Dylan’s first song for eight years also longest
Shaken and stirred: British collector a ‘broken’ man as Bond firearms taken in raid on north London home
Five guns fired by 007 actors in James Bond movies have been stolen from a house in north London. The collection, which included a Walther PPK, used by Roger Moore in A View to a Kill, and a laser-sighted Beretta used by Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day, were stolen from a collector.
Police were called to a property in Enfield on Monday after reports a group of eastern Europeans had forced their way into a house.
The suspects grabbed the collection, which is valued in excess of £100,000 ($206,300), and fled the scene after being disturbed by neighbours.
The weapons are all deactivated
Bob Dylan has released his first original song in eight years, offering fans a sprawling ballad about the assassination of John F Kennedy.
The Nobel literature laureate takes the listener from the day “they blew off his head” through discursive rhymes about pop music and American counterculture.
At 17 minutes, Murder Most Foul is Dylan’s longest track and his first original material in almost a decade, having released only cover but are extremely rare and have huge sentimental value to John Reynold, 56, who works in engineering and had built up his collection over 15 years.
The props were destined to go into the Royal Armories Museum collection in Leeds.
Reynold said the burglars initially intended to steal car keys before stumbling across the collectibles.
“They were all unique, one-ofa-kind weapons adapted for the actor in question,” he said. “They had a significantly high value, which came out of my pocket. The personal cost to me with repairs is thousands. To put it plainly, this has broken me.”
The stolen guns include a Beretta “Cheetah” from Die Another Day ,a Walther PPK which featured in A
They had a significantly high value, which came out of my pocket. The personal cost to me with repairs is thousands. To put it plainly, this has broken me. Collector John Reynold
collections since 2012.
The 78-year-old announced the release online yesterday, thanking fans for their support and loyalty.
The track recorded “a while back” dispenses with the “poetic expressions” praised by the Nobel committee, and describes the death of President Kennedy in stark terms.
Simply accompanied by piano, violin and gentle percussion, Dylan delves into the 1963 Dallas assassination when Lee Harvey Oswald “blew out the brains of the king”.
Dylan told fans on his website:
“Greetings to my fans and followers with gratitude for all your support and loyalty across the years. This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you.”
Dylan’s last original work was released in the 2012 album Tempest, which preceded cover collections.
The song meanders from death to pop culture references, taking on the voice of JFK, and the persona of “patsy” Oswald.
View to a Kill, a Smith and Wesson 44 Magnum used in Live and Let Die, and a Llama 22 and a Beretta “Tomcat” automatic pistol seen in Die Another Day.
The Walther PPK was one of the world’s first prominent doubleaction semi-automatic pistols, and is still widely in use.
The “Cheetah” was favoured by Italian police and prison officers in the 1970s, while the.44 Magnum also appears in Dirty Harry.
The Llama 22 calibre handgun is now increasingly valuable as Llama has been defunct since 2000.
John Paul Green, a principal lecturer at Sunderland University and a Bond expert who has written four papers on the franchise, said the guns are “part of cinematic history”.
“The Walther PPK is absolutely synonymous with Bond. It’s introduced in the very first film, and it’s a gun favoured by Bond himself. But there’s nothing particularly special about the other guns, other than that they’re in James Bond films.
“They are part of cinematic history so there’s obviously a collector’s market for these props.”
Detective Inspector Paul Ridley of the Metropolitan Police said: “The firearms stolen are very distinctive and bespoke to particular James Bond movies. They will almost certainly be recognised by the public and to anyone offered them for sale. “Many items are irreplaceable. “The Magnum is the only one in the world ever made in which the whole gun is finished in chrome. It has a 61⁄2-inch barrel and wood grips.”