The Rest Is Entertainment - James Bond: Sex, Spies and Soggy Towels (Ep1)

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Ian Fleming was a former spy, proud philanderer and true upper-class bon vivant - who better to write the ultimate spy thriller? Welcome to the definitive podcast series on the story of James Bond, hosted by Richard Osman and Marina Hyde. Our first chapter follows the life of Ian Fleming, from his hell-raising days at Eton to extreme S&M escapades. The Rest is Entertainment is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain's most awarded energy supplier. Lloyds. 250 years on and still backing the nation's aspirations. Join The Rest Is Entertainment Club: Unlock the full experience of the show – with exclusive bonus content, ad-free listening, early access to Q&A episodes, access to our newsletter archive, discounted book prices with our partners at Coles Books, early ticket access to live events, and access to our chat community. Sign up directly at therestisentertainment.com Summer sale is here: get an annual membership for a third off with code SUMMER26. That's ad-free listening, every bonus episode, and full access to our exclusive members' series. Sale ends August 31st, so grab it before summer's over. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com Video Editor: Imee Marriott Assistant Producer: Imee Marriott Senior Producer: Joey McCarthy Social Producer: Bex Tyrrell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The name's Hyde, Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osmond. I'm just a guy here where it's in the office. Now, for our club members, we've recorded the first chapter in our most ambitious bonus series yet. The definitive, yes, definitive story of Britain's finest cultural export, James Bond. Yes, we track the publishing and cinematic phenomenon from its inception through all the actors that are played 007 to the takeover by the real-life super villain Jeff Bezos. We begin our first chapter with The Tale of Bond's Creator, the Philofer. landering, chain smoking, sex-obsessed, spy-turned writer Ian Fleming. And it's ahead of a story. This first episode is free for everyone and you're going to love it.

But the rest is strictly classified. Join us for the rest of the series by heading to therestesentertainment.com. And if you act fast, you can take full advantage of our summer sale on annual memberships with the code summer 26. Act quick and head to the rest isentertainment.com. And this advert is for your eyes only, unless you're in audio, in which case, it's for your ears only, which they have. have yet to make. The rest is entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, one talent can make a career. Three usually gets you an official title. Yep, and that official title is a triple threat. You call triple threat anyone who can act, sing and dance. Now, these days, three can seem almost

modest. The same person might write, direct, produce and have another career on the side. J.Lo would be a triple threat, huge music career, started as a dancer, huge acting career as well. It's an amazing talent to be able to have. And now drinks mogul as well. Is she? You have to be the mogul now. I think the mogul is always the third thing now. So she's a quadruple threat. Yeah, I sing, I act and I have a lifestyle portal. But that phrase all singing all dances, it escaped entertainment and now is used for anyone and anything that does several jobs very well all at once. Which is a pretty fair description of Octopus. It's the UK's largest energy supply at one of the country's biggest installers of heat pumps, solar panels and batteries, and it runs a major

electric car leasing business for good measure. I mean, that's a quadruple threat, isn't it? Yeah, that's a quadruple threat. The year is 1952. We are in Orca Bessa, Jamaica. A 43-year-old man, slightly down on his luck, soon to marry his pregnant fiancé. Looking for ways to support his upcoming family, he decides to write a spy adventure novel. Our man sits down at his desk.

and begins typing. He has no plan. He has no notes. Just memories from his unusual life and career. And this 43-year-old man was Ian Fleming. Welcome to our special series on the history of James Bond. I am so looking forward to these. I am so looking forward to these. Now you have to introduce yourself, though. The name's Hyde. Marina Hyde. Oh, interesting. I'm Richard Osmond. Hi, everybody. Well, I'd be like your second in command. I wouldn't get any kind of, I wouldn't even have a double O. You'd be an amazing, like, ahead of the British Secret Service. That's not what we're talking about, though.

We are talking about James Bond, one of the longest running, highest grossing media franchises of all time, a multi-billion dollar media portfolio, 25 official films, grossing close to 8 billion, over 50 books by 10 different authors now, plus multiple spin-off series. The original 14 Ian Fleming novels sold 100 million copies between them, over 30 video games, comic strips, reality TV competitions,

music basically is its own genre. Bond as a prefix to theme, girls and villains, all instantly recognisable. James Bond, we know what it is. Marina, where did it all begin? Well, it all comes from Ian Fleming. Now, he's born in May 1908. He's very much a product of the British establishment. The son of a conservative MP, Valentine Fleming,

and he's the grandson of a sort of self-made millionaire merchant banker. So far so relatable. Yeah. So, yes. But he's also sort of the black sheep of his family and pretty self-sabotaging. He's the younger brother to Peter Fleming. And he follows Peter to Eton in 1921. But he's in the shadow of his brother there.

Have you ever seen the pictures of him at Eton? He's so good looking. The brother? No, Ian. So you think he's good looking when he was at Eton? Yeah. Okay. Different time.

It was a different time. It was a different time. I think you'd have been okay with it. He didn't last at Eton, is that right? He didn't last. He doesn't last the full misses a term, but he can't sort of compete academically with Peter. So he focuses on his kind of wit and his style. He consciously wastes all academic potential.

His housemaster objected to his attitude, hair oil, ownership of a car and relations with women. There's a sort of mutual agreement that he leaves Eaton a term. It's weird that he ended up inventing James Bond. No, I don't know where he got it all from. Then I think he, but then he goes to Sandhurst. Does he fairly better there? Well, they try and straighten him out by sending him to say. That'll do it. You're going to military school, that old chestnut. And they think, and he was, he was told that he would make a good soldier if the ladies don't ruin him. But unfortunately, he then has to leave because he contracts a case of gonorrhea.

Oh, Ian. That's literally, what did I just say? What did I just tell you? That's the last thing we wanted to happen. His despairing mother thinks, right, I'm going to send you to some sort of private finishing school in Austria in 1927. He's 19 at this point. And it's run by a former British spy and his novelist wife. And it's here that he finally starts engaging with education, but it's really too late for him to kind of rise through the ranks via the traditional channels like going into the foreign office or whatever. So he has to get on by the wit he's been cultivating. So again, we're looking backwards. It's 2020 hindsight, isn't it?

But he's a guy born into a certain world, absolutely kind of trading on his good looks, his wit, his charm, thrown out of somewhere, obviously a maverick. and then, funnily enough, just at this important age, there enters a former spy and a novelist. Yeah. I mean, it's all there, isn't it? And he starts to think, okay, I can get it together in some sort of a way. And his first job is at Reuters, the news agency, and he gets it in 1929.

And he does mostly desk work. So reports come in, and then you have to refile them and put them out on the wires, and he does it very well. It's when he finally gets given the job as a foreign correspondent that he comes into his own. He sent to Russia in 1933 to cover the Metro Vickers affair, which is a court case concerning six British engineers who'd been arrested and were being tried on espionage charges. Which is a sort of perfect Bond story. But I think because at that stage, he's very much the youngest, is you not, of all the people there. He's 24.

He's 24. But I think he found ways to stand out, did he not? In anything like that, there would have been loads of foreign stringers covering all of it. And somehow he has to stand out. So he becomes famed for sort of embellishing copy. I have to say there's a huge amount of Boris Johnson's stuff. Do you know what? The whole way through when we're talking you think, yep, that's Boris.

Yeah. I mean, listen, there are differences. But you know, good looking, like I said. Anyway, there's a lot of local colour, which he's probably all made up all of it. He also thinks, right, how am I going to make sure my copy is the first to be filed? Because you have such an advantage. If yours is the first stuff that drops, then people are probably just going to use that. He would hire Messenger Boys to stand underneath the courtroom window.

so he could just drop his finish copy down to them and then they could run to the cable shop and wire it. Instead of having to walk out of the whole court building and do it. Isn't there a story as well as even more Boris Johnson. Boris Johnson famously writing is two opinions about Brexit. I think Fleming beat him by a few decades on that. Yes, he would involve writing out all the possible outcomes. And then so he'd have it ready to go of a trial and he'd have it ready to go. Actually, some sports reporters still do that now.

and he'd have the right right one ready to go. But also, remember, it had to go through the Russian census. So he had this other scheme, which he got them to pre-approve all these pre-written things, which was supposed to cover all the possible outcomes. And so he'd say, I promise I'll file the correct one, but if I can have it pre-approved. So his stuff would come out quicker than anybody else. So at the moment, we have this guy. So foreign corresponders, I don't think it's any secret,

is sort of a world in which people from the security services are sometimes taken or sometimes sent. So when did the world of spying come knocking for him? Well, in 1939, the Navy is looking for extra staff because there's a war on. Honestly, they really need to. It's sort of like Hamleys at Christmas, isn't it? Yeah.

The Navy during a war. Yes, you hire a lot of people from public school. Exactly the same. Yeah, when I first worked with Simon Peck many, many, many years ago on a pilot that didn't see the light of day. He was working as a toy demonstrator at Hamneys. Yeah. Anyway, Rear Admiral John Godfrey,

who's the director of naval intelligence, feels that people from outside offer fresh perspectives. And he wants an assistant, and everybody says, all the different feelers he puts out, the answer comes back at the same time, hire Ian Fleming. God, that's a great reputation to have.

Fleming is hired, and he gets assigned to Room 39, is given a code name, F17. He's not a field agent. It sounds like he is one with that, but he's not. He's mostly a report. writer. So he's not really bond at all, but he's in that world. He's at a desk job. The agent's reports come in and have to go back to the chief, and he's the sort of middle person on that.

It's a sort of running joke that all he commanded were intrays, out trays, and ashtrays. But he's behind, I mean, certainly one very, very famous scheme. He used this creative imagination to improve the war effort. Yes, he did. He is the guy behind Operation Mincemeat. He wrote the songs. Yeah. In 1943, this is the attempt to hoax the Nazis. They dress a corpse in a marine uniform. They hide fake official papers and battle plans on it and they leave it where the Germans will find it. Then the Germans see the uniform and think,

oh my, and they've even got the battle plans. And then they treat the misinformation as valuable. So they know, in a way, what their enemy is going to do in advance. And it's an incredible story. So Ben McIntyre wrote a book about it, which is incredible. There's a movie about it, which Ian Fleming is in. And, of course, the musical, which has been enormous, which Ian Fleming is also in.

I think there's a more interesting scheme he comes up with. Operation Ruthless was one of his as well, wasn't it? Yes. Now, Operation Ruthless, this is an attempt to steal a German code-breaking machine. I love this story. If I was a spy, this was the sort of thing I'd come in on on the Tuesday. Yeah, I mean, this is sort of what you do do. I've had an idea. It is, yeah, it is a little bit. Okay, so his plan is get a German bomber plane, dress British agents up as German soldiers.

Then you have the plane tag along the end of a German bombing raid. Then you pretend to crash the plane into the channel. So other German planes send out an SOS on its behalf. Then when the German rescue boat comes to get to that plane's aid, the British soldiers hijack the ship and steal the Enigma machine that is aboard it. I cannot see a possible thing that could go wrong with that. The only thing was that they sadly cancelled it. Yes.

I think otherwise he would have aced it just like he did with Operation Mincemeat. Well, I think, I mean, I think if it has a flaw, if you're one of a squadron of German bombers, you probably know if there's five of you or six. of you. Like, sometimes there will be fewer of you coming back than they were going out. Well, you know why. Rarely going to be more of you coming back. How the heck did that happen? But it's a hell of a thought, isn't it? Yeah. But he, so he comes up with these kind of ambitious, barely plausible plots.

And he spends about six and a half years doing this. And what's his, what's his rank at the end of this? Commander. Commander. Commander. All the pieces are there. But then the war is won in 1945, so he's out of a job. And this is the point at which he thinks I'm going to buy a piece of land in Jamaica, which he loves. Which, by the way, is the sort of thing that someone without a job can do if they've been to Eaton.

Yes, yes. It's not a lot of people going, I think when my granddaughter came back from the war, he didn't have the option to buy a plot of land in Jamaica. And he builds Golden Eye, which is this amazing house. And he thinks I'm going to have my sort of winter bachelor pad out there. And he really, really was like one of London's most prolific bachelor's. It's interesting. I mean, there's one relationship that absolutely goes through his life,

which I think essentially had an affair with probably the wrong person, if I'm thinking of the right person, Anne. He has a relationship with Anne Charteris. She's a socialite, but she's already actually married to one of his friends, Shane O'Neill, and she's got two children with him. Anyway, they start this affair in 1936. But then Shane, her husband, is killed in action in World War II, so she wants to remarry, but Fleming finds the whole idea of marriage quite appalling.

So she does marry, but she marries, Esmond Harmsworth, basically Viscount Rothermear, the owner of the Daily Mail. Can I say give one piece of advice to Ian Fleming now? By the way, absolute sidebar, but Shane O'Neill and Anne Charteress's great-grandson is Fred again, the DJ. How about that? How about that? Give them your piece of advice. Yes.

Do not have an affair with the wife of the proprietor of the Daily Mail. And by the way, that's been good advice from 100 years ago all the way through to now. He still don't do it. He doesn't take it. He keeps going with this affair. And it's very, very scandalous because they're not very subtle about it. They keep going with this affair. And she goes out to Jamaica.

They're all these kind of, like, they barely try to hide it at all. And she's very well connected, right? She's in a sort of literary world. Because even though he has gone to Eaton, he is not from the absolute top, top draw. Okay. So she's friends with all people like, I don't know, Evelyn Warren, Somerset Mormon, Noel. had. Fleming really likes all that prestige and to be in that kind of artsy set.

And also he hadn't been in the world of writers before as well. So again, looking back with 2020 high sight, you see all, you know, he's a commander, he's just left the war, he's having this ridiculous affair, he's just been coming up with extraordinary stories and suddenly he's around writers as well. Yeah, their affair is sexually adventurous, if I may euphemise. People, when they go and stay at Golden Eyre, are always wondering why all the towels are wet. And it's because they used to use iced towels. because they were really into S&M and in order to sort of soothe all the welth marks, they needed a lot of iced towels. That is quite a lot to process.

It is quite a lot to process. And in fact, there's actually a whole cache of letters from between them. They wrote to each other obsessively all the time. There will be people listening to this. There will be people listening to going, I told you, when you were around down to John and Morines, there were loads of iced towels in the bathroom. The towels were freezing cold from where. They were absolutely freezing cold. Well, let me tell you what John and Morin were getting up to.

Let me voice it in Anne Rothermeier's voice. She said, it's very lonely not to be beaten and shouted at every five minutes. I must be perverse and masochistic to want you to whip me and contradict me, particularly as you are always wrong about everything. Anyway, they get along very well like this. And it becomes even more scandalous in sort of 1948. We're getting very close to the introduction in 1952 here. So in 1948, something happens.

In 1948, she becomes pregnant with Fleming's child. Actually, Rothermeier thinks it's his child. and very sadly the child is born prematurely and it dies after eight hours. This is a slightly unbelievable fact but here we go. Fleming and Rothermeier are on the golf course together at Glen Eagles while this child is born. I don't really not to say about that. And Rothermia always thought it was his child,

but he learns the truth in 1951 and divorce follows shortly after. And Anne becomes pregnant again and this time it's Fleming's and Fleming thinks, a very rare bout of conscience afflicts him and he thinks I better marry her. Anne says, he entered marriage with characteristic gloom and foreboding.

He told me, I can promise you nothing. I have not an admirable character. I have no money. I have no title. Marriage will be entirely what you can make it. Oh, be still my beating heart.

That's like Taylor Swift from Travis Kelsey's 20 minutes of vows, isn't it, from their golden book? So we find ourselves where we came in. In 1952, he's in Golden Eye, he's got a baby on the way, he's getting married in terms of the world that he's used to. And in terms of the wife that he's marrying, he does not have money. And so he sits down to right. This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's rewards. Now, a big mistake that people make is leaving the cinema as soon as the credits roll because there might be a bonus scene right at the end.

There might be one in the middle. Yeah, you never know. In Marvel ones, it used to be a mid-credit scene. and then there'll be an end credit scene. I remember the first one I really remember, well, too, I remember Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where he tells you to go home at the end, but also smoking in the bandit with Bert Reynolds,

where they would do bloopers. It just feels like a secret little glimpse into a different world. And it doesn't quite have to be over. Yeah, exactly. And it's just a lovely little added bonus. You've done everything. You've made your show. Right, you've given everyone everything.

It's just a lovely little extra. Which is also the idea behind Lloyd's rewards, extra value appearing inside something you were already doing anyway, your daily banking. From shopping to streaming, you can bank on Lloyds to help your money go further. It's rewards like this that make 14 million people bank on Lloyds. Search Lloyd's rewards in your app. Eligibility criteria, terms and conditions apply, retailer offers and cashback amounts may vary. UK residents 18 plus. I mean, again, the way he puts it is, yeah, it's the Travis vow here. I was on the edge of getting married and I was frenzied at the prospect of this great step in my life.

really wanted to take my mind off the agony, so I decided to sit down and write a book. Wow. Roughly the equivalent of digging a very large hole in the garden for the sake of the exercise. My God. I mean, when people say, you know, different ways, different reasons for writing a book or how you start, I mean, this is, there's many, many different ways. But this book becomes a big outlet for his libido and his imagination. But he is also trying to make a lot of money because she comes from people who have described her as unthinkingly rich, which I think is.

is quite a good description. So he has to make her a lot of money. But there's another angle that's still bubbling along, which is that he does always feel like second fiddle to his brother, Peter. Peter is an intelligence agent. He also writes books. And Ian Fleming's New York editor said he wrote because he got tired of being Peter Fleming's younger brother. He was determined that Peter Fleming should be known as Ian Fleming's elder brother.

And by God, he is. But we're not there yet. We're not. So he starts writing in 1952. Can I take you through Ian Fleming's writing? writing routine. It's the question people always ask about writers. So he starts writing sort of Jan Feb, 1952, just weeks before the wedding. His daily writing routine is a morning swim, which is all right if you're in Jamaica, before doing three hours of writing from nine

till 12, which about 2,000 words. That's quite like you. Really like me. I mean, apart from the swim. Yeah, I know. That's really, really like me. If you were in Jamaica, you'd do the swim. I would do two and a half hours in about 1,500 or 1750. So very, this is a first time. in this story, I felt any sort of kinship with Ian Flaming. It's the first time he's become less Boris Johnson and a bit more me. So he'd do that right for three hours. Then he would sunbathe until lunch. Yeah.

Then a little snooze. Again, absolutely on board with all of this. Return to his desk at about 5pm. Which, by the way, I would just say, somebody to lunch, then a little snooze. I mean, that's a long snooze if he returns to his desk at 5pm. But I digress. I'll do it. You know, he's taking the bins out or something.

Anything to not write. And then at 5pm, he looks over what he's done, improves it, makes it look better, fleshes it out or whatever. And at 6.30, he puts his papers away in time for a cocktail. And in little over a month, six days before he got married, he had finished the manuscript, 62,000 words. And that manuscript was called Casino Royale. Men, what's stopping you from doing this? Yeah, I would love it. 62,000 words I'd love.

I do 90,000. 60,000? I could knock that off before a wedding, I reckon. Anyway, so he's written this book, is Casino Royale. Can you please tell me about the plot of Casino Royale? Yes, I mean, sort of, I can. It comes, the broad idea comes to his days working in Navy Intelligence. In the book, he plays a high-states game of Baccarat

with the Smurrish official, Les Chifra, to try and bankrupt him, and therefore... The one played by Mads-Micklesing in the movie with the bloody tear. Exactly, but... Maybe the worst poker tell ever? Sorry, you're a high-stakes poker player, and you cry bloody tears when you're losing. Okay. But perhaps it's like a double bluff. Perhaps it's like, oh, he's crying blood again.

I think the crime blood is involuntary, but maybe not. Either way, Ian didn't know anything about Mads Mikulsen back then. No. So the idea is you bankrupt him, and therefore that's one of the key ways you get someone to come onto your side in spying is they need money. So it's essentially bankrupting someone so that they need money. And the real life incident happened at Casino Esterell in Portugal in 1941, as Fleming tells it, so probably not this. He had heard high-level Nazi spies playing the casino every night. so he began to fantasise about cleaning them out

and what good that would do for the war effort. So he took his plan to the table with only £50 of cash as a bankroll. But tried it three times and failed each time, therefore spending £150 of the British Army's money. However, because of the Official Secrets Act, we understand he wouldn't have actually told the truth. But there is an alternate story of a gambler. The gambling question was Disco Popoff, Serbian spy, British double agent,

who did exactly that and actually cleaned the Nazis out. So it was a real thing that happened to Fleming. in his telling he had done it in the truth he saw somebody else do it but either way it provides you with the plots or the central that's a Macuffin you try and bankrupt someone on a poker table and you can see from his upbringing everything that he has done up to that point there's a whole point with the first book

everything you've done you throw it all into one place and see what comes out at the other end which is exactly what he's doing his first story is absolutely written from life and in the real one Popov did play with Nazi officials used 38,000 pounds of stolen Nazi money to do it and wipe them all out and a humiliation them didn't bring them onto his side as a spy that wasn't the point of it but like oh good ideas takes two things i'll remember when you know we treated the Nazis out of all that money and remember the

idea that often people are seeking for money when they come over to your side puts them together and that's casino reaile for you now he has to name this spy something and he thinks i'm just i want it to be the most kind of unassuming boring name and he took it from an ornithology book the birds of the west indies he said i didn't want to call him sort of peregrine maltravers i wanted him to be unobtrusive and he thought James Bond was like a basic sort of almost John Smith type name. But isn't that interesting? That's the idea that really comes from understanding what that world is because anyone else who hadn't been in the spy world would have called imperilipment Maltravers, but he understands that the one thing you do is you don't stand out.

Yes. Now the drink that becomes very famous, the martini he orders in this book, he orders the Vesper and the actual recipe for a Vespa martini, if you've never had one, is three measures of Gordons, one of vodka, half a measure of Keenealili. and you shake it very hard until it's ice cold and then you have a large slice of lemon peel. He actually, as it turns out, you would think that Fleming would have been knocking these back all the time. He didn't actually like it.

He claimed that he only tried it after the book had been published and he thought, no, I can't stand this. But he wanted a sort of signature, what have you, and, you know. But something that there is in this, which is perhaps not to relate it too heavily back to the iced towels, but Le Schiff does torture Bond at one point, beating his testicles with a carpet beater. Okay, just like John and Maureen.

Just like John and Maureen. Fleming was always into S&M. And in fact, Blanche Blackwell, he was the mother of Chris Backwell, who founded Ireland Records. Of course. He would at this point ask her to whip him regularly and she didn't enjoy it at all. He did inscribe her copy of Dr. No,

saying, in exchange for much slave time. Oh, my God. Before we move on, this book is about to come out at Casino Royale. If we want to sort of understand how much hope everybody had for it, because don't forget people write books and they disappear or whatever. I mean, Ian Fleming's had a life where he sets his mind to something and they happen. But he's written this book. He has shown it to Anne.

Yeah. This is the plan. Anne, this is how we're going to make our money. This is how I'm going to keep in the start to which I'm accustomed. And I think he offered to dedicate it to her. Is that right? Yes. And Anne says, you do not dedicate a book like this to anyone.

People tell him not to publish it. They think it's really out there. So that's where we are. We're in 1952. He's written the book. I wonder what's going to happen next. Will you please join us next time to discover where this thing goes?

And by the way, we're doing a whole series of these. We're going through all the different bonds, the whole lot, the movies, the actors. But it's fun to start with Ian Fleming. He's such a fun character. He's an incredible character. And he has got a lot more to give us next time as well. He's got so much to give.

Thank you so much for joining us members. we will see you for chapter two next week. See ya.