Last updated 13:55, Monday, 27 October 2008

CARDS on the table. You’re either really into Bond – or you’re really, really not. I’m really, really not.

Don’t care whether he’s a Connery, a Moore, a Brosnan or a Craig – 007 has never been and will never be my cup of shaken Martini.

So, there was no good reason why I should have tuned into – let alone enjoyed – Ian Fleming: Where Bond Began (BBC1) but oddly enough, both things happened.

Joanna Lumley had much to do with the appeal, obviously. Eternally fragrant and Bond girlish, even now in her middle years, she’ll remain a star until she’s supported by a turbo-powered zimmer.

But perhaps the real reason for interest lies in the fact that Fleming was always a more interesting, multi-layered character than the two-dimensional monster he and later movie-makers created.

His own intelligence background helped inspire the suave, flawed, womanising spy who became such an icon of British cinemas.

But that 007 was spawned somewhat idly and probably with tongue firmly planted in his creator’s cheek as he lazed a bit under a stickily humid Jamaican sun, adds an awful lot more fascination to Fleming than Bond ever deserved.

For unfathomable reasons it held my attention. Not a world- beating programme by any means – in fact probably little more than another excuse to plug the release of another mediocre movie with a seriously bad title.

But I would think that – since I’m really, really not into Bond.