Hey Censors Hands Off James Bond!
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
141.27975
Summary
The James Bond Estate is trying to censor the James Bond novels and the films. Is it time to get rid of James Bond as a fictional character? Or is it time for James Bond to be removed from the screen altogether?
Transcript
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it's Creighton here David Creighton that's how James Bond always introduced himself I'm sure
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you remember and can easily recognize the theme from James Bond fantastic piece of music great
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jazz by the way but everybody I think on earth who has ever watched movies knows that theme song and
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know James Bond and I'm by the way I must confess I'm not packing a Walther PPK or her Peretta because
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you know how gun laws are in Canada and I probably have the cops knocking at my door looking for
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weapons if I had any such thing on me right now so I haven't even got a cigarette I have a cigar over
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there but no cigarettes but it all comes down to why am I here today we're talking about how the
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estate of Ian Fleming the author of all those James Bond films wants to censor his work this is
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absolutely outrageous and I have to say I am a huge fan of Ian Fleming as a man and as a novelist because
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he was a fascinating character absolutely fascinating he served in naval intelligence
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during the Second World War but prior to that he spent six years in Moscow during the height of the
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Stalinist purges as a reporter for Reuters and this is really how he learned how to write in the manner
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he did which was succinct and precise and you always understood what Ian Fleming was trying to say and if
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you've read his novels no there's not a hint of pornography in them there's not a there's not a hint of
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egregious violence or sex in his novels what they describe is a man named James Bond who is ruthless and
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cunning highly intelligent physically fit but also likes a smoke drink and womanize and this is what makes
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his character so fascinating I must say have I read them all yes a couple of years ago if you can see
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this without the the glare I went and bought these let's get them balanced here the completes a complete
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set of the Ian Fleming James Bond novels now I had read James Bond over the years but sparingly and I had
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not read the minor works I think I read Dr. No and I read from Russia with love and a few others but but
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I sat down a couple of summers ago and I read every Ian Fleming James Bond novel in succession from the
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first to the last so I could say I did it you know much like the way I've read all of Dostoevsky
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because I said I want to read them all if I'm going to talk about these things read them and in
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Fleming's the same way and you read these books and you say my god this man knows how to write it's
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because he honed his writing he as a reporter and in those days reporters are reporters they were very
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objective and they got to the news quickly and that's what the James Bond novels are not I'd like they're not
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written for children obviously and I'm not saying they're simple or simplistic but they're very clear
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much like a John Kennedy speech and we're going to put this all together in a minute how this is all
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related and and but I'm I'm telling you when you start censoring somebody's work it is should be
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anathema we do not censor people's works read them or don't read them you don't like them don't read
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them like them or hate them but for God's sake don't change them to suit the current taste which
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right now to me is deplorable but James Bond if they're going to start attacking the books you can
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imagine they're going to start attacking the films next and you think they can't do this with CGI and the
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way we can computer generate imagery you can bet that they can take scenes out and add new scenes
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and will this happen of course it will this is the insane society we're living in but it's got to stop
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and I say let's make this the hill no way are they touching James Bond hands off the James Bond novels and
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the James Bond movies you can just remember how James Bond is introduced in 1962's Dr. No and the
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unforgettable Sean Connery is playing James Bond he's gambling in a private club in London in a casino
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and he's asked his name and he and he has a cigarette in his hand and he says Bond James Bond and that's the
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introduction that has led to the most successful series of films in the history of mankind and they'll
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can I don't like the the current James Bond and I God help us if they politically change James Bond in the
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future which I'm sure they will want to do but Sean Connery for me is the archetypical James Bond I also
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like Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan because when I was a young man I used to be mistaken for Pierce Brosnan
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when he was doing Remington Steel so so I've got my tux on today I used to wear this as a singer and this
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brings us to another thing what does James Bond represent especially since the film came out 1962 what else was
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popular well president named Jane John F Kennedy who happened to say he had just read Dr. No and from
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Russia with love and this this of course catapulted the sales of James Bond in the United States through
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the roof at the same and who is John Kennedy's favorite singer Frank Sinatra and what was Frank Sinatra
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doing in 1962 playing Las Vegas and quite often he was joining his friends Dean Martin Sammy Davis Jr and
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Peter Lawford as part of the Rat Pack and this was a heck of a good time and I'll tell you what why do we
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look back on on the early 60s the Kennedy years with such fondness and such envy because we understood
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the roles of men and women we understood that men were men and women were women there is no
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confusion about sexuality there is no real questions being asked we did not have this huge desire for
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children to change their sex and or the gender there was there was clearness clarity about these issues
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and my god when you listen to Frank Sinatra doing fly me to the moon you know it understands who he is
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as a man and John F Kennedy loved that sort of thing and the Kennedy administration was quite clear the best and
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the brightest but it all comes down to though whether a lot you're listening to Frank Sinatra singing a
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tune or John F Kennedy making a speech or reading Ian Fleming the English is impeccable and it's quite
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clear what they're trying to say we live in a society today where politicians don't have a clue in hell what
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they're trying to say they're trying to please everybody at the same time they're trying to
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appease portions of the population they don't even understand or have no connection with so what do we
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have we have word salads and in the music world we have people repeating the same word over and over and
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over again and the music getting louder and louder and louder and and novels today I don't think there's
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anybody really with the clarity of Ian Fleming writing novels today but this is a foregone period that we
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all look back on and say my god I wish we could get back there we could find our way back to some of
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some of the euphoria and the can-do attitude of those years because we're running in circles today
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now I'm not saying I agree with everything Ian Fleming wrote in his novels I'm not saying that
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everything about 1960 to 62 was perfect yes of course there were issues and there were problems
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and of course there's portions of Ian Fleming's books that I certainly wouldn't repeat today but I tell
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you I don't give a damn about that I want to know what people thought in 1962 or 1956 I want to know
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what those attitudes were I don't want the books changed to reflect attitudes today because believe
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me in 10 years time we're going to be looking back on 2020 to 2023 as dark years where we could not focus
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on real things that we had biological men competing in women's sports and we had biological men
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taking their clothes off and little girls change rooms and saying how the heck did this ever happen
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how did we get there why couldn't we focus on real things like keeping people employed and fed
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and motivated what happened to our society so don't change it now because 10 years from now we're going
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to have to change it right back and this is what makes it all so incredibly banal and but in the larger
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picture this is so Orwellian this is so Orwellian and I was I was noting a column the other day
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written for MSNBC and the entire piece was a string of cliches just strung together and it reminded me of
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George Orwell's wonderful essay politics in the English language and I encourage anybody who is
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a journalist to read that now Orwell always called himself a socialist but he was never a socialist
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who buried the truth and it wasn't afraid to criticize other socialists and he hated the way so many left
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leaning writers wrote and he said so that people basically just strung together slogans
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and a bunch of words that in the end didn't mean anything anymore and this is exactly how a lot of
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people write today especially politicians how they speak today it's all talking points that are meaningless
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and we need to get back to words that have meaning that are grounded in substantive
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comprehensive speech and that we don't have anymore and Orwell is never more relevant than he is in 2023
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not only with the way people write their columns today and their books today but the way politicians speak
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today and get your hands off books because this is what Orwell imagined in 1984 that they would be
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redefining and reimagining the past they wouldn't just destroy the present they weren't satisfied with
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destroying the present they had to put their hands on history they had to put their hands on the way people
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wrote and what was said 10 20 30 years ago and that is completely destructive it's fetid it is diseased it is
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contrary to all good sense and all good democratic values of free speech and free thought and we are killing
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ourselves with this and i tell you i wanted to stop and i think it's time that we said
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enough is enough and with that it's creighton david creighton
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canadian shooting sports association without the cssa our gun rights would have been taken long
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long ago these guys are on the front lines helping to draft smart and intelligent firearms regulations and
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legislation in canada and more importantly educating the public about how we keep guns out of the hands
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of the wrong people who become a member it's absolutely worth every penny