Tanya Gold reviews Goldeneye, Jamaica

Goldeneye is the house in Jamaica where Ian Fleming wrote James Bond, and spanked his wife; that is why Fleming created Bond I think, even as he ran the Sunday Times foreign desk and (some say) spies — to spank the Russians, who have very big bottoms. Ah, for the days when hacks could afford houses in Jamaica and lived exquisite fantasy lives in which they got loads of sex, and killed people (usually foreigners) to pay the mortgage. (As I never tire of pointing out, James Bond was a civil servant.) Goldeneye is a hotel now, smooth, twinkling and monetised, with a line of wooden villas stretched along a raked beach, dotted with flippers, because tourists love, for some reason, to impersonate fish. Fleming’s cold white house stares over it, open to those with $5,500 a night to spend — that is, presumably, Bond villains.