‘Does It Do Anything?'

James Bond and his watches.

- Simon Garfield

It is October 2012, and we’re sitting next to James Bond on a thin, leather-topped bench in Room 34 of The National Gallery in London. Bond is out of shape after a near-death experience and a three-month retirement, and he has just failed his MI6 medical. Surprisingly enough, he is now seeking restorative comfort in the work of JMW Turner. His focus is ‘The Fighting Temeraire Tugged to Her Last Berth to be Broken Up, 1838’, a work he may have previously enjoyed on postcards and tea towels. It is a glorious painting, and an inglorious one, a warship that once played a vital role in the Battle of Trafalgar being towed along the Thames on its way to the knacker’s yard.

The symbolism hits you like a mast: one dryroasted wreck looking at another. But here comes Bond’s new quartermaster to drive the point home.

“Always makes me feel a little melancholy,” Q says as he explains the painting with a sigh. “The inevitability of time, don’t you think?”

It is, of course, Skyfall. Bond is Daniel Craig, Q is Ben Whishaw, and the latter has come to give the former a plane ticket to Shanghai and a small box of new toys. The inevitability of time ticks on through the scene: Q looks like he’s barely out of school, while Bond looks like he may qualify for an early-bird discount in the art gallery’s restaurant. Their talk is all experience versus innovation, age versus ability. Q claims he can do more damage on his computer before his first cup of Earl Grey than Bond can manage in the field in a whole year. Bond’s usefulness has been reduced to trigger-pulling. When Q hands him a case with a new pistol and a radio transmitter, Bond looks disappointed. “Were you expecting an exploding pen?” Q asks. “We don’t really go in for that any more.”