Seymour Cumming:

The name’s Cumming… Seymour Cumming?

Seriously, this Bond fella is getting a bit long in the tooth. Twenty movies, five Bonds, two Qs, three Money Pennys, endless seductively dangerous woman and now, a Lady as ‘M’. Goodness me, the world is not enough for double O. Seemingly tomorrow never dies for the man with the golden gun. With a view to a kill, old Thunderballs should Live and let the series die.

Now, what if James Bond was Thai? He’d fit right in, a womanising stud with a fast car, outrageous driving and a bevy of ruthless, drop-dead gorgeous woman. For a start his name could be ‘Yem Bon’, which roughly translated would mean ‘Jam ball’ (or jammy balls in farang lingo), which could be pretty appropriate. There would be no shortage of political skulduggery, exotic locations, motorbike chases, Thai soap opera drama, crazy woman and scenes for your eyes only. Never mind the plot, there’s plenty of ‘licenced to kill’ stories in the Bangkok Post to inspire the scriptwriters.

Making the actual movie would be easy really. First, load it with so many one-liners and sexist jokes that you can scarcely make it past the title without being politically incorrect. Insert an outrageously over-the-top opening scene that outdoes all others with implausible stunts, an expensively destructive getaway scene and enough fire power, cold war armies and deranged villains to scare the living daylights out of any audience, then wrap it all up in a complicated, laughably unrealistic plot involving the pariah of the moment - a Dr Evil-like megalomaniac with some unbelievably ambitious plan to control the world – and throw in a bevy of exotic gun-toting goddesses. Finally choose a number of breathtakingly stunning locations, places that are perfect for disrupting an otherwise idyllic tourist destination with terrorism, and…cut! We have a take.

No problem. Up to you. Same same, but different. Take that Igor or Jaws or Carver, or Boris or Koskov or Zorin or Kahn or Kristatos or Scaramanga or Renard or Zao or whatever your bloody name is!

Investigative-journalist-at-large, Seymour Cumming sees things a little differently in life. He has previously been a used car salesman, fruit picker, ‘shock jock’ and newsroom war correspondent. He has written for Farmer’s Weekly, Nyet!, Porn Unlimited, Chessworld and  Cross-stitching Magazine.

He’s been to more than 50 countries, some for less than a day, and is currently working on a travel novel, but he’s written the author’s biog, and not progressed much beyond that.

Seymour Cumming archive is here...