Barry Humphries, Oldie columnist, described Craig Brown as "the most screamingly funny living writer".
Craig was the leading satirist for The Daily Telegraph, Mail and Mail on Sunday and writes the parody diaries for Private Eye.
He has then had an incredibly brilliant second life writing biographical books: Ma'am Darling - a hilarious royal biography about Princess Margaret. and his book about The Beatles: 150 Glimpses. His next biographical subject is The Queen. Today, he spoke to us about his latest book of journalistic writings, Haywire.
Craig Brown explained the meaning of his latest book Haywire, "I think most people in this room have reached the age when they think the world has gone haywire".
This realisation came to Craig when he set about writing a literary quiz. He wrote all the obvious categories and then thought, how about middle names of fictitious characters? What was the middle name of James Bond?
After all, James Bond went to Eton and all Etonians have odd middle names. Ian Fleming's middle name was....Lancaster. Boris Johnson's middle name is...de Pfeffel.
So how about James Bond's middle name? Craig did what all great researchers do these days and looked it up on Google. 2,020,000 views came up and the answer showed up as....Herbert. As Craig searched a myriad of other websites to check if this was absolutely true, he reached an educational children's website, which confirmed the middle name for James Bond was indeed Herbert and the source of this information was....Craig Brown.
It turned out that, 15 years beforehand, Craig had written a piece on 15 things you didn't know about James Bond, for the Telegraph.
James Bond's middle name was revealed in On His Majesty's Secret Service when Bond is being held in a raffia-work cage, suspended over a pool of piranha fish, whilst the villain Dr. Peevish taunts him, saying "Herbert, Herbert, Herbert" over and over again. Bond says, "Kill me please, just kill me". Bond escapes but sees Dr. Peevish's Christian name on a laundry basket and says, "Do your worst...Clarence". Bond escapes as Peevish covers his ears in torment.
"The next items on the 15 things you didn't know about James Bond list was that his sister Jenny is the Royal Correspondent for the BBC and his eldest brother, Basildon, is a leading figure in the stationery business," said Craig.
Craig asked the audience, "If Donald Trump can be the President and Liz Truss a Prime Minister, why can't James Bond's middle name be Herbert?"
Craig enjoys parodies. One, which amused Oldie Readers at our Literary Lunch, was the parody of the very much loved Mary Berry in a recipe book from a few years ago, in which she mentioned household tips which were rather obvious:
"Cupboards are ideal for putting things in."
"Adding mushrooms to stock gives it a nice mushroomy flavour."
"A garlic press is excellent if you want to press garlic, but I don't find it as good for wiping sticky surfaces."
