Licence To Queer

When someone says they meditate, what do you imagine them doing? Many of us picture someone in a lotus position listening to 'chillout' music. Not the sort of thing we associate with James Bond. However, there's both more - and less! - to meditation than this...Quite simply, David had the wrong idea about meditation until a mental health crisis a couple of years ago forced him to learn...

How queer is GoldenEye? David Lowbridge-Ellis reads his original essay exploring the queer qualities of the films' villains, the girls, the allies and, of course, Bond himself. "Brosnan’s opening mission ends with the death of his best buddy. But unbeknowst to him, the object of his bromantic affections isn’t really deceased: he’s just watching from the shadows. Will Bond manage to stay O...

Bond and politics don’t mix. So why, when Bond himself resists being drawn far along either end of the political spectrum, do both sides persist in wielding poor 007 like a blunt instrument? Original article: https://www.licencetoqueer.com/blog/no-time-to-be-discussing-politics

‘James Bond is what every man would like to be and what every woman would like between her sheets’. Over six decades, this assertion has become received wisdom. But it turns out we’ve been lied to the whole time… David Lowbridge-Ellis MBE reads his article, which you can read the original of here: https://www.licencetoqueer.com/blog/to-be-bond-or-to-bed-him

“The films were my therapeutic outlet. Even now, if I’m having a bad day, or gearing up for a bad day, I’ll wear that Bond t-shirt under my shirt, or Bond socks. A little bit of something that reminds me of who I am or who I want to be. Bond connects you to something.” We often think of Bond as someone who can move through the world effortlessly, fitting in wherever he goes. But the more we look,...

“James Bond was always something I could escape to. If I was feeling down, I would put on a Bond, and that would sort me out mentally. No Time To Die is the only time Bond has negatively affected my mental health.” - Timothy Russenberger How much of an influence do the fictional characters we admire have on our mental wellbeing? Stories can be particularly powerful - positively or negatively - whe...

What if we reframed the whole of the Bond franchise as the story of a man just trying to get a good night’s rest? For some reason, no one has ever looked in any detail at Bond and sleep. So let's get under the covers with 007 to explore when he sleeps, if he’s really the early riser he claims to be (!) and why we should be concerned about his dreams. Read the original article here: https://www.lic...

Michael Gillette’s art is nothing short of beloved by Bond fans. In 2008, he created a set of 15 instantly iconic covers for the Fleming centenary editions of the novels. Since then, he has also produced covers for continuation books. In October 2024, he releases his highly conceptual and utterly gorgeous covers for the new hardback editions of the Fleming originals. The project has been gestating...

The episode’s title is a quote from Quantum of Solace, specifically the scene where Mathis attempts to get to the bottom of Bond’s sleep problems. In the Bond films we don’t see our hero getting healthy, natural sleep all that often. Perhaps because, as Hitchcock famously asserted, ‘drama is life with the dull bits cut out’, we’re supposed to assume Bond sleeps like a normal human being when we’re...

“When you focus your time and energy into the things you can change and influence, opportunities come to you and doors open that wouldn’t have been there before.” - John Able John is a father and a writer of stories aimed at bringing children and their caregivers closer together. Earlier this year, he wrote an article about martial arts in Fleming which set off a chain of events leading to him bec...

“Just because someone seems happy, doesn’t mean it’s the reality of the situation. It’s good to check in and see how people are doing.” - Vinnie Harris Vinnie Harris is an unfalteringly positive voice in the Bond community - his voice is also very deep and many of you will recognise it from his appearances on various podcasts! As Anya Amasova tells Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me , “it’s very importa...

“It shook my foundations. I flipped from being someone that was 'Just get on with it' to a person who felt far more empathy, understanding not everyone has the tools to be able to 'Just get on with it'.” - Natasha Stone Arm yourself because no one else here will save you? It’s a brilliant song lyric, but how far does being self-reliant really help us? When is the time to call for r...

John is one of the fantastic lads who make up the Really, 007! podcast. While David has been honoured to be their guest multiple times and they've got to know each other well in real life, this is the first time John and David have publicly talked just the two of them. Both men help people with problems as part of their professional lives having been motivated to do so by some of their own adv...

The author of A Different Kind of Brave describes his novel as a “gay teen love letter to James Bond movies”, which is a pretty accurate description! Lee Wind’s book is a ludicrously exciting and romantic action adventure story with all of the Bond ingredients - but with two gay protagonists, one of who filters his whole life through his beloved Bond movies, which is definitely something many of u...

David chats with Thomas Gilbert, the illustrator of the new edition of Ian Fleming's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, released to celebrate the book's 60th anniversary. Although this is the first book Thomas has illustrated, you will likely be familiar with his work in other fields. He is not only a highly accomplished artist who turned to making Bond posters at the start of the Covid lockdowns (I...

“At the core of a lot of depression is feeling like you don't have any meaning.” - David Zaritsky David Zaritsky and David Lowbridge-Ellis candidly explore the dark side and light side of relevancy within the Bond community. (Yes, there are also Star Wars references.) When we feel relevant, we get a natural hit of dopamine. But this can become dangerously addictive; creating content with the s...

Anyone who has seen Alex’s amazing YouTube knows that he always says yes to adventures! If something scares him, he follows Bond’s example and overcomes his fear by going and doing it. But as a child, he was not so confident. Alex has battled anxiety his whole life. He recognises that this is, in part, rooted in something James Bond is certainly no stranger to: childhood trauma. Between the ages o...

Mental health is not discussed enough, despite it being an important element of the 007 stories. In this series, David talks very openly about mental health with members of the Bond community. He has a theory: these are the sorts of things on many of our minds but we often struggle to put them into words. Maybe we can change that? Here, David talks with Blake Powers (  @BondLifeChicago  ) about hy...

Kim Sherwood's A Spy Like Me had its official launch on Saturday 27th April at Dukes Hotel in London. The event was a collaboration between 007GB - The British James Bond Fan Club, Ian Fleming Publications Limited and Harper Collins. It was my pleasure to be not only an organiser but also the emcee for the evening. The centrepiece of the event was a conversation between Kim and me with a follo...

On their most recent trip to Tokyo, David and Antony really didn’t expect to find themselves in a lesbian bar themed around James Bond. Nor could they quite believe it when the owner herself was up for being interviewed about her Bond fandom and how ‘women only’ carries a different meaning in Japanese culture. This interview was originally included in a podcast covering our whole trip to Japan, wh...

Well, they can't all be winners, eh? Antony and David dive into the second Warren Ellis/Jason Masters' "caper" Eidolon, which deals with dirty money and even dirtier duties as James and Tanner, er, torture a suspect by removing his skin (?!) to prevent the rise of a neo-SPECTRE. Listen to what the couple thought, along with thoughts from LTQ listener, on 2016's Eidolon from D...

This episode is also available as a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T0oz1O9yjU Award-winning Bond author Kim Sherwood and Licence to Queer's David Lowbridge-Ellis sit down to watch together the Bond film appearances of Kim's grandfather, George Baker - the man who Fleming wanted to play Bond. More than a decade after his passing, George remains a household name in the UK, immediate...

Utilising the Licence to Queer queer view system (Bond, Allies, Girls, Villains, Camp), Antony and David tackle the first in Dynamite Entertainment's long line of James Bond comic books: Vargr by Warren Ellis and Jason Masters from late 2015.

We're launching a new mini-series on the Licence to Queer podcast feed and one which is going to be led by Antony Lowbridge-Ellis, David's (better) half. In this introductory episode, Antony, a life-long fan of the medium of comic books (see his X-Men podcast X-Nation) gives a bit of background on this new Licence to Queer project where Antony and David will review each arc, in order, of t...

Antony and David debate the merits of the various Bond comic books published by Dynamite Entertainment, including the new run by Garth Ennis. As usual for the 'Our Month' series, they look back on the many ways Bond has intersected with their daily lives and the special events they've been involved with, including Jim Fanning Friday: Live and Let's Bow Tie and a Goldfinger celebrat...