OK hands up, I’ve been a bit tardy with the references to our old mate James Bond.

The film is wonderfully vague, but in the book JB follows Goldfinger from Orléans to Nevers, then south to Moulins, here they hang a left on the N79 towards Macon.

Now Ian Fleming must have been in dream world when he wrote that bit, because the times are impossible to do even today, let alone in 1959 when the book was first published. The book tells us that JB watches Goldfinger eat a picnic lunch at 13:00, then Bond recovers a gold bar that Goldfinger hides by the road, JB follows Goldfinger to Macon, buys lunch for himself, runs into Tilly Masterson’s car, picks her up, motors on towards Switzerland and has lunch himself at the pass before the Swiss boarder! His Aston must have been fitted with warp drive!

Well today, we are pretty much faithfully following that route from Macon. Hold on tight and we will find out how long it takes!

Saddle up baby, ride on next to me.

Dookes