The Beatles’ first hit Love me Do, the first James Bond film Dr No plus the franchise, and I all turn 50 this year: 1962 was more memorable than I thought! Okay, no more feeding off reflected glory. Of the lot, it’s the Bond franchise that impresses me the most. u00a0After watching Skyfall, you have to admire the way the story about a misogynistic, violent, superior, witty, chauvinistic British spy has retained the world’s interest and reinvented itself long after his creator and the great empire he sought to protect have become dust.

Skyfall, more than any other Bond film in recent times, is a British film. In fact, they should have released it somewhere around those jubilee celebrations and the London Olympics —, which would have made the queen-jumping-off-a-helicopter stunt at the opening ceremony like the film’s premiere. They had Daniel Craig anyway. Much of the film takes place in London and the dramatic end is in Scotland.