SO, Daniel Craig is the new James Bond then?

He certainly looks the part - suave, debonair and good looking and a firm favourite with many of the women in my offices.

For me though, there will only ever be one 007 and his name is Sean Connery. Coonery oozed charisma on screen and delivered his lines in that unmistakable Scottish drawl.

But wouldn't it have been hilarious if the film makers had chosen an unlikely figure to play our most famous secret agent in his latest big screen outing? How about Ricky Tomlinson in the character of our favourite couch potato, Jim Royle? The secret service's gadgets man could design him a flying armchair, armed with an array of cleverly concealed weapons to blast the bad guys with. Or you could have Coronation Street's Bruce Jones, in the character of Les Battersby. Would the words "My name is Bond, James Bond" sound quite so arresting in a broad Manchester accent?

At school I used to write stories about my hero and, like most lads, watched the Bond movies thinking they were a real representation of life in the secret services. You got to travel the world, you only fought gun battles with baddies who couldn't hit a barn door at 10 paces and you got to bed the most beautiful women on the planet. Put me down for a bit of that, I was tempted to say to our school's careers officer. I never did, of course, because I was too scared.

It took my dad to remind me that the world of 007 was pure fantasy, and he pointed out that if it wasn't, every red blooded male in the country with an appetite for adventure would want to join up. Bond has always had his female companions, the Bond girls, and my favourite was the stunning Carey Lowell, who appeared in Licence To Kill in 1989. This New York born beauty looked ravishingly sexy in this particular flick, and now she's married to heart throb actor Richard Gere. And she could have had me! I can picture us now, with a pint of Boddingtons each and a bag of crisps in the snug at the Roebuck. Halle Berry was also totally gorgeous, sending my blood pressure through the roof in that famous orange bikini, but the lovely Lowell just about shaded it for me.

I hate you Richard Gere!