The thing I have in common with James Bond

Not his license to kill or his Aston Martin or lethal gadgets or nubile Bond girls. No, it's martinis. I had my first one when I was nine, decades before Bond. I've even downed a few at Dukes Hotel in the same bar in London where Ian Fleming created 007 and the “shaken not stirred” line was born. Of course a real martini is made with fine English gin (mine is Bombay Sapphire) just enough dry vermouth, an olive and a good bartender. It must be cold, served straight up and never on the rocks. Alas, vodka has invaded the glasses of the free world. At a martini “event” in London in the 90's every drink on the menu was a vodkatini. The bartender grudgingly made me one with gin. One of my highlights as a Mad Man was writing the first James Bond tv commercial: suave guy, theme music, aston martin, luscious blonde—and our product, an expensive after shave. It was voted the best tv commercial in the world that year. (If I were modest I'd be perfect.) However, Spectre and Smersh had me in their sights because three years later I was carried out of a Detroit restaurant to the emergency ward with a ruptured gall bladder. It seems that lobsters downed with martinis at midnight can get you faster than a Bond villain. I had the gall bladder out in London and gave up drinking. Today my License to Act Up has been revoked and I'm in bed by 10. Once in a blue moon I'll order a martini and, like Proust and his madeleine, memories of the sweet, swift years come rushing back and I'm in my turquoise velvet safari suit ready for action.