Times were clearly hard at MI6 during the 1990s. M had to make endless series of As Time Goes By, James Bond had to pretend to be a rich playboy committing audacious art heists and even Miss Moneypenny had to appear in an episode of Inspector Morse to make ends meet.

Hit hardest of all, however, was the venerable Q. The poor old bugger was reduced to flogging his gadgets to Scandinavian television to make ends meet.