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Licence To Queer covers queer aspects of Bond books, video games and more. Search here for your favourite titles and characters or find content related to particular queer identities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, etc).
Why Bond fans - of all ages - should read Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
I’ve spoken with so many avowed fans of Fleming – people who have read all fourteen Bond books cover to cover ad infinitum – who have never even picked up a copy of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, let alone read one. Why?
‘Time To Donate’ - Licence to Queer’s 2024 charity fundraiser
Over the last two years, the Licence to Queer community raised almost £4,000 for charity. This year we’re raising money to support the vital work of a charity whose mission is close to our hearts: PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide.
No Time To Diet: the menu for the Daniel Craig Bond movie marathon
Bond food expert Edward Biddulph has created the mouthwatering menu for this year’s fundraising marathon. There’s a dish representing every one of the Daniel Craig Bond films. Here are the five recipes…
A Spy Like Me - the official launch event
Kim Sherwood's A Spy Like Me had its official launch on Saturday 27th April at Dukes Hotel in London. It was my pleasure to be not only an organiser but also the emcee for the evening. The centrepiece of the event was a conversation between Kim and me with a follow-up Q&A. You can listen to a recording of that here!
Classified Chats with Kim Sherwood
In conversation with David Lowbridge-Ellis, Kim Sherwood uncovers everything you need to know about the writing of the addictively enjoyable Bond thriller, A Spy Like Me.
Book Review: A Spy Like Me
A Spy Like Me is that rare achievement, being both an addictively readable thriller and a work of great Literature (with a capital L). To the list of literary thriller writers begun by Fleming, which included Poe, Hammett, Chandler, Ambler and Greene, we can now add another: Sherwood.
Everything SHE touches turns to excitement!
On their most recent trip to Tokyo, David and Antony really didn’t expect to find themselves in a lesbian bar themed around James Bond. Nor could they quite believe it when the owner herself was up for being interviewed about her Bond fandom and how ‘women only’ carries a different meaning in Japanese culture.
Sir Hilary Bray Day - we have all the tweed in the world
On 1st April, we choose to wear tweed and raise money for charity in homage to brass rubbing enthusiast Sir Hilary Bray and the man who brought him to life - George Baker.
From a View to a Twill
According to Gentleman’s Gazette, "Tweed is as close to British national dress as you might get”, so it’s fitting that Bond, that other icon of Britishness with Scottish origins, has worn it on multiple occasions - on screen that is. In the books, Bond only wears tweed once. Why is this? Why does Fleming put his villains in the fabric but rarely his hero? And does Fleming’s own wardrobe give us any insights into how he felt about tweed?
Baker, Bond, Benson, Bray: a film by Kim Sherwood and David Lowbridge-Ellis
In this unique film, award-winning Bond author Kim Sherwood and Licence to Queer's David Lowbridge-Ellis sit down to watch together the Bond film appearances of Kim's grandfather, George Baker - the man who Fleming wanted to play Bond.
This dream is for us: celebrating a decade of same-sex marriage
On 29 March 2014, same-sex marriage became legally possible in England and Wales, something that nine-year-old David could never have fathomed happening back when he was perturbed by watching James Bond get married in You Only Live Twice. Having been happily married for almost all of the last decade himself, why does it still feel like he’s living in a dream?
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? Lifelong insomniac David Lowbridge-Ellis gets 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.