Harry Palmer has a lot to contend with. Unlike the suave and aesthetically pre-programmed 007, he tends to shed blood, and even if he does compete reasonably successfully with M15’s blue eyed boy in matters of a carnal persuasion, the chances of his hush puppies getting submerged in one of London’s overflowing drains tends to downgrade his face value considerably. What he needs is a break from the testosterone, the obligations to red meat, and spirits with the potency to strip paint from a Neo-Classical relic hanging in a lonely Whitehall corridor. A female soul mate, now that might bring some colour back to those dour sardonic cheeks, one that he can hold close to that swinging brick of his in the bleakest depths of Winter, in crumby asbestos cursed faux Albanian jailcells, or on the backseat of a blood red double decker meandering through the grim drizzle of Westminister. That’s when Rebecca came along, like an angel from a searing blue horizon, and at last John Barry was relieved of the burden, the changing of the guard was not a moment too soon…