'
'Our next blockbuster will be based on a real-life drama,' said a spokes-clapper board for the Bond franchise. It will have 007 travelling across five continents, jumping out of helicopters and dodging laser beams by millimetres, to capture two people alleged to have spied against Britain for China.'
'There's a fascinating plot twist when it turns out he may as well not have bothered, because they get let off.'
The ending is, indeed, the dampest squib ever to have been inflicted on the film-going public, as a chinless wonder from the Foreign Office persuades the Crown Prosecution Service to abandon the case.
'It would have meant the government saying in open court that China is our enemy, M tells Bond. 'But we can't have that. Otherwise, the Chinese might get upset and treat even more horribly than they do now.
'But thank you ever so much for risking your life yet again in the defence of Britain, 007.'
'What's the point?" Bond replies, ripping up his licence to kill. "Whatever is the sodding point any more?'
The new Bond movie, "On Her Majesty's Spineless Service", won't be opening at a Crown Court near you.
