Advertise on podcast: 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. Alex has been practising meditation for years. Here, he helps David unpick his remaining misconceptions.Alex brings the meditation expertise, David brings the Bond links. This is a fun one, which is also quite practical: Alex guides David through some meditation exercises live. Why not have a go at joining in?You can watch episodes of On Our Minds Only? in any order. After this, you may also want to check out Alex's earlier appearances in episodes 002: COMBATTING ANXIETY and 008: WHAT'S KEEPING YOU AWAKE?

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 Onatopp of things? Will he leave it up to a Russian computer programmer to save the day while he runs off to have a messy break up with his best mate? And will we ever get to the bottom of why 007 spends so much time hanging around in men’s bathrooms?"

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, the more we find he’s someone who - like many of us - feels a disconnect with the world around him. And yet, Bond is also someone who can help us feel like we belong. David first got to know Craig he was seeking to find a home for his emotionally raw article about the divisive reaction to No Time To Die - and what it meant for him personally.  https://www.licencetoqueer.com/blog/no-crying-shame This article touched on elements of his childhood, which he unpacks in detail for the first time here… When he was nine years old, Craig Gent found himself living in a refuge for families experiencing domestic violence. Out of necessity, he had to grow up pretty quickly. Cut off from his previous life, he formed a deep connection with Bond through watching the films over and over again on VHS tapes. As an adult, Craig’s love for Bond has not abated, although it’s faced some challenges over the years. Craig hates it when people attempt to apply reductive labels to Bond - ‘sexist’ ‘nationalistic’ ‘heterosexist’. Bond is simply more complex than that - and more interesting. David and Craig debate the extent to which Bond can be considered an insider or an outsider; a figure of the Establishment or someone who is anti-Establishment. Ultimately, Craig argues, Bond works best when he’s irreverent, showing a comforting lack of respect for people in authority and the institutions they represent. Craig Gent is the co-host of the Heart Reacts podcast: https://shows.acast.com/heart-reacts He is the author of the book Cyberboss: The Rise of Algorithmic Management and the New Struggle for Control at Work (Versio Books, 2024) Craig has also authored another brilliant piece for Licence to Queer about the toys and the formative effects they have on us: https://www.licencetoqueer.com/blog/made-for-action 

“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 - when we’re feeling emotional vulnerable. Upfront, Tim - who is an actor by profession - shares his own experiences of depression and self-harm. Tim connects this with how Fleming was invested in Bond’s mental health and how this has sometimes been translated into the films, including an interesting presentation of self-harm in Skyfall. For many of us, Bond is such a relatable hero - this can be both a positive and negative thing. Tim is a big film buff and 2006’s Casino Royale is the film out of all the thousands he admires which has had the very positive impact on him, encouraging him to be a more outgoing person. Conversely, No Time To Die had a negative impact on his own mental health. And what about the Bonds beyond Craig? Can they help us eliminate problems in our own life? Find Timothy on Instagram: timothystyleactor and X: TimStylesActor

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.licencetoqueer.com/blog/whats-keeping-you-awake-james-bonds-battles-with-sleep

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 for six years! Michael tells the full story here for the first time. Michael also shares how it feels to be such an integral part of what he calls 'the Bondiverse', relates his own Bond beginnings (including his experiences of reading Fleming for the first time) and how his work has been influenced by the places he’s lived, the music he loves and the Bond cover artists who came before him.

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 not looking. On the occasions where we do see Bond waking up, it’s usually because he’s been drugged or knocked unconscious. But this is a different story in the books. David has gone back through Fleming’s 14 Bond books and found there are more than 400 direct references to sleep - that’s more than 30 per book! Might this suggest that Fleming himself had an interesting relationship with sleep that he transposed into his character? There are definite patterns across the books, which David guides us through here, highlighting particularly intriguing examples from Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, From Russia, With Love and Thunderball. Is there anything from the Bond films and the Fleming books we can use to help us address our own sleep problems? Both Alex and David have wrestled with sleep issues their entire lives, including experiencing prolonged periods of insomnia. But there are differences… Alex is a night owl, an evening person, someone who has no issue being wide awake really late at night. David is the opposite, a lark, who is mentally and physically most alert early in the morning. Although neither Alex nor David are sleep scientists (and sleep science as an academic discipline is still very new!), both have put in a lot of effort to resolving their sleep issues, including reading some of the same books - sometimes with different results! Here, both talk through the approaches they’ve tried and tested over the years and reveal how they have reframed their relationships with sleep. Sleep hygiene is key for both of them. How does alcohol, caffeine and what we do in the hour before bed make a difference? Alex and David also tackle: Why is it important to know your chronotype (night owl/morning lark, etc)? How does insomnia relate to anxiety? What happens if we never sleep? (Like Gustav Graves in Die Another Day) Should we be concerned if we don’t dream? If we experience night terrors (like Bond does in the books) how can we deal with these? What are the ups and downs of sleeping pills? (There are a lot of them in Fleming!) How do sleep rhythms differ internationally? Why is jet lag so evil? What’s the sun got to do with sleep? Why is it sometimes more difficult to sleep in hotels than home? How does Fleming’s Bond always wake up on time without an alarm clock? And what is his standard wake up time? What chronotype does that make him?

“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 becoming far more involved in the Bond community. John also has a rare life-threatening heart condition. Here, he speaks openly about the feelings of grief he had after being diagnosed with the condition and how he approached making what changes he could to how he lived his life. A lot of mental health difficulties stem from a feeling of being out of control, so we should try to focus on the things we can control. John uses two Bond films as a metaphor for how to approach the things life throws at us: we can be like Bond in Goldfinger and be the passive recipient of things happening to us or we can be like Bond in Quantum of Solace and continually adapt, creating new opportunities. Although John speaks very candidly about his specific circumstances, he urges us to focus on the things all of us can control in all aspects of our lives. While talking with John, David retrospectively realises he took this approach during the worst phase of his life - where negative thought patterns threatened to takeover - and it ultimately made him a much happier person. John goes on to explain how he learned to defuse negative thoughts. It takes effort, but it’s worth it! Finally, David and John discuss the extent to which Bond provides us with a fantasy of control. Find John on Instagram: @writerjohnable And check out his works on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/212Opi02PNbO64xqRRIytx?si=b8ac940c3bab4a56

“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 important to have a positive mental attitude.” This can be easier said than done however! So positive is Vinnie online that you might be surprised to learn about the challenges he has overcome and continues to battle in his everyday life. This is the first time Vinnie has opened up publicly about these and how he is learning to cope with them.  Diagnosed with autism and ADHD early in life, Vinnie talks candidly about how, like Bond, he felt like he didn’t fit in. Two decades down the line, he shares his thoughts about combatting negative self-talk, taking advice from family and friends, how it’s important to live life at your own pace and learning to own your uniqueness. You can follow Vinnie on X @Harris94Vinnie and Instagram @mrharris00794

“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 reinforcements? And how do we find the words when social norms tell us to keep things inside, especially if we’re men? All of these questions and more get answers in this chat, which has its origins off the back of a heated Bond Book club debate. When they got together, now over a year ago, to discuss Natasha’s first reading of Fleming’s Casino Royale, David and Natasha had wildly diverging views of the character of Bond: Natasha felt Bond was too needy and ‘unmasculine’ whereas David found his vulnerability role model-worthy. With unflinching honesty, Natasha traces her ideas about masculinity back to early childhood, when she formed a fantasy of the ideal man being of the ‘Alpha’ variety. A defining moment of Natasha’s childhood was her mother - an incredibly strong woman - having a nervous breakdown. This formed her earliest ideas about mental health. Her self-created ‘inner steel’ helped steer her through very difficult times, including finding herself unexpectedly pregnant while at university. And then, two decades later, a shocking tragedy completely shook Natasha’s foundations and upended her perspective on masculinity and mental health. “Boys will smile, even when they’re in complete turmoil.” - Natasha Stone A mother of four boys and one girl, Natasha shares her insights into the importance of communication for ensuring mental wellbeing, particularly for young men. David opens up about the ways we can make a difference, using examples from his professional life as an educator. Ultimately, they agree that the key is finding a middle ground between being self-reliant and knowing when to call for support. They link everything back to Bond books and films, and specifically the song ‘You Know My Name’. Finally, they share some pearls of wisdom from Bond Girl/force of nature Martine Beswicke. Natasha mentions fundraising for mental health charity CALM, which you can find out more about here: https://www.thecalmzone.net/

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 adverse experiences. Rarely are real life problems as easy to ‘eliminate’ as they are in the world of Bond. But that shouldn’t prevent us from trying. John was eager to come onto On Our Minds Only? and we’re so glad he did. The story of John’s mental heath journey is a gripping one - and it has the power to change lives. Both had no idea how this conversation would unfold. They start by introducing the topics of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)… and then (a bit like episodes of ‘Really, 007!’) things take off in unexpected directions… We won’t spoil it here, but instead urge you to hit PLAY and let John’s story unfold in its entirety. A sneak preview: It begins with an eleven year old John having his world view turned upside down by a viewing of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. We move on to nineteen year old John experiencing a significantly traumatic incident which was to reverberate through his whole life ever afterwards… With great vulnerability, John doesn’t hold back from sharing what happened when he hit rock bottom. But this is ultimately an incredibly hopeful story. John made a life-changing decision to devote a lot of his time to helping others, using what he’d learned about himself. Along the way, John and David relate everything back to Bond. This includes their own deeply personal takes on Licence to Kill and Skyfall. Although this episode is longer than the others in this series, you will definitely want to watch the whole thing. Let us know what you think.

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 us can relate to. For many readers - young adult or older - reading this novel will be an intensely validating experience. I devoured it in one sitting, propelled by the narrative and characters. What I did not expect to happen was to find myself at the end sobbing tears of queer joy. The day after reading A Different Kind of Brave, I chatted with Lee about his own history with Bond (the book is crammed with 007 detail!) and what motivates him to writes books which have the potential to change lives. One of my own motivations for chatting with Lee was to find out how we could get as many people as possible to get hold of a copy of A Different Kind of Brave. You can pickup the paperback from all online retailers. But Lee has also created a really Kickstarter for the hardback. For everyone who pledges for a gorgeous hardback edition of the book the publisher will give a paperback copy to queer youth! You can find out more here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/leewind/exclusive-collectors-hardcover-of-a-different-kind-of-brave

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 (Instagram @gilbert_posters) but he also designs cars for a living! Fleming originally commissioned his automotive engineer friend Amherst Villiers (namechecked in the early Bond books) to draw Chitty but his rendering was never used. So this edition marks the first time an actual car designer has illustrated the book! Thomas's dynamic artwork perfectly complements Fleming's vivacious prose and brings us a Chitty quite unlike anything we've had before. Here, he takes us behind the scenes, explaining his process from start to finish, showing us how he decided what to illustrate and how he did it. We get to see the early work Thomas did for the book, months before it became the finished article. Along the way, Thomas and David discuss the various influences on the book's art, which include film noir, a classic 80s movie and a Fleming Bond novel - Thomas's favourite Bond novel in fact. Thomas and David also talk about where their creative sparks come from and why it's a good idea to say 'Yes!' to adventures which take you out of your comfort zone! Following Thomas on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/gilbert_posters/