Welcome to the third CSB podcast, in which Lloyd and Tim take to the open road – or rather the somewhat congested A20. We’re following the route taken by James Bond in Ian Fleming’s Moonraker, travelling (at about half Bond’s speed) between central London and Kingsdown, the supposed location of the Moonraker rocket base.
We speed our way to the precise locations of two major car crashes in the book, puzzle over Fleming’s (and Bond’s) obsession with the Ashford Bypass, and end up at Fleming’s not-so-glamourous 1950s beach-side residence where Katherine Hepburn – among others – was known to enjoy a swim.
Each month we road-test a work of fiction that appears to be curiously specific about dates and locations. We go to the places mentioned and see if descriptions are accurate, journey-times credible, dates and days all in order.
Sources & credits
Music
Madness: Driving In My Car – youtu.be/rV1_7R_3cXA
Count Basie: Bond Theme – youtu.be/Zrl_AM2YwGo
Count Basie: 007 – youtu.be/9Rq2TsP9wss
Shirley Bassey: Moonraker – youtu.be/gt3oQN0cAv0
Shirley Bassey: Moonraker (Disco Version) – youtu.be/V4K5-WmMN-I
Links:
The Roader’s Digest – www.sabre-roads.org.uk/wiki/index.ph…tle=Main_Page
Ian Fleming’s James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming’s Bond Stories by John Griswold – www.amazon.co.uk/Ian-Flemings-Jam…es/dp/1425931006
The Curiously Specific Book Club 
This was excellent. Picked it up from Spybrary.com this morning and I happened to be driving near Charing Hill when listening in the car so had to divert my route to listen to your chat and drive the scene.
I must drag the Mrs to St Margaret’s Bay at some point.
I read Moonraker to inspire for my own Cold War thriller set at High Down (Britain’s real rocket site on the Isle of Wight)
Good work chaps – moving on to the Secret Agent.
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Thanks David – and thanks for the Spybrary tip too.
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