig while on the job. His opposite number in the CIA’s Felix Leiter, kept up with him in the drinking stakes and often needed it more. Dare I say, in a pinch, he reached for the Haig. Leiter drinks Haig with Bond in Casino Royale and both can’t get enough of the stuff in Live and Let Die, drinking it down in at Sugar Ray’s in Harlem, Florida and in New York – “three inches of Haig and Haig in a tall glass with ice” to be precise. 
In the palpably tense short story The Living Daylights, Bond makes scrambled eggs, bacon, & coffee with a “liberal tot” of Dimple Haig as he prepares to take out a Russian sniper in Berlin. Bond’s slightly shady associate Marc Ange-Draco in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service offers Bond some Dimple Pinch. And, the villainous Hugo Drax has a bottle on his desk in Kent, referred to as Haig and Haig, but we won’t quibble.”
Haig & Haig has precedence and some pride of place in Fleming’s use of product placement throughout his stories. I saw my painting as a nod to classic Dutch still life paintings - but without the dark chiaroscuro. Bond’s breakfast should be in his flat on one of those rare sunny London days, and so I tried to capture that image in watercolour. 
Finding the props
A British neighbor had Minton china, Queen Anne silver, and a coffee pot that was a close Queen Anne. Another friend supplied the toast rack, and I found the 1950s era bottle of Haig & Haig at an estate sale. A trip to a specialty grocer was the source for the Little Scarlet Jam and Cooper’s Marmalade and since Norwegian Heather Honey from Fortnum & Mason was a creation of Fleming’s fertile imagination, I posed an empty honey jar as the substitute. Tom Cull kindly sent me a copy of The Times from the UK and I set up the front page as might be created in the 50s in black and white, with M’s disinformation campaign as the headline, and a photo of the Moonraker taking off from the Cliffs of Dover.
Interesting how history - and the ability of governments to lull their populace with disinformation - repeats itself to this day!
Note: original back story appeared on the Literary007 website on February 11, 2016
https://literary007.com/2016/02/11/disinformation-servedcoffee-and-a-cover-up-moonraker-by-gerald-wadsworth/