David Leigh, is the Founder and Editor of The James Bond Dossier, one of the oldest blogs dedicated to the lifestyle of both the cinematic and literary British super spy.
In an episode of the From Tailors With Love podcast I spoke to David Leigh about how it all began for him.
David Leigh, how did you get into James Bond?
The official version is that I picked up a copy of Casino Royale on my dad’s book shelf aged 8. I loved it. about the same time a school friend showed me his Corgi Aston Martin DB5 so I had to have one and bought one for 99p.
About the same time The Man with the Golden Gun was on the same screen and my dad took me to that and I was hooked.
I’ve mainly been interested in the literary bond rather than the films. I gave up on the films. I saw the Pierce Brosnan ones and they didn’t do much for me. Daniel Craig came on and went back to basics. That hooked me back into films.
How did the website The James Bond Dossier begin?
It launched in 2002 and I had worked in the internet industry for a few years. I saw the internet was going to be a huge thing and change the way we lived.
There was a kid at school he borrowed a book from his dad which was a Book of Bond. A tongue-in-cheek James Bond lifestyle book basically that Kinsgley Amis wrote under the pseudonym Bill Tanner.
It takes you through his lifestyle, clothing, smoking, women, etc. There was a website at the time called commanders.com and they put that book online some time in the 90s.
I wanted more from the book than it gave so the idea was to focus on the book, but go into much more depth. I partially achieved that at the beginning.
How does the site function these days?
These days I don’t update it very much. It took up some serious hours. I was pushing out an article or two articles every week. Thats not sustainable if you’re trying to do something else in life. These days I do try and once a couple of month add some content. I also like to have guest contributors.
And the James Bond Newsletter works how?
The newsletter goes out once a month. Basically it gets auto compiled everything that has gone out on the website the previous month. I take that and try turn it into something interesting.
And what is your relationship like with EON?
EON has a list of websites who they consider to be influencers. We get asked to promote various things. There is no real relationship, we’re just part of the publicity machine. Small cogs in it.
Listen to the podcast
You can download the full interview of the podcast (episode 12) on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify. Or listen in the player below.
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