Blinds for Bond

“Do you expect me to talk?”

The world is prepped and excited for another Bond outing, this year. The teaser trailer for his latest film, Spectre, was released a few weeks ago, and promises to be one of the finest releases ever in the 007 catalogue, which is now in its 53rd year of cinema.

One of the staples of Bond from the very beginning are the beautiful women, who, no matter how tough or independent, invariably needs rescuing by the film’s main protagonist. However, Spectre promises to strike a blow for feminists everywhere, as the leading lady is set to be the oldest in history to take the ‘Bond girl’ role. Monica Bellucci is 50 years old, but that isn’t stopping her from starring opposite Daniel Craig in the new movie.

Being a bunch of Bond fanatics here at Roman Blinds Direct, we can’t wait to see the latest release! We are super excited to check out the ever-present menacing villain with a psychotic master-plan; the cool cars and thrilling action scenes. But what we always get most excited about are the incredible gadgets, which seem to get more and more high-tech and impressive with each film.

It was this element of James Bond which got us thinking: what does 007’s house look like? Does he live in an ordinary residential area? Does he have a swanky city pad? Maybe a huge country retreat? Or maybe he doesn’t actually have a fixed abode and just resides in the finest hotels in the world.

That begs another question: how many gadgets does Mr Bond have in his home? Does he retreat to a quiet haven away from the laser beam watches and exploding suitcases; or is his kettle equipped with a radio transmitter and does his bath possess the ability to become a nuclear shelter? Either way, our natural knee-jerk reaction was to consider how high-tech his window furnishings are.

It’s easy to imagine that Mr Bond has amassed quite a sizable amount of enemies in his lengthy career (just which moisturiser does he use to keep him looking so youthful after 50 years?), so inevitably, his home must be as impregnable as Fort Knox. We came up with a few suggestions for blinds that would be fitting of a secret agent…

Bulletproof blinds

Probably the most iconic James Bond car is the Aston Martin DB5, which made an appearance in both Goldfinger and the sequel, Thunderball. This car was jam-packed with all the famous gadgets; smoke screen, oil slick, machine guns in the headlights and of course the infamous ‘ejector seat’. Not forgetting the bulletproof screen at the back of the car – would it be ludicrous of 007 to give Q a call to see if the same could be applied to his house’s windows?

As well as being a fantastic defense mechanism against vengeful henchmen, a set of bulletproof blinds would also work wonders at both keeping his home cool and blocking out as much light as possible.

One-way blinds

An ideal method for making intruders believe that you are tucked up and fast asleep in bed, but in fact being perfectly prepared for an attack. It’s amazing Q Branch haven’t already brought this idea into the board room. Is there a better defense mechanism to protect a secret agent than having a set of roman blinds that allow them to see out but not allow enemies to see in? Plenty of room to be stylish in the design, too!

Microphone blinds

Perfect for recording incriminating events and radioing HQ to report all is well. It’s easily done: it looks like a simple roman blind, but the fabric is in fact a microphone, maybe with a video camera concealed in the pull chord…

Parachute blinds

This one kind of speaks for itself, but how many times has Mr Bond had to make an unannounced drop into enemy territory from the sky? Or how many times has he had to make a premature exit from an aeroplane that is making a nose-dive for the Atlantic? We all remember him and the Queen parachuting into the Olympic ceremony in 2012, don’t we? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if he only had to pull a parachute out of his window before every trip? It would save a lot of time!

Guillotine blinds

You can see where we’re going with this one… we’re sure the writers would be able to work this in, somewhere. If they can concoct a story-line that involves James Bond riding part of a rocket car as a surf board along a tsunami while being chased by a huge laser beam, surely it’s not beyond their reach to write a scene where he decapitates an anonymous henchman with his window furnishings…

(We’d love to say we were joking about that last statement, but we weren’t. Just look…)