Live and let die

There is a quantum of solace for Britain's sexiest superspy amid the current financial crisis that has shelved the latest James Bond movie. The travails that the world has gone through since his last outing in 2008 could spur a dozen new storylines, benefiting even this canned movie as it is still noncommitally called Bond 23'. The potentially villainous protagonists thrown up recently are innumerable, so 007 can bestir himself, shake off his martini hangover, polish his Walther PPK and reactivate his licence to kill. When there's trouble at HQ — not with M but with MGM — leading to the shelving of his golden jubilee year film, the man who has vanquished evil brains such as Blofeld and Goldfinger has to take matters in hand. It just won't do for the superspy to be laid low by a Dr No; he has to take on the 21st century members of SPECTRE, the SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion.

The choice of modern avatars of Bond's old powerhungry foes is wide: a crazed Wall Street manipulator bent on world dominance — by destroying the US economy with a devilish sub-prime lending scheme; a shadowy hedge fund operator shorting stocks around the globe, private equity players over-leveraging key companies (with key points gleaned from MGM's current troubles on the same count) to trigger a world-wide crisis , a cabal of machinating bankers accumulating damaging debt burdens and then blackmailing governments to part with billions to prevent an economic catastrophe, sinister scamsters luring investors and audiences into an addictive new game and then systematically subverting it to amass billions. After all, the heady mix of big money, highrollers, devastating secret weapons, helpless governments and, of course, bootylicious babes has worked before for Bond.